SIO13: Food Fight! With Kavin Senapathy

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. I'm your host Thomas Smith and this is episode 13. Oh, lucky number 13. Hey, speaking of superstitions such as those.

0:00:41 Thomas: One thing I'm always trying to do on this show is battle superstition and battle misconception and stuff like that. So for this week's interview, I've got Kavin Senapathy. Kavin is a science advocate who's taken on the likes of Food Babe and others of that ilk, book. And we talk a lot about misconceptions about the food industry, GMOs, organic products, all that kind of stuff, really interesting. Interesting and important topic because these products of science are doubted by people and are feared by a lot of people, and they would be a tremendous help to the world if we would utilize them. So it's, it's a topic I like, but there's plenty more, so let's go to my interview with Kavin Senapathy.

0:01:38 Thomas: Kavin, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to have you. Kavin is the co-executive director of March Against Myths. We're gonna get into that a little bit. She's a public speaker. She is a Forbes contributor. Gotta call column on Forbes, and co-author of The Fear Babe, Shattering Vani Hari's Glasshouse. And also I'm told there's a Science Moms movie coming out, which you are featured in. Is that correct?

0:01:59 Kavin: Yeah, It's an upcoming short documentary made by a pair of filmmakers called Natalie and Brian Newell. They were inspired by a letter which you can find by searching hashtag Moms for GMOs. Moms number four. GMOs, a group, a group of scientist moms, and I wrote this letter last year explaining to celebrity moms why their demonization of GMOs is a problem and how there can be critical thinking and motherhood and mommy blogging, and everything can actually go together. Right.

0:02:53 Thomas: Yeah. That's certainly a trend. The celebrity kind of woo people. I don't know what it is. It's kind of a weird thing that it seems to go together. But let's, so I've talked about, I've actually had Kevin Folta on the show a while back, talked about GMOs a bit. And when I did, I got nothing but people saying, hey, do that again, talk more about it. Because people are so interested in the science of it and the fact that it's, it seems To be something that's so misunderstood. So I'm really excited to have you on to talk about that, among other things. Let's talk about March Against Myths. What is that?

0:03:27 Kavin: So March Against Myths was founded, um, over two years ago now. Um, it started not as a joke, but just as something that my co-founders and I were chatting about on Twitter. If you dig, you can probably, probably find the conversation, Twitter conversation. But March Against Monsanto, some of your listeners might be familiar with it. It's a huge grassroots international movement that was, it was founded to oppose corporate control of the food system, but was, you know, use Monsanto to kind of symbolize everything that these people hate about the food systems. So, GMOs, pesticides, industrial agriculture, what they call industrial agriculture, but has since evolved to become much more than that. They're anti-vaccine, anti-water fluoridation, anti big pharma, mainstream cancer treatments. And they even, um, they even believe in chemtrails. They posted a new landing deniers work on the website. And so in 2015, my co-founder is Dr. Carl Von Mogul, a geneticist and David Sutherland, who also is an animal rights activist, and he's generally a veteran activist. We were joking that we would show up at March Against Monsanto and counter-protest, and we'd call it March Against Momsanto.

0:04:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:55 Kavin: It would be ma'am. But what we ended up doing is founding this organization. And that first year, we had counter-protests across the street from March Against Monsanto in cities all over the United States and also a and got quite a bit of attention for that. And so that's generally in a nutshell what March Against Myths is. We fight against pseudoscience injustice. So it's not actually, our organization isn't out there to educate people on the facts about GMOs or vaccines or anything else. What we're really there for is to highlight the injustices perpetuated by these myth mongers. Right.

0:05:39 Thomas: Interesting. Well, what's an example of that? So you're, so you're not actually trying to educate people on GMOs necessarily, but what are, so then what's the example of the work you are trying to do there?

0:05:48 Kavin: We do partner with Fortified, which is this great educational organization, and all of us on our own do some outreach and education. But March Against Myths, most importantly, points out the humanitarian and environmental and other social problems that arise when people believe and spread misinformation, um, when, when we're talking about GMOs, which I think is, is an arbitrary, rather meaningless term that we could touch on later. But when it comes to GMOs, when there is this anti-GMO sentiment, something as simple as a, uh, a Non-gml Project label, that that butterfly that you see everywhere, might seem innocuous enough. Okay, people want to know what they're buying, every right to know. Maybe, maybe not, I disagree. However, that fuels consumer rejection of a set of technologies, which in turn fuels policy, both governmental and market. And that keeps regulations unscientific and overly stringent such that there are solutions to real, real problems of hunger and drought and other pest problems that can't reach the people who need it.

