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Tan Man

@reallytanman

Nov 15

I don't think people even realize how much power @RobertKennedyJr will have in this position

As CEO of the fastest growing healthy snack brand ever, we've bumped up against dozens of annoying federal regs

Here is a megathread of how he can MAHA with a stroke of his pen: 🧵

(Organized by department-- there are a lot of them in HHS!)

USDA part 1 (farming)

End the federal farm subsidies.
Unhealthy processed food may appear cheap, but you’re still paying for it. That’s because you, the taxpayer, via the USDA, subsidize mega-farmers to grow low quality, pesticide intensive food, like GMO corn and soy. The law that started this system was passed during WWII to ensure a consistent food supply, but it’s no longer necessary. If we’re going to subsidize anyone, it should be small farmers who grow quality, nutrient dense food. Not large farms (who don’t need the money anyway) using toxic chemicals to grow nutrient-void crops.

End the crop insurance scam.
One of the many reasons why farmers prefer to grow pesticide-ridden mono crops is because they are easy to insure. So long as the farmer planted the correct Monsanto seeds and sprayed the right Monsanto pesticides at the right time; should the crops fail, they will be covered. Insurance is complex, and the more standardized the insured system is, the easier it is to insure. There are many cases where farmers will make more money from a failed crop than a successful one because of this payout. It’s not immediately clear how to solve this. But any incentives that encourage farmers to grow less quantity or quality of food are inherently harmful to the country and disrespectful of our land, and should be fixed.

Legalize raw milk.
The main reason we even have pasteurization is because refrigeration wasn’t widespread when these laws were written. But now we have it. Not only does the raw milk ban deprive Americans of an entire category of nutrient dense foods, it also increases the centralization of the industry and makes costs higher. Instead of selling to a dairy processor that then resells it to the stores, the removal of the processing middlemen would increase the localization and decrease costs of dairy products. @RepThomasMassie can do this on day 1

Revamp organic standards.
USDA Organic is a valuable certification of quality, but it has been greenwashed by large food producers who find loopholes (often involving imported foods) or violate the spirit of the law. These should be reevaluated and eliminated, the standards made more stringent, and USDA subsidies should be available to any farm that would like to be certified but is unable to afford the certification process.

Stop paying for fallow land.
The USDA pays farmers outright to leave millions of acres fallow every year. While there can be important conservation reasons for leaving land un-utilized, in recent years this program has been wielded politically in order to control the quantity and quality of the food supply. If land can be ecologically farmed/grazed, and we know from Allan Savory’s work that proper farming techniques are actually beneficial to the land, then it should be. There’s no good reason for us to spend taxpayer dollars to produce less food, as it only increases the prices of food for American consumers and leaves us strategically vulnerable to potential shortages.

Allow responsible grazing on federal lands.
The work of the @AllanRSavory and the @SavoryInstitute clearly shows that the best way to maintain wild grasslands and reverse desertification of marginal lands is to promote ruminant animal grazing. The US government owns untold acres of such land in the American west, and in lieu of natural grazing animal populations (such as bison), responsible ranchers should be allowed and encouraged to graze their animals on this land and manage the health of these vital ecosystems.

Require ingredient labels on produce.
Pure produce was never required to display ingredient labels, because until very recently, there were no other ingredients than what you can see with your own two eyes. Sadly, that has changed. Many fruits and vegetables are coated with synthetic waxes or other substances designed to preserve freshness or improve appearance. If these substances are used, the produce should be clearly labeled so consumers can choose whether or not they want to buy produce with those additives.

Food stamps for farms.
Food stamps are basically a government subsidy for Coca Cola. The vast majority of food stamps are spent on cheap processed food that makes their purchasers more unhealthy, increasing the costs of their (also government subsidized) healthcare. Preventing food stamps from being used on crappy food, or at least applying a multiplier when used on quality food/at farmers markets, would help our poorest citizens buy better food and help dismantle the food deserts that plague poor areas.

