The Slow Collapse Of Food Quality | Retrospect Ep.217

In this week’s episode we discussed the fading flavor of modern dining, from declining food quality on grocery shelves to the shortcuts and cost-cutting reshaping today’s restaurant experience. We explore what’s driving the changes, how it affects our health and culture, and whether there’s hope for a comeback.

Our Links:
Retrospect

Transcript

Keywords
Food quality, food safety, foodborne illnesses, food preservatives, food additives, food recalls, food industry, food regulation, food chemicals, food production, food costs, food transparency, food ingredients, food health, food system.
Jason  
For decades, dining out was practically a national ritual, whether it was the neighborhood diner or the chain spot off the highway, people felt comfortable ordering just about anything. But now something's shifting. Food Safety confidence is dipping. High profile recalls make the news more often, and diners are starting to voice what many restaurant workers have noticed for years, quality of food just isn't the same. Each year, roughly one in six Americans, that's about 48 million people get sick from food borne illnesses. Of those, roughly 128,000 end up hospitalized, and around 3000 die. So yes, our food can be dangerous, but beyond safety, there's another concern, quality for many people, grabbing a bite out used to mean a treat, good service, generous portions, food that tasted like it was made with care. Lately, though, diners and critics alike have started to wonder, has something changed? So today, we're asking a big question, why is food quality declining, and what does it mean for the future of eating in America? Because when millions of people start saying the same thing, that their favorite dishes don't taste like they used to, it's not a trend, it's a turning point. And the truth is, the story of declining food quality isn't about one restaurant or one bad meal. It's about the forces reshaping our entire food system, one ingredient at a time. 

Ian  
welcome to the retrospect podcast to show where people come together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from the generations perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Stoney,

Stoney   
hello 

Ian  
and Jason. 

Jason  
Hello, everyone. 

Ian  
How's it going?

Jason  
Well, going I tell you what, today has just been a washout. Literally. I mean, it is just raining all day. It's been raining. I mean, it woke me up this morning and it is not it's been non stop

Stoney   
all day, non stop until tomorrow evening.

Jason  
Oh, it's gonna be raining all day tomorrow too. Yes.

Ian  
Sucks. How was your Thanksgiving? Was everything okay? Did you guys,

Jason  
yeah, I eat too much, you know, you know, just unfortunate. You know, you do all this eating between now and really, New Year's, yes, and that's, unfortunately, I go get my physical in January. So when the doctor, you can lose a couple Doctor draws blood, is like, what's going

Stoney   
on? That's turkey gravy.

Jason  
So, yeah, but I had a good Thanksgiving. You know, we did the family thing, and everybody ate to their hearts content. So yeah, it was a good Thanks, Kevin.

Ian  
This was the first year where we had a we had kind of a potluck style situation where, like, I someone else had said they're gonna bring a turkey, and I was like, I'm totally cool with that. So I made a couple sides, and a few of the people made some sides as well, and so we had plenty of food for everyone, and it was, I think, a lot less stressful on everyone all together, which was really nice. So it was all less stress. Is always a good thing. Oh yeah, especially during

Stoney   
it was very quiet for Miranda and I. We had her mom over, and I tried, and I had done a spatchcock Turkey before, okay, but I did something a little bit different this time. And usually, Miranda does not like white meat. She says it's too too dry, right? And when you cook a turkey, the breasts are so large that they have to cook longer, Oh, yeah. But when you spatch cock it, you basically cutting out the backbone, the whole backbone, and then you flip it over, and you squish it, yeah, and then you flip the wings and you flip the legs around. Well, what I did was, was I took that, that backbone has, still has a little meat on it, yeah, thing, and then I took the neck and all the little bag of goodies from the inside, yeah, couple of onions, some spices, and I turned that, cooked it for over two hours and turned it into a nice broth, yeah. And then I took a stick of butter, put in the bottom of a pan, and then what I thought would be enough broth to inject the turkey with, yeah, and that's what I injected it with. And Miranda said, that's how you cook turkey. Because she was even enjoying the breasts, that's great, and the white meat. And it was just, it was fun because we kind of did a little collab together to do it, yeah, just hanging out together. And that, for me, that was the best part, really. But yeah, we came out with a good our guest said, Baby, we need to. We need. To video this stuff and put it on YouTube. Maybe we can make some money too. But it was fun. And it was a good I can't taste it, but I can always go off of how juicy it is, or, you know that the texture of meat, and it was on point. It was fire. It was just, it was amazing. I'm excited to hear that. And she was just enjoying it.

Ian  
My girlfriend's mom came over and she smoked a turkey, and she had a bunch of, like, spices and stuff on it, and she did a whole bunch of work with it. And I tell you what, when she walked in the door, you could smell. It was, it was a it was also, I have a picture of us. It was a beautiful turkey.

Stoney   
We did a dry brine. Yeah, I don't know if you ever heard of that dry brine. So it's, it's on a rack, and it's on a big tray, and, you know, the skin's up, and you just, you put, you wipe it dry, and then you salt it. You salt it out pretty good. And then we put it, oh, yeah, we put it in the oven, nice, in the refrigerator, overnight, yeah. And next time, what I'm gonna do is, is I'm gonna do a 24 hour drive, okay? And let because it you could take a knife and scrape the side. Was just brilliant. That's awesome. And, you know, that's before it went, Yeah, okay, look at that, you know. And, but you could take that knife and just scratch it. And it was so good. It was just a little video where just yeah, yes, you could hear it scraping. That's awesome. And then that skin was like a little cracker, yeah, I love that.

Ian  
The girlfriend made, she made a, she did. She wanted to make a, an apple pie from scratch, like the whole thing. So she did the pie crust, the filling, she did the fancy lattice work on top. And my mom had showed up a little bit early and was able to kind of help her out. And it was just really cool to see them to kind of, you know, pow wow, and together and making that pie. And man, it, it turned out really, really good. I'm not just saying that.

Stoney   
Was she asking for stories for you know, they work together. Talk to you.

