Helena and Theodore talk about Iron Mike Tyson’s mama-said-knock-you-out vibes on ultraprocessed foods, RFK Jr. tag-teaming with David Kessler on 60 Minutes, and why Kennedy’s remarks about doing cocaine off a toilet seat actually kinda sorta make sense maybe a little.

A third of the food Americans produce goes to waste, and a shocking amount of that waste happens in our own homes. But reducing food waste is possible, if we make a few simple changes. In this episode, which comes to REAP/SOW courtesy of Second Nature, reporter Katelan Cunnigham talks to plastic-free, low-waste chef Anne-Marie Bonneau about how she limits food waste. Surprise: food delivery isn’t as bad as you thought when it comes to waste.

Our guest on this episode is Michael Grunwald, a journalist and the author of We are Eating the Earth: The race to fix our food system and save our climate. He’s also well-known for his opinion columns in The New York Times, and his writing often takes on, well, the sacred cows of the progressive environmental movement — CAFOs, chemicals, veganism, and more.

Helena and Theodore are joined by Vani Hari, “the Food Babe,” a New York Times Best Selling Author, wellness entrepreneur, and social media influencer. This is a wide-ranging conversation, on Roundup, the new dietary guidelines, and why Hari wishes she’d been nicer to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. 

It’s 2026 and Forked has returned from a short holiday break. Helena and Theodore are excited – and maybe a little nervous – to see what happens in the second year of life in the MAHA moment. Along with bold (and unsubstantiated) predictions, in this episode: it’s SNAP bans on junk food, why skinny santas matter, and the pill that just may eat the American appetite.

The Gulf Coast is one of the last places in the world where there is still a major wild oyster harvest. Lately, though, that harvest is in trouble. In this episode, the second in a two-part series on the future of seafood, produced in partnership with WWNO’s Sea Change, we ask: What can the downfall and resurrection of the Louisiana oyster tell us about a future in which the ocean is a farm? This episode is dedicated to the memory of FERN staffer Katie Gardner, who passed away after a brave struggle with cancer. Katie was a special person – a good friend and trusted colleague of all of us at FERN – taken too young. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones.

Americans now eat more farmed seafood than they do from the wild ocean. That’s turned farming fish into big business, one that consumers have benefited from. But the U.S. imports most of that seafood – we have very few domestic fish farms. Now, though, that might start to change. There are proposals to build massive fish farms in U.S. federal waters. And the Gulf of Mexico is where some of the early action is unfolding. Reporter Boyce Upholt explores the shift from wild-caught to farmed, what it could mean for the environment and economy, and our connection to the ocean. This episode is the first in a two-part series on the future of seafood, produced in partnership with WWNO’s Sea Change.

In this episode, Helena and Theodore take the show on the road, talking many things MAHA and more with Jerusha Klemperer, host of the What You’re Eating podcast, from FoodPrint, a nonprofit dedicated to research and education on food production practices. This is a big-picture discussion, trying to figure out if MAHA is a political movement, whether it will last, and most importantly, is it doing any good? Helena focuses on the legislative outcomes at both the federal and state levels, while Theodore suggests that MAHA’s political leaders win even if their policies don’t become law, because their real goal is to tear down institutions.

This episode explores whether MAHA momentum in the states translates into actual policy change nationwide. Helena and Theodore host the first episode of Forked recorded in front of a live audience in Washington DC with two special guests: Summer Barrett, a self-described MAHA Mom – and influential lobbyist – in West Virginia who led the state’s charge to ban food dyes; and Scott Faber, from the Environmental Working Group, who argues that MAHA is succeeding on food because the FDA isn’t doing its job. An in-depth look at food politics from two very different insiders.

In this postscript to FERN’s special issue of High Country News, Food and Power in the West, Mary-Charlotte Domandi, host of Radio Café’s Down to Earth podcast, goes deep with writers Rick Bass and Laureli Ivanoff about their essays in the special issue. Domandi also gets the issue’s backstory from HCN Editor-in-Chief, Jennifer Sahn.