WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.520 I apologize to those who had to listen to me in the last session, you've come a second time, 2 00:00:03.620 --> 00:00:07.420 but you've got much cleverer people than me now. My name is Norman Swan, I produce and present the 3 00:00:07.420 --> 00:00:11.940 Health Report on Radio National. I can't hear you. And you can't hear me, but they can. No, 4 00:00:12.040 --> 00:00:19.720 I'm sure they can, but we can't. I'll come back a little bit. So this is a panel discussion 5 00:00:20.380 --> 00:00:26.280 entitled Before You Eat. I think some postmodernists designed the title, but 6 00:00:27.760 --> 00:00:34.480 we're going to have a conversation. And at absolutely any time you like during the conversation, 7 00:00:34.720 --> 00:00:41.080 you can join in. And there's a microphone there in the middle, and just come up to that microphone 8 00:00:41.080 --> 00:00:45.060 and I'll take your comment. And it's probably better that you just come when you've got something 9 00:00:45.060 --> 00:00:49.120 to say when we're talking about it rather than half an hour later, I bring you back to the topic. 10 00:00:49.180 --> 00:00:55.260 So feel free, come up. And if I haven't noticed you, just raise your hand. And we'll take your, 11 00:00:55.420 --> 00:00:56.260 so this is a panel discussion. 12 00:00:56.260 --> 00:01:06.740 This is really as much your session as it is ours. I have Peter Clifton, who is a research team leader 13 00:01:06.740 --> 00:01:12.580 of the CSIRO Division of Human Nutrition, co-author of the book that you've never heard of, 14 00:01:12.740 --> 00:01:22.780 The CSIRO Diet, which will live with him to his grave. Next to Peter is Karen O'Day. 15 00:01:23.320 --> 00:01:25.840 Karen O'Day is a human nutritionist. 16 00:01:26.260 --> 00:01:29.900 Karen O'Day is a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne at St. Vincent's Hospital 17 00:01:29.900 --> 00:01:36.360 and the Baker Institute in Melbourne. And Marian Nestle, who's the final person there on our panel, 18 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:43.700 who is Professor of Nutrition, Food Science and Sociology at New York University. 19 00:01:43.940 --> 00:01:44.800 I've got it all wrong. 20 00:01:46.820 --> 00:01:47.440 You just made that up. 21 00:01:47.600 --> 00:01:49.240 I made it up or she made it up? 22 00:01:49.960 --> 00:01:50.520 Close. 23 00:01:50.900 --> 00:01:51.040 Close. 24 00:01:51.880 --> 00:01:56.060 It's close enough. Tell me about the sociology. 25 00:01:56.260 --> 00:01:58.180 Sociology split and nutrition. 26 00:01:58.880 --> 00:01:59.760 Sociology and nutrition. 27 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:01.280 I don't know. 28 00:02:01.320 --> 00:02:07.540 I got an email from the head of the sociology department at New York University saying that they had read my book, 29 00:02:07.600 --> 00:02:09.800 Food Politics, and would I like to join the department. 30 00:02:10.540 --> 00:02:13.400 And I had no idea I was a sociologist. 31 00:02:13.500 --> 00:02:15.000 I thought I was a nutritionist. 32 00:02:15.060 --> 00:02:16.360 But I was very flattered. 33 00:02:16.500 --> 00:02:21.220 And it turns out I've been practicing sociology without a license for many years. 34 00:02:21.900 --> 00:02:22.800 Didn't know that. 35 00:02:23.380 --> 00:02:24.860 So what is it about? 36 00:02:25.140 --> 00:02:26.240 But you're really... 37 00:02:26.260 --> 00:02:28.220 Your real interest has also been in the politics of food. 38 00:02:29.620 --> 00:02:30.140 What's... 39 00:02:30.140 --> 00:02:32.460 I mean, just give us a brief idea. 40 00:02:32.640 --> 00:02:34.160 This is about before you eat. 41 00:02:34.600 --> 00:02:38.980 So the theme of today, I'm sure we'll leave that far behind. 42 00:02:39.280 --> 00:02:46.620 But in terms of before you eat, before it gets to our plate, before we actually lift our forks or our hands, 43 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:49.480 the politics must be huge. 44 00:02:49.780 --> 00:02:50.900 Oh, they're tremendous. 45 00:02:51.300 --> 00:02:52.020 They're tremendous. 46 00:02:52.180 --> 00:02:56.240 I've spent the last year for a variety of courses. 47 00:02:56.240 --> 00:02:56.980 And I have a few coincidences. 