Annie’s, a subsidiary of General Mills, announced in 2020 that it was “going beyond organic” and “leading the packaged food industry toward regenerative agriculture” with pictures on the box of the farmers who had produced the ingredients with “regenerative” methods.

In this episode, we bring together two of our frequent guests on this podcast, Dr. Urvashi Rangan, and Patty Lovera, to help explain regenerative agriculture, its connection to climate, and why a boxed Mac and Cheese brand is committing itself to a set of agricultural practices, and wanting to tell its customers all about it. We also get into whether or not we can trust “green” commitments from big food companies and explore what we can look for, as consumers, to know whether a company’s claims can be backed up.

Have you ever seen the word “natural” on a pack of hot dogs and wondered what it means? You’re not the only one. The words “natural” or “all natural” on food packaging have been vexing customers and regulators for years.

In this episode we look at those words, claims, seals and certifications that show up on your food packaging. What do they tell us and is what they tell us real? Who are those labels for: companies or consumers? In particular we were curious about the labels that seem to say a lot — like “natural” — but don’t actually have much rigor. We talk to a few experts, check out some food labels ourselves and try to sniff out the good labels from the bad.

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The US wastes roughly 40% of the food it produces, much of it perfectly edible and nutritious. Food is lost or wasted for a variety of reasons, from the farm, to the store, to the restaurant, to our very own home kitchens, where each household is throwing away around 21% of the food it buys. 

In this episode we explain why food waste is a problem, touch on how some grocery stores, restaurants and food companies are working to fix the problem, and dig into some of the cultural reasons why our society treats food as disposable. Finally, we hit on how you can make changes in how you shop, cook and eat that will make a meaningful difference environmentally and economically.

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Fake meat companies promise that they are on track to replace factory farmed meat.  Is there any indication that this is happening? Or are they just a new revenue stream for tech investors and the biggest and most problematic meat companies — Purdue, Tyson, JBS — who are all now making alternative meats? We also cover how these products taste and what else we could be eating instead of an ultra-processed “fast food” product.

This is the second episode of a two-part look at fake meat. 

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Right now you can buy “plant-based” alternatives to burgers, bacon, and sausage anywhere from fast food chains to restaurants to grocery meat cases. The companies who make them say they are better for animals, the climate, and human health, too — that these products will drastically cut into meat consumption, curtail meat production and save us from the catastrophic effects of climate change. Are these products any different from the vegan products that preceded them? Are they actually good for us? And are they the best solution to our industrial agriculture problems?

We also examine what it means to compare these products with their industrial meat counterparts instead of comparing them to more sustainably produced meat, or to truly plant-based protein sources, like beans. 

This is part one of a two-part look at fake meat.

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So many home cooking food hacks start with a cheap rotisserie chicken — you know the one, $4.99 from Costco or maybe a touch more somewhere else. But why is that chicken so cheap? How was it raised and what’s even in it? What would it look like for farms to raise a chicken you could feel good about and how much would it cost? What would it taste like? Where can you find one of these chickens now? And why is it so hard to find them?

In this episode we talk to everyone from food policy experts to food label certifiers to farmers and chefs to dig into the economics, agriculture and taste of chicken.

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