Podcast appearances and mentions of robert paarlberg

Maisie Ganzler has never worked at an animal welfare charity nor an alt-protein company. Yet she's in the upper echelon of effectiveness when it comes to reducing the suffering of farmed animals. That's because she's served as an executive of a national food management company supplying 1,000 schools and corporate dining facilities, Bon Appetit Management Company, for decades. In her career, Maisie pioneered some of the first-ever corporate policies to require suppliers to stop using battery cages for laying hens and gestation crates for breeding pigs, meat reduction policies, and a whole host of other important animal welfare and sustainability initiatives.  When Bon Appetit would implement a policy like those mentioned, it was often seen as leading edge at the time, yet eventually would become the norm among food service companies. For example, Bon Appetit's 2005 cage-free egg policy would come to be adopted by McDonald's a decade later. Maisie even ran for McDonald's board of directors, backed by billionaire Carl Icahn, a campaign she writes that the fast food company spent $16 million to defeat. While she didn't make it onto McDonald's board, Maisie does sit on the board of directors of an alt-protein company called Air Protein, whose CEO Lisa Dyson has been a guest on this show before! So it was with great pleasure that I learned that Maisie has come out with her first book, which is part autobiography and part guide for others on how to create meaningful change in our food and agricultural system. The book, which just recently came out, is called You Can't Market Manure at Lunchtime: And Other Lessons from the Food Industry for Creating a More Sustainable Company. I read it and found it both informational, inspirational, and entertaining. What more could you want?  Well, maybe you'd want to hear Maisie's story straight from her rather than from me, so enjoy this conversation with a true pioneer for animals, farm workers, and everyone who wants to build a better food system. Discussed in this episode Josh Balk worked with Maisie on many animal welfare policies, and now runs The Accountability Board. David Benzaquen was a student who in 2005 helped catalyze Bon Appetit's cage-free policy, and who now is an executive in the plant-based food industry.  Maisie discusses the difficulties implementing the Better Chicken Commitment, leading Compassion in World Farming to extend its deadline for compliance. You can read more in CIWF's 2023 Chicken Track paper. Maisie recommends reading Civil Eats and the NRA Smart Brief. Our past episode with Resetting the Table author Robert Paarlberg. Walker Hayes' song Fancy Like has 146 million YouTube views, so it's not just Maisie and Paul who like it.  More about Maisie Ganzler Maisie Ganzler is the go-to expert on how companies can make positive change in supply chains and other entrenched systems. She's been interviewed by leading media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Fast Company, and Bloomberg, spoken at conferences around the world, written thought leadership pieces for Forbes, Huffington Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle and is frequently called upon for strategic counsel by start-ups and big business alike. As Chief Strategy & Brand Officer for Bon Appetit Management Company, a $1.7 billion onsite restaurant company with 1,000-plus cafés at corporations, universities, and cultural institutions in 33 states serving more than 250 million meals per year, Maisie tackled local purchasing, antibiotics in meat production, sustainable seafood, humane care of farm animals, climate change, farmworkers' rights, and food waste, positioning the company as the foodservice industry's undisputed leader in sustainable purchasing and holistic wellness. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration.

This episode with Dr. Robert Paarlberg mythbusts from start to finish. Everything you think you know about the dirty dozen, food subsidies, the cost of whole food vs processed…just set it to the side because he is here with the data and the nuance that we need to dig deeper. You will especially love his nuance about modern precision agriculture and how we need to stop conflating Big Food with Big Ag. You can break out of your food echo chamber with his latest book, Resetting the Table. Stay in touch with Chews Wisely: IG: @chewswiselypodcast Patreon: Chews Wisely Email: chewswiselypodcast@gmail.comChews Wisely is brought to you by G5 Agency.

In today's global economy, a single event – like a storm or virus outbreak – can impact access to basic necessities, like food for millions of people. Add to that a rapidly growing world population and many experts are wondering…  how will we keep everyone fed? In what ways will our lifestyles, and our international supply chains, adapt to meet the needs of a warming and increasingly crowded planet?    On this week's episode, we hear from two experts with competing visions of how we can sustainably feed a growing planet. Ray Suarez is joined by Raj Patel and Robert Paarlberg on a journey through the inequities and promise of our global food system.   Guests:     Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved and co-director of The Ants and the Grasshopper, University of Texas   Robert Paarlberg, author of Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat, Harvard University   Host:   Ray Suarez   If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

Learn about how the Census of Agriculture and Farm Bill affects every American and what you need to know about both. Material from Robert Paarlberg's book Food Politics is discussed as it provides wonderful insight into the politics of farm subsidies and food assistance programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.

Learn about the relationship between climate change and food production. Using excerpts from Food Politics by Robert Paarlberg, relevant issues within this topic are further examined and discussed. The case of environmental justice in Cibola, AZ is also addressed as privatization of water is growing.