48 00:02:57.060 --> 00:03:01.980 I'm on some very interesting committees going around the country in the United States, 49 00:03:02.100 --> 00:03:06.460 looking at industrial farm animal production and industrial farm production. 50 00:03:06.720 --> 00:03:13.180 And in the last year I've been to an industrial artichoke grower, a spinach grower, 51 00:03:13.340 --> 00:03:21.960 a packing plant, an organic specialty vegetable farm, a pig farm, industrial pig farm, 52 00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:32.320 farm, a feedlot with 100,000 cattle, an industrial egg producing facility that produces 60,000 53 00:03:32.320 --> 00:03:33.420 dozen eggs a day. 54 00:03:34.200 --> 00:03:37.180 One point two million chickens were on that location. 55 00:03:37.900 --> 00:03:40.180 A dairy farm and so forth. 56 00:03:40.380 --> 00:03:45.300 And I came away from that thinking that the politics of it was absolutely extraordinary, 57 00:03:45.300 --> 00:03:52.220 that you can't separate vegetable production from meat production because animal wastes 58 00:03:52.220 --> 00:03:54.100 get into vegetables inevitably. 59 00:03:54.640 --> 00:03:59.880 And I understand that in Australia you're starting to put dairy farms in places where 60 00:03:59.880 --> 00:04:01.360 dairy farms never were before. 61 00:04:01.620 --> 00:04:03.120 Oh, this is not a good idea. 62 00:04:03.240 --> 00:04:04.620 You have to look at that very carefully. 63 00:04:05.540 --> 00:04:10.960 And I came to a bunch of conclusions about it, all of them sociological, I guess. 64 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:15.280 One was that we can't continue to do industrial production. 65 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:20.940 Industrial agriculture production the way we have been because it's very bad for animals, 66 00:04:21.180 --> 00:04:26.620 it's very bad for farm workers, and it's pretty bad for consumers as well and for the environment. 67 00:04:27.200 --> 00:04:29.980 And that we have to make changes in that system. 68 00:04:30.180 --> 00:04:35.120 And there are lots and lots of experiments going on to attempt to do those changes and 69 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:37.380 the experiments have been enormously successful. 70 00:04:37.840 --> 00:04:38.300 Such as? 71 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:39.560 Organic farming. 72 00:04:39.760 --> 00:04:44.960 It's almost as productive as traditional farming and it's much kinder to the environment. 73 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:45.260 Yeah. 74 00:04:45.280 --> 00:04:47.380 And much kinder to the people who eat the food. 75 00:04:47.740 --> 00:04:52.320 There's more and more evidence coming out now that organic foods are more nutritious 76 00:04:52.320 --> 00:04:55.040 and have more nutrients in them than others. 77 00:04:55.160 --> 00:04:56.580 There's not a lot, but there's more. 78 00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:57.720 But, Marion, that's not published much. 79 00:04:57.800 --> 00:04:59.640 If you look on the web and try and find that. 80 00:04:59.720 --> 00:05:00.760 I just got one today. 81 00:05:00.880 --> 00:05:01.280 Oh, good. 82 00:05:02.080 --> 00:05:03.600 It's actually very difficult to prove that. 83 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:03.920 Done in Great Britain on tomatoes. 84 00:05:04.580 --> 00:05:06.980 Well, I talked about the flavonoids, of course, in tomatoes. 85 00:05:07.420 --> 00:05:11.460 And so organic farming is a bit more stressful to the plants, so that's why they've got more 86 00:05:11.460 --> 00:05:11.960 flavonoids. 87 00:05:12.080 --> 00:05:15.160 Now, of course, we don't really know whether eating more flavonoids actually does any good. 88 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:15.880 It's a hypothesis. 89 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:16.440 It makes any difference. 90 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:19.200 It's a great way to sell organic foods, though. 91 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:23.300 So Australian tomatoes taste so bad because we don't stress them. 92 00:05:23.480 --> 00:05:23.740 That's right. 93 00:05:23.780 --> 00:05:27.460 They all live in lovely glasshouses and grow in a warm, comfortable environment. 94 00:05:27.900 --> 00:05:30.920 So an unhappy tomato is a happy flavor. 