The Food Pyramid.
Everyone’s dietary needs are different, so the task of creating a food pyramid that perfectly applies to everyone is nigh impossible. However, there are certain things that no one should be eating in any amounts. Either come up with something that works, or stop even trying. Just tell people what poisons to avoid instead.

USDA part 2 (meat)

Reduce import restrictions on traditional foods.
Much of the great food in Europe, particularly dairy and meat, is not allowed to be imported to the US. Young raw cheese and pretty much any salami or cured ground meats are largely ineligible.

Reduce charcuterie restrictions.
In lieu of the above, we could also make excellent charcuterie domestically. However, the USDA makes this nearly impossible. They have a complete phobia of bacteria, and since natural salamis etc require fermentation, they make it so difficult that it’s not financially viable for anyone to do successfully.

Reduce or subsidize slaughterhouse compliance.
All meat for retail sale must be processed in USDA inspected facilities. The cost to operate them up to spec and remain compliant is enormous, which is why so many small slaughterhouses have closed in recent decades. This makes it harder for small ranchers to get access to slaughtering. The USDA can either ease these restrictions, or subsidize the cost of compliance, allowing small ranchers to flourish. This isn’t a quality issue— we buy “illegal” meat from small Amish operations all the time. It’s just the unnecessary stuff that the feds make you do that adds cost for no reason.

Slaughterhouse exemptions for small meat producers.
For small animals like chickens, turkeys, etc., farmers can process a limited quantity on-site— no slaughterhouse needed. Increase the cap to make it possible for farmers to avoid slaughterhouses entirely when quality is not at risk.

Close the imported meat “product of the USA” loophole.
Today, meat from animals raised in another country can make its way onto shelves as “product of the USA”, so long some processing (including mere repackaging) occurs in the in the US. No more. Unless it was born and raised until slaughter in the US, the company should not be allowed to mark it as “product of the USA”. This current loophole makes it harder for consumers to know what they’re buying, and makes it easier for big companies to trick consumers into paying more for cheap international meat. If you're going to pay more, get it from a local producer cc @beefinitiative

Allow the sale of hunted meat.
It is surprising to many that hunted meat is generally not able to be sold for consumption in the US (yes, that venison you buy at the store is farm raised). This not only deprives the public of quality food sources, it disincentivizes hunters and trappers from harvesting animals where it would actually be helpful to ecosystems (e.g. the wild hogs in Texas). Meat should remain safe, and many wild hunted animals can harbor parasites, but the regulations should be revised to enable the safe production of wild hunted meat.

Fewer restrictions on farm infrastructure.
While farms are inspected at the state level, they typically implement guidelines given by the USDA and FSIS. @JoelSalatin has written extensively on the burdensome infrastructure requirements that small farmers face, which may be helpful for large operations but are unnecessary or even counterproductive for smaller ones. These restrictions favor large scale, low quality farmers and prevent Americans from finding abundant locally produced food from small farms.

End the cattle age requirements.
American cattle are required to be slaughtered before they are ~3 years old, which is due to concerns about mad cow disease. However, we know from the writings of Joel Salatin that such concerns are a byproduct of unhealthfully raised cattle, and not merely cattle age. The main problem with the age requirement is that it does not give ranchers who exclusively feed their cows grass enough time to fatten them up to an appropriate weight. This discourages ranchers from raising their cattle on pasture, and instead encourages the soy- and corn-based feedlot system which can fatten cows younger, but at the expense of animal quality and health. In Europe, you can find steak from 5+ year old cattle, and it is delicious and more nutrient dense. There’s no reason we can’t have that here.

Feed cattle proper food.
Chickens and pigs can eat pretty much anything, but cattle are strict vegetarians. It was the feeding of “chicken pellets”— a mixture of chicken poop and other chicken farming byproducts— to cattle that caused the initial outbreak of mad cow disease in the 1990s, which led to a whole host of cattle farming restrictions (including the age rule above). Notably, they did not (you guessed it) bane chicken pellets as cattle feed. This practice is still allowed in some cases, so firm requirements that cattle are to be fed exclusively with plant materials should be implemented.

