The Secret Ingredient

“If you divorce economy from ecology then you end up crumbling the mechanisms by which the forest has typically been able to keep the worst of the pathogens from emerging beyond merely hitting a village or two.” -Rob Wallace In this edition of The Secret Ingredient Weekend, Raj Patel, Tom Philpott and Rebecca McInroy summarize our show with evolutionary biologist, Rob Wallace, author of “Big…

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Cotton. Not quite a food item, but a plant nonetheless with a rather complicated history and an enduring relevance in our lives. Today, a typical day cannot pass without using this pillowy crop that rules our commodified lives. In this edition of the Secret Ingredient with Raj Patel, Tom Philpott, and Rebecca McInroy: Sven Beckert, Harvard University professor, historian, and author of the 2014…

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“It is the most artificial thing that humans have ever built,” says Appadurai of nationalism. “That seems the most natural.” In this edition of The Secret Ingredient Weekend, Raj Patel, Tom Philpott and Rebecca McInroy summarize our show with Dr. Arjun Appadurai about food and nationalism – food trucks, Maggi noodles, cook books and much more.

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“When it comes to breastfeeding the ideal of choice verses the illusion of choice are two very different things,” argues Kimberly Seals Allers when talking about her new book, “The Big Let Down: How Medicine, Big Business and Feminism Undermine Breastfeeding.” In this edition of The Secret Ingredient Allers makes the distinction between choices and options, and illustrates the confounding…

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In this episode of The Secret Ingredient we talk with Rob Wallace, author of “Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatches on Infectious Disease, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science,” about pathogens, zika, bird flu, capitalism, and so much more.

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People are interesting animals. We look to many things to help us understand our place and identity in this world. We have maps, passports, languages, families, clothes, books and (among so much more) we also have food. At first thought, we might not consider food as part of our identity. We might have toast for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, soup for dinner and go to bed not thinking much…

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In this episode of Views & Brews, KUT’s Rebecca McInroy joins the hosts of KUT’s The Secret Ingredient podcast, Tom Philpott and Raj Patel, as they sit down with the eminent economist James K. Galbraith author of the forthcoming “Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction of Greece and the Future of Europe” to talk inequality, the Greek debacle, prospects for social democracy in America…

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Raj Patel, Tom Philpott and Rebecca McInroy talk with peasant farmer Blain Snipstal about the history of agriculture and racism in America, power, food sovereignty, La Via Campesina, land, and much more.

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In this special SXSW edition of The Secret Ingredient, Tom Philpott, Rebecca McInroy and Raj Patel talk about technologies that will shape the future of food. Technologies, as it turns out, that might surprise you, mainly biodiversity, and gender equality. Listen back to this discussion, recorded live at the Convention Center in Austin, Texas for SXSW 2016.

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“While no one would argue that Bolivian farmers shouldn’t get a good price for their crop, these trends cannot be ignored—or left up to global market forces. Perhaps most tragic of all is that this boom (and booms are always followed by a bust) is leading the poorest, most vulnerable farmers to degrade their own environment—i.e. the material basis for their very survival and cultural identity—in…

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