95 00:05:30.920 --> 00:05:31.840 Is a healthy one. 96 00:05:31.900 --> 00:05:32.040 That's right. 97 00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:35.800 They're usually smaller, more intensely flavored, less water. 98 00:05:35.960 --> 00:05:36.400 Beautiful. 99 00:05:36.540 --> 00:05:37.460 And more flavonoids. 100 00:05:38.500 --> 00:05:39.620 So they may be better for you. 101 00:05:39.640 --> 00:05:39.860 It's winter. 102 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:42.000 We shouldn't be talking about tomatoes in winter. 103 00:05:42.900 --> 00:05:43.340 Exactly. 104 00:05:43.640 --> 00:05:44.080 No. 105 00:05:44.080 --> 00:05:47.460 So, but just go back to meat production. 106 00:05:48.540 --> 00:05:51.480 Is organic meat production just as productive? 107 00:05:52.640 --> 00:05:53.340 Almost as productive. 108 00:05:53.920 --> 00:06:00.340 Probably 10% less, which most people feel is not a problem because there's an enormous 109 00:06:00.340 --> 00:06:03.400 surplus of food anyway, at least at this present moment. 110 00:06:03.740 --> 00:06:09.460 In the United States, we have 3,900 calories a day available in the food supply for every 111 00:06:09.460 --> 00:06:11.000 man, woman, and child in the country. 112 00:06:11.640 --> 00:06:13.020 That's roughly twice average need. 113 00:06:13.020 --> 00:06:15.440 If we had a little bit less, nobody would notice. 114 00:06:15.760 --> 00:06:16.820 And they wouldn't put up prices? 115 00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:17.100 Yes. 116 00:06:18.240 --> 00:06:19.600 Define organic, please. 117 00:06:20.760 --> 00:06:26.120 Because there isn't enough nitrogen on the planet to grow organic feed, organic food 118 00:06:26.120 --> 00:06:27.700 to feed 6 billion people. 119 00:06:28.600 --> 00:06:30.280 Well, that's what they keep saying. 120 00:06:30.500 --> 00:06:35.200 But I don't think there's enough nitrogen on the planet or anything else to keep up 121 00:06:35.200 --> 00:06:40.440 with industrial agriculture the way it's been going either because of the harm that it does 122 00:06:40.440 --> 00:06:41.260 to the environment. 123 00:06:41.860 --> 00:06:43.000 In the United States, we have about 1,000,000 tons of organic food. 124 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:43.180 And that's about the same as the amount of nitrogen that's being produced in the food 125 00:06:43.180 --> 00:06:45.960 So, the United States organic has a very specific regulatory meaning. 126 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:52.140 And with respect to plants, it means that the plants were not grown with artificial 127 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:54.980 pesticides or fertilizers. 128 00:06:55.440 --> 00:07:02.000 With respect to animals, it means they were fed organic feed and had access to the outdoors. 129 00:07:02.300 --> 00:07:06.860 It doesn't mean that they actually were outdoors, but they have access. 130 00:07:07.220 --> 00:07:10.000 They see an open door there and it's like a mirage. 131 00:07:10.280 --> 00:07:10.460 That's right. 132 00:07:10.460 --> 00:07:12.660 They have a picture of the outside on the barn. 133 00:07:12.760 --> 00:07:12.980 There's a picture. 134 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:13.760 There's an open door. 135 00:07:14.540 --> 00:07:18.600 And there's no antibiotics or hormones used. 136 00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:20.660 So it's a specific regulatory meaning. 137 00:07:20.820 --> 00:07:25.040 It doesn't necessarily mean that the growth of those products is sustainable. 138 00:07:25.340 --> 00:07:27.240 We have very little organic meat. 139 00:07:27.580 --> 00:07:32.720 We have instead what's called natural meat, which is pretty much whatever the producer 140 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:33.860 defines it. 141 00:07:34.020 --> 00:07:34.100 So it comes off a real cow. 142 00:07:34.100 --> 00:07:35.620 It comes off a real cow, yes. 143 00:07:36.880 --> 00:07:42.720 But just going on the lot farming, so organic farming would still be lot farming? 144 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:43.580 Would still be what? 145 00:07:43.760 --> 00:07:49.000 The sort of lot production, these massive amounts of lot energy. 