0:00

From UFOs to psychic powers

0:02

and government conspiracies. History

0:04

is riddled with unexplained events. You

0:07

can turn back now or learn

0:09

the stuff they don't want you to know. A

0:12

production of I Heart Brading. Hello,

0:24

welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Our

0:27

patriot Noel is Odd Adventures.

0:29

They called me Ben that We were joined as

0:31

always with our super producer Paul

0:34

Mission Control decads. Most importantly,

0:36

you are you, You are here, and

0:38

that makes this stuff they

0:41

don't want you to know. Uh,

0:43

this is this is a food episode,

0:45

which means usually, you know, in the course

0:48

of recording this, Uh, Matt, you

0:50

and I are going to become

0:52

increasingly famished. Right.

0:55

Yes, As

0:57

you know, generally we don't eat a lot of things

1:00

prior to recording for some reason. I don't know why

1:02

why we do that to ourselves, mostly because we're

1:04

just working to get

1:06

all the information make sure we're ready to roll.

1:09

But uh yeah, this one in particular could

1:12

make you hungry. It's not gonna make you feel

1:14

squeamish like maybe some of our other food

1:16

episodes. Right right,

1:19

and shout out. Shout out to the listener

1:21

on Twitter. I think I sent this to you guys, shout

1:24

out to the listener on Twitter who joined

1:26

in our our debate about calamari

1:29

as, pig holes, pig intestines.

1:32

We should say that conversation continues.

1:34

Uh, this is not like that, not

1:37

today's episode. To your point, Matt, this

1:39

is the first in a recurring series

1:41

because recently long time

1:43

listeners who recall that we did, Uh,

1:46

we did a second part on

1:49

the weird conspiracies around

1:51

fast food or the food industry in general,

1:54

and we got a lot of a lot of our fellow listeners

1:56

wrote to us with their own

1:58

takes on this and several road

2:00

to us asking about one big

2:03

aspect of the food industry we did not

2:05

explore, which is the livestock

2:08

industry. Yeah,

2:10

the livestock industry is is

2:14

big and it's powerful when you think about

2:16

all of the components, all the companies,

2:19

all the interests that exist there,

2:21

which means, I mean like a lot

2:23

of big things. It had secrets

2:26

and how it got that big

2:28

and what it has to do to continue on

2:30

being big. So

2:32

for the purposes of this episode, let's begin with

2:35

how did the meat industry become

2:37

so big? And with a lot of things, when

2:39

they become big, you can lower

2:42

prices because you're you know, doing all kinds

2:44

of things to to make

2:46

the process of producing whatever you're producing

2:49

cheaper. So let's start this episode

2:52

with why is meat so

2:54

cheap at least here in the United

2:56

States? Here are the facts.

2:59

Well, hey, go on, you might be saying,

3:01

hey, hang on, hang on, bagger

3:04

badgers, gentlemen, meat is not

3:06

cheap, right,

3:10

right, many people would before

3:12

diving into some of this stuff. So first,

3:14

there are a couple of factors at play here. Everyone

3:17

who has survived the pandemic so

3:19

far knows that temporary

3:21

COVID related closures

3:23

of factories did drive prices

3:26

up, and this was compounded by panic

3:29

buying, right, which is one

3:31

thing when you are preparing for

3:34

chaotic or unstable situations,

3:36

you never want to be panic buying. You want

3:38

to already have your stuff, you

3:40

know, and you're deep freezer and your pantry,

3:42

etcetera. But people were scared,

3:45

and so there was a smaller

3:47

supply than normal for a little while, and

3:50

there was a larger demand, so it drove some prices

3:52

up. But really, meet

3:55

in the US, if you are

3:57

just the average you know,

4:00

uh, John Jayne or Jehosaphat

4:02

walking through your grocery store meat in

4:04

the US is pretty cheap,

4:07

especially when compared to many other

4:09

countries. So to get a sense of how meat

4:12

prices in the US relate to

4:15

the rest of the world, we have to take a global

4:17

perspective, right, we have to look at the

4:19

the world's meat industry first. So

4:22

if we're looking at the price of meat

4:25

across the world, there are a lot of different factors

4:27

that go into a specific countries

4:29

price of meat. Um, So I think

4:31

it's it's better for us to look at how affordable

4:34

is meat in any given country

4:36

across the world. So

4:39

let's consider an absolute price,

4:41

the price that you would see wherever

4:43

you procure your meat at a you

4:46

know, a farmer's market or store or something. Uh,

4:48

that sticker price can be lower

4:50

in one country, and it

4:53

doesn't matter that it's lower overall,

4:56

because it may not be affordable

4:59

compared to the income that an average person

5:01

is able to make. When you think

5:03

about the amount of the percentage of income they'll

5:05

be able to spend on food or meat.