Ian  
Talk about me. Talk about That's right, I forgot they are, oh, trust me, I know, but yeah, you can always tell again how good a dish is when there's no leftovers left, I feel like, and that was the that was the apple pie. There wasn't even a morsel left for anything else. So, well, that's good. It was beautiful. It was great. So I'm glad y'all have, I'm glad everyone had a great Thanksgiving. And yeah, and I feel like this is very appropriate, speaking of our our topic, talking about, yeah, talking about food, yeah, quality or lack thereof. Well, you

Stoney   
know what's funny about it is, is we're going to be talking about some stuff today, but Miranda and I's meal was 100% healthy. No chemicals, maybe, maybe the butter, but we buy special butter too, but there was no at no chemicals, no anything, right? Preservatives, preservatives, nothing. Kind of the way food was meant to be, the way food was meant to be. And, you know, it was funny as we ate our fill, but we weren't just afterwards. I mean, it was kind of interesting, and it's kind of funny that we're going to talk about that in today's episode, but it was nice just to be able to eat 100% natural, like it was meant to be,

Ian  
right? That's awesome.

Jason  
Well, that's, I mean, you go overseas and you eat, I talk to people all the time that came from like, go to Italy and eat pastas and stuff like that, and it's like, it's just they don't feel the same way after they eat it. It's sort of like what we experienced. You know? It's, it's a completely food qualities, just, I hate sage, but it's better overseas. And unfortunately, we used to be that way.

Stoney   
Here we've and there's parts of America that are, if you go to the Mennonites or the communities, they do the same thing. They cook their bread every day. Yeah, you know. And that's the way America used to be, right until we started adding chemicals and things, which we'll get into in a little bit, to make that bread last longer. Yeah, nothing in it's to make us live longer or be healthy. It's all to make the food longer. Because if you cook 100 loaves of bread and you don't sell all of them, you basically have to throw the rest of them away, right? So they want to keep them on the shelf as long as possible, right? And that means lots of chemicals,

Ian  
right, right? All all profit margin, all profit. That's exactly right.

Stoney   
Follow what do we say on the show? Follow the money. Unfortunately, I hate to say that, and I'm gonna sound like a broken record. It all started with JD Rockefeller,

Jason  
yeah, he seems to be, his presence. Seems to be around so many, like critical things that that happened in this country.

Stoney   
Well, he was one of the original Ultra. Elites. He was one of the people that believed he was God like and everyone served him. And a lot of people don't realize this, but you know, he invented three meals a day. Oh, okay, he's the one who came up with that concept, partly to keep us fat and unhealthy, but before in 1800s and stuff, and before you might ate five times a week,

Jason  
totally well. I mean, I wish there was

Stoney   
true fasting going on back then, because it wasn't because you did or didn't have it's just the way it was.

Jason  
Well, I just think just the amount of time that went into food prep. I mean, you you can't eat as much. I mean, you just, there's, there's only so much time in a day.

Stoney   
You kill a rabbit, and you go cook the rabbit, and you eat the rabbit, right? Yeah, with biscuits and gravies and pastas and everything else. And then I

Ian  
can see you preparing for one big meal at the end of the day, and you potentially snacking throughout the saying.

Jason  
So, you know, as food, as our food system, has become, you know, more mechanized, and just kind of the model that is that is kind of taken hold of our food production. And mean, it's just how, I mean, there's so much money now involved. I mean, I saw an article about the reduction in local farms, and, you know, where meats coming from, and, right, you know, just, it's, it's all over the place. Now, you know, when Robert F Kennedy, Jr, you know, got, you know, pointed to his current position in the in the Trump administration, it's catching a lot of blowback, and it's because there's a lot of vested interest in keeping things, certain things in the food. I mean, it's just mind boggling how people would would fight that, right? You know, just you're gonna stare me in the face and tell me you're, taking money from this, from this industry and and this is what they're doing, and you're okay

Stoney   
with that. It also goes a little bit deeper, because this idea for this show came up. I sent something in our little text there that the Vice President of Campbell Soup said he doesn't eat that crap. That's for poor people and who would want to eat 3d printed meat anyway, yeah, because we 3d print our meat. Now he's subsequently been fired and back control. But this is an actually recorded conversation with an employee that he fired for asking questions well, and then the employee said, Okay, you gonna fire me? Here's what, this is what you said in the conversation when you fired me. And the guy is like, you know, that's for poor people. We don't eat like that. So he has this elitist attitude number one of we know they not eating like this, right? They don't have a hard time. It's more expensive. It's like, three times as expensive to eat healthy as it is cheap. That's what they want. They want that they don't want you eating healthy, because then you can revolt. And I got some statistics and some numbers on that I'll get into later, because this is really about food. But the bottom line to it is, is they want us fat and unable to revolt, unable to think, because what happens when your body starts to break down? You're tired, yeah, you're bloated, you're cognitive, your critical thinking goes down, and you don't want for stuff. You just want to be comfortable. And you just, I want to be fat, and that's where they want, you. JD Rockefeller said it, I don't want smart, creative people working in my factories. I want stupid slaves working in my factories. That's why he started the educational system. Then he buys a whole bunch of stuff. He buy, he start. He bought the American Medical Association. Started the federal school system. I mean, it's on, that's what he wants. That's what the ultra elite, this 1% the Black Rock State Street Vanguard, that's what they want. They don't want us realizing what they're doing. They want us stupid. And this food thing is crazy. I mean, when you look at just the breakdown of what food is today, so many years ago, what was bread? Yeah, water, right, flour, yeast, yeast, and that was your bread, right? And now it's got, you know, 39 ingredients, of which they're petroleum, chemicals, and what are they used for? Preservation, preservatives. That's what they're that's what they're for. They're not to make our lives last longer. They're to make the bread lives last longer, right? And that's just it. I mean, that's just. The bottom line to it. I mean, it's just wow,

Ian  
it's crazy how, like, especially, it's not so much now, like, I feel like fast food restaurants are becoming more expensive, but like, I feel like fast food restaurants were in that same category of, like, being fast and affordable. Like, it's crazy how cheap it was at one point in time where, like, you can get a whole bunch of food for no money, and it's like, but again, not good food, but it's a lot.

Jason  
Well, look, I look, I mean, I can, I guarantee you back, I know, growing up as a kid, I mean, I remember the cereals that, you know, tricks and all these sugar laden, seared That was terrible for you. What you were eating at McDonald's was probably not very good,

Stoney   
but it was still meat back then it's not and I need to apologize. I was incorrect. From 1900 to 1950 bread had four ingredients, okay, flour, water, salt and yeast, salt. We forgot salt. Oh, dear us. How dare we forget that? Yeah, you know now it contains stuff I can't even pronounce, and all but one of them have been banned in the EU Yeah, a sodium carbonate, bromide, potassium bromate, mono glycerides and diglycerides, D, A, T, E, M, soy lectin, high fructose corn syrup, calcium, pro bone eight, mold inhibitor, mold inhibitor. Yeah, think about that. One, dough conditioner, shelf life, extenders. And now the loaf of bread contains up to 35 to 39 ingredients, transforming bread from nourishment to a chemistry experiment.