146 00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:50.220 It could be either. 147 00:07:50.880 --> 00:07:52.760 I've been to both kinds. 148 00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:57.600 I've been to ranches where the animals were free and outdoors. 149 00:07:57.680 --> 00:08:02.480 That requires a great deal of land to do it sustainably. 150 00:08:02.700 --> 00:08:08.620 But it's also possible to raise, under our regulatory system, it's possible to do industrial 151 00:08:08.620 --> 00:08:12.480 production and still call it organic as long as you follow those other rules. 152 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:16.820 Karen, you've looked a lot at food production and how we slaughter meat and how we handle 153 00:08:16.820 --> 00:08:17.860 it and how to find. 154 00:08:17.980 --> 00:08:23.460 Because one of your issues has been that if you ask people to change their behavior in 155 00:08:23.460 --> 00:08:24.760 their eating, they don't do it. 156 00:08:24.860 --> 00:08:28.680 But if you can actually do it in the food production cycle so that you eat healthier, 157 00:08:28.760 --> 00:08:31.020 more passively, without changing your choices, that's important. 158 00:08:31.440 --> 00:08:31.880 Yes. 159 00:08:31.880 --> 00:08:36.960 Well, I've been interested for many years in how we can change the food supply. 160 00:08:37.100 --> 00:08:42.820 Because I'm struck by a comment of a visiting scientist many years ago. 161 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:49.480 From the US, Sonia Connor, saying the population eats the food supply, which is so true. 162 00:08:49.740 --> 00:08:56.180 And if part of the population is well educated and wanting to change and they choose the 163 00:08:56.180 --> 00:09:00.560 healthy end of the food supply, then it might even make the disparities within the population 164 00:09:00.560 --> 00:09:01.200 even worse. 165 00:09:01.560 --> 00:09:07.160 So if we really want to change the health of a population in terms of what people are 166 00:09:07.160 --> 00:09:10.260 eating, we really have to look to change the food supply. 167 00:09:10.400 --> 00:09:12.980 And meat is a very interesting topic. 168 00:09:14.280 --> 00:09:15.580 It's a very interesting topic in this area. 169 00:09:15.800 --> 00:09:23.040 Because we don't actually pay for saleable yield. 170 00:09:23.200 --> 00:09:31.060 We have distortions in our meat system, particularly our lamb and beef industry, where we pay farmers 171 00:09:31.680 --> 00:09:34.140 to produce, we pay them per live weight. 172 00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:42.540 And so we'll actually often reward farmers for fat animals, even though when we sell 173 00:09:42.540 --> 00:09:42.880 the meat. 174 00:09:42.980 --> 00:09:45.340 We give premium prices for lean meat. 175 00:09:45.500 --> 00:09:48.880 And there are two consequences of that. 176 00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:59.280 One is that we have an awful lot of fat from carcasses, which is not discarded at slaughter. 177 00:09:59.520 --> 00:10:01.760 It is actually sold. 178 00:10:01.860 --> 00:10:07.680 It is deodorized, hydrogenated, and it ends up in processed foods. 179 00:10:07.820 --> 00:10:11.300 So it's called manufacturing margarine. 180 00:10:11.460 --> 00:10:12.720 Now, if we could... 181 00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:12.940 I'm sorry. 182 00:10:12.940 --> 00:10:13.360 I'm sorry. 183 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:17.900 If we could get the signals to farmers to produce lean animals, they would do it. 184 00:10:17.980 --> 00:10:21.400 And there is an example of that with New Zealand. 185 00:10:21.700 --> 00:10:30.600 When the UK went into the European community many years ago, instantly the bottom fell 186 00:10:30.600 --> 00:10:33.280 out of the fat lamb market in New Zealand. 187 00:10:33.300 --> 00:10:36.020 Because Europeans don't like fat lamb. 188 00:10:36.120 --> 00:10:36.920 They like lean lamb. 189 00:10:37.140 --> 00:10:42.920 And within 18 months, the export component of the New Zealand sheep market was gone. 190 00:10:42.920 --> 00:10:48.220 And the sheep industry, lamb industry, had switched completely and was producing large 191 00:10:48.220 --> 00:10:52.440 lean lambs for export to Europe, which showed that they could do it. 192 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:55.820 They were paid on the basis of their lean yield. 