The food that Americans eat says a lot about the political culture they live in. An expert panel discusses what the country's diet is telling us now.  Food is something that human beings think about every single day. It is the most intimate way we engage with the outside world – by ingesting parts of it – and the need to eat requires us to make choices. What makes it onto our dinner plates, then, says a lot about who we are and what we value, in a nutritional sense as well as a social sense.   To a certain extent, this perspective has become widely accepted. The rise of organic foods in the grocery aisle and farm-to-table on restaurant menus speaks to this kind of understanding. But the system that's delivering that food to our plates is so much more complex than a label. And that's what this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast is about.  We invited two people who think a lot about food to share what they see when they look at our food systems. Eddie Hill is a co-founder of the Black Food Sovereignty Coalition and director of the Black Farm Bureau. Robert Paarlberg is the author of Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat. In conversation with Grist staff writer Kate Yoder, they tangle with the food system's  biggest problems, discuss whether a focus on local and organic foods are actually solving some of those problems and share what they see as the best course toward a healthier future for everyone. --- Credits Host: Mark Baumgarten Producer: Sara Bernard Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara Engineers: Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph --- If you would like to support Crosscut, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Seattle's PBS station, KCTS 9.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Bio-till Cover Crop Seed, Robert Paarlberg, associate at the sustainability science program at the Harvard Kennedy School, talks about the research that went into his book, his advice to commercial farmers and farm organizations about advocating for sustainability, what those groups need to do to combat the myths surrounding sustainable agriculture and more.

In this episode of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by SOURCE by Sound Agriculture, author Robert Paarlberg talks about the research that went into his book, his advice to commercial farmers and farm organizations about advocating for sustainability, what those groups need to do to combat the myths surrounding sustainable agriculture and more.

In his new book Dr. Robert Paarlberg describes the current state of the food system, focusing on issues like industrial farming, organic farming, restaurants, biotechnology, and how technology will impact farming in the future.  In today's podcast we discuss some of the critical points of the book and what food and farming may look like in the future. # COLABRATalking Biotech is brought to you by Colabra – an R&D platform that brings your lab's world-changing research together in one shared space. Learn more at https://www.colabra.app/# TALKING BIOTECHTwitter: https://twitter.com/talkingbiotechWebsite: https://www.colabra.app/podcasts/talking-biotech/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colabrahqThe Talking Biotech podcast is distinct from Dr. Kevin Folta's teaching and research roles at the University of Florida. The views expressed on the show are those of Dr. Folta and his guests, and do not reflect the opinions of the university or Colabra.

When it comes to food, we often hear that switching to organic, local, non-GMO production methods are what's best for the planet. But, what if the preponderance of scientific evidence doesn't support such claims, and that actually both the planet and public health are better off with the synthetic fertilizer banned by organic standards; that buying local may not be better for the planet; and that it's perfectly safe to eat genetically modified plants? This is indeed what the science shows, says author and Harvard professor Rob Paarlberg in his new book, Resetting the Table: Straight Talk about the Food We Grow and Eat. Paarlberg doesn't claim that so-called industrial agriculture is good for the planet, but he does argue that such 21st century food production methods are far preferable for the planet than if we were to try to return to the more extensive, pastoral systems of humanity's past.

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/ Dr. Robert Paarlberg is Betty Freyhof Johnson '44 Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Wellesley College, and an Associate in the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University. His research focuses on the international agricultural and environmental policy, regulation of modern technology, including biotechnology. He is the author of many books, including Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat. In this episode, we focus on Resetting the Table. We start by framing food consumption as political behavior. We get into some of the most prominent kinds of farming technologies, including organic farming, GMO (genetically modified organism) crops, and indoor farming, and discuss a bit their advantages, disadvantages, and applications. We talk about consuming local. We discuss the connection between food production and the environment. We also discuss the how viable would it be for everyone to become vegan, and if it would be a good solution. Finally, we talk about the main ways we should reset our tables (in the West), and what can be done politically and by individual citizens. -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, PER HELGE LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, JERRY MULLER, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BERNARDO SEIXAS, HERBERT GINTIS, RUTGER VOS, RICARDO VLADIMIRO, CRAIG HEALY, OLAF ALEX, PHILIP KURIAN, JONATHAN VISSER, JAKOB KLINKBY, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, JOHN CONNORS, PAULINA BARREN, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, DAN DEMETRIOU, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ARTHUR KOH, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, SUSAN PINKER, PABLO SANTURBANO, SIMON COLUMBUS, PHIL KAVANAGH, JORGE ESPINHA, CORY CLARK, MARK BLYTH, ROBERTO INGUANZO, MIKKEL STORMYR, ERIC NEURMANN, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, BERNARD HUGUENEY, ALEXANDER DANNBAUER, FERGAL CUSSEN, YEVHEN BODRENKO, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, DON ROSS, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, OZLEM BULUT, NATHAN NGUYEN, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, J.W., JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, IDAN SOLON, ROMAIN ROCH, DMITRY GRIGORYEV, TOM ROTH, DIEGO LONDOÑO CORREA, YANICK PUNTER, ADANER USMANI, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, NICOLE BARBARO, ADAM HUNT, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, AL ORTIZ, NELLEKE BAK, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, GUY MADISON, GARY G HELLMANN, SAIMA AFZAL, ADRIAN JAEGGI, NICK GOLDEN, PAULO TOLENTINO, JOÃO BARBOSA, JULIAN PRICE, EDWARD HALL, HEDIN BRØNNER, DOUGLAS P. FRY, FRANCA BORTOLOTTI, GABRIEL PONS CORTÈS, AND URSULA LITZCKE! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, IAN GILLIGAN, LUIS CAYETANO, TOM VANEGDOM, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, VEGA GIDEY, AND THOMAS TRUMBLE! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MICHAL RUSIECKI, ROSEY, JAMES PRATT, MATTHEW LAVENDER, SERGIU CODREANU, AND BOGDAN KANIVETS!