Let us eat organs.
There are several organs that you are not allowed to buy. If the USDA catches wind of you even giving them to a neighbor, they will crack down on you. Examples include beef brains and pork thyroid. While not appealing to most, some have claimed that these organs have incredible health benefits. Regardless of their potential health properties, there is no reason why intelligent adults should not be allowed to buy and eat any part of any livestock animal that they desire. (Don't make @paulsaladinomd need to move to Costa Rica just to eat some beef thyroid)

Rethink food inspection and destruction.
There are many examples from history of harmful disease outbreaks that originated with farm animals. However, our method of dealing with them at present is barbaric: when an animal tests positive for a disease, often times every animal on the farm will be slaughtered and their bodies destroyed. Sometimes, even neighboring farms’ animals will be impounded and destroyed. Of course, the USDA does not adequately reimburse the farmer(s) for the loss (e.g. Millers Bio Farm). This creates a disastrous moral hazard where the livelihood of an entire family could be held in the hands of an overzealous inspector, or risked by a neighboring mega-farm that raises unhealthy animals and can afford the loss. It’s not immediately clear what a better response would look like, but at the very least, we could consider more discriminating testing and quarantine of infected individual animals, and the possibility of constructive use or sale of the animals to consumers who are aware of the situation and risks.

Remove animal vaccination requirements.
If farmers want to treat their animals with medicines and vaccines, then they should be able to do so. If they don’t, then there should be no requirement. Animal medicine is tricky because not only do we need to know that the animal itself remains healthy after treatment, we need to be sure that the person who eats it will not experience ill effects either. Given the ethical and logistical difficulties of conducting formal studies that could answer such questions, farmers should be able to make their own choices, and consumers should be aware of those choices through required labeling of any vaccinations the farmers administered.

No internal dyes in animal feed.
Farmed salmon are fed astaxanthin to dye their otherwise gray innards pink. Chicken farmers will supplement their feed with additives to make the yolks appear darker. This misleads consumers into thinking the animals were raised in a higher quality environment, and tricks them into paying more for no reason. This practice should be examined and the appropriate restrictions put in place so that if a food has the appearance of quality, it’s because it actually is high quality.

FDA part 1 (food and nutrition)

No more “natural and artificial flavors”.
List them ALL. Ingredient labeling is one of the best things the FDA ever did, but they didn’t go far enough, instead allowing companies to hide (often the most toxic) ingredients behind catchall terms. No more. List ALL ingredients, by name. And screw your “trade secrets”— with enough time and money, any recipe can be reverse engineered. The secrecy of your recipe has no bearing on the success of your business.

Rethink GRAS for food additives.
While we’re on the topic of ingredients, isn’t it insane that a company can just decide to add pretty much any novel chemical to food? This is called “Generally Recognized As Safe”, and the crazy part is a company can just *decide* that their additive is safe, and if the FDA wants to challenge it (which they don’t), they have to *prove* that it’s toxic? Contrast this to Europe’s policy, which requires the manufacturer of any potential additive to rigorously prove that it’s safe before it’s ever used. The exact opposite of our system.

End “nutrient” fortifications.
If foods are nutrient-void because of crappy farming and processing methods, then fix those instead. Or at least recommend people take supplements, appropriately dosed for their personal needs. But don’t add fake “nutrients” like rust (iron) and toxic folic acid to our foods. Don’t add vitamin D and synthetic vitamin A to milk. Even if they would be helpful, you think these companies will use anything but the cheapest, most impure forms of these vitamins?

