Who's Really Shaping Your Food Choices? The Hidden Money Behind Nutrition Messaging

Michelle: Hello, my friend.

Kevin: Hello, Michelle. How are you doing?

Michelle: Oh, my gosh, Kevin. I am every inch of my body is sore today.

Kevin: Oh, no, I hope because of a good reason.

Michelle: Oh, no, it was fun. Actually, I did some I did some volunteering at a local horse farm. It's called sorry. They do therapeutic riding for people with disabilities and kids camps. Oh, cool. They had a need for some volunteers to come out and do some raking and some pitchforking of gathered up debris into a wagon.

Kevin: It's called mucking out. Yes.

Michelle: Mucking out. Oh, my God. I have my body has not has not moved like that for for that period of time, for a very long time. I mean, it's not like raking your yard. This is like, oh, my gosh, it was I'm sorry. Anyway, that was. Yeah.

Kevin: So if you hear me going, oh, so you've discovered muscles that you forgot that you had basically, but it's a good hurt. Of course. Yeah.

Michelle: There's nothing like just the movement of farm work, man.

Kevin: Oh, exactly. Exactly. It hits every corner of your body.

Michelle: Yeah. Anyway, on a completely unrelated topic.

Kevin: Yes.

Michelle: I want to talk today on the podcast about something that quietly shapes almost everything that we hear about food. OK. All right. Whether it's beef or plant based diets or, you know, what's quote unquote healthy. I want to talk about who's funding the message and how that message reaches you. I think we know on a theoretic level there's something going on there that's either political or right or, you know, related to following the money. But I've I've been diving into this and it's. Shocking and fascinating.

Kevin: Is this another one of your rabbit holes?

Michelle: Yes, it is.

Kevin: Deep, deep, deep. Michelle and her rabbit holes.

Michelle: When it comes to nutrition, it's not just about science. It's very largely about marketing, marketing strategy.

Kevin: Of course. Of course. Well, because and that's and that's what this podcast is partially about. It's about the information around food and nutrition.

Michelle: Yes, because sometimes people think we believe what we believe because it's true, but we don't. We believe what we believe because of constant messaging. Of course. And and so so I'm talking about who's shaping that message. Who is driving what we what we believe at a societal level about food? And I want to give a major homage to Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle, who whose books I read when I was in school, because that was the first time my eyes were really opened to food politics. And they and I was made aware of these influences as a very young person studying nutrition. So Michael Pollan has great documentaries. He's done about this food, Inc. And more recently, Food Inc., too, like just last year was was so good. And Marion Nestle's a food scientist and very famous food scientist in New York who's written a lot of books about this. So anyway, so I'm going to start with first with something that most people have never heard of. In the United States, there's a system called a checkoff program.

Kevin: OK.

Michelle: And in Canada, we have something very similar. And it's called a levy. And here's how this works. Every time a farmer sells a product like cattle, milk, grain, there is a fee that is automatically collected. And that money gets pooled across the entire industry. And it's used to fund marketing campaigns, nutrition, research, consumer education and public messaging. OK, so now who manages this? Well, in the United States, the system is overseen by the United States Department of Agriculture, and that's the federal government body responsible for agriculture policy. And then the funds themselves are managed through groups like the Cattlemen's Beef Board, which represents cattle producers and decides how those funds are going to be used.

Kevin: Sorry, just to confirm, I just so this would be when you said any time a product is is sold. So that would be a specifically a farm produced product. So basically livestock or plant material. Is that correct? Right.

Michelle: So if a farmer sells, sells some of their their heads of cattle, sell some corn or barley or wheat or or or their or the part of their milk quotas or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Or the milk that they're producing. Yeah. So they have to pay a fee every time they sell something and it goes into this pool.

Kevin: OK.