Cuba should have watched and learned from the more complete reforms embraced by China and Vietnam. By holding onto Soviet-inspired collective farming institutions, while experimenting with a return to pre-industrial farm technologies, the tone-deaf regime in Havana puts its own survival at risk.

The year is 2050. With 9.7 billion residents on Planet Earth, how will we feed everyone? In what ways will our lifestyles, and our global food system, adapt to meet the needs of a changing, warming and expanding planet? Today, we already have food shortages and the pandemic has revealed just how fragile our global food system is. On this week's episode, we hear from two experts with competing visions of how we can sustainably feed a growing planet. Please join Ray Suarez, Raj Patel and Robert Paarlberg on a journey through the international food system. Guests: Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved and co-director of The Ants and the Grasshopper, University of Texas Robert Paarlberg, author of Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat, Harvard University Hosts: Philip Yun, CEO, WorldAffairs Ray Suarez, co-host, WorldAffairs If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

Today's guest, Dr. Robert Paarlberg, is the author of a provocative new book entitled: Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat. The book is presented as a clear-eye, science-based corrective, to misinformation about our food: how it's produced, food companies, nutrition labeling, ethical treatment of animals, the environmental impact of agriculture, and even more.   Interview Summary   So Robert, The New York Times praised your book for - and I quote here - "Throwing cold water on progressive and conservative views alike." What an accomplishment that is, and with an intro like that I can't wait to talk to you today, so thanks so much for joining us. So let's begin here, your new book highlights a number of dietary health shortcomings in America but you say these do not come from our farms or from farm subsidies. Can you explain, where do they come from?   Clearly we have a dietary health crisis. Only 1 in 10 Americans is getting the fruits and vegetables recommended and meanwhile we're eating far too many ultra-processed foods with added sugar, salt, and fat, which is why 42% of adults are now clinically obese. I mean, that's three times the level of the 1960's and one result is approximately 300,000 deaths a year linked to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancers. Now, some food system critics have tried to trace these problems back to the foods grown on our farms. That is, not enough fruits and vegetables and too much corn and soybeans and farmers in America do produce a lot of corn and soybeans but stop and think, nearly 60% of the soybeans are exported. So they never enter our food supply and more than a third of the corn is used to produce auto fuel. So, that's out of our food supply as well. And we've used imports to make an abundance of fruit and vegetables, available in the marketplace. Half of our fruit is imported, one third of our vegetables are imported, often, off season when it's too cold to grow these things in North America. Thanks to these imports, the per capita availability of fruit in the market today is 40% above the 1970 level and the per capita availability of vegetables is 20% above 1970. Actually, per capita, availability of broccoli today, is 13 fold what it was in 1970. So, what our farmers grow, is not the same thing as what consumers eat and very quickly, as for farm subsidies, they're often criticized for making unhealthy foods, artificially cheap but they actually do just the opposite. We have to remember the purpose of farm subsidies is to increase the income of farmers and that is best done, it's usually done, by making farm commodities artificially expensive, not artificially cheap. Farm programs make sugar, artificially expensive by keeping foreign sugar out of our domestic market, raising the domestic price by about 64%. We make wheat and wheat flour and bread artificially expensive, through a conservation reserve program that pays wheat farmers to keep their land in western Kansas idle for 10 years. And we make corn artificially expensive. It's said, that we're living with a plague of cheap corn, but it's just not true. We have a renewable fuel standard, that takes a third of total corn production out of the food market, for uses, auto fuel, and that drives up the price of soybeans as well because soybeans and corn are grown on the same land.   So back to the question then, if the dietary problems don't come from the things that you just mentioned and you make an interesting case there, where do they come from?   I put a lot of blame on food manufacturing companies, on retailers and on restaurant chains. These are the companies that take, mostly healthful commodities, grown on America's farms and ultra process them, add sugar, add salt, add fat, turn them into, virtually addictive, craveable products and then they surround us with them, all day long and they advertise them heavily, including to children. I believe we are drowning in a swamp of unhealthy foods, produced not on our farms, but downstream from farms by these food companies. Now the food companies say, "Oh, well, unhealthy eating, we're not responsible. It's an individual eater's responsibility, to decide what he or she puts in his mouth." But I don't buy that. I mentioned that obesity rates in the United States today, are three times the level of the 1960s. It simply isn't true, it can't be true, that American eaters are three times as irresponsible, as they were in the 1960's.   Companies can't be blamed, I don't suppose, for trying to maximize sales of their products and trying to maximize their desirability. How does it become a problem with the food industry though?   If a shoe company sells us too many shoes that we don't need or a toy company sells us toys we don't need or an auto company sells us a fancy auto with features we don't really need, that doesn't become a public health crisis, but when food companies make products that are almost impossible for most consumers to resist, if they consume them then, in excess and it does become a public health crisis, that's a different sort of problem. In a way, I don't blame the companies because as you noted, they compete fiercely with each other and if anyone were to try to go first to offer product lines, that weren't latent with excess sugar, salt, and fat they would lose market share. These companies actually need the government to step in and provide a common discipline on all of them. Either, in the form of excise taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages or regulations for, at a glance, nutrition guidance labeling on the front of the package or perhaps, restrictions on advertising food to children. If you look at the countries in Europe, 18 European countries have at least one of these policies in place. The continent of Europe has obesity prevalence, only half as high as that of the United States. So here, I think if we can learn something from Europe and use government policy to protect the companies from the kind of damaging competition that they've fallen into.   