0:06:18 Thomas: Yeah, absolutely.

0:07:08 Kavin: One important example right now is a banana that's resistant to bacterial wilt. Now, the banana is a staple food in East Africa, especially in Uganda. And a lot of this crop is being wiped out by this disease. Now, there's a disease-resistant banana that was created with genetic engineering, and it's available, and it's ready to go, and is just kind of sitting there in a regulatory limbo. And that's not necessarily ... I mean, it is a science problem, but on a larger level, it's a justice problem. And these are the kind of things we like to call attention to.

0:07:48 Thomas: Yeah, it's troubling that it seems like things like that could do so much good for the world, but when it's being prevented by, I suppose, I don't want to be, not too insulting of a term, but ignorance really is what it is. And I don't mean that in in that insulting of a way, I mean it more literally, like people seem to just be ignorant of the fact that this is a harmless thing that is tested and is good science and could help a lot of people.

0:08:14 Kavin: So much of people's concerns can be boiled down to misinformation that they believe in. And yes, ignorance. And yeah, I don't think that's negative at all. It's just simply what it is.

0:08:24 Thomas: Yeah, and misinformation, it really seems like now is especially a great time to have you on just because there's never been a better time and a more important time to try to battle misinformation as we saw with this recent election. I mean, it's just something that is all pervasive and it makes it so we can't even have a starting point of a conversation if we have such a disagreement on basic facts. But so talk about Monsanto, though. I'm curious because it was so funny all through college. I, you know, heard about Monsanto as this evil cartoon villain corporation. I think they, I don't know, their product was murder and their, I don't know. I heard a lot of scary things about Monsanto. I don't know that marching against the March Against Monsanto necessarily means you're a huge fan or something.

0:09:13 Thomas: But could you talk a little bit about the maybe if there's misconception there or what you think about Monsento?

0:09:19 Kavin: Right. So I'm not. Monsanto itself is, you know, this symbolic of, again, so much of what people fear and dislike about the food system. And so, yeah, that's one big myth about March Against Myths is that we are for Monsanto. We're generally, right, so we're pretty Monsanto neutral. I mean, I do have a few friends that work at Monsanto, and I think the company has some great products, but I don't think that they're flawless or haven't done anything wrong. But there are there are a lot of myths about Monsanto. A big one is that the company sues farmers for for unintentional drift out of their fields. And that actually has never happened. They never sued a farmer for just for unintentionally drift. But overall, I actually wrote a column in my Forbes column that's titled Don't Like Monsanto. Then you should be pro GMO, not anti GMO. And here's why. And, I mean, the argument boils down to this. It's that anti-GMO sentiment, again, like I said, fuels this kind of regulatory quagmire, right, that makes it very arduous and expensive.

0:09:37 Thomas: Well, you have to march against that one as well. So, yeah.

0:10:37 Kavin: And also it takes a long time to bring a genetically engineered crop from research through all the regulatory hoops and to market. And so that kind of makes it so that these larger companies like Monsanto have, you they're able to use these technologies more easily than smaller parties, academia, small companies. Now, there are there examples of smaller companies developing and bringing, quote, GMOs to market, for example, the non-browning Arctic apple that should be hitting grocery stores, I believe, next year sometime. But that's the exception and not the rule. And so I was once jokingly on another podcast referred to as a shill for big agro because I'm not, you know, I just want to see innovation and I want to be able to use the best tools for specific problems. Months. Yeah.

0:11:36 Thomas: Well, You know what? I should ask you. I'm curious now. How did you end up getting into any of this? Because I, do I have a correct that you're not a scientist per se, but is it something that you've just been very active and has been sort of a passion for you?

0:11:50 Kavin: So, um, I I am mistaken for a scientist from time to time, and I and I always tell people

0:11:54 Thomas: You just look like one. Maybe you have a science-y look.

0:11:55 Kavin: Yeah I'm just I'm a science, um, enthusiast. No, I I spent, I spend a lot of my time on a daily basis talking to scientists and farmers and other experts. But the way I got into it is rather unconventional. I've always been, you know, a science buff. I've taken some some coursework in in genomics, which is genomics and which I really enjoy. But I really got into it when I became a mom. So my kids are six and three, started writing for an evidence-based parenting blog called Grounded Parents a couple of years after I became a parent, when I realized that so so much marketing, especially when it comes to food and health and medicine, is targeted at parents.