5:09

For example, there's this group called cater Wing

5:12

and there's a great article on

5:14

eater where you can see this information

5:17

written out in graphs. They

5:20

calculated how many hours a local

5:23

resident of any given country would have to work at

5:25

minimum wage to afford two

5:27

pounds of any given meat type,

5:29

so chicken, pork, whatever. And

5:34

it's really it's really interesting to think about

5:36

it in that way. I think it's

5:38

probably one of the closest things to a

5:41

standard metric to really compare

5:44

that, you know, the prices of food and meat in

5:46

particular across the world. So let's

5:49

look at Indonesia. Uh, their

5:52

meat is super cheap, super

5:54

super cheap. It's about thirty eight percent cheaper

5:56

than the global average.

5:59

Yeah, you're right. These stats are from seventeen.

6:02

Uh, we've also got some stuff from twenty eighteen

6:04

that will be mentioning in the show a lot

6:06

of times. You know this. It takes a while

6:09

to get all of these aggregated numbers

6:11

in, to crunch them all down, and then to present something

6:13

like like Eater did in their article,

6:16

or like cater Wing did when they calculated

6:18

this stuff. So, according

6:21

to twenty seventeen prices, meat in

6:23

Indonesia is among the least affordable

6:25

in the world, even though it's thirty

6:27

eight percent cheaper than the global average. And

6:30

according to this index that Kater wing created

6:32

Indonesians have to work more than twenty

6:35

three hours twenty three

6:37

hours to afford two pounds of beef.

6:40

That seems like a lot. That's

6:42

almost three times as much as people who

6:45

live in Hong Kong have to pay

6:47

or have to work in order to buy meat, and

6:49

nine times as much as an American

6:51

would have to work to afford two pounds of meat.

6:54

Yeah. Yeah, so it's I think

6:56

that's a good way to frame that

6:58

conversation because an ultimate

7:01

price is a tricky

7:03

thing. It's not the same thing as something

7:05

being affordable. What I like about the

7:07

work. What I like about the work

7:10

here is that you can slice it not

7:12

upon a number of different ways,

7:14

because of course chicken is

7:17

going to be cheaper than beef right

7:19

in most countries, you

7:21

can you can slice it this way. One thing

7:23

I want to walk back on here

7:26

is that this

7:28

this thing, which is called the cater Wings

7:30

meat Index, uh,

7:32

doesn't include every country. It's the top

7:35

meat producing countries that have to work

7:37

at minimum wage. And you can see some I

7:39

think the highest and this

7:42

affordability index would be India,

7:44

where people have to work twenty seven point

7:46

three six hours for two pounds

7:48

of meat. Overall. And the thing about these

7:51

kind of aggregations

7:53

is that there are a lot of There

7:55

are a lot of tricky things here, So

7:57

your individual mileage may vary,

8:00

or a resident of one of these countries.

8:02

But I really wanted to

8:05

to include that because Americans eat

8:07

a lot of meat, or US residents, I should

8:09

say, eat a lot of meat, because it's

8:11

easier for us to do so if you

8:13

look at numbers like this. So he's

8:15

talking about global overall. Look, the

8:18

best way to do that is to look at production

8:21

and consumption statistics. So

8:24

and I promise we're going somewhere with this. So here's

8:26

the bottom line, conspiracy realists.

8:29

Despite small variations year

8:31

over year, meat consumption

8:33

in general is increasing because

8:35

the world is growing more wealthy,

8:39

global demand for meat is

8:41

growing. Over the past fifty years,

8:43

meat production has more than tripled,

8:45

and now the world produces more

8:48

than like three

8:50

hundred and forty million tons more than

8:52

that easily every single year.

8:55

There's a guy named David Sprinkle is research

8:57

director Packaged Facts, and he

9:00

has a quote about this that we quite enjoyed. It's

9:02

the following. In many parts

9:04

of the world, meat is among the least

9:06

affordable food options. It's generally

9:08

pricier than locally available grains,

9:11

beans, vegetables, and fruit. However,

9:14

as averaging comes rise, war people

9:17

eat meat first as an occasional treat,

9:19

and then finally it's something they consume multiple

9:21

times a week, if not daily.

9:23

And if you have traveled, if

9:26

you're not from the US, or if you've traveled

9:28

outside of the US, depending on where you went, you'll

9:31

notice that meat functions as a status

9:33

symbol in some parts of the world. I

9:35

mean, I've been in places where, uh,

9:39

without getting without getting too

9:42

deep into it, I was a vegetarian

9:44

for a while, and I was in

9:46

situations where, uh,

9:48

it would be offensive to refuse

9:51

food that someone offered me that beyond

9:54

just being a bad guest, it would be offensive

9:56

because it contained meat. So it's

9:58

very it was like a somewhat

10:01

prestigious thing, right, So I

10:03

totally broke it. I didn't want to be that person

10:05

saying, I know life is very

10:08

challenging here, but I I'm

10:11

too good for what you cook. You

10:13

know, there's a big cultural thing about

10:15

consumption of meat here, and it plays

10:18

into it because now it's kind of like there's

10:21

something that there's something

10:23

about success to it has the air of

10:25

success. Uh. And this

10:28

this seems set to continue if

10:30

we look at projected trends. The

10:32

Packaged Facts Group has something called

10:34

the Global Meat and Poultry Trends

10:36

and they they expect despite

10:40

um, despite any disasters,

10:42

man made or biological, meat

10:46

consumption is going to increase at least

10:48

one point four percent through

10:52

and again a large part of this is due

10:54

to the economic rise of some

10:57

of the countries that you would you would hear called

11:00

brick once upon a time, you know, you

11:02

know what I'm talking about there, right, Yeah,

11:04

I mean that it's astonishing to think

11:06

that meat consumption would increase,

11:08

you know, one point four percent year of a year for

11:11

that long, given the

11:13

challenges that the the meat

11:16

you know, the overall meat industry faces, especially

11:18

countries like the US that

11:20

that does produce a ton of meat

11:23

and then exports a lot of meat

11:25

as well. Um, and just thinking about

11:27

safety factors, you know, we've we've

11:29

heard stories of so many

11:32

poultry and other meat factories

11:34

having to close or those factories

11:36

continuing to function even when there was an

11:38

outbreak of coronavirus within the factory

11:41

on the factory floor and then was kept

11:43

quiet, which is something we will likely

11:45

be talking about in the future. Um,

11:48

it's just it's staunching to think something

11:50

like that. Wouldn't wouldn't

11:53

you know, put a big hole in

11:55

that growth or you know, a damper

11:57

on that growth. But as

12:00

as we talked about before, we eat as

12:03

humans so much dang meat.

12:05

Anyway, Sorry to get back to the brick countries. That's

12:07

Brazil, Russia, India, China,

12:11

those countries. We we've talked about them several

12:13

times in the context of brick

12:15

and why they're called that. So we

12:17

set we've set up a very

12:19

high level look at the

12:22

global situation. But if you are

12:24

asking where's the beef, you have

12:26

to ask about Uncle Sam.

12:28

If we zoom in in the Google Earth of your

12:30

mind to the US meat

12:33

industry and we do the same thing look

12:35

at production

12:37

and consumption stats, then we quickly

12:39

see cattle production is the most important

12:42

agricultural industry in the United

12:45

States, accounting for sixties

12:47

six point two billion in

12:50

just cash receipts in and

12:52

overall this industry. Cattle

12:55

production specifically represents about

12:57

eighteen per cent of the three seventy

13:00

four billion in total cash receipts

13:03

that were forecasts for all agricultural

13:05

commodities in the

13:08

big cow is real and big

13:10

cow is big. I guess if we really

13:12

want to simplify it. And in addition

13:15

to they're kind of in like a men's

13:18

hair club. I'm not just the president,

13:20

I'm a member kind of situation because

13:22

in addition to having the world's largest

13:25

what they call fed cattle industry,

13:28

the US is also the largest consumer

13:30

of beef. This might not be true

13:33

forever as these other countries are rising

13:36

in their economic status and

13:38

so again, you know, the

13:40

uh, the thing that I really

13:42

want to hit on is that difference you

13:44

mentioned map between an ultimate sticker

13:46

price and affordability. It's

13:49

not just how big the

13:51

slices out of your budget, it's how big

13:53

the overall pie, oh mince

13:55

meat pie is. So how

13:58

did we get here? Well, food

14:01

used to be much

14:03

more expensive. Actually, our spending

14:06

on food in the US, as you know, a

14:08

slice of our meat Lover's pizza has

14:10

actually declined dramatically

14:13

is since nineteen sixty, but even

14:15

since before then. You can see

14:18

charts from the Department of Agriculture

14:20

that show like if you went from

14:23

nineteen sixty to two thousand and seven,

14:25

you would see it dropped by

14:27

almost half, from seventeen point

14:29

five percent of a household income to

14:32

nine point six percent. We're purchasing

14:34

more food for less money, and

14:36

we're using less of our income to

14:38

do it. Thanks fast food,

14:41

Yeah, because a lot of that beef ends

14:44

up in a burger from wherever whatever

14:46

fast food joined he go to. And

14:49

think about the increase in portion size in

14:51

places, Think about the increase in dining

14:53

out in places. Think about

14:58

we're die in

15:00

now, yeah, pre pandemic. So it's

15:03

odd, isn't it that with the price

15:05

of so many things rising over

15:07

time, the cost of some food stuffs

15:10

meet in particular, seems it's actually

15:13

declined in the US over

15:15

time. Why is this happening? Is

15:17

this a thing that is going to continue

15:21

in the future? Uh? And

15:23

what does it mean? You know what I mean? What

15:25

what are we actually what price are we

15:27

actually paying for this? We'll

15:29

tell you after a word from our sponsor.