Given what you said about rates of obesity, it's important for people in many countries of the world to just, eat less food and of course, eating less food creates problems for the industry. So, it seems like, on one hand, the government to say, "Well, listen, why don't you require us all to gradually reduce the sugar in our products or the salt or the fat or whatever, so that we're all on the same playing field." People get calibrated to a lower level of these things and everything will be fine, but everything won't be fine because if those foods become less palatable, people will eat less and the companies will suffer from that. So, my guess is that that's why there's no appetite, if you pardon the pun, from the companies to do this kind of thing and why there's gonna have to be government regulation that overrides the company's political interest or even litigation to help drive this, what do you think?   I'd like to see strong public policies. Whether you call it helping the companies to, avoid their worst instincts and protecting them from damaging competition or imposing on them, a public health obligation to market fewer addictive and unhealthy products. I think, there's a great deal of room for public policy here and no matter what you call it, the companies by themselves, have created a problem that, it's unlikely they will solve, by themselves. In my book, I look at a food service chain, Applebee's, they realized, that their comfort food was not setting a proper health standard for their clientele and they tried to, change their menu, to take the, all you can eat riblets, off the menu and they lost customers. And so they got a new CEO and they went back to the old menu and their profits soared again. Companies sometimes try, they sometimes want to do a better job but in a unrestricted, competitive marketplace it can be suicidal. So, I think we should, in their own interest, as well as in the public health interest, put some restrictions on the marketplace or at least some guidelines   So let's move on to a little bit different topic. So your book questions some popular narratives, including suggestions that there should be more local food to scale up the consumption of organic food or say, to build supermarkets and food deserts.   Well, if you look at them one at a time, you'll see that they probably wouldn't improve our dietary health. If we relocalized, our food system, we would have to replace all those imported fruits and vegetables I mentioned, also seafood. If we tried to, replace those, with locally or at least nationally grown products, it would be possible to do, with enough greenhouses, but it would be very difficult and very expensive for food consumers in Chicago or New York or Boston, in the Northern latitudes, where many food consumers live. So, the price of healthy food would go up in the marketplace and we don't consume very much local food today. Actually, if you look at all of the direct sales from farmer's markets and CSA's and pick your own and roadside stands and farm to table and farm to school, it's only 2% of farm sales. It turns out that, we're not scaling up local. Consumers want more variety, they want more convenience. They want those things year round. I mean, we're actually going in a globalized direction. In 1990, we imported only 10% of the food we consume. Now we're importing 19%. Organic, it's a little bit similar. Currently only 2% of farm sales in America are certified organic products. The number's low because organic rules prevent farmers from using any synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and they're the most important source of productivity in conventional farming. Trying to scale up organic would make healthy food again, more expensive. Organic produce costs, on average, 54% more than conventional produce. If consumers had to pay 54% more for fruits and vegetables, they would buy less and eat less. Now, there are food deserts, where there is a relative shortage of supermarkets but there isn't any good evidence that building a supermarket in a food desert will improve dietary quality. In part, this is because supermarkets sell so many unhealthy foods. The Robert Wood Johnson calculates that only 30% of the packaged products in supermarkets, can be considered healthy. About 90% of the packaged products in supermarkets, are ultra-processed. So, a supermarket is really, a food swamp, surrounded by, a perimeter with some healthy food products and adding those kinds of markets to a poor neighborhood does very little to change a dietary behavior. And it's food swamps that are the problem. And it isn't just corner bodegas and convenience stores that are part of the food swamp. Even pharmacies now, are part of the food swamp. When I go to my CVS to fill a prescription, I have to walk through aisle after aisle of candy, soda, snack foods, junk foods to get to the pharmacy counter. So, I can try to protect my health and spoil my health in a single visit.   Interesting way to look at it. Let's end with this question. So in your book, you have favorable things to say about plant-based imitation meats and you chide the food movement activists for rejecting these new products because they're processed, why do you defend them?   Well I don't defend them on the strictest nutrition ground. An impossible burger or beyond burger isn't much better for you than real beef patty, particularly if you have it with a soft drink and fries, but I defend these products as substitutes for real beef because for environmental reasons, they have a carbon footprint that's 90% smaller than a real hamburger and they use 87% less water, 96% less land and also, risks to human medicine, that come from our current use of antibiotics in livestock production. The problem of antibiotic resistance is a serious threat to human medicine. That problem disappears when the livestock aren't there and also, animal welfare abuse disappears. Now I know food movement activists don't like plant-based meats because they're ultra-processed or because they're patented or corporate or not traditional or artisanal, but these critics have to come up with a better way to reduce our over consumption of animal products, before I'm willing to join them in criticizing plant-based substitutes. I mean, the fashion industry has switched to imitation fur and the shoe industry has switched to imitation leather. So, why shouldn't we allow our food industries to shift to imitation meat?   Bio: ROBERT PAARLBERG is adjunct professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and an associate at Harvard's Weatherhead Center. He has been a member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Research Council, a member of the Board of Directors at Winrock International, and a consultant to the International Food Policy Research Institute, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is the author of Starved for Science, Food Politics, and The United States of Excess. He lives in Massachusetts.