0:12:45 Kavin: And whether we like it or not, I mean, this is totally sexist, but it's targeted at moms. And I mean naturally as parents, our biggest constant or hope is to make sure that our kids are okay and healthy and thriving. And that's, I mean, that's a great thing to exploit and it is exploited. So that's when I started writing about and exploring these issues. And the GMO thing is, it follows naturally because much, again, I sound like a broken record, but so much of what people think is wrong with our food and with the food system, that people fear or dislike about our food and our food system, GMOs are really a scapegoat for that. And again, that's targeted a lot at parents by marketers. Right.

0:13:33 Thomas: Yeah. What are some examples of fears of GMOs that you've come across and are trying to sort of fight against with with your column and with your public speaking and

0:13:44 Kavin: There's so much. I mean, I could spend a whole podcast just on that. But when it comes to engineering, some of the most common misconceptions and fears is that genetic engineering or genetically engineered food products are untested, unsafe. Unsafe, they cause cancer, they cause autism. And also that what people call monoculture or growing just one crop, these are the fault of genetic engineering or the patenting of plants. You know, it's unnatural and it's wrong to have life as intellectual property. And another huge one is pesticide use. People equate pesticides and health problems with GMOs.

0:14:31 Thomas: You don't think there's any evidence for for that, in particular for

0:14:35 Kavin: Right. So that's a big one. You ask people, and I'm not citing any data right now, but there is data to show that these are people's, This is what people believe, GMOs use a lot of pesticides, non-GMOs use less pesticides, and that organic agriculture doesn't use pesticides. And All of that is just a big fat misconception. And I got to say, a lot of it has been intentionally fueled by the organic industry, non-GMO product makers, and, you know, health food and natural food companies. This

0:14:36 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:15:14 Thomas: What do you think about the whole organic movement? Because I was interested when I had Kevin Folta on, uh, I, it seemed like he wasn't quite like negative on it or anything. He just thought it was sort of, I don't know if I'll get him exactly right, but I was just surprised that he didn't have a more negative reaction to it. I guess I assumed, I thought someone who was pro-GMO would be anti-organic or something as a brand, but maybe I'm wrong there. What's your view on that?

0:15:42 Kavin: Well, um, my my reaction or thoughts about organic itself, they've evolved over time since I've been writing about and speaking about these issues. I think that over, overall I'm probably more negative about organic than than Kevin is, and we've talked about this too, but um, I have nothing against organic farmers, right? A lot of them are doing it because either it makes economic sense for their for their operations, or they they believe in and want to be stewards of the land, and that's all great. My problem is two or three fold with with the organic industry, the main problem is that right so so organic marketers, I don't have a whole lot of, wouldn't say sympathy, I I think they're doing what they think is best to grow their industry.

And it's been growing like wildfire. And I also think that this idea that organic is more sustainable, I mean, that's great in theory. When we get into practice, there's nothing exclusive to organic that can't be used by other farmers that aren't certified organic. So, I mean, we all want, or we all, I shouldn't say we all, but people like me want a sustainable food system. But what does what does sustainable really mean? You want to have the best output with with the fewest inputs and be stewards of our of our environment.

0:16:24 Thomas: Good. Let's get into it.

0:17:19 Kavin: And it's all well and good if you want to tell what there is here, like, or you know, there's this this beautiful field and, you know, organic, and these animals roaming free, and it's very idyllic, and that's great, but the facts that we don't support that organic to achieve that, so I mean, it's kind of messy. I'm not giving you a clear answer.

I think overall, all buying organic is a, you know, a nice way to pat yourself on the back and say, hey, this, you know, I'm I'm buying the healthiest products for my family, and I'm also watching out for the environment, go me.

And I mean, it would be great if we could, if we could just look at food labels and you make easy decisions that would make us more responsible consumers, and it just doesn't work that way, whether it says organic or non-GMO or pesticide free, um, all these things are just, uh, I don't want to call it lazy, but it is a lazy label because it enables an intellectual laziness that we can just walk around and say, look at, look at this product that I just bought, you, it says it's responsible, it says sustainable, it says it's organic, so I'm doing the right thing. And it's just not that simple. I would love for it to be that simple. I would be the first one to jump on that on that bandwagon if it was.

0:18:34 Thomas: Like if the label somehow was actually indicating that it's more sustainable or better for us, when really, so so it sounds like, uh, the problem is that the labels just aren't doing what people think they're doing, is that right?