193 00:10:55.980 --> 00:11:01.040 Whereas their domestic market kept on producing fat lambs. 194 00:11:01.140 --> 00:11:08.760 And in fact, one of the side effects of the domestic market is the lamb flap market, which 195 00:11:08.760 --> 00:11:12.280 is the worst kind of meat you could imagine. 196 00:11:12.300 --> 00:11:12.900 It would be $19.90. 197 00:11:12.920 --> 00:11:13.660 It's 25% fat. 198 00:11:14.020 --> 00:11:19.860 Lamb flaps get exported to Pacific Islands, countries such as Tonga. 199 00:11:20.360 --> 00:11:22.500 And there was a wonderful... 200 00:11:22.500 --> 00:11:28.640 This is a sort of rambling story, but there was a wonderful, terrible example of Tonga 201 00:11:28.640 --> 00:11:34.580 trying from the point of view of public health to ban the importation of lamb flaps from 202 00:11:34.580 --> 00:11:35.080 New Zealand. 203 00:11:35.580 --> 00:11:39.800 And the New Zealand government appealed to the World Trade Organization and won. 204 00:11:40.800 --> 00:11:42.280 So you know... 205 00:11:42.280 --> 00:11:47.380 Here was a small island state trying to do something for their public health with a huge 206 00:11:47.380 --> 00:11:49.700 obesity problem, a huge diabetes problem. 207 00:11:50.060 --> 00:11:53.960 And they were forbidden from doing it because in the interests of free trade. 208 00:11:54.740 --> 00:11:55.740 It's not true though. 209 00:11:55.760 --> 00:11:58.800 In the Australian market, we export 50% of our beef. 210 00:11:58.920 --> 00:12:01.880 And what we export to the Americans and the Japanese is fat beef. 211 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:03.600 They like nice, marbled beef. 212 00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:09.140 So the beef that is usually grown for the domestic market is not finished in a feedlot. 213 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:10.800 It's only for the export market in general. 214 00:12:10.880 --> 00:12:12.180 Because of the premium prices. 215 00:12:12.180 --> 00:12:17.820 The local food supply is actually pretty good in terms of the fat in the beef. 216 00:12:17.940 --> 00:12:21.300 So we're actually exporting the saturated fat to the Japanese and the Americans to add 217 00:12:21.300 --> 00:12:21.720 to their problem. 218 00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:22.280 Well, thank you. 219 00:12:22.500 --> 00:12:22.740 Well, we are... 220 00:12:22.740 --> 00:12:23.240 That's a pleasure. 221 00:12:23.960 --> 00:12:25.480 Well, we are and we aren't. 222 00:12:25.480 --> 00:12:28.340 I mean, we are still producing fatter animals. 223 00:12:28.480 --> 00:12:32.860 We mightn't see them in terms of the meat on sale in supermarkets. 224 00:12:33.080 --> 00:12:37.920 But the fat from the carcass is still entering our food supply, the excess fat from the carcass. 225 00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:41.100 But most beef is not feedlots. 226 00:12:41.240 --> 00:12:41.680 But most beef is not feedlots. 227 00:12:41.680 --> 00:12:42.080 But most beef is not feedlots. 228 00:12:42.180 --> 00:12:42.600 No, no. 229 00:12:42.640 --> 00:12:43.640 So most of it is range-fed. 230 00:12:43.700 --> 00:12:44.320 Well, it's range-fed. 231 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:46.120 So if you're range-fed, you don't get a fat animal. 232 00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:46.560 Well, you do. 233 00:12:46.740 --> 00:12:48.280 And I think this is the interesting thing. 234 00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:49.260 You can get fat sheep. 235 00:12:49.380 --> 00:12:50.240 You get fat beef. 236 00:12:50.540 --> 00:12:50.880 It's... 237 00:12:50.880 --> 00:12:51.640 You can... 238 00:12:51.640 --> 00:12:52.620 So, Peter, you're... 239 00:12:52.620 --> 00:12:55.000 If you've been to an abattoir and looked, that's what you need to do. 240 00:12:55.080 --> 00:12:57.800 But, Peter, your argument is that if it's range, there's less fat in the... 241 00:12:57.800 --> 00:12:58.320 Much less fat. 242 00:12:58.380 --> 00:13:02.460 So it's quite a lean, big animal, especially the northern Australia beef herds. 