Jason  
Here it says a USDA and 2024 reported a record breaking wave of food product reformulations, they said, in 2023 and 24 manufacturers quietly changed recipes, often lowering ingredient quality, reducing real ingredients or increasing fillers in response to rising production costs. So they're there. I mean, what's driving this is just cost too. They said in 20 in 2024 consumer panel from food insight found that nearly 60% of Americans noticed packaged foods tasted different, usually worse.

Ian  
I agree. There's a lot of times like the package stuff,

Stoney   
another one, brominated vegetable oil, bvo. Have you heard of that one that that used a lot in Citrus sodas, has been linked to neurological and thyroid effects, and only recently did the FDA revoke authorization for its use, but it's been completely banned in Japan and the EU because it's just so cheap to use, you know? And then right now, another one with is our RFK Jr is the food colors. Oh, yeah, food colors are artificial. Food colors in Europe aren't allowed period, at all. Right? It's either natural or it don't get to color, right? You know, so I mean, I mean, we're waking up, but have we done too much damage to ourselves? Yeah, that's okay.

Ian  
It's it makes me also think like you're talking about thyroid issues, like, how many conditions do people have, like in the modern age, that potentially are caused from, you know, ingesting this stuff, like, we're talking about bread right now, and all these different chemicals and things inside of it. Like, I wonder about people that I know some people actually have celiac, but I know there are some people that don't technically have that, but have some sort of, like, gluten intolerance, you know, like, what is there actually, like, a condition, or is it just because the American version of that food is so hard for their body?

Stoney   
Well, you don't hear gluten intolerance in Europe, no, of course anywhere. It's an American thing, and it's not gluten. It's the chemicals that are in I'm sorry, I'll call it a spade a spade, because it's bullshit, and it's just it's too many chemicals. If you go to Europe and in the 80s and 90s. I traveled there extensively with my last job, and Jason mentioned Italy, yeah, you walk by the bakery, and he's baking right there. Got his little cart right there, and you go and you buy the bread right there that you're going to use today and tomorrow, yeah, and then he knows she'll be back, and so he'll, he knows about what he needs to make every day for the the regulars in the area and a couple of tourists that come by, yeah? And because he's right there, right? He's not, you know, Wonder Bread with three plants across America, and then trucking it to everybody, right? Because that. The problem, that's why they did this. And think about this, flour in the original form is an amazing thing, wheat and all of this. But what they did is they stripped it and they bleached it, yeah, and then they enrich it. Well, okay, what did they take out? They took out something natural, and then what do they put back in it? Petroleum, chemicals that now, are your enrichment vitamins. They aren't natural vitamins. They are chemical vitamins to enriched flour. Yeah, because they don't want to truck it, they don't want to, you know, it's we don't need that anymore. We don't need to have to to ship things two or three days. Why can't we go back to just the old way and have the little mom and pop bakeries everywhere and and cook natural things?

Ian  
Well, that's all nice, but then these big, mega companies can't make their millions of dollars.

Jason  
So again, is the point? Well, I mean, the situation is just, it's hard for the small, local place to survive now, because look at the end of the day, and you can apply this to anything, you're always going to be looking for the cheaper thing,

Stoney   
oh yeah, thing too. I don't want to have to have to go to the meat store and then go to the bakery and then go to this store and then go to that store. You can get it all at Walmart. Yeah, everything's right there. So it's, it's convenience too, and I agree with you, it is, but it's also a convenience thing.

Jason  
Let's say, right now I'm reading here, it says food prices rose faster than overall inflation. Oh, wow. The CPI, which is the consumer price index for all food, increased by 0.4% from July 2025 to August. 2025 food prices in August, 25 in 2025 were 3.2% higher than they were in August of 2024 so

Stoney   
but it's also one of the things that the price will never come back down. No, they have all of these reasons to make it go up, but when you take those reasons away, the price of foods not coming down. You know, gasoline kind of goes up and down. It's not going to go back down to a gallon, like $1 a gallon, like we want it, but it, you know, it does go up and down, but food prices don't come down.

Jason  
2026 prices for all food are predicted to increase 2.7% with a prediction interval of negative 1.8 to 7.5% food at home prices are predicted to increase 2.3% so it doesn't look like it's a it's gonna get cheaper everyone. It's just gonna get more expensive. And as I said, I does. I don't know what the I don't know what the fix is there. Guys, I really, I really don't, I know, you know, they ran on that make things cheaper. But I just think we're in a bad spot right now. I think we're, you know, selling all our cattle overseas, going over to China, and which, to me, is horrible, you know, I just, I don't just the whole the way we do food in the United States, that kind of reminds me of of that series I watched on the vice network. It was something like, you know you were all gonna die, type of deal or so. I forget the actual title of it, but it was a multitude of different topics they talked about. And one of the topics was the food supply, just how compromised it is and how bad it is, right? And a lot of it is because a lot of local farms have been gobbled up by these large conglomerates, yeah. And a lot of times they're not from here, they're out there, they're not even the United States. And it's, it

Ian  
makes me real, it makes me think also, again, around here in the state of Louisiana, we have a lot of seafood places, or a lot of places that that sell seafood dishes and things like that. And a lot of times like there are some restaurants that it is, on paper, cheaper to get shrimp and other seafood from overseas than it is to get, I asked to get things locally done, like in bulk and whatnot. So, like, sometimes it'll say on the and we have that, we have the seafood here that they can get, but they will a lot of times import it over.

Jason  
Well, in Louisiana, I know they passed a law requiring for proper labeling, yeah, because they were selling, you know, shrimp and stuff coming from, like China, right versus here. And, of course, they're getting it cheaper and so, and that was a lot of pushback, right? Because it's a money, it's a money,

Ian  
but you're talking about that. And just bring. Me, it reminds me of that, which is a very real situation that's, you know, around us, physically, that's, you know, that kind of stuff where, you know, it's just crazy to think about that.