0:18:47 Kavin: Right. I mean, if if you want to make the best choice for for the environment and your family and your health, um, looking for an organic or a non-GMO or any other label, because I mean, our marketplace just flooded with labels, um, it's not going to do it. I wish it. I would. Why

0:19:04 Thomas: So well, why? So why is that? Can you get into that exactly? Or

0:19:07 Kavin: I mean, there's so many different, uh, reasons why we seek out certain labels, right? We want, um, number one, nutrition, or at least for me, when I when I shop for my family, I do most of the shopping, my husband does most of it, but um, the first thing I try to do is is buy lots of fruits and vegetables, and an organic fruit or vegetable doesn't mean that it didn't use pesticides or that, um, that it didn't harm the soil, or I mean, depending on each crop, the the required, um, input varies for, you know, if you want to be a responsible farmer or a responsible shopper. But then the next thing, if I'm looking at packaged foods and I'm looking at labels, the first thing that I look at, as you know, as an informed consumer, I want to, I want to believe I'm an informed consumer, is sugar content, is there added sugar and how much is there in a serving, how much fiber is there, how much protein is there, vitamins, minerals.

0:20:04 Kavin: If my kids had allergies, which they don't, I would look for allergens. A lot of people believe, they truly believe, that if something is organic or non-GMO, then they're less likely to cause an allergic reaction, they're less likely to cause weight gain, they're, you, they're more nutritious, and all these things just simply aren't true. And then add to that, that buying organic, um, necessarily actually doesn't mean that that we're being better stewards of the environment, we, the bottom line is, it depends, right? Right. So, again, not giving you a clear example, but it depends on if you're buying a carrot, or if you're buying a corn based product, or if your buying fruit, answers vary. So I can't give you a super clear answer on, hey, if you are buying cereal, then what label should you look for to be a responsible consumer? Consumer, it's just simply not that clear, but I would say that I would say that looking for non-GMO or organic doesn't tell you anything about how that item or the ingredients in that item were farmed and how good it is for you. Yes.

0:20:38 Thomas: Right Okay, so there's more variables than we're getting in our labels, it it sounds like. You know, one thing that blew me away that I learned from Kevin, and I don't know, maybe you could talk about it too, but even for someone like me, who I've for a long time, I've considered myself pro GMO, even back when I didn't know much about it, I just, I'm in general, I'm a pretty firm believer in science and I'll go with the science. And what I was blown away by was even some of these myths for me who, again, I'm not on some food babe page looking at these misconceptions all the time, but even for me, some of These myths I had internalized without even realizing it. So for example, I was blown away by the fact that there's the total number of actual approved GMO foods that are even in our food supply, I guess in the US, I'll just talk about the U.S., there's like, he said there was like two or three, like it was like nothing, and it's incredible

0:21:16 Kavin: Yeah yeah it's

0:22:11 Thomas: To me how few there were, because these people give you the impression that it's everywhere, and it says invaded all your food, and you're gonna die, but there's almost nothing.

0:22:20 Kavin: I wish there were more First, but there are, um, right now available on the market, I want to say it's about, um, eight, right? And then Um, In the next couple years, that'll go up to tenish. But when we talk about, um, products that were made with modern, created with modern genetic engineering techniques, you're not walking around, you know, the produce section and seeing GMO, quote, GMO strawberries or carrots.

0:22:20 Thomas: Exactly Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:22:46 Kavin: Or, I mean, there will be potatoes, but the vast majority of your produce, other than papaya and and squash, right now when you go to the store, there's... there's nothing else that's genetically engineered. Some, some sweet corn, I believe, now. So this might come as a surprise to some people, but the reason that I say that GMO, which stands for genetically modified organism, is an arbitrary and meaningless term is, is because everything, virtually everything that we consume has been genetically modified by human beings. And people will stop you and they'll say, well, there's a difference between, quote, traditional breeding and selective breeding and, you know, slicing and messing with genes in a lab.

0:22:46 Thomas: Well,

0:23:32 Kavin: But what most people don't realize is a lot of what we eat has been manipulated genetically by human beings in completely unnatural ways. Just take, for example, let's think of an example like lots.

0:23:48 Thomas: The banana is the best one, I mean, it was an inedible food like wasn't even good for anything until they figured out how to how to make it, you know, better, right?

0:23:53 Kavin: Yeah, right. Well, almost almost everything was for our palates. I mean, we're spoiled, right? So like almost everything was inedible. But when you just take, okay, take the seedless watermelon, for example, it's Not considered a GMO, it can be grown and sold as organic. But the way that it was created to be seedless is that one of the parent watermelons is treated with a chemical to double the number of sets of chromosomes, and it's bred with a normal watermelon, if you want to call it normal. And that creates an offspring with an odd number of sets of chromosomes, which, which prevents it from going through a process of meiosis, which is what, what creates sperms and eggs in human, but what makes seeds and fruits.