243 00:13:02.460 --> 00:13:03.900 Which isn't the beef that we eat. 244 00:13:03.940 --> 00:13:05.640 We don't eat the northern Australian beef. 245 00:13:05.740 --> 00:13:06.780 We export it. 246 00:13:06.820 --> 00:13:11.700 And I do agree that we add 30% beef fat to it when we export it as mince. 247 00:13:11.700 --> 00:13:13.100 For hamburgers. 248 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:14.040 So, just... 249 00:13:14.040 --> 00:13:14.360 But hold on. 250 00:13:14.420 --> 00:13:14.960 I'm confused. 251 00:13:15.020 --> 00:13:20.460 I actually thought that when you slaughtered meat, you needed a bit of fat on it to actually... 252 00:13:20.460 --> 00:13:22.560 So you didn't get shrinkage and didn't become tough and so on. 253 00:13:22.680 --> 00:13:22.700 Okay. 254 00:13:22.700 --> 00:13:23.800 That's a very interesting issue. 255 00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:24.600 You... 256 00:13:26.120 --> 00:13:28.300 Because there are ways of overcoming that. 257 00:13:28.340 --> 00:13:35.120 When you kill an animal, if you put it into a chiller too quickly and it cools down too 258 00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:39.660 quickly, it does something which is called cold shortening. 259 00:13:39.660 --> 00:13:40.540 The muscle... 260 00:13:40.540 --> 00:13:41.020 The... 261 00:13:41.020 --> 00:13:41.060 The... 262 00:13:41.680 --> 00:13:42.480 The muscle fibers... 263 00:13:42.480 --> 00:13:45.240 You're turning us progressively into vegetarians with this conversation. 264 00:13:45.760 --> 00:13:53.940 And the muscle fibers contract and so they shorten and that will lead to a very tough 265 00:13:53.940 --> 00:13:54.280 meat. 266 00:13:54.420 --> 00:13:56.560 And so obviously it is not good for consumption. 267 00:13:56.920 --> 00:14:03.300 So in the old days, we just used to leave carcasses hang at room temperature until rigor 268 00:14:03.300 --> 00:14:04.020 mortis set in. 269 00:14:04.280 --> 00:14:10.680 But now we have other ways where you can stimulate electrically the carcass. 270 00:14:10.680 --> 00:14:17.260 And speed up the aging process so that the muscles use up all of their excess substrate. 271 00:14:17.260 --> 00:14:18.020 Oh, it's organic electricity. 272 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:19.640 It's not organic. 273 00:14:19.980 --> 00:14:20.980 But it's a way... 274 00:14:20.980 --> 00:14:23.380 And then you can cool the carcass without toughening it. 275 00:14:23.580 --> 00:14:24.000 So... 276 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:25.340 But you're right. 277 00:14:25.420 --> 00:14:30.800 There are a lot of reasons why fat carcasses are actually better for a slack industry. 278 00:14:31.260 --> 00:14:32.240 If you... 279 00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:32.920 If you... 280 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:38.760 When you transport animals and they don't have a layer of fat on them and you transport 281 00:14:38.760 --> 00:14:40.320 them roughly, they'll bruise. 282 00:14:40.320 --> 00:14:42.820 And that won't be a productive system. 283 00:14:42.860 --> 00:14:42.920 Yes. 284 00:14:42.920 --> 00:14:44.400 Come back for a second bite of the organic cherry. 285 00:14:44.580 --> 00:14:44.640 Yeah. 286 00:14:44.640 --> 00:14:48.840 There is a catch 22 here on the grass-fed cattle. 287 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:51.600 Grass-fed cattle produce about three times the methane. 288 00:14:51.920 --> 00:14:57.200 So what we have in Australia now is the methane produces more global warming than all of our 289 00:14:57.200 --> 00:14:58.380 coal-fired power stations. 290 00:14:58.960 --> 00:15:02.580 If you go the US route and you go lot-fed cattle... 291 00:15:02.580 --> 00:15:02.840 Then you'll fire. 292 00:15:02.840 --> 00:15:05.460 Then you've got to produce the fertilizer to grow the corn. 293 00:15:05.980 --> 00:15:06.500 Okay. 294 00:15:06.580 --> 00:15:08.520 Either way, methane is a big issue. 295 00:15:08.700 --> 00:15:10.300 And globally, methane is a big issue. 296 00:15:10.300 --> 00:15:14.880 And it's having a bigger effect on global warming over the next two decades than anything 297 00:15:14.880 --> 00:15:15.300 else. 298 00:15:15.460 --> 00:15:16.280 But hold on a second. 299 00:15:16.580 --> 00:15:18.460 Surely, why is feedlots... 300 00:15:18.460 --> 00:15:20.840 Why are feedlots any less methane-producing than... 301 00:15:21.280 --> 00:15:24.280 Or fart-producing than range animals? 