15:38

Here's where it gets crazy. Well,

15:41

none of this happened by accident. It

15:43

doesn't necessarily mean it was planned

15:46

to go down exactly this way, but

15:48

it wasn't an accident. It takes

15:50

a lot of work to maintain

15:53

all of the things that we've been talking about

15:55

specifically production and you

15:57

know, keeping consumption at levels is

16:00

actually that's a marketing

16:02

thing. We can we can talk about that later. Uh.

16:05

There are a ton of

16:07

often ignored side effects,

16:09

in consequences, real consequences

16:12

when it comes to eating this much

16:14

meat and producing especially

16:16

producing this much meat.

16:19

And we actually may be paying more for meat,

16:21

just not in you know, the sticker price.

16:24

We the the end user consumer

16:27

of meat isn't the one necessarily

16:30

paying for it with the dollars out of their wallet.

16:33

We might be paying for it with

16:35

our lives, well for

16:38

future. Here's the thing.

16:40

You know, We've got a lot of listeners in the

16:42

crowd who are maybe

16:45

maybe themselves vegetarians. Maybe

16:47

you're listening along and you're saying, well, I don't participate

16:49

in this because I'm vegan or vegetarian. If

16:52

you pay taxes, you are supporting this industry.

16:55

And will you know, it will

16:58

show you how momentarily we've

17:00

also got We've also got a ton of people

17:02

listening today. A lot of us are listening maybe

17:05

in a meat packing plant, maybe

17:07

making food in the kitchen, you

17:09

know, and breaking out some ribs

17:11

you were excited about, or something like I'm

17:13

I'm probably I'm gonna try to cook some ribs. I've always

17:16

I've always got a weird food project going on.

17:18

But it's this is

17:20

at every level of American society.

17:23

And maybe it's when

17:25

we're when we're exploring how this came

17:27

about and what it means. Uh,

17:29

maybe it's best to propose a couple

17:31

of factors and then see which

17:34

one is the primary driver or

17:36

if they all work together. First, geography,

17:40

it's crazy, you know, you

17:42

don't know what you've got till it's gone. As Jodie

17:44

Mitchell said, I think that was Joni

17:46

Mitchell, right. Yeah, as Jodie Mitchell

17:49

said, Big Yellow Taxi good song holds

17:51

up. The US has this tremendous

17:53

abundance of natural resources.

17:56

We have a lot of space. There's there's

17:59

a lot going on between the East

18:01

and West coast and you may not hear

18:03

about it, but but it's a very productive

18:06

part of the world. It's easy to grow food

18:08

pretty cheaply here amber waves

18:10

of grain and so on. But

18:12

that alone can't be the entire

18:15

answer, because there are other parts of the world that

18:17

are you know, that are so called bread baskets,

18:20

or that are hubs

18:23

of the cattle industry. So

18:25

what makes the US a little bit different?

18:28

I would say we have to consider four

18:31

basic things. Subsidies, lobbying,

18:35

corruption, and security. That

18:39

makes a lot of sense because

18:42

most of the larger companies,

18:44

even some small companies that are involved in

18:46

any way in the meat business, including

18:49

these the big old meat packers like I

18:51

guess the Tysons of the world, they're

18:54

represented by one or more of

18:56

these powerful meat trades. You

18:59

you've probably heard of this, we've

19:01

we've spoken about it a little bit before. But

19:03

you know, you can think of these as lobbying

19:06

organizations essentially,

19:08

groups that are and they

19:10

exist entirely to prop

19:13

up one or more meat

19:15

product like big pork. Essentially.

19:18

Uh, this kind of thing really

19:20

exists. There's one called the American

19:23

Meat Institute, or

19:25

the National Meat Association, the National

19:28

Cattleman's Beef Association. These

19:30

are powerful groups and um,

19:33

a lot of them have very strong voices

19:36

in you know, decision making

19:39

heads of Washington because a

19:41

lot of these groups essentially

19:43

represent workers who are voters,

19:46

and that's that's why

19:48

it's there, that's why it's so powerful.

19:50

Well, yeah, what do you do you want to be that

19:53

Congress person who has to go back

19:55

to your constituents and say,

19:57

hey, I

20:00

approved some new regulations

20:02

that may be better for consumers, but they

20:04

are going to be much more expensive for

20:07

the companies that employ you. And

20:09

that kind of stuff rolls downhill. Yeah,

20:12

it's it's a it's a convoluted process making

20:14

sure meat is is affordable enough

20:16

to be consumed at levels that

20:18

are high enough so that you have to

20:20

continue producing. And so everybody has

20:23

jobs and you know, all like it's

20:25

so it's so complicated when you get

20:27

into it. But these

20:29

these groups, these lobbying groups, are

20:32

making sure everything is functioning

20:35

at least to the best that they can make it.

20:37

Right. Yeah, so think about

20:40

salmonella scares, right, think

20:42

about bullas scares, things

20:45

like that. This is where

20:47

some of these groups come into

20:49

play. And they've been accused

20:51

in the past of pressuring members

20:54

of Congress too stifle

20:57

or hold back regulatory

21:00

removes. So they push against expensive

21:02

safety standards and regulations, but

21:04

they also work continually to

21:07

keep meat appearing very

21:09

inexpensive at your local

21:12

store. There's a continued drive

21:14

for efficiency. It's kind of weird,

21:16

right that chicken sells for less than

21:18

two dollars a pound that's cheaper

21:20

than peanuts in a

21:22

lot of parts of the world. So there's

21:25

another there's another thing here, another

21:28

entity that often gets painted as the villain,

21:30

and that is government action, the

21:33

factory farm lobby. You'll

21:35

hear it called the

21:37

The argument is they secure these huge

21:40

handouts, and these handouts

21:42

suppress the true cost of

21:44

meat. So when we

21:46

see handouts, we're not just

21:48

talking about direct farm subsidies,

21:51

which are real thing, right and they're an important

21:53

thing economically. We're also taking about

21:55

some indirect stuff, some uh, some

21:58

things you might not be as aware

22:00

of if you're outside of the industry, like has

22:03

has someone made too much chicken or

22:05

too much mutton or beef or what have you.

22:08

Well, there may be a buy back program

22:10

for excess animal products.

22:12

There may be programs

22:14

that subsidize the promotion of me,

22:17

and there may be loans that are subsidized

22:19

over time on much more favorable

22:21

terms than any loan you or

22:23

I could ever get. Yeah, it's

22:26

not gonna happen. And in the end, the

22:28

US spends around

22:30

thirty eight billion dollars every

22:33

year to subsidize the food that

22:35

is produced here. And that's

22:38

that's all of it. So everything from

22:41

peanuts two pigs, so

22:43

thirty eight billion dollars

22:46

and almost all of it goes to meet,

22:48

or the vast majority of it goes to MEET. Think

22:50

about this, Zero point zero four percent

22:53

of that thirty eight billion goes to subsidized

22:55

fruits and vegetables. That's seventeen

22:58

million out of thirty eight billion

23:01

that goes to fruits and vegetables,

23:04

right, That's why. That's why you'll hear

23:06

people sometimes argue that

23:08

eating meatless diet is more

23:10

expensive than eating an omnivorous

23:13

diet. That's not that's not entirely

23:15

true. It really depends on what what you

23:17

could, what you do with it. I have I

23:20

have one friend. It was a lifelong

23:22

vegetarian associate and

23:25

uh refers to himself as a French

23:27

five vegetarian because he is a very

23:29

unhealthy person. Uh,

23:32

and he will you know, it's for him,

23:34

it's rice, beans and fries. Oh

23:37

that's that's that's awesome. But

23:39

also just think about this, when we're talking about that seventeen

23:41

million for subsidizing fruits and vegetables, think

23:44

about the last time you visited, uh,

23:46

you know, any grocery store or something.

23:48

A lot of the produce that you're going to find

23:51

those fruits and vegetables come from other

23:53

countries Chile, from

23:55

from just anywhere, across a lot

23:57

of yeah, a lot of Latin America, a

23:59

lot of South America. And

24:02

you know that's one of the reasons that it's different

24:05

there rather than subsidizing money because you're

24:07

talking about imports. Then, yeah, very

24:10

good pointment that that is a very

24:12

good point here. So that's

24:15

maybe that's not entirely our

24:17

answer though. If the if the government

24:19

is doing this and the lobbies or work

24:21

or the trade industries are working with the government

24:24

hand in hand. Um,

24:27

that's something that happens that a lot across

24:30

a lot of industries. Happens in the tech industry,

24:32

right, maybe a more

24:34

compelling explanation. Maybe another piece

24:36

of the puzzle is that meat is cheap

24:39

because it is so ruthlessly

24:42

efficient to produce. In a

24:44

lot of ways, this sounds absurd

24:46

right at first, Blush, because all

24:49

sorts of activists have talked about the inefficiency

24:51

of animal agriculture and have raised

24:54

very good points like, if you think about it,

24:57

cattle grown for beef are s

25:00

tremendously inefficient from mccloric intake

25:02

perspective. A US

25:05

cow takes about sixteen thousand

25:07

pounds of water for each pound of

25:09

weight it gains. And

25:12

of course, you know, admittedly cattle

25:14

are very

25:17

very expensive part of this puzzle, but

25:19

they're also a smaller piece

25:21

when you consider what people are eating,

25:24

because a lot of people are

25:26

eating chicken because it is so

25:29

so cheap. Right, Yeah, that's that's correct.

