I

hate, I hate that shit.

So intensely, you know, we're dealing, it's, it's just, it's no base in reality.

What, I mean, a lot of the ideals I embody and I believe in, and like when I find a farm that is actually doing it on a small level, like I support, like my farm just down the way is one of my favorite places on earth that I support and the chickens live a better life than I do.

And it's also that chicken costs $40.

which is okay.

I can do that.

hmm.

Sam Kass picks up again from his Last Supper dinner in 2024.

Our oceans are really on the front lines of climate change.

In the Pacific Northwest two years ago, they closed the snow crab fishery for the first time in its history.They did that because that fishery had gone from eleven point seven billion crabs in twenty eighteen to one point nine billion last year.

That's over an eighty percent collapse of that population in just five years.

Now, there was hope that, you know, nature is resilient and that population would rebound, but just about a month ago, officials announced that that fishery would be closed for the second straight year because the population just had not recovered.

That absolutely decimates those fishermen who have depended on that fishing grounds for a generation.

Now, let's turn to fruit, that beautiful little peach jam in the little mozzarella cup you had.

Alongside coffee and chocolate cake for dessert.

They're still Froot Loops.

It is, they're still Froot Loops.

It...

Uh, like I'm not like some big supporter of food dyes.

Like I'd, I'm happy to see them go, but you will see absolutely no difference in the public health whether they're there or not.

They are just not the problem.

Uh, seed oils.

I mean, security in both senses of the word, right? Security for individuals, but also effects like national security issues.

(laughs)

Uh, (laughs) so, um, I think we, I think two big buckets.

On the ag side, I think we need to start basically incentivizing farmers to farm in a much more regenerative way, which basically means not just thinking about what we take out, but also what we're preserving and building, and the health of the soil namely, and then the sort of health of the ecology around our agricultural systems, so they're not wiping out biodiversities, and so we are building soil health that can resist and withstand a lot of the, the volatility, the drought, et cetera, that we're, that we're gonna face.

There's lots of specific leverage that the government has to do to pull that.

Part of when you start farming that way, we can start sequestering a ton of carbon, um, and there's new tools and technologies that, you know, uh, 110 metric tons of carbon that is in our atmosphere used to be... 110 million, sorry, uh, metric tons used to be in our, our, our atmosphere, or, you know, that is in our atmosphere, used to be in our soils.

That's 80 years of our current global footprint.

When you start farming this way, you start putting that carbon back in the soil, and so we should start paying farmers to do that, and paying them for that carbon sequestration.

Do you wanna explain to everybody? 'Cause it- it gets thrown around, but I don't think people even understand what the hell it is.

And I just don't wanna end up in a situation where we're putting the burden of changing our food system on individuals.

I- I'm really happy you raised this.

I could not agree with you more, of course.

Our food environments are the things that are gonna most dictate the choices we make, and, you know, I think there's sort of a- a push-pull relationship, and there's a conversation between eaters and producers of food, and it goes back and forth, and we have to incrementally move that conversation forward.

I think the main point is we- we have to have policies that support healthy and affordable food to everybody.

We have to have businesses that are actually trying to make nutrient-dense foods and putting the health of their eaters at least on the agenda, not just, you know, profit margins and revenue.

So there's no blaming the individual.

And you seemed almost cautiously optimistic that they, uh, I'm quoting you here, "might make the issue of health and food bipartisan." Are you still feeling optimistic?

He's been hosting these dinners ever since.

Let's start with the crab cakes.

In the Pacific Northwest, two years ago, they closed the snow crab fishery for the first time in its history.

That fishery had gone from 11.7 billion crabs to 1.9 billion last year.

That's over an 80% collapse of that population in just five years.

Let's turn to fruit.

Last year, we lost 95% of the Georgia peach crop.

What do you want them to do?