Jason  
Yeah, I mean, right now I'm just kind of looking at some general numbers, just kind of the whole restaurant industry, food just kind of all that together. They say 74% expect portion size cuts. 66% expect cheaper ingredients. So this is what people are expecting restaurants, what they're going to be getting, yeah, when they go out to eat, they say 37% dine out, less.

Stoney   
Um, well, yeah,

Ian  
it's not nearly as good, and it costs more money,

Jason  
trust me, yeah. I mean, I know what I spend just going out for lunch, yeah, because I like to eat fresh, yeah. And I'm telling you, I mean, you're paying for it. Nothing for me to drop $25 for lunch, for lunch.

Stoney   
And lunch used to be eight or $9 go somewhere and get a nice lunch eight or nine. And that wasn't that far back ago.

Ian  
I know I've the first couple of jobs I have. I used to carry around 10 bucks cash, and I could, I could get myself some lunch at most places. Now it's like, I mean, I would be, I would be, I would I'm still come up short for just one person, like some sort of lunch meal somewhere.

Jason  
Yeah, I think, you know, unfortunately, we're just, we're just in a bad spot right now. And, you know, food is just one part. I mean, we've been hearing about, you know, everything right now is, why are prices as high as they are, you know what? What is driving this off? So I mean, where, what is broken? Yeah, what, where along the model line is, is the there's a kink somewhere that's throwing the whole thing out of whack. And I think that's the challenge is, is really identifying

Stoney   
that doing it to us, and there's a reason, and I think I've used this quote before on the show, when I use it again, in ancient Greece, slaves were forbidden to exercise so they didn't get strong enough to revolt. Roman gladiators were fed barley and beans to keep them big but slow so they couldn't conquer their masters. The Ottoman Empire, drinking coffee was forbidden so citizens didn't rebel. They actually thought drinking coffee could cause you to rebel. Spartan slaves were deliberately underfed and overworked to prevent rebellion. In Florida, Europe, peasants were fed bread and oats while nobles feasted on red meat. Controlling the population starts with food and fitness. You get what's happening today? Oh yeah. I mean, this is what they're doing. They are controlling this through our diets, through our work habits. They're keeping us slow. They're keeping us tired. They're lazy, fat and lazy. They're keeping our families broken. I mean, this is the, one of the oldest models that Rockefeller was using to keep the ultra elite with their slaves that, I mean, that's what's going on right now when, yeah, when I was researching this and, and I, for the first time, have a stack of papers that's probably bigger than Jason

Jason  
I'm doing, I'm using an iPad now.

Stoney   
It's just, it's crazy when you think about all the stuff we're consuming and how intentional it is. This is an intentional attack against American citizens by the ultra elite. They are doing this with intention and willfully to keep us in our place and keep us from revolting.

Jason  
I'm telling you, I think it's going to happen. I think the model of cities and how we operate now, I think you're starting to see some cracks in that. I'm starting to see more people wanting to have a house with land to plant gardens. I see a more of returning to cooking at home again. Now, of course, that doesn't address of what sort of ingredients you're buying right store, and I think that's where people have to be just kind of food conscious, looking at labels and seeing what's what's in there and and try to eat as fresh as possible. But I mean, it doesn't, you know, we still have fundamental problems with the meat we eat. How, how full of antibiotics and hormones and those kind of things, because to source your meat from area from farms that don't really do that, it's gonna be a lot more expensive, expensive. So I think was a play up, one I hear advertise all the time on some of these online platforms. It's good range. Inchers, I think, is the name of it. You know, they, they claim their meat is sourced from local farms where you're not dealing with these kind of mass, you know, these mass, these large conglomerates that basically feed cows all this nasty stuff and to get them bigger and and all that. So, so, yeah, I think I'm starting to see a shift on that. And I think it's starting with with, you know, with the millennials, and I think it's really now taken root in Gen Z, which I'm glad you know, the idea that, you know, boomers started, you know, pretty much ate food at home, because mom and cook. I think the food supply at the during that time was still untainted.

Stoney   
Well, I remember we had a butcher, yeah, we had a baker, yep, we had a little mom and pop grocery store, but before they started putting all the preservatives in the but we had a butcher. We would go get a half a cow, right? It would be cut up, put up, bagged up nicely, put it in a big outdoor in a big chest freezer. Yep, we had to bake her now, mom liked to make her bread too, and stuff like I bought her sourdough bread. Whoo, man, real sourdough, not like this fake sourdough. You get it Costco and all that. That's not real sourdough. People just read your ingredients. That's not sourdough. But, you know, I mean, we keep touching on this, but, but we're not really, you know, you have to think about it. There's, I said, you know, talked about Ancient Greece, how they did it and how we did it, but, but there's one thing that's different than now to back in ancient Greece. Do you know what it is? What's up? Hip? I'm gonna hit you to this a population weighted down by inflammation, brain fog, diabetes, depression, autoimmune disorders and fatigue, they're not going to overthrow anything. They're too busy surviving. They're too busy managing symptoms. Hello, Big Pharma, that's what they you know. They're too busy making appointments, filling prescriptions, arguing with insurance companies and trying to get through one more day every step of the sickness cycle, the one thing that they've done now is find a way to make a profit on your sickness and your depression and your diabetes and your auto immune diseases. Now, now they can make a profit on that too. That's what JD Rockefeller changed. Instead of just controlling us through our diet and fitness, he found a way through Big Pharma to make money off of our illnesses, right? I mean, Pfizer has been a company for how many decades, and they've cured nothing. They haven't cured one thing.

Jason  
Well, there's, there's, there's no money to be made. And

Stoney   
curious, right? That's kind of the point I'm making. That's the difference between now and ancient Greece, is they found a way to make a profit on us being sick,

Jason  
that that sort of thing has permeated their society. Think just, just think of what they build now. I mean, appliances at one time, appliances lasted, oh, yeah, 25, 3040, years,

Stoney   
planned obsolescence. Now, what it is

Jason  
now it's the same thing. I don't want people to be well, because then what, what are you going to come to the doctor for? I mean, so, yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, I hate to say that, but I mean, there's, there's a lot of truth to that. I mean, it's, it's, it's in anything, once you build in a profit motive, oh yeah, then there's, it's always gonna be a motive to keep people sick, because nobody wants to stop making money.

