“Her presentation empowers agriculture to tell its story with credibility, respect, and impact. Michele helped me navigate tough conversations with compassion for the urbanites who have little connection to where their food comes from.”
- Jeannette Andrashewski, Canadian Canola Farmer
What drives Michele to write? ▶ Bridging the gap from farm to food with story and science.
"You are a gift to agriculture – you do an amazing job connecting non-ag folks to agriculture in a relatable and logical way that's welcoming and opens the door to a deeper understanding.”
- Lana Frantzen, PhD, RDN, DairyMAX
Artificial insemination. Vegetarian choices. The Oscars. STDs. Greenhouse gas emissions. Baby calves. Nursing. Starbucks. Nutrient density of food. Personal choices.
If those topics don’t add up to a civil conversation in your mind, listen in for a model on how to have a discussion around food and the environment that’s respectful and informative with someone different than you.
“Don’t eat what you can’t pronounce. Chemicals in food are killing us. There is no safe level of pesticides…” It’s no wonder we are scared of food with these myths flying around our plates. Today’s Food Bullying podcast guest, Food Science Babe, is a chemical engineer and a food scientist. She’s also a mom of a special needs toddler. She not only knows and loves chemicals, she can help you understand why it’s O.K. that your food is filled with them.
Did you over-indulge during the Super Bowl festivities, Christmas, or the last family holiday? You’re not the only one – holiday heart syndrome and atrial fibrillation (afib) is not uncommon after eating too much. Food can help you proactively manage your health – or it can lead to missed heart beats. In addition to explaining more about afib, Mellanie True Hills talks about figuring out what fuels your body the best and creating your own personal diet.
A basic nutritional building block. Part of your everyday eating. Used for baking, breakfast and bullies. Wait, what? Eggs – or the hens that produce them and the people who care for those hens – have long been the target of animal rights bullies. But rest assured, there is no big nutritional difference in eggs – and science shows that no single hen housing is superior.
Just as it takes more than one formula to create a latte at Starbucks, sustainability includes multiple ingredients. Sustainability in food production takes a big picture look at the environment, the ability of family businesses to succeed long-term and contribute to their local communities – AND the nutrition value food brings to society. Expanding plant-based beverages does not necessarily mitigate climate change, but it does have consequences – many that impact farmers in a mental health crisis.
“The food and health marketing industry is out-of-control,” says Australian RDN & exercise physiologist Bill Sukala. Advertising confuses people and creates anxieties around food and health. Bill brings a voice of reason and is concerned that the “gatekeeper of information has been chloroformed.” His B.S. detector raises red flags about bad information, misinformation and quackery in food and health claims.
Australian RDN & Clinical Exercise Physiologist on the health industry
“Misrepresentation that affects farm families through agricultural policy” is what food bullying looks like to to Oregon State Representative Shelly Davis. She shares her experiences as an elected official, building consensus by reaching across the aisle, and what she saw with the #TimberUnity movement in Oregon. “Your voice matters” – especially when combined with others.
State Representative Shelly Boshart Davis builds consensus
“Do you think our psychology around food is skewed not just because sometimes we can be hypocritical in our choices but because what we want to believe isn’t always true?” It’s tough to have a meaningful conversation with others in today’s overly emotional food arena. Millennial dietitian Leia Flure explains the steps to maintaining respectful discussion and making personal choices about what you eat. She suggests more critical thinking is needed in food-based decisions by being analytical and verifying information.
Why is it so easy to call farmers names...
“Food is such an integral part of our social fabric. It becomes a part of the storytelling process,” but our farming memory is being lost across generations, says Dr. Cami Ryan, a Canadian social scientist. This loss of farming memory has created gaps and barriers between rural and urban. Opportunists fill in the gaps with new information, which isn’t always accurate. Cami explains how food can be taken on as identity, leaving a person susceptible to bullying. She offers insight on information literacy to keep the trash out your brain and social feeds.
“When we create anxiety around food because of different arbitrary rules that are put in place by people, especially with younger kids, it makes kids scared about what they eat.” Dad Ben LaCross shares how his daughter was food bullied by a teacher in school. As a Michigan cherry farmer, he takes us through the process of growing, harvesting, and processing cherries – and many of the challenges cherry farmers face.
Michigan farmer Ben LaCross
“Food marketers are well aware of the kind of differences amongst these technologies in terms of which ones we like and which ones we don’t like.” Dr. Tyler Davis, a neuroscience researcher at Texas Tech, helps us understand of the high-risk food technologies that he has researched and shares tips on how we can overcome food bullying by understanding more about the brain.