Fruits, and again, this is, this is very unnatural, it's made with chemicals by a human being that knows what they're Doing, and it's, it's considered non-GMO. Now why? It's simply because of the, the difference in method, it's completely arbitrary. Um, same thing with varieties of wheat and mint and, um, and grapefruit were created with what we call atomic gardening, it's bombarding plants with radiation in order to induce mutations, hoping that you get, um, get a beneficial trait, kind of like, I think that is rolling the dice as opposed to

0:24:03 Thomas: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

0:25:25 Kavin: Genetic Engineering.

0:25:25 Thomas: Sounds Like Some X-Men stuff happening There.

0:25:27 Kavin: Right. And Then soon, we're, you, gene editing is right on the horizon and it's already happening, and that's, you know, that's going to be even more precise. And I mean, and that's great. And I already see, even though it's not necessarily going to be regulated the same way as your old school GMO genetic engineering, I already see these groups, these anti-GMO groups trying to lump it in and scare people about it before it can even, you know, make its impact. Path?

0:25:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:57 Thomas: You've mentioned the testing, though, talk about that a little bit, because people do that, is another refrain. Well, it's not tested, people just, uh, they radiate these things like in the X-Man lab, and and then they put a super grapefruit out there that is bent on destroying us. But no, what's the reality of the testing that goes on with GMOs?

0:26:15 Kavin: The reality is that when it comes to genetic engineering, it's no more or less inherently risky than any other breeding technique. And, you know, when you say that to the general public, if you say this is X is no more less risky than Y, like that doesn't sound really reassuring. Because we Know that breeding and other methods, non-GMO methods, methods, have in the past, rarely on occasion, harm. There was a story about specific a potato, and I don't run into the details, that was high in a certain toxin and had to be taken off the market. So when it comes to testing, yes, this has been in the food system for decades. So, you know, I mean, we know it's fine. There have been no health effects reported from eating a GMO or a non-GMO other than like if you choked

0:26:22 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Well, okay,

0:27:07 Kavin: On one Or

0:27:07 Thomas: Let me stop you there, because when you put it that way, it sounds like you're saying, yeah, they just put them in the market, and then there's no effect. So I just

0:27:09 Kavin: Yeah Yeah No They Don't just throw them out in the market, so yeah, the Reason I say the reason I say it that way is that I personally am against having to test the product of genetic engineering any more than you would test any other crop because Like I said, it's it's no more or or less inherently risky. I mean, in your everyday jargon, I would say genetic engineering is safe. It's all about how you use the method. But yeah, no, we're not throwing, we're splicing genes in a lab and just throwing it out in the market

0:27:17 Thomas: Want to clarify.

0:27:31 Thomas: Right. Yeah,

0:27:49 Kavin: Here.

0:27:49 Thomas: Just see how it settles.

0:27:50 Kavin: Have a glow-in-the-dark apple. That's not how it works. I mean these, for example, the Arctic apples took years to jump through regulatory hoops and get through the market. And then they have to do the same thing for each variety of this Arctic apple, I forget the latest one, if it's golden delicious, um, that was the latest one, um, to get through, um, the regulatory hoops, but I mean, to me that's a problem, I don't think I mean Other Apples don't have to, you know, you don't test new varieties of apples and get them through regulatory hoops before you, before you put them on the market, they're apples, you put him on the the market, people eat them.

0:27:52 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:28:29 Thomas: And it's not like quote unquote regular food, like just non-GMO food. It's not like that is totally safe. So like you've talked about with it, no being, being no more or less safe. I mean, think regular food can, can harm us all the time. And there can be some sort of recall. There can be, you know, stuff like that on, on a, yeah.

0:28:38 Kavin: Yeah It Really It really depends on who you're talking to, I mean, I Mean, I think, all, I don't think, I know that all the food on the market is perfectly safe, you know, barring an allergy or barring other specific health problems, but when you talk to scientists, and I see this all the time, scientists like just like to talk in nuance, which which can be and is important, but they'll say, you know, this is no more or less inherently risky than any other technique, nothing, you know, nothing is 100% safe, that's it's totally true, nothing is a hundred percent safe, I mean, I feed my kids every morning and hope that, you know, I have my, I know how to do the high lift maneuver if I have to, and then I put them in the car, buckle them into their their their car seats or their seatbelt and drive to school, and that's far more dangerous than whatever GMO breakfast I fed them.

0:28:51 Thomas: Right.

0:29:40 Kavin: But again, when we're talking about risk, people, aren't really accustomed to evaluating what's actually the most dangerous in their household or in the course of the day.