One of the most awesome things about my life is that I am a graduate of Wellesley College. Being in the "W Network" as we call it brings certain advantages. Not only can I find alums almost anywhere in the world doing anything that I might have a question about, we also have professors that do very interesting work and are more than happy to talk to grads...even ones decades out! Meet Professor Robert Paarlberg, a political science professor and researcher of ag policy. He and I discussed his new book "Resetting the Table: STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT THE FOOD WE GROW AND EAT" This discussion was fascinating because we are absolutely more alike than we are different and there are so many solutions on the table for feeding people...not just calories...but food. More about the book and Professor Paarlberg here

https://www.alainguillot.com/robert-paarlberg/ Robert Paarlberg is an adjunct professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat. Get the book right here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/606873/resetting-the-table-by-robert-paarlberg/

Host Larry Bernstein. Guests include Admiral James Stavridis USN, Dr. Paul Offit, Robert Paarlberg, and Mark Bauerlein.

Food policy expert Rob Paarlberg chats with Trey Elling about RESETTING THE TABLE: STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT THE FOOD WE GROW AND EAT, including: why 'organic' and 'local' are the wrong ways to think about sustained agricultural practices, poor communities being affected by food swamps rather than food deserts, how junk food infiltrated our food supply in the 19th century, Silly Putty's connection to McDonald's french fries, the public's rejection of GMOs, America's need to improve livestock practices, what farmers can do better, and more.