Fix RDAs (or cut them out).
Recommended Dietary Allowances are the amounts of nutrients that the FDA says you should eat in a day, and are printed on all food and supplement labels. But how the hell do they know what I need? My nutrient needs vary from day to day, year to year, and I’m just one person with a unique set of genetic and lifestyle characteristics. How could we hope to come up with something that works for everyone? Maybe @ChrisMasterjohn can figure out a better system, but at the very least there should be a huge asterisk wherever they’re printed so consumers are not misled into thinking they are perfect.

Require actual label testing.
You know how nutrient labels contain calories, fats, carbs, protein, etc.? Well, none of that is accurate. When I create a new food product and go to make a label, the FDA does not require me to send a sample off to a lab for them to run the analysis on what’s actually contained in my specific product. Instead, the FDA allows manufacturers to just calculate it based on the USDA’s database of nutrient contents of individual ingredients, and just add them all up. Woefully inaccurate. Doing that testing is time and money intensive, so perhaps there could be an exemption for small brands. But any company bigger than a certain size should be required to post lab-tested label numbers.

Ingredient lists at restaurants.
We mandate this for groceries, yet Food Away From Home (FAFH) comprises at least 25% of the food Americans eat. Nutrition labels would be burdensome for restaurants, who’d have to do a whole bunch of math every time they add a new dish. But an ingredients list would be easy— if the chef is making it, they can list it on the menu. This would allow customers to choose what they’re putting into their bodies, and discourage chefs from using undesirable ingredients (at least until we make all such ingredients illegal outright). @SeedOilScout can help publish these.

Ban misleading alternative labels.
“Just Egg” contains no eggs. “Beyond Meat” contains no meat. “I can’t believe it’s not butter” contains no butter. While the discerning consumer can figure this out, some of these labels are intentionally very confusing, and the busy shopper can easily be misled. Under no circumstances should a product that does not contain a food ingredient be allowed to use the name of the ingredient on the label, full stop.

Begin the end of seed oils.
What do we do to huge markets whose consumption we want to discourage? Tax them and make them put warning labels on the package (cough, cigarettes, cough). The infrastructure of seed oils sadly can’t be dismantled overnight. But by taxing cheap additives, it makes them no longer cheap, giving healthier alternatives a better chance, while increasing non-income tax revenue to the federal government. And by depriving them of their legitimacy on label (no more “heart healthy” labels, warning labels about their harmful health effects), we discourage consumption wherever consumers can see the package (written by @SeedOilDsrspctr ofc)

Origin distance on shelves.
Good Earth Market in northern CA labels all products in the produce section with the distance they were grown from the store. While not everyone will care, for those that do, labeling distance will allow them to make better choices that support their local agricultural industry.

Better baby food.
The most FDA-regulated food category is baby food. Sounds great, until you understand that their regulations actually require them to contain seed oils, among other unsavory ingredients (as @realpeteyb123 knows all too well). Babies without breastfeeding mothers deserve real food, and updating the already-existing requirements for real nutrients and absence of other poisons is a great way to do that.

Cottage food laws.
Packaged food sold for retail sale generally must be made in a commercial kitchen or similarly regulated industrial facility. This can make it difficult for people to start quality food businesses, as access to such facilities is either impossible or too expensive. However, some states have “cottage laws” which allow small businesses to sell certain types of foods made in their own kitchen. We should extend such regulations to the federal level, allowing businesses under a certain size to sell foods they’ve made at home. Would have made @FarmerBills life a lot easier.

Stop washing the eggs.
In other countries, eggs are sold at room temperature, and will remain fresh for weeks outside of the fridge, because the “cuticle”— a natural protective coating-- is not washed from the eggs before sale. However, the FDA requires that the cuticle is washed off, and instead it’s often replaced with a petroleum derived oil to re-seal the eggs. This is such a waste of everyone’s time, and produces eggs that don’t last as long. This requirement should be lifted immediately.