0:29:52 Thomas: Yeah, you, I'm wondering, who are some of the biggest perpetrators of this pseudoscience? Looks like you've got maybe a little bit of a target on the Food Babe. Now, I don't know much about Food Babe or anyone else like that. It's not something I've spent a whole lot of time familiarizing myself with. So for someone like me, who, are some of these perpetrators that you're trying to, I guess, I don't know if you're fighting them or anything, that's too strong a word, but trying to mitigate the damage that they're doing, maybe, yeah.

0:30:22 Kavin: Sure, so Food Babe is not a target for me, at least at this point, Although you might say that you wrote an entire book in response to her misinformation. But the book, The Fear Babe, Shattering Vani Hari's Glass House, it's not actually about the food babe herself. It's more, it uses her as a framework. It uses her als a framework to dissect some of the biggest food and health myths of our time. But also examine why they proliferate despite all of the evidence against these myths. And Food Babe served as a great framework for that. But currently, I think some of the biggest perpetrators of food and health-based misinformation are, number one, food marketers themselves. I mean, one of the worst examples of this to me recently is orange juice marketers. If you go look at just your section in your grocery store where you see orange juice, there are a number of non-GMO project, excuse me, or just more generic non-gmo labels on orange juice.

0:30:33 Thomas: Okay.

0:30:44 Thomas: That's

0:31:33 Kavin: Which is a problem, number one, because there aren't any genetically engineered oranges on the market, but number Two. Number Two.

0:31:42 Thomas: Right. That's Right up There with The with the like water and stuff, like I mean there's right Up their There'll be so Many products You see gluten- Free, yeah, yeah.

0:31:44 Kavin: Right Like Yeah There's Not GMO Salt but Um, but the bigger problem with the orange juice is that farmers, especially or citrus farmers in Florida, Florida, but actually all over the country, being devastated by citrus green. It's a disease that affects the trees and eventually kills them.

And there's, again, like the banana that I mentioned, there's a genetically engineered solution that's getting closer and closer getting into the hands of the farmers that need it, but it's taken so long because of this regulatory quagmire that, I mean, it's a huge problem, and at the same time you have orange juice marketers that are putting non-GMO labels on the very products that are going to benefit from genetic engineering in the future.

I mean, if if it's not too late, and from from from talking to people about this, it's, it seems as if the problem is that marketers are, uh, Kind of disconnected from from farmers and consumers, and they'll just kind of do what's easiest to to move a product off the shelf, but, um, I mean, your question was, what, what are some of the biggest perpetrators, so marketers is one, and that was my really long answer of an example

0:33:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:33:00 Kavin: Of why, of why marketers are a problem, but then you also have, um, the Joseph Mercola's and the Mark Hyman's and and Deepak Chopra's, um, Natural News, these, these media outlets, and again, you were talking about, um, about the election, um, mean there's... there's been fake news and alternative facts proliferating for years, and now it's, you know, now it is making headlines because of new president, but yeah, I mean, they're, there's plenty of quote news outlets and and, perpetrators of this. Oh.

0:33:33 Thomas: Who's the avocado guy I always see David. Yeah. David Avocado Wolf or something.

0:33:36 Kavin: Yeah. Yeah. David, David Avocado Wolf. Um, he is best known as the spokesperson for the magic bullet or the neutral bullet first, and then the magic bullet, which is America's bestselling blender. So you might remember him from those commercials with the curly mop of hair, but, um. He also is, um one of the biggest sellers of, nutrition nutrition supplements and health supplements. And even he even has a longevity zapper in his longevity store, the David Wolf store. He's got this huge social media following on which he'll spread, you know, fun memes and great articles. And then every now and then throw in a meme that says that the cancer industry is a scam.

0:33:50 Thomas: Oh, cancer

0:34:21 Kavin: So Yeah, I mean, he'll use words like cancer industry is a scam, so I mean, yeah, again, I could do a whole episode just talking about these perpetrators of misinformation, right?

0:34:22 Thomas: Industry. Yeah.

0:34:35 Thomas: Yeah, it's well, it's interesting. It occurs to me with what you said earlier about scientists having to be kind of precise in their languages. It puts scientists at a real disadvantage because people like this, this David Wolf guy and others, there's nothing stopping them from just being really absolutist about everything in their language, and it must be easy for people to latch on to, like, you know, that GMOs are harmful, you know, the natural is good, all this stuff. They, they're, they're allowed to kind of do whatever, but scientists police themselves to a higher standard. Think the message is like, uh, GMOs or no more or less safe than other foods. It doesn't have as good a ring to it. I can't really put it on a bumper sticker. Yeah.