302 00:15:25.280 --> 00:15:26.940 You should ask the CSIRO. 303 00:15:26.980 --> 00:15:28.340 They know all about these things. 304 00:15:29.020 --> 00:15:30.540 It's all down to gut bacteria. 305 00:15:30.720 --> 00:15:30.880 Yes. 306 00:15:30.980 --> 00:15:33.720 So the grass-eating ones have a lot of cellulose. 307 00:15:33.740 --> 00:15:35.480 So the bugs eat the cellulose and produce the methane. 308 00:15:35.500 --> 00:15:37.900 Whereas the grain is a lot more starch. 309 00:15:38.140 --> 00:15:38.540 Right. 310 00:15:38.540 --> 00:15:39.700 And the protein just gets straight to fat. 311 00:15:40.780 --> 00:15:43.240 Of course, corn is a huge issue, is it not? 312 00:15:43.340 --> 00:15:44.400 Corn is a huge issue. 313 00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:47.740 But now that we're using it all for ethanol, it's a mood issue. 314 00:15:48.840 --> 00:15:50.680 I mean, it's really astonishing. 315 00:15:51.500 --> 00:15:54.680 Corn production in the United States is higher than it's ever been. 316 00:15:55.500 --> 00:15:59.080 And corn prices are higher than they have ever been. 317 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:04.700 And so this will depress the use of corn sweeteners, which nutritionists like me are very happy 318 00:16:04.700 --> 00:16:05.020 about. 319 00:16:05.240 --> 00:16:05.540 Fantastic. 320 00:16:05.540 --> 00:16:08.160 Because it will raise the price of corn sweeteners. 321 00:16:08.540 --> 00:16:14.320 And so our processed food companies have gone back to using sucrose and advertising it as 322 00:16:14.320 --> 00:16:14.720 natural. 323 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:15.940 And there's a lawsuit. 324 00:16:16.500 --> 00:16:22.440 I was interviewed this morning about a lawsuit that's just been filed accusing a company 325 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:29.140 that uses high fructose corn syrup and advertising it as natural, misleading the public. 326 00:16:29.420 --> 00:16:32.680 So the audience probably knows all about this, but just in case they don't, you better just 327 00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:34.360 tell us a little bit about the fructose story. 328 00:16:34.680 --> 00:16:35.620 The fructose story. 329 00:16:35.760 --> 00:16:36.080 Well. 330 00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:39.760 I'm of the opinion that corn sweeteners are just sugars. 331 00:16:40.160 --> 00:16:46.060 Corn sweetener, for the biochemists among you, sucrose is glucose and fructose stuck 332 00:16:46.060 --> 00:16:46.580 together. 333 00:16:47.100 --> 00:16:52.080 And corn sweeteners are glucose and fructose separated, but the body really can't tell 334 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:52.460 them apart. 335 00:16:53.100 --> 00:16:57.840 The fructose issue has to do with comparing fructose to glucose. 336 00:16:58.180 --> 00:16:59.900 But that's the wrong comparison. 337 00:17:00.220 --> 00:17:04.740 The comparison should be high fructose corn syrup to sucrose, and they're basically the 338 00:17:04.740 --> 00:17:05.020 same. 339 00:17:06.080 --> 00:17:08.380 So the issue here is that you metabolize fructose differently. 340 00:17:08.760 --> 00:17:12.700 But it doesn't matter, because if you didn't have corn sweeteners, you would have sucrose, 341 00:17:12.800 --> 00:17:16.000 and they have approximately the same amount of fructose in them. 342 00:17:16.140 --> 00:17:18.020 Peter, where do you sit with this fructose story? 343 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:22.040 I've actually got a story on it on Monday Morning's Health Report, which suggests that 344 00:17:22.040 --> 00:17:28.340 this is one of the more toxic things in the obesity epidemic, that fructose is liver damaging, 345 00:17:28.560 --> 00:17:34.960 that it changes the way we perceive food and appetite, and regardless of whether it comes 346 00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:36.060 from corn syrup or sucrose. 347 00:17:36.060 --> 00:17:40.660 I mean, it's certainly metabolized in a different way from glucose, so that the sensing mechanisms 348 00:17:40.660 --> 00:17:41.480 in the liver are different. 