Today's guest marks the beginning of a limited series here on Food Truths where we will dive into the reality, frustrations, and misinformation surrounding ultra-processed foods. There's a lot of conflicting information, and we are going to speak to a variety of experts to understand what an UPF is and is not.

The answers may really surprise you. Today, we kick things off with WISECode's Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Richard Black, award-winning nutrition scientist and Tufts University Professor. He tells the story of how the term UPF came to be, what they got right, wrong, and how he and his team have developed a new, more intuitive way to think about UPFs when you are at the grocery store.

You can learn more about Richard here [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rblackwisecodeai/] and more about WISECode and the free datatsets and UPF app here [https://wisecode.ai/].

Tune in for more in-depth conversations about UPFs and the importance of knowing what is and what is not ultraprocessed in your diet in the coming weeks.

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Today's guest is Dr. Steven Lang, Vice President of Science and Technology for cultured chocolate company, California Cultured. Steve and his team are designing your favorite chocolate products and making them directly from cocoa cells rather than growing the entire tree.

Yes, designing and making real cocoa powder directly from the plant cells of the cocoa tree, virtually no tree needed. Steve has worked in many different industries, first in making biopharmaceuticals, then making cultivated meat, and now designing cocoa from the cell up.

We talk about what it's like to be a biologist in today's food world and why making drugs makes for better food production. You can learn more about California Cultured here, and about Steve here.

https://www.cacultured.com/   &  https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-lang-b003406/

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Climate journalist Mike Grunwald joins the pod today to walk us through his latest book, We Are Eating the Earth. Mike is an accomplished writer and and thinker about the world we feed today and what a fed world looks like tomorrow. Mike and I discuss the best and worst parts of our current food production system.

There's a lot to love about how we make food (It's safe! It's abundant!), and what is rapidly hurting our future and our children's lives (like how we grow protein) and what what can and should be done to ensure a more verdant future. You can learn more about Mike and his work here [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/We-Are-Eating-the-Earth/Michael-Grunwald/9781982160074]

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Climate journalist Mike Grunwald joins the pod today to walk us through his latest book, We Are Eating the Earth. Mike is an accomplished writer and and thinker about the world we feed today and what a fed world looks like tomorrow. Mike and I discuss the best and worst parts of our current food production system.

There's a lot to love about how we make food (It's safe! It's abundant!), and what is rapidly hurting our future and our children's lives (like how we grow protein) and what what can and should be done to ensure a more verdant future.

You can learn more about Mike and his work here https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/We-Are-Eating-the-Earth/Michael-Grunwald/9781982160074

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Today's guest is Dr. Sydney Schreppler, Director of Product and R&D at Savor, a startup building edible fats directly from the molecule up. Sydney is a quantum physicist by training, a facet that makes for creative thinking and product design.

We discuss the route she took from physics to foods, and how we can make a lasting impact on the world through our acts and deeds - not just our aspirations. Her inspiration, intellect, and drive make her a fascinating guest and scientist.

If you'd like to learn more about Sydney or Savor check this link https://www.savor.it/

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Today's guest is professor R. Alta Charo, JD, world expert in emerging biotechnologies (and most recently, bringing back extinct species like the Dire Wolf). Science is rapidly changing how we produce food and medicine.

Alta is Warren P. Knowles Professor Emerita of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, former Senior FDA Policy Advisor, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and has worked with DARPA and Department of Defense. In her free time, she publishes paper after paper. No one has been more at the forefront of the ethical and societal changes more that Professor Charo. She has spent a career working in science policy, and she has is one of the few folks who tends to predict correctly more than not about new foods using science.

In this episode, we discuss what led to her career choices, the unexpected findings in those choices, where food technology is going, and why bringing back the extinct Dire Wolf is a very good thing for food production.

You can reach out to Professor Charo here [https://www.linkedin.com/in/r-alta-charo-6999341b9/]

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Today's guest is Saam Shahrohki, Chief Technology Officer at cultivated fat producer, Mission Barns. Saam is one of the first people to make cultivated meat, and the first to release cultivated fat into the world.

Recently celebrating their first-ever FDA approval for their cultivated fat, Saam reflects on what it took to bring a (not so) brand new food to market, how complex designing fat can be, what it's like working with FDA and USDA, and where he sees the food production world going. You can learn more about Saam and Mission Barns here https://missionbarns.com/

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We begin a multi-part series digging into the history, the cost and efficiency, the scientific consensus, and the open questions regarding organic food production here in the US. Far from a take-down or a glow-up, this discussion is meant to start a 'base reality' discussion for any body wanting a practical guide as to what is true and what is debatable about organics. Joined by previous Food Truths guests, Daily Harvest CEO and scientist, Ricky Silver, and food journalist and book author, Larissa Zimberoff, we dive deeply into myths and truths. This is also not a 'conventional foods' vs 'organics' show, as you'll hear - they are both safe to eat and good for you. That said, there are nuanced differences and we tease them out on this first part. Tune in to future segments as we continue to understand organics.

https://larissazimberoff.com/book

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lzimberoff/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricky-silver-b4334115

https://daily-harvest.com/

https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/daily-harvest-rfk-jr-robert-f-kennedy-health-secretary-make-america-healthy-again/

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Today's guests: Drs. Dennis Keefe and Robert "Bob" Merker are former FDA Food regulators. Together, they have over half a century of experience keeping America's food safe. We sit down for a rare conversation with them together to learn how they spent their careers building a safe and robust food supply while at FDA as well as what it was like working on the most cutting edge food technology. Drs. Keefe and Merker oversaw some of the most transformational change in the food supply - it was a pleasure to be able to hear the inside story of our food from the inside.

You can find more information about Dr. Keefe here

https://www.exponent.com/people/dennis-keefe

and Dr. Merker here

https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-merker-6125992b

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Today my guest is Dr. Pat Brown, current professor at Stanford University and most well-known as the founder and former CEO of Impossible Foods, maker of the Impossible burger. We take some time to talk about how he came to a career in food science because, as you'll soon learn, he was doing very different science before.

Pat was already a rockstar in the scientific world when he founded Impossible, and so we learn about what makes his creative mind tick, how he up-ended food science, and what he's trained his curiosity on these days. You can reach Dr. Brown at Stanford University [https://profiles.stanford.edu/patrick-brown].

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