0:35:18 Kavin: Right, yeah, uh, it's, it's easy for people to latch on to, like you said, because people want, um, an easy quick, or an easy solution to what they're afraid of and I, I think that's, that's what it comes down to. One of the biggest boogeymen right now in the parenting, parenting world is autism, right? So if you think, or if you're convinced that avoiding GMOs and vaccines, and yes, there is a whole mom's group that they spend the majority of their time telling people that GMOs will cause autism and going organic will cure it. But yeah, so if you, you as a parent believe or are convinced, uh, after enough repetition in, in your mom groups or on social media or in your mum forums that avoiding certain things will keep your kids from getting sick or getting, you know, being born with autism or whatever, then of course you're going to avoid it. It's it's easier than understanding that these are complex problems with complex, um, um, solutions, or, or, you know, complex ways of dealing with them.

0:35:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:36:27 Thomas: It's interesting that there's such an appeal to people like the word natural. I mean, there's so many natural things that are really bad. Actually, most of nature is pretty terrible, really. It's only recently that we've gotten rid of all the terrible things about nature. It is so funny. Why do you think that is? It is such an easy thing that people want to latch on to, and it just feels good, you know, on natural, that's good.

0:36:50 Kavin: I mean, I, I think it's always been, nature almost like a deity. We've gone from believing in, in gods, and some people still do, to, uh, believing in something like nature. I've actually compared, um, compared this science denialism to a form of fundamentalism, um, rather than, rather than capital G god, you know, capital N nature. And that, um, and there are things that are threats to nature or that violate nature, and it's, it's almost visceral, you know? And yeah, it's complicated. Again, it goes a lot. It starts really early. It starts before people are born, you know? If a mother is pregnant, what is, is she eating all natural? Is she giving birth naturally, which, what does that even mean? And so it's, it's ingrained, I mean

0:37:05 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:37:37 Thomas: I think that means like standing in your living room and doing it, actually, if it's really going like natural, you know, or just in a forest somewhere, you know, is that another myth, another bit child birthing me, uh-huh,

0:37:39 Kavin: Yeah Yeah. But definitely not in the bathtub, because that is not what people did a long time ago. Oh, yeah you know that that giving giving birth in the water is the natural way to soothe pain, um,

0:38:01 Thomas: I would just be worried about, you know, like the baby drowning, but I don't know, I'm not into that. I don't know all these these myths. I don't know much about, uh, childbirth.

0:38:07 Kavin: There's there's so much. I mean, there's, but just, just look up natural birth and you'll you know

0:38:08 Thomas: Yeah. Well, what are some of your favorites as a parent now, as you've said, I mean, it sounds like you, you know, six and three, I think you said your kids were, but, uh, what are som of your favorite myths you've come across in, in being a mother?

0:38:20 Kavin: Oh, One of the most amusing ones, but maybe it's not, it's actually tragic because people believe this, but this, this parents group, it's called Moms Across America, and they're an anti-GMO group, very popular. Their founder's been on shows like Dr. Oz and have gotten quite a bit of press, but believe that eating GMOs causes infertility. And there was actually a tweet that the founder sent out a couple years ago, and it was, it was basically like the thanks Obama version of versus GMO food. She said that the teen birth rate has gone down because there, so many people who were eating GMOs. And it's, again, fear about the specific pesticide. And that same pesticide, this group says, causes all kinds of problems in a growing fetus because a growing foetus looks like a shrimp, and and is the size of a shrimp. And therefore, or when shrimp are exposed to this pesticid or something, I'm paraphrasing here, it causes the deleterious health effects. And because a fetus looks like a shrimp and is a size of shrimp,

0:39:04 Thomas: Oh, yeah, it's

0:39:35 Kavin: It also does the same thing to the fetus. And there's this hashtag online, it's hashtag womb shrimp, and it's funny and it sad, yeah.

0:39:35 Thomas: Gonna go after it, it's got a shrimp seeking, uh, pesticide, oh, wow, yeah, there's a ton of, of it, what, uh, what do you think the average person can do about this kind of stuff? What can, what can the average consumer try to do to be, uh, I, I suppose, a pro-science person in their consuming and against woo and all that kind of thing?

0:39:51 Kavin: There's If the person wants to be an activist, there's a lot they can do. I wouldn't say activist, but just an advocate for, you know, for evidence-based, uh, consumerism. Um, the first thing to do is not shop the meaningless labels. You know, look, look for what matters, look, make sure you're buying lots of fruits and vegetables, and other than that, you're looking at the nutrition facts and avoiding allergens, again, if you can. But I think social media is, is especially powerful, um, now. So if you see something and it's clearly, blatantly wrong, just call it out, tag, tag a, tag the company in a tweet or in a Facebook post. I mean, I, I saw one thing that was very powerful to me, and I, I covered it in my forms, Forbes column, was, was the tomato product company Hunt's had posted that no matter how far afield you work, you won't find a single genetically modified tomato among our vines. And that was an announcement that they made in December.

0:40:18 Thomas: Yeah.

0:41:04 Kavin: And I was amazed at the backlash that they got on social media from people just commenting on that post and posting on their Facebook page and on Twitter, or pointing out that, number one, there are no GMO tomatoes on the market, and that there's nothing wrong with GMOs. And they haven't responded yet, but they also haven't really doubled down either. So, I mean, that gave me hope. I've also heard through the grapevine that there are big companies, the GMO grapevine. But there are companies that have seen people speaking out on social media and have chosen because of that not to change formulations to something that consumers might like better, but that isn't actually better for health or for anything else. So I think that companies are listening. And I think that impact of people, their voices heard on social media, will only grow. Well,

0:41:30 Thomas: The GMO grapevine. Yeah, yeah, I'm, I am just amazed, amazed, again, to go back to what I said earlier, that there isn't a GMO tomato on the market. I mean, is that, I never would have believed that, like, a year ago, before I interviewed Kevin Fulta, I would have thought, well, naturally, haven't they crossed it with a fish or something like that? I mean, everybody just thinks that people have done that. Scientists have done it.

0:42:23 Kavin: That's Another big one. Another big myth is this idea that, you know, you cross a squash with a fish and you make a squash fish. And that's actually one of the first things I remember hearing from a close relative when I became a mom. Like, have you heard about these GMOs? And I'd kind of heard of it, but I didn't know. And this person said to me, you don't like GMOs.

It's like you cross a squash with you put a fish gene into a squash and that makes it better, but then if you're allergic to fish and you don't know that you're alerted to fish needing a GMO, then that could be awful, but There are not any uh plant-based products out there on the market engineered to have or express any any genes from taken from an animal and put into a plant. Like that simply doesn't happen. Um, as for the tomato, there was once on the market years and years ago um genetically engineered tomato called the Flavr Savr tomato, but it didn't taste very good, although it had a long shelf life, which is why why it's no longer on the market.

0:43:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:26 Thomas: Interesting. I didn't know that. Is there anything else before we we close here that you want to make sure you had said.

0:43:33 Kavin: Yeah, I'll throw out a plug for Science Moms. Just check them out on their Facebook page, Science Moms. It's a short documentary coming out within the next few months, but there is a teaser trailer online that I do believe your listeners will enjoy.

0:43:50 Thomas: Right. Well, Kavin Senapathy, thank you so much for joining me. And again, we'll point people to your Forbes column. I can put that link in the show notes, certainly. Anything else you want point people toward before we call it a day here?

0:44:05 Kavin: Nope, if you want to chat about any of this, feel free to hit me up on Twitter at KSenapathy or on my Facebook page. And that's just under my name. And it's got a little blue checkmark so that you know you're not on my really boring personal Facebook page, sure.

0:44:22 Thomas: Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time and talking about the work you're doing. And thanks for doing that work. I really appreciate it.

0:44:30 Kavin: Thanks for having me.

0:44:53 Thomas: All right, that's it for today show. Thank you so much for joining me and thanks to Kavin. Lots of good info there on how to fight these things and how to be smarter about science and consuming our food. I want to ask that if you've got a burning opinion or question or anything about last week, this week, leave a voicemail 916-750-4746. I've gotten a couple, but I could use a few more for Thursday's show. I always love those. It's been a really fun way to have you guys participate. And of course, follow me on Twitter at SeriousPod. Facebook.com/SeriousPod. Oh, I meant to say, this is kind of funny. The Facebook name finally got changed about a week ago, maybe a little more.

0:45:41 Thomas: What happened was the only way to get through their robot overlords because Facebook would not let me change the the name. It just would not. But I had to change one word at a time. So you may have noticed it became serious speaking. And then the following week, I was able to change it to serious inquiries only. And that got through their genius robots. So whatever. Long story short, it's finally changed. But that's facebook.com/seriouspod. And if you'd like to be friends with me on Facebook, that's my own profile is at facebook.com/Thomas podcast if you want to check that out. So just a few random plugs. And of course, patreon.com/seriouspod is where you can go to support the show and get access to bonus content from time to time. Thanks to everyone for listening, and I will see you on Thursday.