In January 2024, we sat down with hosts Jackie Turner and Matthew Kessler to record an episode for one of our favourite food podcasts, Feed by Table Debates. We’ve been fans of Feed since its inception — in the early days of FFJ, they were running a season on power in the food system — and to be hosted on our own episode was truly a dream come true. The episode was just released two weeks ago, and we’re syndicating it here as we know many of you will be interested in the topics we discussed.
This Feed season focused on the overarching question: “should food systems be more natural?” In this episode, we wanted to explore the deeper questions around “natural” diets: whose labour makes them possible, who can afford them, and how culture and experience shape our food choices. We dive into these issues and uncover how a simple "natural foods" search on TikTok exposes striking gender dynamics.
As host Jackie aptly notes in her introduction to the podcast, the political context around this discussion has changed significantly in the 13 months that have passed since recording. “Making America Healthy Again” by shifting towards more natural foods is now firmly on the U.S.’ political agenda, with RFK at the helm. Meanwhile, recent surveys show that the share of Republican men who believe that women should return to their “traditional roles” was at 48% in November 2024, up from 28% in May 2022 (among Republican women, this figure has similarly jumped from 23% to 37% ). What do these figures mean in the context of an unprecedented political interest in changing the ways that Americans eat? On whose backs are those in power expecting this shift to be built? The TikTok “Tradwife” (in essence, women who embrace and promote traditional gender roles) clips that Jackie shares with us in the episode give us some indication. In retrospect, they were a harbinger of the cultural shifts that were already churning in the last Biden year and for all of their aesthetically-pleasing serenity, offer a more dystopian vision of what (or who) will become the lifeblood of America’s “health”.
As always, we’d love to hear what you think — and please subscribe to Feed if you haven’t already!
Isabela and Zoë
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