349 00:17:41.560 --> 00:17:47.040 But I think the proof that it's actually more, say, obesogenic than starch or glucose, I 350 00:17:47.040 --> 00:17:47.700 think, is not there. 351 00:17:48.440 --> 00:17:50.680 And certainly, I don't think it's damaging to the liver. 352 00:17:50.760 --> 00:17:57.440 I don't know anything about sensation of food sweetness and satiety in relation to sucrose 353 00:17:57.440 --> 00:17:59.340 or glucose, so I can't comment on that. 354 00:17:59.460 --> 00:18:02.560 But I don't think – I mean, certainly there's a strong association with American obesity 355 00:18:02.560 --> 00:18:04.960 rates and use of high fructose corn syrup. 356 00:18:05.160 --> 00:18:05.380 But that's –. 357 00:18:06.060 --> 00:18:06.780 Like 358 00:18:06.780 --> 00:18:10.620 if you 359 00:18:13.180 --> 00:18:14.260 were 360 00:18:14.260 --> 00:18:15.540 To 361 00:18:36.260 --> 00:18:39.920 In terms of Australians and their food supply and what we eat, 362 00:18:39.940 --> 00:18:41.120 what do you think are the critical issues? 363 00:18:41.960 --> 00:18:45.040 I think in Australia at the moment the critical issues are water and carbon. 364 00:18:45.540 --> 00:18:47.740 Now, obviously, most people don't think about water and carbon 365 00:18:47.740 --> 00:18:49.680 when they make choices about... 366 00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:51.080 Most of the time they don't think at all. 367 00:18:51.300 --> 00:18:53.360 So if they're going to think about nutrition, 368 00:18:53.760 --> 00:18:56.300 obviously that's very important in terms of choosing, you know, 369 00:18:56.320 --> 00:18:58.880 the lowest calorie version for the highest micronutrient, 370 00:18:59.480 --> 00:19:01.280 you know, more vitamins and minerals per calorie, 371 00:19:01.400 --> 00:19:02.980 so that they can look at foods that... 372 00:19:02.980 --> 00:19:05.120 You know, and dairy foods are a good example of actually 373 00:19:05.120 --> 00:19:07.800 quite high in protein and micronutrients. 374 00:19:08.700 --> 00:19:11.540 But if you were going to really think about before you eat, 375 00:19:11.580 --> 00:19:15.460 then you need to think about the ethics both of water and carbon 376 00:19:15.460 --> 00:19:17.840 as well as the ethics of food production that Marion talks about. 377 00:19:18.520 --> 00:19:21.840 And things like meat and dairy, of course, have quite a bad name 378 00:19:21.840 --> 00:19:24.360 in terms of their water usage and their carbon dioxide production. 379 00:19:24.560 --> 00:19:27.660 But I think the equations haven't been really looking at 380 00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:30.180 the whole cycle of food production. 381 00:19:30.520 --> 00:19:32.320 So you might think, you know, growing rice, 382 00:19:32.320 --> 00:19:32.960 growing rice is a good thing. 383 00:19:32.960 --> 00:19:34.340 Growing rice in Australia is not a great idea, 384 00:19:34.420 --> 00:19:35.880 but say growing rice in Southeast Asia. 385 00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:39.100 But there's still a very large amount of water per kilogram, 386 00:19:39.280 --> 00:19:41.900 say 5,000 litres of water per kilogram of rice. 387 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:43.960 And then if you have a mechanised harvester, 388 00:19:44.080 --> 00:19:46.300 you have, you know, another 300 or 400 tonnes 389 00:19:46.300 --> 00:19:48.440 of carbon dioxide produced for the harvesting. 390 00:19:50.540 --> 00:19:52.040 So on the surface of it, 391 00:19:52.740 --> 00:19:55.500 vegetable sources look downright winners. 392 00:19:56.220 --> 00:19:58.380 But I think you have to explore the whole food chain 393 00:19:58.380 --> 00:20:00.620 until you get the packet of rice in your mouth 394 00:20:00.620 --> 00:20:02.940 and put all the energy and water in place. 395 00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:04.960 And that puts all the way through from the time 396 00:20:04.960 --> 00:20:07.220 somebody plants the grain of rice to the time the consumer 397 00:20:07.220 --> 00:20:08.000 puts it in their mouth. 398 00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:11.160 And I think, and then you work out what they're getting 399 00:20:11.160 --> 00:20:11.740 for that calorie. 400 00:20:11.860 --> 00:20:14.300 So if you have white rice, all they're doing is getting starch 401 00:20:14.300 --> 00:20:15.760