Stoney   
I mean, think about if you, if you're, I don't know if I've said this on the show before or not, but if you're the CEO of Tylenol, and you go to the shareholders meeting tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, and you got a place full of people wanting to make money. And you walk in and you go, I got good news and I got bad news. What's the good news? Well, the good news is, is we cured the common cold? Okay? What's the bad news? We're not going to make $40 billion next year on symptom relief. He would be fired, if not jailed on the spot, right there, see, if not taken out.

Jason  
That that is where, that is where I think. And then, you know, this, this fundamental motive of of you know, how do you get entities to deliver services or to deliver something for the good of humanity? I don't know. I mean, we've all got examples of people who had these sort of I. Ideals. Mean we talked about, we was a guy we talked about on this podcast before was Nikola Tesla. Oh yeah, we want to what deliver free electricity, yep. And guess what? He got squashed, hell yeah. He got taken advantage of by Thomas Edison and in the JP Morgan and those guys that were looking to make money, that's what I'm saying. We there. How do you get things to be made that's going to truly enhance our civilization? Yeah, and I don't, I don't know. I don't know how you do that. I don't know if it's possible, because inherently, people are greedy. Oh yeah, it's just part of human nature. I don't know what the fix is on that. I really don't. I mean, we you would think something like food safety, food quality would be they would be such a public outcry that it would drown out any sort of influence that we might be coming from companies that may have a financial incentive to keep things Just the way they are, but for whatever reason, it just doesn't happen. And, you know, and look, I'm not saying you you socialize everything, because I don't, I. I think there's problems with that, because you have to have some mechanism to motivate people to want to create and to move the ball forward, because, and I think that's where socialism fails, because it takes away the motivation. So all striving for something better kind of grinds to a halt. So the question is, where do you find that, that sweet spot in the middle where, yes, I want people to be compensated for their creativity and their the energy that it takes to go in to to think of a concept and bring that To market right at the same time, not necessarily be okay once it it happens, okay, I've made enough money now it's, it's just free. Like, for example, I was having a conversation with somebody regarding St Jude. I believe that any sort of things they develop and fine. They push it out free. Oh yeah to everybody. It's not, it's not marketed, it's not put under a patent and restricted in any way. And I truly believe that that's the way it needs to be with food. I truly do now. I think the only way you're going to get to where you get away from this current model of food, you just got to go back to local farms, and you got to somehow incentivize families to become farmers.

Stoney   
But every time they try to do that, what was it? The Amish community was going to sell real milk outside of their community, and the FDA come in there and shut them down, threatened to put them in jail. Yep. Wait, wait, what? You know? Why? Because there are things in real milk that combat some of the crap that we're putting in our bodies today. And I wish Heidi, Dr Miranda was here, because she could go into it a lot better, not good. But there's things in real milk that actually dispel some of the things that we're entering putting in our body today, too. So they don't want us having real milk, interesting. And so anybody says, Oh, I got milk for sale, and it doesn't come from you know? What is it? Homogenized or whatever, they shut you down. They gonna put you in jail for it.

Jason  
Anytime you, you, you have that. I mean, it's, it's like with anything you know, that kind of reminds me of the kind of on, on an unrelated issue, but on the same kind of, same thing. Yeah, that the there was a some monks that wanted to offer for sale caskets, homemade, you know, they they make, yeah, simple, just box type deal. And guess who fought them? Oh, yeah, was a, was a, was a funeral home that's just like with the Amish here with the milk. I mean, it's just, it's the same, the same thing. It's all profit motive, and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize my money stream got a monopoly, and you're ruining it. Yeah, exactly. And that's. A problem. As I'm saying, I don't know what the fix is on food, but our food is terrible. I mean, I would love just pull up the would be the difference between ketchup sold in the United States versus something maybe it's sold in Spain or Germany. Just to compare the differences, I guarantee you the back of the the label is going to be twice as long as what you find in a European process, absolutely, and that's just because of all the added chemicals. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. Can you look that up real quick and see just I'm curious what I know, I look for, when I look for things, I look for things with the least amount of ingredients in them, you know, I take a, take a protein powder, yeah, and one of the thing is, I take a, you know, the protein to power. Take it has five ingredients. That's it. There you go. And I'm just but they got others that have a lot of stuff in them. If you're not in the one I buy is a lot more expensive versus the other one that you could just got to buy off Amazon or whatever the case may be. Well, the

Stoney   
biggest thing is you have to follow the money. You know. Do you know the real reason that the government shutdown was fixed. What was that? Because Pfizer came out and said, If the government shutdown continues, we're gonna have to lay off 200 congressmen.

Jason  
Okay, okay, and they got it fixed quick, didn't they? No, it's amazing, but they all that's it.

Ian  
The main difference is that American ketchup is generally sweeter and more processed, often using high fructose corn syrup, whereas European ketchup tends to be less sweet using cane sugar or beet sugar. Yep, the European version has simpler ingredients on the list, with a higher concentration of tomatoes and fewer additives. There it is. Says the flavor is usually for American ketchup is usually sweeter and slightly tangy, whereas it's more vinegary and complex and more prominent tomato flavor in the EU so anyway, so you're right, more more processed ingredients and the high fructose corn syrup, everyone's favorite American ingredient.

Jason  
I know, I know Robert F Kennedy was talking about that particular ingredient, about getting rid of it. But there's a lot of, a lot of pushback on, well,

Ian  
that's that. Now we're talking about big corn, yeah, because, because that's all, that's all corn right there, and that's, it's a it's cheap, and you can make it in abundance. And that's, I mean, you know. And again, you look at high fructose corn syrup, and it's in everything it is, it's, it's the main I recently have been getting some like soda, like Pepsi or other, like soda brands like that that don't it's like a more they have something that come with real sugar in it and not like high fruit needs to be drinking. I know what I'm saying is, like, again, not not all the time, but like, you can really taste the difference between the two different things. Like, there, it's interesting how one with real sugar tastes a lot better and less processed. So it's interesting,

Jason  
I pretty much have gotten away from, I just kind of cola. Oh yeah. I just recently invested in a nice, maybe once in a blue moon, I might have one, but that's about it.