There’s a lot of pressure on farmers to do the best that they can to not only protect our environment, but also have a sustainable business. Most of the time, we are not giving farmers space to thrive, but often dictating what they should and shouldn’t do. Theresia Gillie is a soybean and wheat farmer from Minnesota, helping listeners understand what it is like to be a farmer-and how food bullying hurts the families growing our food.
Hunger. Food Banks. Giving to the food insecure – and not just at Thanksgiving or through the holidays. “Hunger is not seasonal.” Plus an honest look at food expiration dates, how they’re not regulated, and food waste.
Neuroscience. Pretty pictures on food. Elephants and the emotional brain. How are these related? Neuromarketing is one of the biggest bullies as you make eating choices – and manipulating the way you think and feel about food & farming.
In this birthday episode for Michele, Eliz gifts her ideas to reduce stress. As an expert in the health arena, Eliz has new research to show WHY we’re stressed – and offers practical tips for everyone to reduce their cortisol to get stress under control for better health.
Season 2: Diane Sullivan, anti-hunger advocate
“We are trained to think that if something is going to cost us more, there must be more value in it.”
Fear-mongering is one of the reasons why our food costs have gone up. Misleading food labels have swayed the market and have driven up food prices, points out anti-hunger advocate Diane in this podcast episode.
Did you know the way you shop can help reduce...
The ingredients of food are likely more well-known than the real stories of how food is grown. The stories of people who care for animals in the middle of the night, the stories of a little girl who stands in her father’s shadow hoping to someday take over decisions for land her great-grandpa once farmed, the stories of families who risk millions of dollars to produce food for a society who often questions them. I would ask that you consider the authentic stories of how your food is raised as a fundamental part of creating your own food story.
Behind the scenes with Michele & Eliz
“All of us can manufacture enough guilt in the course of any given day. It certainly doesn’t have to be derived from the foods that we’re eating.” RDN Leslie Bonci brings a reasonable look at nutrition & food labels, plus how athletes can eat for a competitive advantage.
Sports dietitian Leslie Bonci talks food bullying
A behind the scenes take on the Food Bullying Podcast
How have you been made to feel about food? Has...
Google brings up five million results for “understanding food labels.” How can you sort through that chaos? Look for meaningful and measurable labels. There is no easy answer, particularly given all the players involved in food bullying—but I do suggest truth simplifies food. Confusion, guilt, distrust, higher priced food, malnourishment, a growing disconnect from the farm, and overall stress are just a few of the side effects of bullying.
Food bullying at food banks with Jennifer Erickson
“Don’t let the stress about having the right food ruin your health.” Lisa Baker-King notes that our bodies are different and you don’t have to follow a particular weigh loss journey just because it works for someone else. It’s important to go with what works for you and your body. “Don’t assign an emotional value to the scale or to the food that you’re eating.”
Bullying: emotional, social, verbal, and cyber...
What food safety should you practice at home? In...
The playground of food bullying is crowded and includes different levels of bullies. The first step in avoiding B.S. food is to acknowledge the bad behaviors, misleading or false label claims, marketing half-truths, and other unnecessary drama on the playground of food bullying. All of these bullying behaviors have resulted in a “you can’t have that” mentality because of food bullies
Mom and fitness instructor Ellen Frost explains...
Housing is used to protect animals-and your...
What does “a sustainable farm” look like? Why would a farmer decide to farm organically, raise GMOs or grow conventional crops. How does food bullying happen in agriculture between farmers?
Michele points to the need to consider our food system as a round food plate to help all sides connect equally, whether it’s the farmer, scientist, nutrition expert or consumer. The circle gives people the opportunity to reach across, shake hands, and find common interests. She points to science, accuracy and credibility as hot buttons with food producers, dietitians and scientists that can help them work together to educate people about food. Research shows that the less people know, the more afraid they’re likely to be.
In this episode, Michele and Eliz talk with...
When I was a teenager, I drew comic cows. These...
In this episode, we approach farming from a...
Would you eat an egg with 'amino acids,...
Breaking out of the fear cycle in making food...
It’s very easy for us to ignore the fact that the brain controls a high percentage of how we view food. Dr. Tyler Davis of Texas Tech University joins the Food Bullying Podcast to help us understand the neuroscience perspective on how the brain process information about food.
Soil is a farmers greatest asset Do you know...
Ryan Weeks talks organic, GMOs, and choice in farming
In the ongoing debate about food, it can be easy...
USDA Certified Organic is more than a label. Our guest, Carolyn Olson, shares the attention to detail and expense necessary to produce an organic crop. She farms with her husband, Jonathan, in southwest Minnesota, and shared her farm story in Food Truths from Farm to Table about how conventional and organic agriculture can work together.
Did you know that beef cattle have been bred to...
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