In this episode of Outside The System, I spoke with Calley Means, the founder of True Medicine. We focused our conversation on the American industrial food system, especially how food companies manipulate government, institutions, and culture to promote their products. We also talked about how this same playbook is now being applied by the pharmaceutical industry to promote interventionist procedures over long-term health and prevention. 

 

If you haven't listened to it yet, the Outside The System episode with CrowdHealth's founder Andy Schoonover is closely related to this one. That episode focused more on the insurance industry's perverse incentives rather than the food industry but the topics are deeply intertwined. 

 

Quick disclosure: I made a small investment in True Medicine a few months back. So I have some skin in the game here.

 

Detailed show notes

Thesis:

• Soda is the #1 item purchased on food stamps, which is obviously wrong (see stats below). $10 billion of food stamp money go to soda (the #1 item purchased). I was inside the room when Coke wanted to keep the status quo when the 2012 farm bill was updated for debate. Coke used a three-pronged playbook to rig the system: 
• Millions to Civil Rights groups like the NAACP to call opponents racist. 
• Millions to conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundations to buy studies. 
• Millions to academic institutions to buy studies. 
• There are some contemporary articles (from the NYTimes) outlining this in the Twitter thread.
• This same playbook is being used today by food and pharma. 

 

The Impacts to Americans: 

• 25% of young adults and 50% of Americans have pre-diabetes or full-fledged Type 2 diabetes. This used to be called adult-onset diabetes.  
• The richest American men live 15 years longer than the poorest men. Almost entirely due to nutrition. 
• 8 of the 10 leading causes of death that torture Americans or shortens their lives are driven by one thing: suboptimal metabolism, a food-related issue that in turn drives inflammation in a vicious cycle.
• Between 1973 and 2011, male sperm count has reduced more than 50%. 
• In the past 10 years, the case of miscarriages has gone up 10%.
• Today, up to 26% of women have PCOS (the leading cause of infertility) and gestational diabetes rates have doubled between 2006 and 2016.
• A July 2022 study of more than 50,000 people showed that nearly 93.2% of Americans show indicators of metabolic dysfunction, including high fasting blood sugar, low HDL, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, and large waistlines.
• The average American visits 28 different types of doctors before they die,
• 17.6 prescriptions are filled per person each year, and 19% of adult women take an antidepressant. 

 

The Rigged System (most of this is from the book Food Fix): 

• Soda companies spend 11 times more on nutrition than the NIH. 82 percent of independently funded studies show harm from sugar-sweetened beverages, but 93-percent of industry-sponsored studies said no harm. Sugar money hides behind names like the International Life Sciences Institute.
• The American Diabetes Association has received millions from food companies like Coke and Cadbury. In previous years, the ADA logo has appeared on sugar-loaded foods such as SnackWell’s cookies and Snapple in exchange for these donations.
• $111 billion spent on food stamps. 10% goes to sugar-sweetened beverages. 75% of the food bought on SNAP is processed food. Due to heavy lobbying from food companies.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics accepted millions of dollars from Coke. Same with the American College of Cardiology.
• SNAP participants have twice the rate of heart disease, three times greater likelihood of diabetes -- account for 65 percent of medicaid. Politicians bought off by food say it is “personal choice.”
• 80% of American subsidies go to corn, grains and soy oil. Amazingly, cigarettes (tobacco) receive four times more government subsidies  (2%) than all fruits and vegetables combined (.45%). This is all despite the fact that current government guidelines recommend 50% of the American plate is filled with fruits and vegetables. 
• In the 1960’s a group called the Sugar Research Foundations donated $50,000 to Harvard Researchers to publish a study in The New England Review of Medicine saying sugar didn’t cause heart disease. The author, Fred Stare, started the nutrition department at Harvard. He and the department received nearly $30 million over his career for the food industry. The other author used this research to develop the US Dietary Guidelines that led to the food pyramid’s recommendation to cut fat and increase carbs/sugar. Lawmakers and regulators, bought off by food companies, held up Harvard research reports as they argued for these guidelines. 

 

Resources and Links

• True Medicine, Calley's company changing the incentives in healthcare to promote healthy food and lifestyle choices
• Calley's Twitter
• Calley's co-founder Justin Mares
• Justin's Substack
• Food Fix by Mark Hyman
• Calley's Twitter thread on the playbook Coca-Cola used to ensure SNAP benefits could be used for their products
• Merchants of Doubt by Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes
• NIH-Funded Food Compass says Lucky Charms are healthier than steak
• Brain Energy by Christopher M. Palmer
• Blitzed: Drugs In The Third Reich by Norman Ohler
• Pizza ruled a vegetable by US Congress
• Sackler family history
• Monocropping
• Glyphosate and testosterone
• The Biggest Little Farm documentary
• Kiss The Ground documentary (available on Netflix)
• "Sushi-grade" fish is a meaningless term
• Regenerative agriculture
• Levels
• Casey Means, co-founder of Levels and Calley's sister
• The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind The Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains by Robert Lustig

 

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