Ian  
Oh yeah. I recently invested in a pretty big, like, one liter, like thermos type thing, like water canteen, whatever you want to call it, to not name any brands, but I keep it around with me everywhere. And, and I've been drinking a whole lot more water because, but I feel like which has been, which has felt really good for me, because, again, for that same reason, of like, you know, I used to drink more sodas. Or, again, around here in the south, south, you know, sweet tea, southern sweet tea, which is has a, you know, a lot of sugar in it can sometimes be a bit much. But, um, I've been feeling a lot more hydrated as of recently because of that, which has been nice. So

Stoney   
this stuff is just crazy, what we're putting in our to our bodies, and anytime somebody wants to open their mouth and do something about it, they get completely shut down. Oh, yeah, and threatened to be put in jail, but it's all the Rockefeller playbook. And I know I sound like a broken record, but this was his plan. Oh, the government came in and shut down his monopoly on oil. He said, I will bankrupt America. I will do this. And that's why he came out with, you know, the education system, you know, keep them trainable, not thinking. You know, that was his words. You know, food. Control what they eat. Control how. Feel. I mean, this is a playbook that that he learned from other generations. You know, medicine, if you control the doctors, you control the diagnosis. Yeah. I mean, come on. And this is his, this is his whole thing. And, and we just bought into it, hook, line and sinker.

Jason  
And right now I'm looking at regulatory philosophies and approved frameworks. I kind of did some research here, looking between the US and the in the EU say in the United States, most food additives are governed under a system called generally recognized as safe gras. So under this scheme, many added additives may be used unless there is clear evidence they are harmful. Companies, not always. Independent agencies often make the determination of safety based on existing data or history of use. Say, by contrast, the EU takes Precautionary Principle, food additives, preservatives, dyes and processing chemicals must be evaluated and explicitly authorized before they can be used, and if there is uncertainty or health concern, regulators may ban or strictly limit them. Yeah. So because of this, it says the number and types of allowed additives diverge significantly. The US tends to allow a broader set of substances, while the EU bans or restricts many of the chemicals common in us, processed foods, so that Another difference is labeling and transparency in the EU, additives are often labeled with standardized e numbers, a three or four digit code that correspond to specific approved additives in the US, labeling uses common names, eg, sodium, Benza benzoate, yellow, five, etc, and there is no unified additive number system like the E number system. Interesting.

Stoney   
Now I kind of found a little, a little pattern here on all of this hydrogen. Hydrogen nation made food cheap, you know, hydrogenated oils and things like that. Color made it attractive. HFCs made it addictive. Stabilizers made it perfect looking. MSG made it irresistible. Additives made it immortal. PS, excuse me, P, F, A, S's made it more convenient, and GMOs made it profitable. Every single one of these steps moved us away from what real food is, because when you look at it, what's left is not real food, it's lab designated consumables built for corporate efficiency and not human health. So now, when you look at people like Bill Gates, who actually are bio engineering and basically 3d printing meat. I mean, how are we supposed to know what we're really getting right? How? And the FDA was designed to protect us, but just like Jason said, Well, unless there's a reason to ban it, we're not going to someone. Someone's got to prove to us right. The data has, data has to show that it's a problem, pretty definitive before we I mean, how many? How many times have they banned red dye number four? What is it? Red Dye Number 40? They banned it twice and they brought it back. Right? They banned it and brought it back. Really, the FDA supposed to be protecting us, but if you go and you read, there's so many documentaries on this, where they've proven that these FDA inspectors and these meat plants and these other plants are on the take, letting stuff go through that they're not supposed to because they're on the follow the money, of course, you know, and if the FDA is supposed to be here to protect us, why aren't they? Why aren't we holding them accountable? Who's holding the accountable? People accountable? Right? Because if you're putting products out there that can even have a remotely have a chance of hurting us, their asses need to be stepping in and protecting us. They need to be kiboshing it until you can prove that it's safe, right? Not that someone else has to prove that it's not safe.

Jason  
Yes, they say state. They say the multi national corporations that produce, you know, products with dealing with food, said, while European Union has strict regulations banning products that. As food dies and have the United States takes a more risk based approach, allowing products on the market until a problem arises. They say major, major food companies responded to these different regulatory structures by creating products that may look and taste the same on both sides of the Atlantic, yet they have completely different ingredients. Wow, they said. The European bans potassium bromate, a substance that is considered to be a suspected human carcinogen. The FDA, however, permits this ingredient in food products. As a result, many food companies in America include this ingredient in products such as bread, cookies and pizza dough to make the dough rise higher and give it a white glow coming almost reminds me of some of the stuff inside the Fallout universe, In the Nuka Cola and stuff like that. It's kind of on a funny side of it, but, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's they definitely take they're looking out for their people. Oh, a lot more than than we are. And I think all that, I feel

Ian  
like we're like, we're like, lab rats. We are lab rats. Yeah, we are lab what are the experience?

Jason  
Well, I it's like, it's like, I said, all this started under the era of the, you know, the Rockefellers and the industrialization of America, the concentration of wealth, and everything that went along with it, you know, yeah, they have warning labels in Europe. So we don't, you know, there are no such warnings containing dyes.

Ian  
The same thing, I think, if I'm not mistaken, it's like, I think it's in Japan that, like, you can't have the depiction of a fruit on your label if there's actually no fruit juice in it. So like, here in America, you can have like, the like, either whether it be concentrate or some sort of like drink, like, let's say orange soda, for instance, has no orange juice in it, but you can have the depiction of an orange on it. Whereas, in a country like Japan, I think, for instance, like, if there's no actual juice in it, it has to say 0% juice on it, and you cannot have the depiction of the fruit on it for that same sort of like mental false advertising, I guess, if you want to call it that, or whatever.

Jason  
So talking about Pepsi, yeah, PepsiCo manufactures Mountain Dew, yeah. With in United Kingdom, they manufacture Mountain Dew with beta carotene for coloring, which is a natural ingredient derived from vegetables, yeah, and the American version, however, PepsiCo uses yellow Fox, of course, an ingredient that's expected to cause hyperactivity in children and as possible, links to cancer. There you go, and it's completely banned in Norway and Austria. Similarly, Skittles also changes their ingredients for food dyes in America compared to Europe.

Ian  
You know, interesting.