Michelle: OK, cool. Good question. Organizations like the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, they're the ones that carry out the actual work of spending the money, like marketing campaigns, research, promotion and media outreach. OK, so just sit with that for a second and then I'll tell you about Canada. In Canada, we have a very similar structure and the roles are played by organizations like Canada Beef and the Canadian Beef Cattle Checkoff Agency. These are two interconnected organizations that support, promote and fund the Canadian beef industry. So just to liken it to the U.S., Canada Beef is the specific marketing division operated under the Canadian Beef Cattle Checkoff Agency. And the checkoff arm collects and administers the money kind of like they're the bank. And the Canada Beef uses that money that they collected from levies and they use it to directly influence consumers through marketing, culinary education and promotional campaigns.

Kevin: So while the names are different, same general structure and same purpose. OK, I'm with you so far.

Michelle: So there are small mandatory contributions that are funding large scale coordinated messaging about food from these industries. Right. OK. So now here's where it gets interesting. In the United States, the beef industry operates what's called a digital command center. Think of it as a real time monitoring system. And that team tracks news stories, social media trends, scientific studies, viral documentaries. When something about beef, any message starts to get attention, especially if it's, you know, shining a negative light on the beef industry, they get to action and they respond quickly. They might send out an expert spokesperson. They might publish media statements. They will start sharing content across social platforms. And their goal is to protect consumer confidence and maintain demand for beef. Right. To be clear, this isn't unusual. This is how modern communication works across all industries. I get that.

Kevin: Every single company has that social media listening. If you complain about your bank on X, they will there'll be a ping somewhere in that bank's command center saying, oh, someone's complaining about this quick, quick damage control.

Michelle: Right. Makes sense. Right. And the food industry is no exception. Right. But the difference with this segment of the food industry is the extreme mass of organized spending power. That is significant. So anyway, let's let's just zoom out for a second, because once we understand the money, then we start to understand the messaging. So when it comes to animal agriculture, the system is funded through these checkoffs or levies. And that means the farmers are required or at worst, strongly expected to contribute. Right. The funding is stable and it's ongoing and it supports long term messaging, coordinated efforts, research and promotion. Compare that to the plant based industry. Companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. I'm sure that they have PR people that are working on this as well. But it's not organized as an industry. They have to do that at a private company level. And their efforts are funded by investors, venture capital and by their own product sales. So their goal is growth, market share and competing with agriculture. Their pockets are such smaller, they're not very deep at all.

Kevin: Basically, what seems unfair about this or not necessarily equitable is that the beef or dairy or some of these other organizations are partially organized through the government, you said, through the Department of Agriculture.

Michelle: And at every individual farmer level, they're collecting funds to support this effort. Right.

Kevin: But that's coordinated through through a through a government program. Right. And so that's the difference, because there's nothing. I mean, technically, there's nothing stopping the plant based industry from doing the same, from saying, OK, every single grain of corn or every single whatever that you sell, farmer, you're going to pay us 30 cents or whatever, and then we're going to amalgamate this and do everything else. But the main difference is you don't have that sort of government oversight and the government structure to give it more credibility and to kind of, I don't want to say force farmers to do this, but to.

Michelle: It's mandatory or it's very, very. I mean, it's it's almost like if you were the one guy that said, no, I'm not going to do that. Could you imagine what the implications would be to you at the farmer level?

Kevin: They're going to visit you in the middle of the night and have some words with you and you might end up with some cement galoshes. But I mean, it's in the farmer's best interest to contribute, because the more marketing there is about their product, the more product they'll sell. And so it makes sense. It's in their own self-interest. The beef industry has been around for so long, whereas the organic industry is still reasonably young. It's still a reasonably young industry on the whole. You've always had the occasional farmer who's done this. But it sounds to me it's mainly like. The difference is the organization.

Michelle: There's no political will to organize something similar to support those farmers in this way.

Kevin: Absolutely. And I'm sure that comes down to numbers. It's a system set up to benefit one group. Well, but that's the history of politics. People in power always want to keep power. Exactly. Because of this legacy, the beef industry has been around for so long. Obviously, they don't want competition.

Michelle: And this isn't just beef. This is beef. This is chicken. This is pork. This is. Yeah.