In this episode of Keen On, Andrew Keen is joined by Robert Paarlberg, the author of Resetting the Table, to discuss food politics. Robert puts the current state of agriculture and health in America under the microscope in an attempt to predict the future of Americans' relationships with food. Robert Paarlberg does most of his research and consulting in the area of international food and agricultural policy, especially in Africa and the developing world. This topic connects Robert both to his own family history (his father grew up on a farm in Indiana) and to important current issues in international development: How to help farmers in Africa – most of whom are women – increase their productivity to better feed their families and escape poverty. In the past decade he has worked in more than a dozen countries in Africa, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and the United States Agency for International Development. Paarlberg's 2008 book from Harvard University Press (Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa) has a foreword by two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Jimmy Carter and Norman Borlaug. His current research examines the impact of international trade on agricultural land use. In recent year, his students at Wellesley have taken an increased interest in issues of food and farming around the world. They want to know what kinds of food and farm systems can provide not just increased production, but social justice, improved nutrition, and environmental sustainability as well. Robert addressed these questions in a senior seminar he taught every year, and in 2010 he published a book from Oxford University Press (Food Politics: What Everybody Needs to Know) based on the materials developed in this seminar. He also taught two large international relations courses every year, one on international economic policy and the other on “theories” of United States foreign policy. In addition, he taught the introductory course in his department, which showcases eight important books written by political scientists, from Machiavelli to the present. Robert's work on international agriculture engages him with a wide variety of audiences beyond the academic world. In past years he has given talks to the executive leadership of the Mars Candy Company (on cocoa, in Africa), to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome (on agricultural technology), and to a conference on African farming in Uganda. In addition, he gave testimony in 2009 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on U.S. agricultural development assistance policy. Most interesting to Robert, however, are the visits he makes to farms and farmers in the developing world, where a combination of bad history and bad current policy have held too many people in poverty for too long. In the summer months, between work and travel, Robert enjoys retreating with my wife Marianne to their place on the coast of Maine, where there is plenty of hiking, biking, swimming, fishing, boating, golfing, and picture taking to do, and where the lobsters always taste good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Liberty and Danika discuss Two Truths and a Lie, A Taste for Love, Winter’s Orbit, and more great books. Pick up an All the Books! 200th episode commemorative item here. Subscribe to All the Books! using RSS, iTunes, or Spotify and never miss a beat book. Sign up for the weekly New Books! newsletter for even more new book news. This post contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, Book Riot may earn a commission. BOOKS DISCUSSED ON THE SHOW: Two Truths and a Lie: A Murder, a Private Investigator, and Her Search for Justice by Ellen McGarrahan  Milk Fed by Melissa Broder  Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell  Love Is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar The Project by Courtney Summers A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan  The Low Desert: Gangster Stories by Tod Goldberg  A Taste For Love by Jennifer Yen WHAT WE’RE READING: Heathen Volume 3 by Natasha Alterici and Ashley A. Woods (Artist) Milk Blood Heat: Stories by Dantiel W. Moniz MORE BOOKS OUT THIS WEEK: The Other Mothers: Two Women’s Journey to Find the Family That Was Always Theirs by Jennifer Berney Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz I am The Rage by Martina McGowan and Diana Ejaita What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo  U UP? by Catie Disabato Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs by Ina Park  Rise of the Red Hand (The Mechanists) by Olivia Chadha  Girls with Bright Futures: A Novel by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman  Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia by Thomas Healy A Bright Ray of Darkness by Ethan Hawke Ridgerunner by Gil Adamson The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah Untraceable by Sergei Lebedev and Antonina W. Bouis The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S. (as told to his brother) by David Levithan Animal, Vegetable, Junk by Mark Bittman  Love in English by Maria E. Andreu The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson Wild Swims: Stories by Dorthe Nors, Misha Hoekstra (translator) Prosopagnosia by Sònia Hernández, Samuel Rutter (translator) Candy Hearts by Tommy Siegel The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph by Chad Sanders Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy by Rachel Ricketts What Is Life?: Five Great Ideas in Biology by Paul Nurse Muted by Tami Charles Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat by Robert Paarlberg. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Young Readers Edition) by Jeanne Theoharis, Brandy Colbert  This Is Not the Jess Show by Anna Carey How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell  Heartwarming: How Our Inner Thermostat Made Us Human by Hans Rocha Ijzerman Truly Like Lightning by David Duchovny   The Hatmakers by Tamzin Merchant This Golden Flame by Emily Victoria Yesterday Is History by Kosoko Jackson Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler My Year Abroad by Chang-rae Lee girl stuff. by Lisi Harrison Loud Black Girls: 20 Black Women Writers Ask: What’s Next? by Yomi Adegoke, Elizabeth Uviebinené Everything That Burns: An Enchantée Novel by Gita Trelease The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob by Russell Shorto An Anatomy of Pain: How the Body and the Mind Experience and Endure Physical Suffering by Abdul-Ghaaliq Lalkhen The Last Tiara by M.J. Rose  Girl A by Abigail Dean Beneath the Keep: A Novel of the Tearling by Erika Johansen The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner  Send for Me by Lauren Fox A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus Mortal Remains by Mary Ann Fraser The Women’s History of the Modern World: How Radicals, Rebels, and Everywomen Revolutionized the Last 200 Years by Rosalind Miles What Doesn’t Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness – Lessons from a Body in Revolt by Tessa Miller Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir by Rebecca Carroll The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics by Tim Harford Love Is a Revolution by Renée Watson Poetics of Work by Noémi Lefebvre, Sophie Lewis (translator) Floating in a Most Peculiar Way: A Memoir by Louis Chude-Sokei Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life by Ruth Padel  The Year I Flew Away by Marie Arnold What Is Life?: Five Great Ideas in Biology by Paul Nurse Halfway Home : Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration by Reuben Jonathan Miller Muse by Brittany Cavallaro Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant  Annie and the Wolves by Andromeda Romano-Lax The Mercenary by Paul Vidich Flood City by Daniel José Older Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado Lone Stars by Justin Deabler The Survivors by Jane Harper This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith City of a Thousand Gates by Rebecca Sacks Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano  Landslide by Susan Conley The Obsession by Jesse Q Sutanto Blood Grove by Walter Mosley A History of What Comes Next: A Take Them to the Stars Novel by Sylvain Neuvel  Speculative Los Angeles edited by Denise Hamilton Land of Big Numbers: Stories by Te-Ping Chen Killer Content by Olivia Blacke The Spirit of Music: The Lesson Continues by Victor L. Wooten  All the Tides of Fate by Adalyn Grace Make Up Break Up by Lily Menon  God I Feel Modern Tonight: Poems from a Gal About Town by Catherine Cohen Pink: Poems by Sylvie Baumgartel  Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are by Jedidiah Jenkins  Leave Out the Tragic Parts: A Grandfather’s Search for a Boy Lost to Addiction by Dave Kindred  The Removed: A Novel by Brandon Hobson Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain A View from Abroad: The Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe by Jeanne E. Abrams Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods by Amelia Pang Bad Habits by Amy Gentry The Unwilling by John Hart  We Can Only Save Ourselves by Alison Wisdom The Package by Sebastian Fitzek, Jamie Bulloch (Translator) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join Carlos Vazquez as he explores the politics of food.The politics of food is changing fast. In rich countries, obesity is now a more serious problem than hunger. Consumers once satisfied with cheap and convenient food now want food that is also safe, nutritious, fresh, and grown by local farmers using fewer chemicals. Heavily subsidized and underregulated commercial farmers are facing stronger push back from environmentalists and consumer activists, and food companies are under the microscope. Meanwhile, agricultural success in Asia has spurred income growth and dietary enrichment, but agricultural failure in Africa has left one-third of all citizens undernourished - and the international markets that link these diverse regions together are subject to sudden disruption.The second edition of Food Politics has been thoroughly updated to reflect the latest developments and research on today's global food landscape, including biofuels, the international food market, food aid, obesity, food retailing, urban agriculture, and food safety. The second edition also features an expanded discussion of the links between water, climate change, and food, as well as farming and the environment. New chapters look at livestock, meat and fish and the future of food politics.Paarlberg's book challenges myths and critiques more than a few of today's fashionable beliefs about farming and food. For those ready to have their thinking about food politics informed and also challenged, this is the book to read.Robert Paarlberg is Betty Freyhof Johnson Class of 1944 Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Associate at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. A leading authority on food policy, his books include Starved for Science, Policy Reform in American Agriculture, and Fixing Farm Trade.