Fix FDA approved materials.
In food manufacturing, stainless steel and plastic are pretty much the only main “food safe” materials since they don’t harbor bacteria. The former is fine, but the fact that food manufacturing requirements allow or sometimes even mandate the use of plastic, especially in high heat applications, is insane. In the name of “sterilization”, many toxic chemicals are also required in order to disinfect surfaces. The FDA must start concerning itself with plastic and chemical contamination just as much as it cares about bacteria. cc @TipOfTheBanana

Read 8 tweets

Tan Man

@reallytanman

May 18, 2023

There's no such thing as "junk" food - just junky ways of preparing it.

Here's how to make your favorite "junk foods" at home in just a few minutes, 100% healthy, without sacrificing taste:

1. Burgers

Why do we associate burgers with being unhealthy?

Because massive food corporations have hijacked this otherwise healthy food...

And filled it with factory-slaughtered beef, plastic cheese, and soybean oil

It doesn't have to be this way...

Instead, you can make your burgers the way they were intended:

- Use pasture-raised regenerative beef cooked over an open charcoal flame

- Sourdough bun, made from fresh milled ancient grain wheat with butter (NOT seed oils)

- Raw milk cheddar from real Irish cows

Read 13 tweets

Tan Man

@reallytanman

May 11, 2023

The food industry is killing you:

> Seed oils are poisonous
> The US food system is toxic
> 6 in 10 Americans live with chronic disease

Here are my 9 top health and lifestyle principles to keep you healthy and strong in the modern world:

1. You are what you eat

It sounds cliché...

But every single cell that makes up your body comes from your food.

If you allow your body to be built by chemical food corporations...what will you turn into?

Natural, traditional foods are the key to health.

2. Seed oils are pure evil

Seed oils are everywhere.

But 100 years ago, they didn't exist as a food at all.

Since then, rates of every chronic health condition have skyrocketed.

Seed oils aren't the ONLY cause of our health problems...

But they're a major player.

Read 15 tweets

Tan Man

@reallytanman

Apr 17, 2023

Bread is not your enemy.

The problem is most of the bread you see in stores is fake trash.

Here are the 6 rules for quality bread that will let you eat all the bread you want, without sacrificing your health:

Modern bread is in crisis.

It's either a soybean-oil cocktail of trash ingredients (i.e., wonder bread)...

Or a gluten-free flax and pumpkin seed monstrosity.

Both are fake versions...

Of a traditional food that has stood the test of time, allowing the Romans to conquer Gaul, and feeding the greatest artists of the Renaissance.

So, what makes bread "real"?

There are 6 key features that make for optimal bread:

Read 17 tweets

Tan Man

@reallytanman

Apr 11, 2023

You've been eating fish wrong your entire life

Ever wondered why some fish tastes fresh & delicious, while others taste, well, fishy?

The secret is Ikejime, a Japanese technique that enhances the flavor, texture, and quality of the fish

To never eat bad fish again, read this:

First, what is Ikejime?

It's a 300+ year-old Japanese method of humanely killing fish and seafood

It's specifically designed to maintain superior texture and taste of the meat

How does it work?

Without getting too graphic (because vegans will report me), Ikejime quickly and humanely kills the fish to minimize stress on the animal

This means the fish doesn't release lactic acid and ammonia at the time of death

Which means it tastes better and stays fresher longer

Read 15 tweets

Tan Man

@reallytanman

Mar 30, 2023

People are 3x more overweight now than they were in the 1970s...

But the weird thing? Sugar consumption is DOWN 25%.

Sugar-free is a psy-op.

Here is why you SHOULD eat more sugar:

Now, we know correlation != causation...

But causation REQUIRES correlation (contrapositive, anyone?)

And there is NO correlation between sugar intake and obesity.

Thus, sugar can't have caused the rise in obesity.

The less sugar we eat, the fatter we become.

Maybe...

Just maybe...

We desire sugar because there's a good reason to eat it?

Every animal's (humans included) taste buds evolved to seek the healthiest foods.

In their natural environment, "tastes good" = healthy.

"But isn't sugar an artificial food?"

Read 18 tweets

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