Kevin: No, no, I'm just using beef. Obviously, the legacy players like the milk industry. Recently, there was that lawsuit or fairly recently that said you couldn't call non-dairy beverages milk. Like you can't call it soy milk. It has to be soy beverage because that's the milk in some countries.

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. And that was something lobbied for by this exact machine because they have those pockets, right?

Kevin: Of course. Yeah, that's why they exist. Yeah. They feel threatened.

Michelle: The irony is most consumers who are interested in those plant based beverages don't really care what you call.

Kevin: Of course. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's soy milk. Whatever.

Michelle: They're like, whatever.

Kevin: Yeah. Oh, soy based beverage. Like, OK, anyway, anyway, anyway.

Michelle: So on top of all of this, there is a research layer. There is nutrition research that is funded by government industry groups on both sides and nonprofit organizations. So while funding doesn't automatically make research unreliable, it does definitely influence what gets studied and what findings get amplified. And in the world that I circulate in where you've got, you know, even Matt Negra is very good at this, who we had on as a guest and and other other guests that are scrutinizing the literature and are, you know, just have that incredible brain, that incredible eye for those details and understand about good study design and bad study design and what findings are in the graphs that are inside. Because there's you don't just read the introduction and the conclusion of a study, right? You read the whole study. And often an article that's published about a study or citing a study often is just falsified, like they'll be amplifying something that wasn't even. I hear Matt mentioned this all the time and his little YouTube clips and stuff like that. They amplified something that wasn't even a finding.

Kevin: Oh, or they or they take one single data point completely out of context. Correct. And that becomes the headline. Right. And you miss all of the context and you miss all the things that were legitimate findings. But it's just come down to that one data point that helps their story.

Michelle: Exactly. Just just like the butter is back. That was on Time magazine that we talked about. And then the scientists challenged it and said, well, actually, that's not at all what your study said. And they were like, oops, are bad. And then they retracted it.

Kevin: But yeah. But too late.

Michelle: Nobody ever read the second issue with the retraction on the inside cover. Speaking of horses, that horse is already out of the barn. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I'm just trying I'm trying to show that there is a bigger picture revealing how incentives shape communication and even research. Right. OK. And then so like, let's let's come back to this argument. Like, is this are these systems really comparable? Are the animal food industry and the plant based industry really comparable in their level of influence? If if if we use the argument, oh, everybody's doing it, it's all the same. The plant based industry does it, too. Yeah, sure. OK. But but the honest answer is like, yes. In strategy, they're they're both trying to help fund research. They're both using marketing and PR. They both have experts on their side and they're both trying to shape how we view their products or how we think about food. But the scale, Kevin, the scale is just animal agriculture is larger and it's global and it's established, like you said.

Kevin: Yeah, it's that maturity and scale that makes all the difference in the world. Yeah.

Michelle: And the funding system through checkoffs and levies is mandatory and it's integrated right into policy and culture of government. The plant based companies are on their own. They're smaller, they're newer, they're funded by individual investors and they're competing to try and grow and disrupt these other messages. But they're like the kid jumping up and down, going, hey, hey, hey. And look at me, look at me, look at me.

Kevin: Yeah. Well, again, they're they're a new, a relatively new player at the table fighting against or, you know, going against these mature industries that have been around forever. I mean, realistically, again, going back, just picking on like the beef industry, just that set up that they have where they collect money from every farmer was probably set up like, I don't know, 50 years ago or more when there were fewer players, in which case it was easier to organize. And then it's just grown from there and it's just been the legacy system because it's so old and it's so mature. And so it was set up in a simpler time, but it's continued on to today's world. And so there's still those mechanisms in place, whereas a brand new player coming to the table trying to start this from scratch with so many different players and niche players and tiny players, it's unfortunately going to be naturally much more difficult to try to set something up to go against these legacy behemoths.

Michelle: Well, honestly, the efforts that the plant forward plant predominant plant centered plate, what's healthy is to prevent cancer, heart disease, diabetes. We're talking about what, according to the science, people should be eating. That's that's the type of industry that I'm talking about.