Stoney   
So I've got one for y'all. Okay, there's an amino acid called L cysteine cystini. We which is used as a dough conditioner in mass produced breads and bakery products. What's it made out of? I don't know, human hair and duck feathers, okay, and the FDA just allowed for a larger amount of that to be used in bread manufacturing, because it basically makes a dough easier to handle, and it loosens and fluffs the dough, reducing mixing time and helps mass production of bread, bagels and buns,

Ian  
of course, mass production. So where do they

Stoney   
get the human hair and the duck

Ian  
feathers from. I can guess where the duck feathers are coming from. Yeah, hair that seems like a

Jason  
well, they said they have vicious they said. Last year, California passed the California Food Safety Act, which bans brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate. They got some name I can't even pronounce in red, three, four ingredients that are linked to cancer, hyperactivity in children, reproductive issues and thyroid and liver problems. California also recently passed a new bipartisan bill banning the use of six different food dyes, including yellow five in public schools on October 6, 2024 California Governor Gavin Newsom signed this bill in the law. And because of the size of the California economy, this new regulation could have a major effect on how food companies manufacture their products throughout the United States. You know, once I give California. You know, a lot of times we give them problems because of how goofy they are, but I'm with them on that, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of where I'm at with with, you know, when it comes to these politics, when these comes to these politics, yeah, you know this right, left, there's a, there are some aspects of what would be considered left that I'm very much for, all right, yeah, I'm very much for.

Stoney   
I had to, okay, that's okay. I had to, I apologize something. Where did they get the human hair? Uh oh, for the bread? Yeah. For decades, Chinese suppliers gathered large amounts of human hair from barbershop, shop, salons, hair collection facilities and commercial sweep up centers. Dude, the hair was processed in chemical factories to extract the amino acid, which was then sold globally as a dough conditioner. Wow.

Ian  
So, even so, even though, even the hair was made in China,

Stoney   
even the hair was Thank you. Ian gets the star for the star.

Ian  
We can't even have our own hair and our chemicals. That's not fair.

Stoney   
You can have apparently, in your bread, though that's

Ian  
crazy, man. Wow, that's disgusting. I hate that. Wow. That's insane. That's ridiculous, yeah, but I do it to kind of circle back around to agree with you. Sometimes, there's, you know, we do give California a lot of flack sometimes, but things like that happen where you're like, Okay, this could actually shift in a good direction, where hopefully, exactly I would like to see things around here.

Jason  
I mean, there's some things to me that should be universal across the board, healthy food, clean water and clean air, especially, I mean, especially here, we all, we all eat and breathe. I mean, that's just, I

Ian  
feel like, of all countries in the great country of United States of America, I feel like we should have those kind of things. But I feel like,

Jason  
yeah, that's where I think sometimes the greed of taking shortcuts. And, look, I get it, but I mean, we there has to be an awakening of of what's going on, and realize that we have to, we have to come around to this idea that, you know, we all have to be here, and that goal is for everybody to live as hell. Nothing's going to protect you. Eventually, all of us going to die. I mean, you're not going to stop that, but I'm a firm believer that if our food was healthy, and we were been eating that since we were children, and eating that through our adult life, I guarantee we'd have a whole lot less health problems. I remember

Ian  
whenever I was a kid, like the big, like, the, I'm not sure if it was like a TV advertisement or if it was just something that I was raised with in school, but like, you are, what you eat, that was a big thing, like, you know, growing up that I just been now, it's, you know, if you should keep that up, where chemicals and preservatives, apparently,

Jason  
62% of restaurants downgraded ingredient quality,

Stoney   
really 60. Well, now they're buying instead of making the gravy from scratch. Now they're buying the can of gravy from the Costco. You see what I'm saying it. Now they've just shifted from doing it themselves to a cheaper way of just buying it in bulk, yeah, and using the packets and things instead of making the gravy themselves, like when Miranda and I made that broth, right? We saved it. We've we've got some left. We intend on trying other things with it. It was, it was, it was fun, yeah, you know, it required work. Yeah, it required work. It did. It really did, you know, and something that kind of popped into my head, you know, we live in a society where furniture polish has real lemons, but lemonade has artificial flavoring. I know,

Jason  
wait a minute, so crazy,

Stoney   
what the hell?

Jason  
Well, just, just, just to give our listeners out there that just kind of what's going on in the in the on the restaurant side. And of course, all this is somewhat related, but I didn't know this, but said 75% of full a full service turnover rate in full service restaurants and 100% in fast food. So every year, yeah, they're replacing their staff.

Ian  
Really, yes, at, like, at like, a sit down restaurant.

Jason  
Sit down restaurant, okay, within a year, 75% of the staff will have turned over at a typical McDonald's or Burger King. Yeah, 100% turnover. Wow, every that's

Stoney   
just because they're trying to make it. They'll go to Burger King, then they'll go to Popeye's chicken, then they'll go to this place that you know, they'll wind up back at McDonald's, right?

Jason  
46% of Americans avoid certain change. Means due to declining quality? Yeah, I'm gonna tell you I don't eat fast food anymore. I haven't eaten fast food. I can't tell you the last time I actually went to a McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's Taco Bell. I mean, you name it. Yeah, none of them because I don't think they're I think they're all terrible, right? Be honest with you, I just and they're more expensive. As a kid, like I ate at all of them, I ate a ton,

Ian  
but that is a different place.

Jason  
Yeah, I don't, I just don't trust it anymore. I just don't I actually want to go to a place, and I'm and I'm not saying I'm getting the best food there, but I'm definitely getting a whole lot better than what I'd be getting at those places. I agree. But, you know, a lot of people have to eat there, yeah,

Ian  
well, and this is what I was saying before, is like, you could actually, in some, in some cases, you could go to a sit down restaurant and potentially pay the same, if not. It depends on where you go, same, if not more than what you would get for a fast food restaurant nowadays. Yeah, absolutely. That's the crazy part. It's like, there used to be a portion where, like, I would go out, like, you know, to, like, sit down at a nice restaurant, and it would be, you know, a little more expensive, and I would go, like, to a fast food place for lunch. But now it's like, I mean, I may as well go spend a couple extra dollars and get a better meal.

Stoney   
Yeah, absolutely, even if it spend a couple extra dollars, it might just be tipping somewhere 100% it's ridiculous. Yeah, there's a

Ian  
little, there's a little local place it I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna shout them out or anything like that, but there's a local little hole in the wall place that I enjoy a lot. And I recently went there with my girlfriend and and, well, no, no, no, no. And so and I and it got to a point where, like, I think after even with the tip, it was like 30 something bucks. And I was like, I feel, I know for a fact that if her and I were to go, like, to a local fast food restaurant, we probably

Stoney   
would have spent at least 25 Yeah, at least 20.

Ian  
We had a better experience with a nice waitress. And I got, you know, rare it was. Anyways. I was like, I the more I thought about it, I was like, the one place I will shout out is Waffle House. I brought my my girlfriend, her sister, her mom, my brother, myself and I picked up the bill for all of us, okay, family, a family of five. I paid for all of us. And I want to say it was even with a tip. It was like 60 bucks. And I was like, if we, if I was to go have it, like a sit down restaurant, or if I was to go to like a fast food place, I'd be spending probably the same amount of money. And I was like, and we had a much better time at our at a at a little waffle house with our nice waitress. It was super, super sweet. And I gave her a pretty generous tip, but it was like 6065, bucks, whatever. And I was like, This is crazy, right? So anyways, US

Jason  
farmers are using 72 pesticides banned in the

Ian  
EU, 7572

Jason  
Oh, 72 sorry. 72 pesticide standards in the US are much weaker than the EU. Growing evidence suggests they may cause endocrine disruptions that harm the gut microbiome. Okay, livestock, antibiotic use in the US is double that of the EU. Presence in the US. Food supply is monitored. Residues in the body can cause antibiotic resistance and a range of potential health problems. Interesting, recombinant bovine growth hormone. I'm pronouncing that right, used to boost milk production in cows. There's a lack of human safety information, but it may impact animal welfare in the environment. Wonderful, rat rack to paint, rack toe, PA, mine, R, A, C, T, O, P, A, M, I N, E, it's a chemical added to pig and cattle feed to boost muscle growth due to lack of safety information is banned in most places, including China, Russia, Taiwan, but it's

Ian  
legal here, of course it is. That's crazy.

Jason  
Food colorings red, 40 is banned in the EU, and foods with yellow, six must carry health warning. Titanium dioxide was banned in the EU in 2022 amidst concern and may cause DNA damage. Wow, the Center for Science in the Public Interest says studies of the nine dyes currently approved by the FDA suggest, if not prove, that most of the dyes cause health problems, including cancer, hypersensitivity and neurotoxicity.

Ian  
Love me some good neurotoxicity. That's scary. It's crazy.

Jason  
I mean, butylated hydroxya, Sol, BHA, I think I've seen that on label on something,

Stoney   
anytime you see the at E at the end of it, eight. Yeah, hello, petroleum chemical.

Jason  
It's, it's, it's, it's used as a food preservative and flavor enhancer, often found in fast foods, cereals, drink mixes, gum and snacks, wow. National Institutes of Health says it is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.

Ian  
Yeah, go figure. Yeah, right, yeah.

Jason  
These are the, this is the differences. You know, you know, I mentioned potassium bromate. Yeah, it's use a strengthened dough. Make it rise. The International Agency for Research on Cancer says it's possibly carcinogenic to humans is also banned in Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, India and China. Gotta love it. So, I mean, it's just, I mean, we've got to get it together here. I mean, we just, we just do. I mean, I had no idea was this bad. Part of reason I kind of like doing this show because, oh yeah, it makes it actually forces me to actually do some research on some of the stuff that most people wouldn't even do.

Ian  
No, you know, and having this conversation now I'm gonna, I'm, I think I'm gonna try and look more into, into some of my into some of my labels, a little bit, and just kind of keep a better eye as to some of these carcinogens in the food, apparently, which is interesting to hear about. Is there anything else you want to touch on before we wrap this up?

Stoney   
I think I'm good. We may have to do a follow up to this one. I think we need to plan on doing a follow up to this one, because there's so much information about this. It's, it's like, what do you say we do the 10,000 foot view? Right? There's a there's a 30,000 foot view and a 50,000 foot view that we really need to get into about this. And I think if anybody knows a specialist or somebody that would come on the show, tell them to hit us up, because we'd love to have somebody really talk about what these chemicals are doing to our body. And there's just a lot of information. We just, we're just nipping the little top of it, yeah, and it's just incredible. The information that we're finding is just what we're finding. Oh, yeah, yeah. Can you imagine if somebody really knew what they was doing, can find us of this stuff? You know, we're just people trying to make a difference and and inform our listeners, Yep, yeah. I urge

Jason  
people to look at labels, yeah, eat fresh as much as you can, within reason of I mean, everybody's got to kind of make their their budget and make it work for them, but there's got to have to be a change, and there's got to be a ground swell of people that are going to have to demand that we return the food supply back to some degree of what it used to be, right? And we got to get rid of some of these chemicals, and if that means that food just doesn't last as long. Oh, well, you know, yeah.

Ian  
Oh, well, oh, well, I agree. Well, as Stoney had said, if you have any any people you want to suggest for us, or you have any comments you want to give to us, or suggestions

Stoney   
or what you're doing to combat this, if you got any ideas, you got your little garden, or whatever you're doing, let us know, yeah, where it's fascinating stuff out there.

Ian  
Yeah, we got the comment sections on YouTube and Spotify, where you can leave us some more short form reviews if you want to, or you can leave us some more long form responses on the email address, get offended together@gmail.com, and until next week, thank you so much for listening. Bye, bye.

Jason  
Goodbye everyone, and God bless you.

Stoney   
You know, after an episode like this, it's easy to walk away feeling a bit overwhelmed, the labels, the chemicals, the loopholes and the industries built on keeping us fed, but not necessarily nourished. So let's pause and breathe, because every generation listening to us has lived through a different version of this story. Boomers remember when dinner came out from the garden or from a grandmother, Gen X watched food go from home-cooked to microwavable. Millennials were the first to say, Wait, what's actually in this and Gen Z, they grew up reading ingredient labels before they could read chapters and books. But here's the punchline: every generation is now waking up at the same time. The truth isn't meant to scare us. It's meant to prepare us. We're not powerless. We're not stuck. The more we understand the system, the more we can step outside of it. Every tiny choice, a home-cooked meal, a cleaner ingredient, a seed in the ground, pushes back against the idea that we have to accept sickness as normal. So here's our challenge to everyone listening. Don't try to fix everything at once. Just reclaim one thing, one habit, one meal, one step toward the version of yourself in the modern food experiment that was never designed to handle because tonight isn't a warning. It's a turning point. We've seen what happens when an entire nation gets sick together. Now imagine what happens when we decide to get healthy together. Thanks for hanging out with us today. You're the best, Peace.