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The Next Big Idea · 2025-10-16 · 44 min · 8,492 words

A Food Crisis Is Brewing. Are We Ready?

Listen to the original audio · Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Why times can differ in your player

I'm Caleb Bissinger, and this is the next big idea. Today I'm sitting down with Sam Cass. He was a senior food policy advisor to President Obama, and he cooked dinner most nights for the first family. When you're in somebody's home in that intimate way, you become basically part of the family. The meals he prepared in the White House were wholesome, but in his new book, The Last Supper, he says,

A lot of what we eat is not only bad for our bodies. You know, you have 80% of the foods produced in the country are like not considered healthy. It's also bad for the planet. It's the number one driver of biodiversity loss and land use change, number one use of the world's fresh water, and the second main contributor of greenhouse gas emissions around the world. And the foods we love may be in jeopardy.

Coffee prices are skyrocketing because of climate. Chocolate was up 200% last year. It's gonna get worse if we don't get serious about change, but it's happening right now as we speak. After some ads, Sam and I will dig into what it will take to save our food system before it's too late. From 2009 to 2014, Sam Cass had two jobs.

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