Kevin: Where fruits and vegetables are front and center.

Michelle: And they're competing with a multibillion dollar machine. Those are the size of the pockets that they have to try to compete with and disrupt. It's you know, it's it's just not a level playing field. One one is established and the other is trying to change it. And but that does not tell the consumer which message is right. Right.

Kevin: Exactly. Exactly.

Michelle: But it does explain why some messages just feel more familiar. What shaped that belief system? Right. Right. And it's very easy to understand that our beliefs get shaped by what's pervasive. It's funny because actually my book club is studying the book 1984 right now. OK. You remember that by George Orwell? Of course. Of course. I love it. I'm reading that book and I'm talking about and I'm and I'm reading about how the government is influencing the messages and how people, you know, sometimes they know something is true, but it's been changed.

Kevin: The mini truth. Yeah.

Michelle: Yeah. The Ministry of Truth has that. Yeah. The government has the system set up to change the messaging and make.

Kevin: And that's what Winston does. He he goes back and changes news reels to have the new. No, no, no. You thought the rations were increased, but actually they were just left the same.

Michelle: Yeah.

Kevin: And all that. Yeah. No, it's it's it's a it's an amazing, amazing book.

Michelle: It's it's quite an interesting analogy, right?

Kevin: Yeah.

Michelle: So my point is for the consumer to just really be conscious and aware of the messaging that's around them. And you realize this is what happened for me. I remember when I read I think the first book I read was Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. And then shortly after Marianne Nestle's book, What to Eat, it's when you realize, oh, this messaging is not pervasive in my news reels and my magazines and billboards and radio and everything around me because it's true. These messages are around me because I'm being marketed to 24 seven.

Kevin: They've been paid for by the deep pockets.

Michelle: Yeah. And people are trying to influence what I eat.

Kevin: Yeah.

Michelle: What irks me when you don't understand that government is driving a good portion of this messaging when it when it comes to certain things like where we know that processed foods and processed meats are confirmed to be carcinogenic and harmful for our health and our kids' health. And we know that red meat is a confirmed probable carcinogen. It really irks me that these systems are not being modified or changed to actually follow the evidence and recognize the guidelines, the dietary guidelines for Canadians, for example, that another arm of the government is enforcing and saying, hey, this is based on the latest scientific research and this is the guidelines that we want you to follow in our schools and institutions, et cetera. And meanwhile, we have this other arm of the government funding contrary messaging and trying to influence people to spend and consume foods that are that are actually harming them.

Kevin: Yeah, that's where there's a big disconnect.

Michelle: That's icky.

Kevin: I 100 percent agree because you've got the government basically on both sides of the fence there, one saying, yeah, eat, you know, this is what your healthy plate should look like and blah, blah, blah. And the other side sort of overseeing these marketing boards that have collected all this money and send out very contrary messages. And the very fact that the government is even remotely involved in these marketing messages lends some credibility to it. Like it's not just a company or an independent agency going out saying, yes, eat beef. Instead, there's this like partnership with the government saying, yeah, we're giving you this message. But the government also like gives their thumbs up on it, too, which lends for the average consumer, lends credibility to that message.

Michelle: And their argument is like these are also subsidized industries where the government provides subsidies for the production of these foods. So therefore, that's the reason they feel incumbent to support those farmers in marketing those products because they invested in these subsidies. But but, you know, the the Canada's food guide side of the government isn't given the same level of marketing power.

Kevin: Right. We absolutely need to support our farmers.

Michelle: This is not an anti-farm thing.

Kevin: No, no, no. Exactly.

Michelle: I do know from having gone to a lot of great talks on this subject about what if, right, what if we could shift this system? We don't want to take livelihood away from these farmers who are quite honestly just good people trying to make a living and feed their families or carry on generational farms and whatnot. But there are ways that the government could use those same funds to help in a conversion process. And we could move away from X and more towards Y.

Kevin: Well, yeah. I mean, I mean, I think what we need to do is is the government should support all farmers.

Michelle: Exactly. On a level playing field. I agree, Kevin.

Kevin: Yeah. It seems right now they're supporting. Well, it's going back to George Orwell. Another book he wrote, which is excellent, is Animal Farm. Right. Where all animals are equal, but some animals aren't as equal as others. So it seems the government is kind of saying, OK, yeah, we'll support our farmers. Thumbs up if you're a hardworking person working the land and being a farmer. Yay for you. But we'll support you a little bit more if you're looking after these particular products and if you're trying to start a little organic farm over here and crop rotation and something that's maybe a little more cost prohibitive or you're just smaller scale and more compassionate. We're not going to support you quite so much. And that's where I think the government needs to, you know, step up and level the playing field. And to your point that you just made, if there is like a pig farmer or something, because I don't want to completely beat up on cattle farmers. If there's a pig farm that maybe wants to convert to, you know, something else, lentils or whatever.

Michelle: To a sanctuary and crop farming?

Kevin: So, I mean, you know, then it's not like they're going to, you know, say, oh, I could be losing all of this government support for my industry if I leave the pork industry. No, I can actually go and the lentil industry will support me or whatever, you know.

Michelle: Do you remember in the 80s when there were a whole bunch of tobacco farmers that converted to ginseng? Oh, that's right. Yes. Yes. So we've seen it happen. And, you know, Michael Greger is always very quick to point out in this argument that this is just what like cigarette smoking, like this, this thing where red meat and processed foods were just harmful and everyone knew it and doctors knew it, but nobody was doing anything about it because it was so ingrained in society that, you know, it took, I don't know, how many years and how many thousands of studies before, you know, the government mandated. He goes, the same thing happened, you know, when that smoking messaging finally came out and was enforced, then a lot of tobacco farmers had to change what they were doing. And so we've seen that it can happen.

Kevin: Right. And incidentally, like tobacco, like going back to, you know, your point earlier, tobacco was one of those industries where in its heyday in like the 50s and 60s and 70s, it sponsored tons and tons of research that said, you know, nine out of 10 doctors. And I remember there was one campaign where they said something to the effect of, and I'm going to paraphrase, but like nine out of 10 doctors who smoke, smoke players or whatever. Or camels. Or camels or whatever it was. And the whole point was it was using this correct data point of saying of the tiny, tiny handful of doctors who actually choose to smoke, they prefer, you know, players brand or whatever. But what they didn't mention is, oh, 99% of doctors think that smoking is like completely wackadoodle.

Michelle: Yeah.

Kevin: You know, so they're using, they're manipulating that data. So they're not lying, but they're completely misrepresenting the bigger data picture.

Michelle: Right.

Kevin: You know, just to focus in on this nine out of 10 doctors who smoke, love players.

Michelle: Like the expression, if you torture the data enough, you can make it say whatever you want.

Kevin: Absolutely. Yes. And there's an art to that. There's an art to data manipulation and how to make it go in your favor.

Michelle: I want to thank you for listening and hearing me out on this, because this is just a topic that really bugs me. And I think it's really important when we're trying to understand our why, why do we want to make this healthier shift or really do the work? Um, we, we have to have a strong conviction and a strong reason in order to facilitate that behavior change in ourselves. It's just as important to understand the why, why, why is it so hard? And sometimes why it's so hard isn't our fault. It isn't our lack of willpower. It isn't our lack of wanting a better, better health for ourselves. It's because we're surrounded by the societal messaging that is actually bought and paid for, right? It's a, and the mess, the message that we, that is actually going to support our best health is a much smaller voice with a much smaller spending power. And that's why you don't see that message as much as the other. It's just simply volume, right? If you believe this, if you understand this and you want change, we have to be the change. So we have to change our behavior to support the change that we want to see. Of course. If not for us, for our kids, for our grandkids, for the planet, for the planetary health, right? Like the one, one of the main reasons the dietary guidelines are shifting isn't just about human health. It's about planetary health.

Kevin: Right.

Michelle: Right. It's about, it's about Eat Lancet report. The planetary health diet is making, is causing a lot of that shift globally. Also, I want to challenge you and the listeners. Watch some of these documentaries. They're very well done. There is like, as I mentioned, Food Inc. One, which is, you know, maybe a more than a decade old now and Food Inc. Two, which is just last year, I think.

Kevin: Yeah, I think so.

Michelle: Then there's Michael Greger's How Not to Die documentary, which is very good. And it's maybe it's a good one to start with because it's only like an hour and it's free on YouTube. And you can also, if you go to the nutritionfacts.org website, I believe you can click on a link there if you want to watch it without commercials. He does a really good job of framing the argument we've been through, Kevin, about how this happened for smoking.

Kevin: Okay. What we can do is for our listeners, we can put a few of these links in our show notes for you so that you can easily find them.

Michelle: Thanks for chatting on that, Kevin. I had to get that off my chest.

Kevin: Yeah, yeah, no, it's fascinating. It's fascinating and also a little bit infuriating and it brings up a lot. I mean, it brings up a lot of emotions and thoughts for me. So it's good to be challenged.

Michelle: It does for me, too, because I remember being in nutrition school and really struggling with this, not just as a consumer, but because I am a farm girl and I love the farms. I love my farmer neighbors. I love my friends. And so it brought up a lot of emotions, too, about wanting to see this change, but also worried about those families that I love, worried about their livelihood. But also at the same time, my compassion grew also for the animals and about the fact that these are not learning. They aren't a necessary part of our diet, like it's not necessary for our best health. So anyway, but just learning that you're being lied to and that the government is funding some of those messages is really infuriating. But I think it's much better to be awake than asleep. Then you know what you're dealing with and then it helps when you're empowering yourself and trying to motivate yourself to do some of these things that you know are going to be healthier for you, healthier for your family, healthier for your kids, that you can live a longer life that is without a chronic disease. Exactly. Okay, so that's that. I hope that people found that not too provocative and more so informative and thought-provoking.

Kevin: So we like provocative here at Nutrition for Noobs.

Michelle: I like being real, man. This is just what's real.

Kevin: You love being real. That's good. Okay, ready for dad joke to lighten it up a bit?

Michelle: Oh, yes, yes.

Kevin: Okay. This is a joke courtesy of my son. I love those. Are you ready? Exactly. So you're going to really like this. Okay. Why are pirates called pirates?

Michelle: Why?

Kevin: Because they are.

Michelle: Oh. I could actually see your son saying that.

Kevin: Totally, totally. He told me that and I'm like, wait, wait, I gotta write that down, Michelle will love it.

Michelle: Tell him I did love it. Okay. You know what? I actually heard one when I was working yesterday at Sari. Why do elephants paint their toenails pink?

Kevin: Why do elephants paint their toenails pink?

Michelle: So that they won't be seen when they're hiding in a tree. Have you ever seen an elephant hiding in a tree? Nope.

Kevin: Never. That's a good one.

Michelle: It's ridiculous, but it made me laugh.

Kevin: It is. It is. I like it. So listeners, if you have any questions, you can reach out to us at our very friendly email address. Hello at nutritionfornoobs.com. Or you can connect with us on, Michelle's laughing now, or it is a friendly email address. Hello.

Michelle: He should have seen his eyes when he went, hello.

Kevin: Hello. Or you can connect with us, of course, on Facebook or Instagram at nutrition, the number four noobs. And until then, I will say, as I always do, eat your greens.

Michelle: And be real, everyone.

Kevin: This has been Nutrition for Noobs. We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it. If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at n4noobs at gmail.com. That's the letter N, the number four, N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favorite platform might be. Also, please consider leaving a review or telling your friends. That's the best way to spread the word. We'll see you next time with another interesting topic. The views and opinions expressed on Nutrition for Noobs are those of the hosts. It is not intended to be a substitute for medical, nutritional, or health advice. Listeners should seek a personal consultation with a qualified practitioner if they have any concerns or before commencing any actions mentioned in the podcast.