The United States is seemingly addicted to excess. When it comes to food consumption, 38 percent of Americans are now obese, which is more than twice the average for all rich countries. When it comes to burning fossil fuel, America's per capita carbon emissions are also twice the European level. Robert Paarlberg argues that America's excessive consumption is likely to persist, since it grows out of the nation's fundamental demographic and resource endowments, its distinct and easily deadlocked political institutions, plus its unique culture celebrating individual freedom. What does this mean for the rest of the world? Join the Council on Global Affairs in exploring the dark side of American exceptionalism.

Jere Glover has been studying national economic data for years, and, once again, the latest figures show that the economy thrives under Democrats and flops under Republicans. Robert Paarlberg is an expert on food, and he has some ideas about how to combat obesity by improving public policy. Progressive author Thomas Frank talks with Bill Press about his new book on liberal setbacks under President Obama.   Jere Glover If you only listened to Republicans, you would have no idea that for the last 60 years or so, almost every measure of the economy does much better when a Democrat is president. Jere Glover runs down the evidence for us.   Robert Paarlberg How do we get a handle on obesity … and poverty? Harvard professor Robert Paarlberg says sound public policy can help … including exempting sugary products from food stamp eligibility.   Thomas Frank Thomas Frank talks with Bill Press. They both have books out about disappointments for progressives under a Democratic president.   Jim Hightower Will GOP lawmakers say "yes" to any Obama proposal?

Cristobal Alex says Hillary Clinton pretty much has the Latino vote locked up … Why are so many poor people obese? Robert Paarlberg explains.… and Bill Press interviews Ben Wikler of Move-On.   Hispanic leader Cristobal Alex says the road to the White House will go through the Latino community, and right now Hillary Clinton is far ahead. Food expert Robert Paarlberg says the poor do have access to grocery stores, but they don’t have the time to fix meals. And Bill Press interviews Move-On leader Ben Wikler about the group’s endorsement of Bernie Sanders.   Cristobal Alex Cristobal Alex heads a new Latino political group and he says his community will determine who the next president is.   Robert Paarlberg Contrary to common belief, poor people in urban areas do have access to healthy food but they don’t have the time to prepare it, says professor Robert Paarlberg.   Ben Wikler Bill Press interviews Ben Wikler of Move-On about the group’s endorsement of Bernie Sanders.   Jim Hightower Why has nefarious corporate behavior become so commonplace?