25:31

So let's take a look at broiler

25:33

chickens against It's a chicken to be

25:35

eaten, and there are lots of companies

25:38

that have been working out there for a long time

25:40

to figure out how to make chickens bigger,

25:42

how to make them grow faster, and

25:45

really just increase efficiency all around. When

25:47

you're talking about a single chicken that

25:49

then gets sold, it grown and sold

25:52

and uh, right, now,

25:54

you only need two point four

25:57

pounds of feed to produce

25:59

a pound of usable chicken meat.

26:02

Now, if you compare that to a

26:04

cow, I mean, it's something insane, like

26:07

a like of

26:10

feed that are required to make a single

26:14

unit of beef. It's

26:16

crazy, But that just that makes a

26:18

lot of sense. It's cheaper to get one chicken

26:20

out there, and one chicken is a substantial

26:23

amount of meat when you think about

26:25

how large chickens are, especially

26:27

in the United States, when you're when you're looking at

26:30

these um modified versions,

26:33

these blade runner chickens. Uh,

26:36

yeah, yeah, it's it's

26:38

absolutely nuts. Uh.

26:42

Also, what are corn nuts?

26:45

Bothered me for a long time. Are they

26:47

just are they like puffed corn? Is that what

26:49

it is? Yeah, it's it's it's corn,

26:51

right, it's hardened corn for your

26:53

pleasure. We've

26:56

got to you know, we've also got to do an episode

26:58

on corn at some point, because it

27:00

is odd for people outside

27:03

of the US to travel here and realize corn

27:05

is in everything in one form or another.

27:07

Right, corn syrup. When's the last time

27:09

he ate something that didn't have corn syrup in it?

27:12

The last day you went without encountering

27:14

corn syrup? When's the last day that

27:17

I recognized that corn syrup

27:19

was a part of whatever it was that I was eating. It's

27:21

been a long time. It's been a long time which sort

27:24

of accepted it. Uh, you're right,

27:26

Uh, it's it is ubiquitous,

27:29

but it's it's often you know, said that these

27:31

subsidies are a huge part

27:33

of what drives down

27:35

the sticker price of meat, but

27:38

there are also exceptions to regulations.

27:41

So critics alleged that if

27:44

the US government required some

27:46

of these very large scale

27:48

operations to treat their waste

27:50

appropriately the way that municipalities

27:53

are bound to do by law, then this

27:55

would cost the industry and estimated

27:58

eighty two twenty billion dollar dollars

28:00

a year. Guess

28:02

where that cost would end up being

28:04

recouped. It would be if

28:07

you buy meat, it would it would be

28:09

carried on to the consumer. So

28:11

that leads us to the question how

28:14

much should this stuff actually

28:18

cost? We'll tell you

28:20

after a word from our sponsor

28:29

and we're back. Now. If you

28:31

listen to the show often, you know that we cover

28:34

the concept of hidden costs

28:36

within any given action or

28:39

industry. We've we've done it all

28:41

the time, and those hidden costs exist

28:43

everywhere in the meat production

28:46

machine. According to one

28:49

David Simon, This is the author

28:51

of meat Anomics, not David Simon, the creator

28:54

of the wire and other things, right

28:57

different, Okay,

29:00

not everybody can not not one person

29:02

could be that good at so many things, Okay,

29:04

Okay, So David Simon, he's the author of

29:07

meat an Nomics, and he has found

29:09

or he believes he has found the answer to

29:12

this question. These hidden costs

29:15

are things that everyone collectively

29:18

will be paying for in the long run, even

29:20

though we're we have relatively

29:22

affordable meat, especially in the

29:24

United States. And he's looking

29:27

at some pretty huge numbers

29:29

here in hidden costs. Yeah,

29:31

so animal

29:34

food producers, according to Simon,

29:36

impose somewhere around four

29:39

d fourteen billion dollars

29:41

worth in hidden costs Automerican

29:44

society every single year to

29:48

be completely transparent. Before

29:50

we see how he defines that. David

29:52

Simon is a person who

29:55

has a has a cause an

29:57

agenda. Yeah, he's partisan in

30:00

this regard because he wants

30:02

the same restrictions

30:04

that have been applied to tobacco to one

30:07

day be applied to meat. So he's definitely

30:09

got a strong position here. Here's

30:11

how he breaks it down. He says, when

30:14

we think of hidden costs, we need to think of bills

30:16

for healthcare, those subsidies,

30:19

the environmental damage involved, and

30:22

other items related to producing and

30:24

consuming meat and dairy. Animal

30:26

food production, from his perspective,

30:29

now surpasses both the transportation

30:31

industry and electricity generation

30:34

as the greatest source of greenhouse

30:36

gas. So if we put

30:38

it there's if we put it

30:40

in the old loaf of

30:42

bread, jug

30:44

of milk, big mac index

30:47

we can get, we can get a more concrete

30:49

sense of this. According to him,

30:52

if we included all the hidden

30:55

expenses that the meat

30:57

industry offloads onto society

31:00

in this price of a single big Mac,

31:03

it wouldn't be five dollars anymore. It would

31:05

bear, which

31:07

means that every time a fast food place

31:10

sells any kind of sandwich in the big back

31:12

example, if they're selling a five dollar

31:14

big Mac to you, you are at

31:16

some point, in some way paying another

31:19

eight dollars in hidden costs.

31:22

And it's easy to miss that. Oh sure

31:24

absolutely. I would have to just point

31:26

out that the meat production

31:29

industry is the transportation industry.

31:31

And when you think about how far the

31:34

end of product has to travel, how far all

31:36

of the other you know, goods

31:39

have to travel in order to produce. God,

31:42

it's weird to say produce and grow

31:44

the cows, but to to have a cow

31:46

become alive and then live long

31:49

enough and create enough mass

31:51

for it to be a sellable product, there's all

31:53

kinds of transportation costs involved there.

31:56

Um, But yeah, that's it's

31:58

it's an interesting point that David Simon places

32:01

there. If you imagine if

32:04

you imagine going out to eat

32:08

or just buying buying food at the store.

32:10

If you imagine your beef was

32:13

another we got another eight

32:15

dollars for that food. I

32:17

can't imagine being able to afford it. Um.

32:21

Not every day, because we eat every

32:23

day, most of us. We try

32:26

very hard to um.

32:28

But good god. Well

32:30

yeah, and there's there's another aspect to this

32:33

too. We see other countries taking a

32:35

different tact, and often their countries that

32:37

import food, so it's already going

32:39

to be more expensive, but they also

32:42

levy tariffs on different things.

32:44

Right, so the other

32:46

governments have tried to intervene in

32:49

in some way, uh to

32:52

to address what they see as

32:55

the hidden cost. Right. But

32:57

I what I love about the fantastic

33:00

point you make with the how

33:02

did you say it? It was the

33:05

meat industry is the transport industry.

33:07

I think that's brilliant, especially

33:09

if you look at just the way that

33:11

chicken may be transported for

33:14

processing across

33:16

the Pacific. It may be grown

33:18

here, sent to another

33:21

country for processing, sent back

33:23

here. Those chicken wings may

33:25

have seen more of the world in

33:27

a very horrible and enjoyable way then

33:30

we ever will. It's it's

33:32

something that I think bears consideration,

33:36

and at this point, I think what we've done

33:38

is, you know, this is just part

33:40

one of a series. We wanted to establish some

33:43

of the hidden costs to

33:45

the meat industry. But we

33:47

need a disclaimer at the end. This

33:50

is not some hit piece on

33:52

farmers or some sort of propaganda

33:55

about the benefits of being vegetarian.

33:57

There are benefits to be vegetarian. But

34:00

Matt and Mission Control and I are not vegetarian,

34:03

So we're not gonna criticize

34:07

that lifestyle. But we're not We're also

34:10

going to be honest. We are omnivorous.

34:13

But there's another thing about the livestock industry.

34:15

It is mission critical for the US

34:17

economy right now. So many people

34:20

do this. It's there, it's job. It's

34:23

a job, it's a career. So

34:25

you can't just turn off the faucet. It would

34:27

be economically disastrous. Okay.

34:31

And then there's the part about alternative

34:33

meats. Right. Have you ever had an impossible burger?

34:36

I have, yeah, and I very much enjoyed it.

34:39

But it's not the same, and it's

34:42

I don't know when it will be the same,

34:45

the same experience, the same joy

34:47

that you get for some reason because

34:50

our childhood's were filled within

34:53

seventy nine cents burgers or however

34:56

much they were at the time. They're so cheap. Oh

34:58

my god, they were cheap um.

35:01

But thankfully, across the world

35:04

there's all kinds of research and companies

35:06

that are focusing on, uh,

35:09

alternatives to meat, ways to get

35:11

protein that we need, you know, for

35:13

our human bodies to grow. But

35:15

the problem is it's not

35:17

affordable right now. It's just not

35:20

affordable. However, there are alternatives,

35:23

you know, that would fall in the vegetarian category

35:25

that can afford to you

35:28

know, it can give you the protein that you need that

35:30

don't cost as much as meat. But it's not the

35:32

same experience. It's not the same thing as having

35:34

some kind of alternative meat.

35:37

Yeah, some kind of meat like substitute.

35:41

It's true, and it's not. It's

35:43

not because those things are super fancy,

35:46

they're super crazy expensive, so

35:48

much as it is that traditional

35:52

meat is super super absurdly cheap.

35:55

That's that's the real hurdle there.

35:57

Uh. Then it's a strange system.

36:00

You know, farmers are some of the hardest working

36:02

people in this entire country,

36:05

and you hear about

36:07

those subsidies all the time. But

36:09

a lot of farmers don't get those subsidies.

36:12

They don't get the things you hear people complaining

36:14

about. In the last fifteen years,

36:17

something like two thirds of American farmers

36:19

didn't get, uh, didn't get a

36:21

penny from direct subsidies

36:23

that were worth over a hundred billion dollars.

36:25

Those funds mainly go to big corporations,

36:28

and that subsidy money spurs the

36:30

growth of these factory farms, which

36:33

can be kind of bad for local economies

36:35

because they employ fewer workers

36:38

per animal than regular farms,

36:40

and they buy most of their supplies outside

36:43

of the local area the local economy, or

36:45

they have control over multiple related

36:47

industries, right like now I

36:49

own the trucks, Now I own the grain,

36:52

Now I own the cattle. You know what I mean.

36:55

I'm reminding of our whole episode on farm subsidies.

36:58

Yes, we talked about a lot of that, and I would recommend

37:00

you listening to it if you have a chance and you're interested

37:03

in that stuff. Yeah, yeah, because

37:05

it's uh, the subsidies

37:07

themselves become an industry,

37:09

you know, and right now

37:12

eight percent of this country's

37:14

beef industry is controlled by just four

37:16

companies. JBS, smith

37:19

Field, Cargill, and Tyson. They

37:22

have been accused of price fixing

37:24

and numerous times throughout

37:26

throughout recent history in the way

37:28

that doesn't benefit anybody on

37:31

the beginning and end of the equation.

37:34

Uh. The the ideas they'll

37:36

keep live cattle prices low and

37:38

try to make beef prices higher,

37:41

uh, just a little bit at a time. And

37:44

this this is at the expense of the American

37:46

farmer on one side, the American consumer

37:49

on the other. And uh,

37:51

there there's a lot of litigation about

37:53

it, but it's it's one of those things that maybe

37:56

isn't isn't the sexiest

37:58

headline. Uh well, I think what

38:00

that means, You're they're working

38:02

to make sure the cows, the

38:04

cattle are cheap. So when that farmer

38:07

who has put in all the effort, you know,

38:09

if it's not one of these

38:12

giant uh companies

38:14

and factory farms, even if it's a small

38:16

farm that's been purchased by a giant

38:19

company like Tyson or smith Field

38:21

or something like that, just by

38:23

having the end product

38:26

that that farmer creates a a cow

38:28

that is ready for slaughter and reducing

38:30

it way down, it just means it's harder and harder

38:33

for that farmer to make a profit,

38:36

and all of the massive expenses

38:38

that are required to having and maintaining

38:41

a farm. Um, it's

38:43

just I don't know, man, it's it's weird to

38:45

think that that's what they're doing too then keep it

38:47

super cheap on the end user

38:49

side. Um,

38:52

I don't know, but it makes sense. I mean, it makes

38:55

sense. It's all about mass scale in

38:57

those instances, it's an economy of

38:59

scale for sure. It also becomes a matter

39:01

of sustainability. How long

39:04

can this keep going, especially as

39:06

we hurtle toward a planet

39:09

where people are more

39:11

and more likely to be fighting over potable

39:14

water like on a large scale.

39:17

Uh, where are we going to get the water for

39:19

this kind of industry in the future? And

39:22

and again, how how cheap should

39:24

it be? How many back room deals happen

39:27

between that cow out there grazing

39:30

in a field and the

39:32

hamburger that you've made or are

39:34

eating. We have a lot more

39:36

to cover in the secrets of the livestock

39:39

industry. There are a couple of

39:41

things, Matt that you and I mentioned that are

39:43

their own episodes. I would say corn

39:45

probably counts in the livestock

39:48

industry because so much of it is involved

39:50

there. Uh, we're going to cover more

39:52

of this in the future. In the meantime,

39:55

we want to hear from you. Do

39:57

you think that there

40:00

is a way for

40:03

meat prices to more accurately reflect

40:05

these hidden costs we've described? Should

40:08

they reflect those hidden costs?

40:10

Would you buy them? I mean, I'm

40:12

gonna be honest. I love a good steak. I

40:15

have no idea how much it would

40:17

actually it should actually cost, but

40:19

it probably shouldn't be the price

40:21

it's at now. Yeah, that's the big question

40:23

that we want to ask you. If if beef

40:25

did cost what it should, could

40:28

you afford it? Would you splurge

40:30

on it for a special occasion or something,

40:33

or would you just stop eating it all

40:35

together? We we'd

40:37

love to know how you would handle it. Uh.

40:39

You can find us everywhere. We're on social

40:42

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40:44

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41:00

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