Dr. John Bohstedt connects the dots in his discussion of Food politics: what everyone needs to know by Robert Paarlberg. His passionate interest in the politics of hunger is both historical and modern. As a University of Tennessee history professor, his research revealed hundreds of food riots during the Industrial Revolution. Today’s struggles over food are again making headlines. “As they did 250 years ago, the social drama of riots brings on stage political forces, conflicts and actors we may not have recognized,” he says. Dr. Bohstedt thinks most Americans are probably unaware of the offstage dramas of food politics, dramas that are brought to light in the book Food politics. “Paarlberg shows us how politics shapes our food chain—from abundance to obesity to E. coli to organic foods to farm bills to Freedom fries. Paarlberg raises important questions such as, how do our farmers—and the ‘American food regime’—and ethanol—and our menus—affect hungry Asians and Africans? Is ‘food aid’ a blessing or a curse? Why doesn’t ‘free-trade’ doctrine cover food? What about those ‘Frankenfoods?’ What might sustainable farming look like? Are we approaching the abyss of chronic food crisis or the sunny fields of the green revolution? Food is such a basic driver of human affairs,” says Bohstedt. “As I studied food riots in early modern England, I found that customary episodes of crowd violence were a form of bargaining between the common people and their rulers, indeed a first draft of the welfare state. Like ‘our’ recent food riots of 2008, they were politics from the gut where hunger meets outrage.” (Recorded April 16, 2014)

Thanksgiving reflections on America’s food supply and the theocracy that one author says governs the “land of our pilgrims’ pride.” As the nation celebrates Thanksgiving, professor Robert Paarlberg summarizes the politics of food in a country where obesity may be more of a problem than hunger. This year, Thanksgiving coincides with Hanukkah -- and the role of God and religion in our civic life is the subject of a provocative interview with Sean Faircloth, a former legislator from Maine and an advocate of strict separation of church and state. And Bill Press interviews California Congressman Sam Farr. Robert Paarlberg Robert Paarlberg is an expert on food. In addition to summarizing the science and  politics of food production, he notes that the biggest health threat from American agriculture is not on the farm or in the labs of Monsanto but in our own kitchens. http://robertpaarlberg.net Sean Faircloth Church and state expert Sean Faircloth – he wants to separate them – reminds us on Thanksgiving that despite the prayers we might offer privately, the only reference to religion in the Constitution is its exclusion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWIrK-Fv6M8 Sam Farr Bill Press and his guest,  Congressman Sam Farr, who represents California’s Central Coast. http://www.farr.house.gov/ Jim Hightower Billionaires reap a cornucopia of farm subsidy cash.

Food expert Robert Paarlberg says the biggest danger from contaminated food comes from your own kitchen. Historian Richard Moe says Obama can take lessons from FDR. And Larry Sabato talks with Bill Press about the JFK legacy. The role of government in regulating food safety came up recently when the FDA and Agriculture Department were shut down. But food expert Robert Paarlberg says the biggest health danger lies in your own kitchen. Historian Richard Moe tells us that FDR never wanted to run for a third term, until World War II made him. He also says Obama can take a lesson from FDR by using executive power when Congress won’t cooperate. And Bill Press talks about the legacy of JFK with political scientist Larry Sabato. Robert  Paarlberg Professor Robert  Paarlberg is an expert on American agriculture and food production. He says there is no evidence of risk from genetically modified organisms, BUT what’s most likely to make you sick is how you prepare food in your own kitchen! http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/experts/934/robert_paarlberg.html Richard Moe Historian and author Richard Moe says FDR ran for a third term only because he couldn’t find another Democrat who would follow his policies and could win the election. He also says President Obama has something to learn from FDR’s second term blues. http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Moe/e/B001KIR590 Larry Sabato Bill Press and his guest, political scientist Larry Sabato about the legacy of JFK. http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/ Jim Hightower Wall Street magicians make reform disappear.

Robert Paarlberg is a professor of political science at Wellesley College and an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. His principal research interests are international agricultural and environmental policy. His latest book, Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa, explains why poor African farmers are denied access to productive technologies, particularly genetically engineered seeds with improved resistance to insects and drought. In his Food for Thought lecture, Rob discuses why, after embracing agricultural science to become well fed, those in wealthy countries are instructing Africans — on the most dubious grounds — not to do the same. Outreach in Biotechnology’s Food for Thought Lecture Series brings together internationally recognized experts to talk about the best (and worst) ways to use biotechnology for food and fuel. For more information, go to http://OregonState.edu/OrB A study guide to this lecture is available at http://oregonstate.edu/orb/food-for-thought Recorded 19 Jan 2010

Robert Paarlberg is the Betty Freyhof Johnson Class of 1944 Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College. Several of Professor Paarlberg's courses in the political science department draw upon his current research and consulting interests, which are in the area of international food, agriculture, and science policy. His most recent book, Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, was published in 2010 by Oxford University Press.

Chris Gondek interviews Robert Paarlberg, the author of Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa.

Chris Gondek interviews Robert Paarlberg, the author of Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa.