States Are Excluding Soda from SNAP. Should They?

Sarah and Beth disagree strongly on SNAP benefit regulations.

Should SNAP benefits cover soda and candy? Six states get federal approval to exclude them, and Sarah and Beth debate whether this is smart public health policy or government overreach—wrestling with the tension between the “nutrition” and “assistance” parts of the program’s mission.

Should tax dollars subsidize products that make people less healthy? Sarah and Beth explore the “common sense politics” of restricting junk food purchases, Sarah’s personal experience using SNAP cards during COVID, and whether the Biden administration should have approved state waivers as experiments instead of blocking them.

Is the soda industry the real villain? Sarah calls soda “poison” and predicts it will be viewed like cigarettes in decades to come, while Beth argues the government should regulate the industry upstream rather than police individual purchases downstream.

Plus: Bedtime routines, sleep struggles, and why Beth can sleep through anything while Sarah wakes up at the slightest sound.

Topics Discussed

• Six States Ban Soda from SNAP Benefits

• Nutrition vs. Assistance Debate

• Corporate Food Industry & Addiction

• Outside of Politics: Bedtime

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Episode Resources

• SNAP Food Restriction Waivers

• New SNAP rules explained: 6 more states restrict purchases of processed ‘junk’ foods (ABC News)

• Six More States Ban Junk Food From SNAP Benefits (Newsweek)

• The Age of Addiction by David Courtwright

• Evicted by Matthew Desmond

• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - Key Statistics and Research

• Policy Basics: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

• She’s a Foot Soldier in America’s Losing War With Chronic Disease (The New York Times)

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:08] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:10] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:11] You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Remember this little viral ditty from 2023?

[00:00:17] [Oliver Anthony’s Rich men North of Richmond]

[00:00:33] Oliver Anthony hit a lot of nerves with his Rich men North of Richmond, including the perennial debate surrounding highly processed foods and government benefits. Since then, that debate has become a reality, with six states receiving approval from the federal government to exclude sodas and candy from the list of eligible products for SNAP. We’re going to talk about that today. Outside of Politics, a while back, I touched off quite the discussion in the news brief asking about bedtimes. So we’re going to talk about bedtime Outside of Politics on today’s show.

Beth [00:01:03] I’m just going to look forward to that. We’re going from one of my least favorite things, shaming people about what they eat, to my absolute favorite thing, bedtime. And so it’s going to be a journey today. We have a journey about everywhere that we make stuff and a lot of that happens on Substack. We would love for you to join us there. You do not have to be a paid subscriber to get our show notes, to get transcripts of our episodes, as well as our Friday essays. You can find all the things Pantsuit Politics has and does on our homepage on Substacks. So if you like what we do here, a free, very easy way to help us out is to follow us on Substack. We hope you’ll do that today. You can find a link in the notes.

Sarah [00:01:40] Next up, let’s talk about SNAP and soda. All right, let’s cover some of the basics. 40 million low-income Americans use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. Now this covers everything except alcohol and hot food. The average SNAP benefit is about $180 a month per person, which typically covers about 63% of a person’s food budget. So people are almost always still using some of their own money to buy food. Now, an agricultural department survey found that SNAP households spend about 5% of their food budget on soda, just a little bit higher than the 4% that non-SNAP household spends. So about 4% of household budgets go to soda in the general population, a little higher among SNAP household. Beth, do you have any experience with SNAP?

Beth [00:02:48] I don’t. I did a pretty deep dive into SNAP for a More to Say, maybe a year ago. And what I learned is that how successful this program is on almost every metric. Like it really does improve the situation for people living in poverty. It really does help our economy. For every dollar we invest in SNAP, we get back more than a dollar in economic benefit. It helps sustain grocery stores in places that might not otherwise have grocery stores. So I think that I have taken a real can we just stop trying to reform SNAP constantly approach since that episode because as government programs go, this is just a super successful one.

Sarah [00:03:27] I actually do have some experience with SNAP because our school district is a title one school district. So we have a large number of students who live below the poverty line. So what that meant was during COVID everybody got SNAP benefits. So because we weren’t going to school and the kids weren’t getting lunches, the federal government sent basically the equivalent of those meals, I think it was breakfast and lunch, in SNAP benefits. So we got a SNAP card for all three of our kids. And it was a lot of money. I mean, we got lot of money. Now I didn’t feel guilty about it because I was paying a full-time nanny to do my job at home during COVID. So I was like this feels like a one-for-one benefit to me. I have to expend this money because of COVID. So I’m going to take some of this federal money to make up for it. But it was fascinating to use the cards. I talked to Nicholas about it this morning because I knew we were going to talk about this. And he was like it was great.

[00:04:27] It was free money. It helped supplement our grocery budget, which was pretty high because we were home three meals a day eating. There were some weird things. So it sounds simple it doesn’t cover alcohol and hot food, but that meant we could get pre-prepared sushi, but not a rotisserie chicken because the sushi wasn’t hot. We called it Biden sushi. So we would have Biden sushi for dinner. And so it does still create some weird holes the way the eligibility works. And there’s always been debate about formula and diapers and why doesn’t SNAP cover this? But I do think it’s overall a beneficial program. It absolutely helps supplement people’s food budgets, and especially as food gets more and more expensive. So I think it is a successful program, but I think this has always been a tough one because I think when you give benefits, then you create a sense of entitlement. I don’t know what the right word is. But once people’s tax dollars go to something, they got a dog in the fight. You know what I’m saying?

Beth [00:05:42] I think it’s two things. I think it’s like that sense of I paid for your wedding, so I wanted to say what the colors are and what the flowers look like. That sense that we put some money in, so now we should have some say over it. And I think the other thing is just the kind of resentment that it’s hard to unwire from your brain. Everybody has to go to the grocery store. Everybody, no matter what your financial situation is, occasionally leaves the grocery store flabbergasted by how much you spent there. And so people look at each other and think, why are you getting help with this and I’m not? Or you don’t look like you need the help. Or you probably could figure this out without the help if you tried hard enough. And it is a tough one. It’s also tough legislatively because it’s part of the farm bill, which is a weird place for it to sit in terms of process. And the farm bill is one of kind of the ugliest pieces of legislation in terms of how it gets negotiated and who’s at the table for it. And there’s just a lot that happens through the farm bill where you think, now, wait, what was the goal again? I think we’ve lost the plot. And so, yeah, there are so many pieces that make SNAP feel constantly threatened despite how successful it is in terms of outcomes.

Sarah [00:07:09] The polling on this is complicated as polling often is. I think most Americans want families who have hit a rough spot. This is what I’m going to say is the narrative of most people’s heads. I think they tell themselves it could be me or maybe I have needed SNAP at certain points in my life. If you hit a rough spot the government should be there to make sure you can feed your kids. I think when it becomes a long-term benefit that people use for years and years and years that creates resentment-- because I think most Americans feel it should be temporary. Whether or not it should be, we can debate that. But I think that I’m just trying to articulate what I’ve heard over the course of my life around this debate is it should be temporary and it should be nutritional. I really do think the nutritional part of the acronym is what people lean on when we start to get into what should this money go to? I mean, the polling on this is pretty fascinating. You have 69% of people supporting the removal of SNAP benefits for sugary drinks and a majority of SNAP participants support removing SNAP benefit for sugaring drinks. And that gets even higher if you say, if we take it away, we’ll give you additional benefits for healthy foods.

[00:08:31] So I think, to me, where you really get to the crux of what I’m just going to call the general narrative, the “common sense politics of it” I think people think this should be temporary and if we’re paying for it, I don’t want to pay for something that’s going to make you sick and then pay for your healthcare as well. I think that’s really where you really hear the frustration and anger, is you’ve been on this government benefit for too long. You are using it for something that’s going to make you unhealthy. And then you are also getting government assistant with your healthcare. I was telling my kids yesterday about every stereotype contains a grain of truth, the Chimamanda Ted Talk. It’s not that the story is untrue, it’s that the stories is incomplete. But I really do think you have to deal with those stereotypes. And instead of rolling your eyes and being like you just think the worst things about poor people, you’re mean; you have to get at what’s there, what’s true, what are people seeing, whether it’s data-driven or not, what anecdotally are they seeing that is creating this resentment and this narrative around these benefits that have been successful.

Beth [00:09:53] I think some of that comes from, to borrow Jessica Gross’s term, our extreme wellness culture. Where people think that they can look at someone else and determine what their level of health is because we have a very superficial understanding of what healthy looks like. I do think that it is important to tell people, hey, here’s what this program does and how it works and where there are flaws in it to talk about the most effective way to address those flaws. The sushi versus rotisserie chicken is an excellent example of design flaws in this program. Now, I personally believe that the better way to tackle the design flaws of the program and again to focus on how SNAP benefits everyone, whether you use it or not because of all that economic benefit, because of the incentives that it provides to grocers, is to expand what it covers, not contract what it covers. I personally would be fine with SNAP not just being about food, but being about what you need when you go to the grocery store because your kids also need toothpaste.

[00:11:02] They also need dental floss. They also might need ibuprofen sometimes. I don’t have any problem with saying especially if we’re trying to get to a more temporary safety net for people, hey, if it’s in the grocery store and you need it, I would keep alcohol out of it because I do just think alcohol tends to cause more problems for everyone than it solves. But if it’s in the grocery and you need it, that’s fine. If I were able to use my SNAP money to get rotisserie chicken, more hot prepared foods, I think I would be more likely to spend my dollars that way than to spend my dollars on convenience and ultra processed foods because a lot of nutrition is about time. And so anything that we can get to people that is already prepared, easy for them, if we can add nutritional benefit to that and allow SNAP to cover it, I think that’s a win for everybody.

Sarah [00:12:02] So where we were in the Biden administration is the Agricultural Department saying we’re going to keep it the way it is. We’re not going to contract benefits. New York City in 2010 and Maine in 2015 applied to have these similar exclusions around soda and they were denied. What prompted my idea to have this conversation was I read a New York Times article about because now we have six states: Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, and Utah, who have now been approved under the Trump administration to exclude sodas and candy, depending on what state you’re talking about, from SNAP benefits. What prompted me to want to have this conversation, what I thought was so interesting, is a Department of Agriculture staffer during Vilsack’s term under Biden said, “’I wish we’d just approved these two.’” And this was the quote, “It was for a two-year period of time in a discreet place, and we should have had some data that would help us understand where we are today.” But instead, because it was basically a Republican idea, it was code red, it was coded as a red idea, they thought, well, is this driven by budget-cutting effort or is this driving by improving the health of Americans? I think that’s a real important distinction to ask for people, and they just decided, well, we’re not going to try to figure it out, we’re just going to deny it.

[00:13:17] And so we don’t have any data to know what this works. Now, we do have some studies. There have been studies that have shown it does increase the nutritional content of SNAP benefits. They do buy less soda. We don’t have data from a federal rollout, but people have sort of replicated this situation in a couple studies. And one found that it improved the nutrition, but then she couldn’t replicate the study. Another found that it did reduce rates of obesity. And so, we don’t have good data on this and it became so partisan. Now, there’s six states about to roll this out and Colorado is one of them, one of the only democratic states that’s going to do this. And they are doing the trade-off. They’re going to allow for hot prepared food like rotisserie chickens and hot soup, but exclude the soda and the candy. And so I thought that was interesting to do that exchange because we’re going to start trying this now. It’s going to roll out. We’re going to see what happens

Beth [00:14:19] Yeah, I read that Louisiana is also going to allow the rotisserie chicken while banning the soda. The definition of soda differs in these six states.

Sarah [00:14:27] That’s the hardest part, yeah.

Beth [00:14:28] And it’s very hard. Arkansas has very little guidance. So this is going to suck for people working in grocery stores trying to figure out what is covered and what is not covered. This is my problem in a lot of ways with contracting what SNAP covers. What is the goal? Are we trying to make people healthier? Are we trying to make the program more efficient? Are we trying to spend less money? I hear what you’re saying and I think that’s an interesting quote too from the Biden administration. It is important to know what the goal is though, to know you’re trying to achieve and to provide the appropriate guidance to the 16-year-olds doing the check-out work at the grocery stores. I think that. It’s interesting to look at how people are defining this and to think about the fact that this is coming now from a Republican push, that Republicans have taken this issue on when Michael Bloomberg suggested that soda be taxed or excluded from SNAP benefits. It was nanny state, big government, how dare you? And my goodness, how times have changed.

Sarah [00:15:37] Let’s talk about that next. Let’s talk about what is the actual goal of this new policy. It is fascinating to me that MAGA is defensive of soda, while MAHA obviously is motivated by healthier diet, healthier lifestyle. Well, I don’t know, obviously, but aspects of MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, would be anti-soda. It’s like that picture we have Robert Kennedy on the plane with J.D. Vance and Donald Trump eating McDonald’s. It’s like what are we trying to do here? And I think they have been talking out of both sides of their mouths as far as soda. I mean you have J. D. Vans super defensive of his diet Mountain Dew and talking about government overreach while now more than happy to approve more government to police people’s soda consumption, but it’s not everybody’s soda consumption, it’s just some people’s soda consumption.

Beth [00:16:52] That is so far the entirety of MAHA to me. It is performative. To me, and I keep talking about it because it is the most obvious symbol of what’s going on here. When you walk into a Steak and Shake and see a wall of beef tallow cans as the symbol of health, you know that we are living in the upside down, that this is insanity. And I don’t care what you want your French fries cooked in, doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care if you’re having French fries. I feel so non-judgmental of people’s choices. I am so disinterested in performance around health in general. But the fact that what Kennedy is doing is putting pressure on sugary cereals to use fewer dyes, but that’s the only thing that’s being addressed about the cereal. It’s silly. This is all pretty silly to me. And that’s why I’m not here to defend soda. I think the nutrition is pretty clear. Soda is bad for you. It’s a bad habit. It’s a bad habit that I personally have. It would probably help me if soda were taxed more to just say, okay, here’s another step in the process of saying this needs to not be as big a part of my life. Going through a program like SNAP that is really successful, that’s already complicated to administer, and putting the burden of this on this program as opposed to all the other things you could be doing to really tackle nutrition and incentives in the marketplace, it really frustrates me.

Sarah [00:18:26] This is where it gets hard for me. We try to own our radical opinions here at Pantsuit Politics. I have a pretty radical stance on soda. I think it is a poison. I would like to see it outlawed. And I think in decades from now, we will think about soda like we think about cigarettes. It is a multi-billion dollar industry that if they can’t get you to drink the most poisonous, they’ll just disguise it as some other bullshit and sell it to you that way. And I’m really trying to like put myself in what I’m going to start calling common sense independent politics. I’m just trying to think, where do people come down on this if they’re not consumed by either automatically saying no because it’s red-coded or automatically saying yes because it is going after poor people? Do you know what I am saying? I’m trying to step back and think like people who aren’t consuming either MAHA or anti-MAGA or whatever; if I can just strip the partisanship away from my own thinking, where do I get on this? And I think what bothers me about this debate either from going after poor people’s choices or protecting choice and being like everybody’s just doing the best they can at the grocery store is this ignoring the fact that this is a billion dollar industry that wants nothing more than for you to buy their shit.

[00:20:09] And so it’s like I don’t think it’s as simple as saying people should just be able to go in the grocery store and make their choices because those choices are being influenced heavily. This is a David and Goliath story when we’re talking about soda consumption because soda consumption is down a little bit, but that’s just because they’re hiding it. They’re just dressing it up and calling it something different. And it’s energy drinks and it’s prebiotic poppy. You can take that poppy and shove it right up your ass. I’m sorry, that is just poison in a-- that is the same problem wearing a different pair of pants. It’s all crap. But they have an obligation to their shareholders to sell as much as this crap as humanly possible. And so there is a part, and I think that’s the thread of MAHA, that is so appealing to people. They know they’re outgunned when they go to the grocery store. They know they’re outgunned when they sit down and eat or drink something that’s going to make them feel like crap, that they know is “bad” for you. I think everybody feels outgunned. I don’t think SNAP is the way to get at that, but also it’s not unpersuadable to me to say tax dollars shouldn’t go to these billion dollar corporations that are making us all sick.

Beth [00:21:27] Okay, I do not think soda is poison. I’m kind of an all things in moderation person. There are times when your kid is sick and they need a Sprite or a ginger ale or something. And I think it’s insane to say that your SNAP money cannot be used to buy that. The problem with the common sense independent place is that if you ask a few more questions it gets complicated really fast. Florida has said you can’t use your SNAP money to buy desserts in the grocery store. And I think most people would go, oh yeah, that makes sense. But then if I said, not even a birthday cake once a year for your kid? I think they’d go, well, you should all probably be able to pick up a birthday cake at Kroger for your kids once a year. I just think there are a lot of places where if you push into the next question, it gets harder. This is why policy is a difficult question always, but specifically policy that is trying to say what’s healthy for people. You can’t even talk to a nutritionist and get the same answer on a lot of questions.

[00:22:30] Now I think everybody would generally say soda is bad for you. Sure, so is bad for you. But again there are, I think, places where you just run into a wall and go, but do we really want to tell people at this level, do really want to sort out-- as you said, industry is going to be incentivized to keep innovating. Because people do enjoy a beverage that’s not just water. It’s silly to me to say that you can buy all the Capri Sun that you want, but not soda. Again, what is the goal? What are we trying to do here except tell other people what to do? If I am looking at poison that the government needs to protect me from, soda is way, way, down my list of poisons that are out there affecting people all the time the government could be helpful with. Again, I get the spirit of this. But I think it is like a lot of common sense things that when translated to policy really aren’t so common sense anymore.

Sarah [00:23:30] Well, it’s not far down my list. The average American drinks 42 gallons of soft drinks a year. That’s a lot. And it’s terrible, terrible for kids. I saw this one study each daily serving of sugar sweetened beverages was linked to a 60% increase in risk of obesity for children. So it’s a hell of a lot higher than food dyes, I can tell you that much. I’m way more concerned with America’s sodas consumption than I am with food dyes or toxic chemicals. I’m even more concerned with soda than I am with plastic because the science on what’s harming us right now, today, is way clearer when it comes to soda than it is with microplastics or plastics of any kind. So it’s high on my list. And I totally agree the complicating of like Capri Suns, it’s like percentage of juice and then these poor grocery stores are going to have to do entire new point of sale systems and train every little poor cashier to say, oh, I’m sorry, that has 15% juice instead of 10% juice. What a disaster especially if you’re a border grocery store and you can just hop on over to the next state that doesn’t have these regular yet.

Beth [00:24:38] And what are you going to do with juice? Every pediatrician I’ve ever spoken to has said juice is ridiculous. Don’t drink your calories. Just don’t drink juice.

Sarah [00:24:49] Except for don’t forget juice saves my kid’s life.

Beth [00:24:51] Well, exactly. That’s the thing. One more question and everything that seems common sense isn’t common sense anymore.

Sarah [00:24:57] But I also think the one more question is a little bit not-- that’s hiding the ball too. Because what we just said is it covers a percentage of people’s grocery store spending. So we’re not saying you can’t buy your birthday cake. Of course, we’re not. We’re saying buy it with your own money because almost everybody on SNAP is using a percentage of some of their own money to buy things that SNAP doesn’t cover. And I think that’s where the common sense will be like, well, they can just buy it themselves. Everybody’s going to have some expendable income to spend on other things. Luxury items. Should SNAP cover luxury items if it’s tax dollars funded?

Beth [00:25:37] But that’s also hilarious because a lot of the skillset that you need to build a budget is just not making it to the table in situations where this assistance is really needed. For people to sort out, 63% is a number that social scientists come up with when they study how people use these benefits. That is not how people are sitting around planning their lives with SNAP. So the idea that there is a component of income available for luxury items that people are going to budget and predict-- and I’m not trying to put anybody down. I’m just saying the reality is we’re always dealing in an artificial experimentation when we’re trying to make this policy instead of living in the world with the people who are using this day in and day out and the places that have to enforce these rules day in day out. So I just think simplicity around program design is really important. We often spend, in so many areas of the government, more money trying to micromanage people’s choices than we spend on the actual benefit of the choices. And SNAP has done a pretty good job of not doing that. And so I just don’t want to mess with something that is actually working.

Sarah [00:26:53] Well, I think that the political reality you run into is yes-- I mean, I think all the time, I don’t even remember what book it was. Some non-fiction book I read. I feel like maybe it was Evicted. I don’t remember. But the author was following this woman who was living off government benefits and she had used her benefits on lobster. He was like, what are you doing? And she was like I deserve something nice, damn it. I think it is joined in my head to the story of the nurse helping this woman care for her at-risk pregnancy and she was smoking and she’s like you really don’t need to be smoking. And she was like this baby’s taking everything from me; it’s not taking my cigarettes too. So obviously, emotionally, we understand and we hear these stories, but there are also a lot of stories of people exploiting the shit out of this system. And I bet you if you polled grocery store checkout clerks, I think this would be fascinating, actually, if you polled grocery store checkout clerks [inaudible] because I bet they’ve seen some shit that would curl your hair as far as what people use SNAP benefits for.

Beth [00:28:06] Of course.

Sarah [00:28:06] So it’s like that’s the thing. There’s both ends. And when we say one side adopts the stance of they’re all nefarious actors operating within the system. And one side adopt the stance that there are no nefarious actors inside the system. And they’re both lies. And so I’m just trying to figure out like, okay, I agree with the simplicity, but we’re a big country and this is a big benefit program. And so, I think that most people would say like, okay, well then for simplicity’s sake, let’s just eliminate all beverages, but milk. Okay, fine, then let’s do everything with milk or something like that. You know what I’m saying? I just think that most people are going to go, fine, keep it simple.

Beth [00:28:56] What about chocolate milk? You know what I’m saying?

Sarah [00:28:59] No chocolate milk. Because here’s the thing too...

Beth [00:29:01] What about almond milk? Are we doing soy milk? There is not a product in the United States of America that you can categorically ban and not have any nuance or complexity around it. There just isn’t.

Sarah [00:29:17] I think the other situation here is when we talk about the goal-- because this was another piece of the article that got my attention there, he was like are we talking about the nutritional part of the acronym? Are we talking about the assistance part of acronym? Which one do we care more about? And I think for better, for worse, we want to prioritize these goals. But because it’s such a big program and because we’re such a big country, it’s always going to manifest all these priorities and goals. And this is a commentary on our food system. And why shouldn’t it be? If our tax dollars are going to support this food system, then of course it’s going to become a manifestation of our critique of the food system itself, which is that our grocery stores are overfilled with ultra-processed food and not enough of any of our grocery budget is going to fruits and vegetables. And also at the same time, I was just talking to my massage therapist who also works at the farmers market and she was talking about they do all these programs to try to get benefits into people’s hands to use at the farmer’s market, to use these benefits on fruits and vegetable. And they are underutilized. All of these programs are under-utilized.

Beth [00:30:27] Yeah, I think that there are a lot of places where we could better focus our efforts is if what we want is people making better choices at the grocery store, and there being better choices at the grocery store. That’s a part of it. There being better choice at the grocery store is a huge element. And those choices have got to marry the convenience of packaged foods with the health benefits of whole foods. We’re just going to have to figure that out because I think the vast majority of people look at the produce aisle and see a whole lot of work and a whole lot of fight with their kids that they don’t want to have. It is a massive cultural change. If we really want more nutritional food in the grocery store, we could start in the farm bill by subsidizing more actual food production instead of all of the money that we spend helping people just grow wheat. We spend more money subsidizing farming that is part of feeding animals for meat. Very little money as a percentage is going to people actually creating these whole foods that we want everybody to eat. I just think we’re always directing our ire in a place that feels easy and it feels like it’s about somebody else instead of looking at the big picture and saying, okay, we’re a big country. There are a lot of big issues here. Perhaps the government should look at the foundational issues of supply instead of attacking the very end of the process for some slice of the population.

Sarah [00:32:01] It’s so easy to flip that though and go, well, you might as well start somewhere. You might as we’ll start somewhere. If we have these big issues with our food system, why don’t we start in the place that we can control it? Why don’t these states start with banning the soda from the SNAP benefits? I just think it’s really easy to turn that ever so slightly and it sounds very common sense. Okay, well, we’ll just start here. Because I don’t disagree with you. Obviously, I don’t. When I was like-- this sounds silly, but I am on the cusp of tears. Food is an enormous source of pleasure in my life. I love to eat. It’s like a joke in my Mahjong group. We will have this great, fun meal, we’ll try something new, and I’ll look at my friend and I’m like do you know what I love? Eating. It’s such an enormous part of who I am and how I interact with my kids. And so the fact that we’ve-- it just breaks my heart. I keep thinking about Erin Sherman’s comment, one of our listeners in Substack. She’s a health professional. She’s doctor and she was just talking about the massive lack of education around health and around healthcare and health literacy and just literacy generally. And so, I can hear the chorus of 10,000 voices of people who are not absorbed in this policy debate going this is messed up. Let’s start here. Food shouldn’t just be about convenience. The food we’re eating is making us feel like crap. The food that we eat is just a massive industry that’s exploitative and like a true villain. The villainy of the soda industry is just not something I’m going to back off of. I feel it very profoundly. And so I think it’s just easy to get in people to occupy that place and go might as well start somewhere

Beth [00:33:50] Yeah, I understand why people think this sounds good. I’m not fighting that. I’m just saying what sounds good and what is good, I think, are different things. And I think this is a poor prioritization. I also think it’s all well and good for me to think in my own life about my own choices about food and all the education and resources I have at my disposal to do that. And then I sit that beside the experience that we have with trying to help people with food at my church. And we have a pantry on site in our parking lot that has to be refilled multiple times a day because of the needs in our community. And I think about how our community is a really nice community where a lot of people are doing pretty well. And I just am not interested in policing this problem on the backs of consumers. I’m just not. Because those are people and I don’t mind that someone bought lobster once, because I do think everybody deserves to treat themselves now and then. And I don’t want to work out through a system of complex rules, how people decide whether they are with you and soda is poison or every now and then it’s fine, it’s a treat. There’s a whole range of, I think, acceptable ways to live around this. And I’m just not interested in trying to use policy as a cleaver to impose my sense of what’s acceptable on anybody else. I’m not. I get why people feel this way. I don’t feel this way. That’s all I’m voicing.

Sarah [00:35:33] Yeah. I have a lot of respect for Jared Polis. And I think he’s got a good bead on MAHA and the politics around this. So I’m super fascinated by the fact that they’ve taken this step in Colorado and they’ve asked for approval. I think where I’m at now is we’re talking about six states next year and six states after that. I’m interested. I want to see the data. I want to see what happens. I would like to see if this is complicated because social sciences around all this is so complicated. I’m kind of down on social science generally. I feel bad saying that, but we’re just going back and forth on cash benefits left and right. One study says altruistic giving works; the next one, it doesn’t work. It works. It does work. I say I want the data, I’m not sure it’s going to tell us anything, which is even more complicated.

Beth [00:36:25] Physical health is complicated. If you just isolate soda as a variable, is that going to tell you why someone ended up losing weight? You know what I mean? There are lots of pieces of this that are just tricky to study. It’s asking a lot of the data to tell us if this is the right move or not.

Sarah [00:36:41] I do think the data on soda is clear. And so would you be in favor of-- you said this at the beginning. If we say, okay, we know... I’m just trying to whiteboard it. Okay, so we go to the American people and we say there is a concurrent theme here from one side of the aisle to the other. That we feel bad, we’re unhappy with the way we feel in our bodies. We think the ultra-processed food is definitely a piece of that. The data on soda, diet soda included could not be clear. It’s not good for you. Okay, so we’re going to start there. This is an easy one. We’re going to tax the shit out of soda. That is also going to disproportionately fall on low-income Americans. Are you more comfortable with that than using SNAP benefits?

Beth [00:37:32] I would rather spread that burden out across society evenly than put it on SNAP recipients. Yes, I would.

Sarah [00:37:40] Look, if I have to choose one or the other, you know which one I’m going to choose. Tax the shit out of it. Fine with me.

Beth [00:37:46] Look, I’m fine with taxing it. Again, this doesn’t make my priority list. If I’m whiteboarding what government can do to be helpful around our health, this does not make my priorities list. I understand that it is high on yours, it is not on mine. We just disagree about that, that’s fine. If we want to do something, a tax is fine with me. That’s more honest to me. That is a more honest, holistic way to approach this. I also think government could go to the soda makers and look at them and their incentives and restrict advertising. And we have a toolkit. If you think this is cigarettes, we have toolkit around cigarettes that made a huge difference in society. And I think that that is a more honest path than this one.

Sarah [00:38:31] Listen, you don’t have to convince me, I’m all about it. But it’s so fascinating too, when you look back, we got a lot of data on cigarettes and the public health messaging. I could talk forever about the fascinating findings around public health communication of cigarettes. Like the one where it’s like nothing worked until you did the limp cigarette and talked about how it affected erectile function. There’s a country in South America where they found every cigarette company got one product. And when you took away people’s organic tobacco or menthol tobacco, they quit. When they couldn’t get their product, they quite, which is not what people think to be true when it comes to an addictive substance like nicotine. And it’s worth noting that most sodas, except for obviously Sprite, they contain an addictive sustenance. Caffeine is an addictive substance. And that’s another whole conversation.

[00:39:29] I forgot what state it is. Some state is banning caffeinated products for young people. They’re not going to be able to buy monster energy drinks and stuff because you have had people die from these over caffeinated beverages. Again, why did soda makers put an addictive substance in their product? I have a thought. I have an idea of probably why they did that. But all that stuff around cigarettes, there’s so many fascinating aspects of human behavior and why people make the choices they make. And sometimes I would even quibble with the word choice. I’m absolutely happy to restrict advertisement. I think that’s a huge mistake. I think advertising ultra processed foods to children generally should not be allowed. It was better in the eighties before we did that. Like we should not do that.

Beth [00:40:18] I really am enjoying David Courtwright’s book, The Age of Addiction, which I’m reading very slowly because there’s a lot in it. And that book begins with the premise that as humans, we seek pleasure. And we seek pleasure usually in ways that are not great for us. And I’m not going to fight that in every area forever. I believe in prioritizing. Where is our pursuit of pleasure wholly destructive? And where is it kind of destructive? A little destructive. Destructive in certain contexts. It would not bother me if society transitioned to a place where I ordered a Diet Coke the way I order a cocktail. Very rarely. It’s special. It’s expensive. It’s just pleasure, right? If my pleasure were limited in that way, that would be better for me. I’m positive and fine with me. But look, that’s just coming from the prism of what I care about and what I enjoy and my own experience and my resources and 100,000 things.

[00:41:31] I am more interested in a government that looks at health from the lens of the things that I can’t see and make that kind of decision about. Air quality, water quality. If we get data that tells us that microplastic are really terrible for us, we’re going to need the government’s help with that one. That is not a thing that I could manage on my own. So, where government is getting involved, I would like it to get involved in ways that I can’t personally make that kind of calculus around. If it is going to get in my business in that way, I would rather them do it in an even handed, really transparent way and face the public about it. Because that’s another thing about doing this through SNAP. You are not going to have the public outcry you would have if you did a straight up soda tax. There are a million memes about how if RFK comes for Diet Coke, we ride at dawn. And they don’t want to deal with that. They don’t want to have that honest conversation. It’s really easy for [inaudible] to go everybody agrees this is bad. But they don’t until it affects everybody. And so I think this is also a sneaky way to be unaccountable to the public about what you’re doing too.

Sarah [00:42:37] I think what you’re getting at with the addiction thing is the difference between acute damage and chronic damage. You can see the acute damage with alcohol with like DUIs. And depending on your level of alcohol consumption, your health, although, you can get there with soda too depending on how much you consume. And I think that’s the interplay between vices versus pollution versus when it becomes this sort of hidden externality, which I think this is very much an issue that touches and our food system overall is like one long exercise in hidden externalities. And again, God, Lord, you read that New York Times piece about the like in-home nurse in West Virginia.

Beth [00:43:24] Yes, I did. And the people living on ramen.

Sarah [00:43:27] Yes, it was heartbreaking. And these were people that I don’t think they were really spending outside income beyond their SNAP benefits. They were dependent wholly and completely on their SNAP benefits. I said that most people don’t, but there are some people who do. And so I’m just trying to think, for 10 years we’ve said keep it nuanced. And there’s just a part of me that’s like was keeping it nuanced this sort of social science, bureaucratic, expertise-laden approach to policy creating a path a mile wide for Trump to barrel right through, for RFK to barrel right through? If you’re talking about low literacy rates, low health education, complex motivations around public health, when we try to go, well, it’s really complicated and we want to prioritize and we want to... I guess I’m just trying to, like, if it’s not a top priority, when should we just give the common sense politics that we don’t have to sit down and have a 30 minute conversation with people explaining why, no, really, it sounds bad that we’re spending tax dollars on soda, but also the studies are unclear. I think we just have to pick our battles and sometimes we got to go, okay, well, let’s see what happens. I don’t have a good rubric for when we should do that. I just think that the constant keep it nuanced, busting on our own tagline, has created political vulnerabilities. It just has. You don’t have the time to explain complicated policy debates to people every damn time. It’s not going to work.

Beth [00:45:17] Sure. That’s fine. And we’re doing it. We’re living that experiment now. What if we just do things?

Sarah [00:45:21] What if just did it?

Beth [00:45:22] Well, we’re seeing what happens when you just do thing. And it’s real shitty too. So I feel zero apologies for being the person who comes in and says it’s complicated, it’s nuanced, one more question, two more questions, it gets a lot harder than your polling sounds. Because it is my job to think about this in greater depth. It is the job of people who administer programs and write laws to think about this in greater depth. I think what you are getting to is about the marketing of it, and again, the policing of it more than the substance of it. Because a lot of what people are reacting to, what they’re tired of hearing complexity around, is feeling like their speech has been policed. They can’t just say a thing. You are welcome to say to me all day, I think soda is poison. I’m not going to say, well, that’s really privileged of you, Sarah. I’m going to do that, okay? You think soda’s poison? Fine. I don’t. Also fine. Here we are, still friends, still in conversation with each other, still there are more places for this to go. I do not want to dumb everything down though, because I think we’re living a government that has been dumbed down, where they go, well, it just seems like we have too many federal workers. Let’s get rid of all of them see what happens. Okay, well, we are and that sucks. So now what? Now what do we want to do?

Sarah [00:46:42] The reason I hooked on this so strong was the woman saying we should have just approved it in New York city to see what happened. And I really want to learn enough to say, okay, we don’t want to open the gates wide open and say, let’s just try it out, see what happens with the American populace. Although, let’s be honest, there’s a long history of doing that in America. We love a massive experiment. We did it with cigarettes. We’re doing it right now with GLP-1s. We just like to just throw the doors. We did it with artificial insemination. There’s a long list where we’re doing with sports gambling right now where you just go, let’s try it. I mean, that’s just how we roll.

Beth [00:47:19] Well, and not to be like let me keep it nuanced again, but here I am. I don’t care that the agriculture department is approving what states want to do. I think this is a dumb thing for states to do. I don’t care that the federal department of agriculture is saying do it. What I think is really going on here, except maybe with Jared Polis, but some with him too, because I do think he is politically very astute and is trying to navigate, he’s trying to thread a needle here. And I respect it, thread the needle. Do I think the governor of Louisiana deeply cares about people’s health and nutrition? No, I think he is hooking his wagon to a movement that he deems politically viable. I think that if the federal government had gotten out of New York city’s way when it wanted to do this and said, go for it, this would probably not be the rallying cry of the American right today because some of our wish to keep things simpler and less complex is just, well, what team is in charge of it? And I’m fine with it. And that’s part of why I think this is all pretty stupid, too.

Sarah [00:48:25] Well, that’s but here’s a thing. I want to stop doing that. And I want us to be prepared, honestly, because I feel like this has happened a lot. It happened some with COVID and the things we said we’re not going to do it because they want to do it because they hate people and we love people and we’re the experts and we are the smart scientists and they’re the worst. And then when the data really didn’t support our conclusions, we looked like dumbasses. I know I’m painting with a really broad stroke right now, but this is a podcast so just follow me. And so, I just want to say be prepared. What if the data comes out from Colorado and it’s really good? And we say, okay, this wasn’t stupid. And what if the date had come out from New York City? So just don’t worry about every single time what team the idea came from or what motivation. Sure, maybe these people are just trying to restrict the budget. Fine, cool, whatever. Also, sometimes this whole time they were crowing about the deficit, they were right. There’s a great piece in the argument from Jerusalem Dempsey’s new thing that’s like how I learned to start worrying and think about the deficits. Because there was some of that that was true and good and right and we should have paid attention to it and not just because Grover Norquist came up with the idea.

Beth [00:49:41] I probably feel a lot less convicted about this than you do because I am personally not looking at the data to tell me whether this is a good use of policy or not. I didn’t think this was a good idea when New York City wanted to do it. I don’t think it’s a good idea now that six other states are doing it. It’s going to roll out probably lots of places and I’m going to think this is not what I think government exists to do. That is not how most people when they are polled on things respond, but that is how I respond. So it may not be stupid. It may be effective. I would like you to be able to identify a goal to know if the data tells you that you’re effective or not. It’s pretty silly the way that we use data sometimes to say a thing is happening.

Sarah [00:50:21] What would good data look like?

Beth [00:50:21] Yeah, what would good data look like? So I can say a policy was effective and still think it’s not a good use of the government’s time to make that policy.

Sarah [00:50:30] Totally different conversation.

Beth [00:50:32] It’s a totally different conversation

Sarah [00:50:33] Yeah, and I think that’s what’s hard, too, because I think and that’s why you will tie yourself in knots even just beginning to think about the Trump administration because I don’t know what they think government should do.

Beth [00:50:49] Whatever he thinks today.

Sarah [00:50:51] Whatever he thinks is the best idea today, I don’t know what Robert Kennedy thinks the Department of Health and Human Services should do. I find it very confusing.

Beth [00:51:00] I thought so much of what they are doing with government is not what Republicans thought government should do. Like 90% of the Trump administration approach is not what I thought Republicans believed about government. So it’s a very confusing time to be alive if you care about what government should do and shouldn’t do as an initial matter before you even get to will it be effective to the goals that we’re trying to accomplish.

Sarah [00:51:23] But let me ask you this to what the government should do to the nutrition versus assistance. I don’t think those are easily detached. I don’t think you get to pick one or the other. That’s the first thing. I think that’s a false premise. It’s both. It’s going to be both all the time. There’s a reason both words are in the acronym, okay?

Beth [00:51:41] For SNAP, you mean?

Sarah [00:51:42] Yeah. Nutritional and assistance, okay. So which one are we doing? Both. That’s the hard reality of this policy debate.

Beth [00:51:49] Yeah, and I disagree with that premise. Like I said about shampoo and toothpaste and stuff. I think if we are trying to support people during rough patches, we should just legitimately support people during rough patches. So I would redesign the program.

Sarah [00:52:03] You’re going to need a new acronym and a lot of different things because you can buy literally anything in a grocery store. I don’t know what your grocery stores are like, but you can buy beach towels, you can buy lawn chairs. So if you’re going to say you can buy anything in the grocery store, but then Beth you’re into just handing people money and the science on that is not good either.

Beth [00:52:22] Yeah. I don’t care though about the science as much as I care about where are we enabling people to manage their lives through difficult periods of time versus sustaining these long-term programs and then deciding, well, I paid for the wedding so I get to tell you what you need and what you don’t need at this moment in your life.

Sarah [00:52:46] I don’t understand that, though. You want efficiency. You’re worried about the deficit but then the money we’re just good we’re just [crosstalk].

Beth [00:52:53] Yeah I want a poverty insurance where truly if more people want this to be temporary, and we want more efficiency, what I think we should have is poverty insurance. If you pay your taxes and you hit a rough spot, there is some kind of benefit that kicks in for a period of time to get you back on your feet. And I don’t care what you do with that money to get back on our feet, but that’s what is available to you.

Sarah [00:53:22] You understand, though, that if people get money to get back on their feet, but the money covers everything, a percentage, hard to say how many, are going to be motivated to just stay on the benefit and keep the money because there’s no restrictions on it.

Beth [00:53:37] Well, there would be restrictions on how long you could be on the program. It would be an insurance program. I have not fully designed this and I understand it would be easy to pick apart, but that’s the thing. Everything’s easy to take apart. There is not a foolproof system. And when we try to go in and say I have perfectly designed this to be both nutrition and assistance for you in a way that you will never abuse and in a that will never contribute to any poor health on your part, that is going to fail. Any policy that you want to bat a thousand is going to to fail. And so we have to start with a huge tolerance for failure whenever the government acts because it’s always going to roll out that way.

Sarah [00:54:15] Well, I think that’s really difficult politically. Is to come to people and say, I got this program, people are going to exploit the shit out of it. There’s going to be a failure--

Beth [00:54:25] Being an adult is really difficult, though. That’s just the way it is. What program can we point to and go amazing all the time? People bitch and moan about the post office. The post office is incredible. But what we do is stick on that negativity bias because every large system, especially every system designed for a country like ours, is going to have a huge failure rate. And people, because of how people are, are going to remember the time they saw somebody use food stamps for something that they thought was wasteful. That is what we do. That is the reality that you have to contend with if you want to run for office and be a person who helps make policy.

Sarah [00:55:04] Yeah. I just think it’s hard because I also think to the common sense politics of it all, it is just hard to look at people and say, oh yeah, I know that person’s milking it for all it’s worth. That’s just a cost of doing business. I don’t want to hear that.

Beth [00:55:17] Yeah, people don’t like it.

Sarah [00:55:18] I don’t like it. I want things to function. I want them to improve if the tax dollars are going through it. I don’t want just shitty streets. I want the streets to get better. Like my city just improved dramatically the way our recycling rolls out. Now it rolls out with the trash. It doesn’t come at these like very confusing cycles. And I think we should celebrate that all the time. Like it should be constant improvement. I think that what is really important and what you touched on is what is a good use of the government? Not creating a fail-proof system. I don’t think that’s a good goal, but here’s my question though. What is the difference between saying when we use the federal government, it’s a powerful player. And so, for example, when we’re talking about prescription drugs, you and I both supported that policy of they’re the biggest buyer, they should have a say, they should say this is the generics, this is the coverage, they should save money, we should end the exploitation of the system. They’re a big player inside this purchasing environment, inside this industry. Why wouldn’t you say the same thing with SNAP? The federal government is a powerful player inside the food industry because of SNAP benefits, because of the way these benefits roll out across the country. They’re going to use this power as the federal government. They’re not going to use it to support an exploitive industry like the soda industry. Like what’s the difference in the logic there?

Beth [00:56:39] The way that the prescription drug pricing goes does impact everybody. It impacts everybody pretty evenly. Because of the way that Medicare and Medicaid work, this gets really complicated. But when you start looking at prescription drug prices under Medicaid and Medicare, you are affecting every other aspect of healthcare. That is going upstream a lot further than I think the SNAP policies go upstream.

Sarah [00:57:04] I think where you really create this tender box of resentment though is where you get into a group of-- like a socioeconomically privileged group defending the right to do something they don’t do. When you look at the breakdown of soda consumption it’s like, well, this doesn’t roll out evenly and this doesn’t affect everybody evenly. We don’t want it, but we want to defend your right to have it.

Beth [00:57:35] It’s a 1% difference SNAP and non-SNAP households. Like your numbers, it’s a one percent difference on what they spend on soda between SNAP non-SNAP households.

Sarah [00:57:45] Yeah, but it is a much bigger difference in soda consumption across America. Do you see what I’m saying? Like you get people--

Beth [00:57:51] No, I don’t see what you’re saying about that. That statistically does not match to me.

Sarah [00:57:55] Okay, I have the statistic here. So when you talk about soda consumption across America, it’s particularly high among certain demographic. Adolescent and young adults are the heaviest consumer. There are noted disparities in consumption by race and ethnicity, black and Hispanic teens drinking more sugary drinks than white teens, low-income Americans also consume more sugary drinks than their high-income counterparts. So this to me meets that thread that I think creates a lot of resentment within American politics. That you have a group of people who it’s like college-educated Americans get married at higher rates but then they say we shouldn’t do anything to support marriage.

Beth [00:58:39] I am not personally concerned about this because I love Diet Coke. I am not saying, “I here on my high horse can opt out of this and you can’t and I’m going to defend your rights.” I’m just saying I think this is really silly as a matter of policy. I cannot get to a coherent what are we trying to pinpoint with this to say what the success rates will be. Now, listen, maybe the data comes out and it shows that soda can be isolated as a variable for SNAP participants and lo and behold, the results are amazing. If you really care about people’s health though, I just don’t think this is the place to start. I really don’t.

Sarah [00:59:20] Yeah, I think it’s just really difficult. I would love to see the federal government roll out with like a comprehensive social policy. I’m happy for the taxes. I’m for the public health education. I’m happy for the healthcare industry changes. Listen, you’re not going to talk me out of any of it. I’m down for all of it, I just think that if you have a place it’s like we talk about all this time, prioritization. I could flip the prioritization argument, right? Sure, this isn’t the top priority. So if it’s not the top property, let them try it and see what happens. Do you see what I’m saying? Like if it’s not the top priority.

Beth [01:00:02] I do. Again, I’m not going to march in the street about this. I just think it’s very dishonest on along a lot of metrics because again they’re not going to do a comprehensive soda policy because then they will have to face people who are really pissed about that. If you just think about the challenges in even talking about how much alcohol is a reasonable amount of alcohol to drink. If you think about true destruction inside families, true difficulty in society, true danger on the road-- we don’t have car accidents because of Dr. Pepper. So I look at how difficult it is to do anything policy-wise around people’s individual choices, especially when it relates to what brings us pleasure and know that they are not going to do a national soda policy. That is not going to happen. And so, this is a back door. They are doing indirectly what they will not face voters to do directly, and I think that’s bullshit.

Sarah [01:01:10] Listen, give me an axe and call me Carrie Nation. You don’t got to convince me on alcohol or any of the vices. I’m like Paducah vice over here. I’m ready to take them all out. I hate it all. I think it’s destructive. I guess what I’m struggling with so much right now in this moment in American politics is, yeah, I totally agree, this is not about health. This is about protecting the poor. Of course, it’s not. I’m not trying to defend the motives of the people presenting these policies. I’m trying to figure out because I think this is true with regards to crime. I think this is true with regards to so many aspects of immigration. How do we acknowledge sort of the “common sense” experiences in people’s lives, not try to argue them out of something that seems pretty self-evident. My tax dollars shouldn’t go to soda. And without empowering these nefarious players, but also without creating, again, a weakness a mile wide for them to exploit on the other side. Do you see what I’m saying?

Beth [01:02:29] I do, and I think that that is maybe an impossible metric. I just don’t know that it happens that way. So let me go back to your prescription drug question. If I ask people what would make your life better? Lower cost of prescription drugs or less temptation to buy soda? The vast majority are going to say the lower drug prices. Now, again, I could use my own arguments and say, but the drugs are the last mile; nutrition is upstream, and that is the problem. There is nothing that is just going to get at this. We could try to eliminate all vices, and in the process everybody’s going to be working on making new ones. We like a little vice. We are wired for this as human beings. It is just part of us. We want some pleasure in our lives. We also, as human being, if you say, “Should your tax dollars pay for X, Y, or Z?” You’re going to get a no more often than you’re going to get a yes from those people too. This is where our common sense lands us because we just can’t outrun psychology in our politics. And I think a lot of what Trump has done is make us believe there is a way to outrun Psychology with politics. When I think the truest thing about Donald Trump is just that he was implanted in us. Like he is just a lot of things that we deeply learn to admire as Americans. And I think the answer to Donald Trump is not going to be a brand new policy approach as much as it’s going to be a new personality that people can grab onto.

Sarah [01:04:03] Well, the only thing I would add to that because the biggest part of my little democratic brain since I was registered at 18 years old is a real healthy distrust of corporate America. And I think just what gets left out so often in these conversations about wellness and about nutrition, and it’s the part of-- I’m just going to be honest and transparent, the part MAHA that most appeals to me and it’s why it’s this weird amalgam of like yoga moms who used to vote for Obama and God knows what else, anti-vaxxers from the Amish community, is because you have to talk about what people are up against. I just think so often when we talk about nutrition in particular, we talk about our food choices and our beverage choices and our vice choices, there’s this ridiculous narrative in America that’s like I should just be able, it’s my God-given right to blah, blah, blah. Of course, it is. Of course, I’m not trying to police your behavior. I don’t think you’re a bad person. I’m trying to fix you.

[01:05:09] What I am trying to say is you are outgunned, dramatically. This is not just about what you want that makes you happy. This is about a multi-billion dollar industry that uses the most complex psychologically manipulative tactics from their advertising to their marketing, to the way in which they design their products. They spend millions of dollars in labs thinking, how do I make this the most addictive product humanly possible? How do I get kids to eat it as early as possible in their lives so they have an addiction to it for the rest of their lives? And so that’s the part of it to me that’s just gets missed and I don’t even think the SNAP benefits get to that. But I would like someone to speak to it and get to it. I think Robert Kennedy’s full of shit. He’s not going to do it. The food industry is way more powerful than he is. I think they’re giving him this food diet just to release some pressure on themselves because they don’t want the hard shit like corn syrup.

Beth [01:06:08] Yeah, and he want things go to press conferences and crow about. What a conceit though that a lot of this movement is based on people who have decided to make this their one true cause because of their internet usage. What a conceit that this is based on an addiction to scrolling.

Sarah [01:06:30] Talk about outgunned.

Beth [01:06:31] Talk about outgunned. Talk about the most manipulative tactics. Talk about, again, the place where a lot of what’s happening to me, I can’t see. I can make an informed choice about it. So does old enough, at least. And the government has done its thing in labeling it. I can at least look and see how much sugar, how many calories, how much caffeine. I can do some work here with my own brain to make some choices for myself. I cannot do that with Instagram. We’re getting closer. No, thanks to the government. This government is like, hey, let’s just let AI take over the whole damn world and do nothing about it.

Sarah [01:07:03] What TikTok ban? I don’t think that law matters. I’m going to ignore it.

Beth [01:07:08] What TikTok ban? That seemed like a good idea for five hot minutes, but not anymore because TikTok likes me. What a conceit? This is such a house of sand. And you know what? A lot of our politics are. A lot of what Democrats have sold has been built on a house sand at different points in time, too. I think, to me, I just keep going back to trust. People trusted Donald Trump. What a stupid thing. And I participated in this. What a silly thing to spend so much time saying don’t normalize Donald Trump? You can’t get more normalized than who Donald Trump was in our popular culture before he was elected. He was normalized. There was nothing to be done about it. Who can step up to the plate and engender that level of trust and then present their own views which will be flawed in a number of respects, and their own policies which will have their share of failures and successes, but that might count as enough progress to keep us rolling forward. That’s what I’m looking for.

Sarah [01:08:07] I think I’m coming to less of a trust and more of a-- I don’t know any word for it than education gap, which is also going to feed this resentment so badly. But I do think there’s a common sense politics. I just keep coming back to this. How can we phrase this so we don’t need a 30 minute conversation where I explained a study to you of like-- I’m not on any type of social media or just in conversation in my real life, where it doesn’t come back to people are behaving badly. People are behaving badly out in the world. They are acting a mess. They are a acting a mess at the airports. They are acting to mess at the stores. They are acting a mess at public school system. People are behaving badly. And I think if you get into this place of defending-- I’m trying to balance out my ire at corporate America and these big, big, big corporations and the way they manipulate our behavior. And also acknowledging that there is some small-- I don’t know the word I want, like sort of gen pop issues too. And maybe they’re created by tech and maybe they are created by our food system, but they’re there and trying to argue people out of them isn’t working either. You know what I’m saying? I’m trying to balance both sides of the coin and not just go no one’s responsible for their bad behavior because of Instagram or because of soda or because of alcohol or because of weed. You know what I’m saying? Or because of Donald Trump. I’m just trying to put it together in a cohesive whole. You’re telling me that it’s impossible and now I’m sad.

Beth [01:09:58] I’m sorry.

Sarah [01:09:59] I’m going to go find something to eat.

Beth [01:10:00] But I do believe it is impossible. It is difficult for me to find an answer to all of those things coming together. And if I were to identify what I think is the closest thing to a root cause of all of that, I would come around to the phones.

Sarah [01:10:21] Yeah. Listen, I hate sodas, but I hate phones more. Don’t worry about that.

Beth [01:10:26] The phones are what I think we’re going to talk about as cigarettes, like I really do. And again, we still have cigarettes. I’m not trying to banish anything. I’m trying to take us back to the dark ages. I’m trying to say, I think government did what government should do around cigarettes.

Sarah [01:10:40] Yeah, I do think that is something to hold up as a success.

Beth [01:10:43] Yes, this is a product that if you are still choosing to use it, you’re doing it with full knowledge.

Sarah [01:10:49] Yeah, it’s not like an education. That’s true.

Beth [01:10:51] And we are limiting the places that you can affect other people with that choice as much as we can, reasonably.

Sarah [01:10:57] Okay. Then there is a solution here. What are you talking about? That is a good goal. So we look to cigarettes, we say, we make it as hard as possible. So it’s not a lack of education. It’s not marketing. It’s not manipulation. Like, you know...

Beth [01:11:12] It’s expensive. You have to really choose it. You have prioritized it in your own life because we’re not going to help subsidize it in any way. We’re going to limit the effect on other people. Now, soda does not make my list of things that I want to treat like cigarettes. I understand it does for you.

Sarah [01:11:27] It does.

Beth [01:11:27] And the thing is, I think you would meet a public that is not with you on that. I do think that you are in a pretty radical place.

Sarah [01:11:33] But they weren’t with us on cigarettes either. Everybody smoked, puppy smoked, kids smoked, everybody smoked.

Beth [01:11:39] I know, understand. You might be ahead of your time on soda and good for you if you are.

Sarah [01:11:43] I am. I feel confident about that.

Beth [01:11:44] I am more acutely worried about the technology, the social media than I am with soda for sure.

Sarah [01:11:49] I told you if I had to pick I would do phones first. I would just do soda as a close second. And alcohol as a very, very, very close third. Although, people are drinking less. We’re going to talk about that as well.

Beth [01:12:01] And, look, cigarettes are a complex model when you start talking about the role of the court system because government isn’t just one thing. So what is the job of the federal government? What is the job of the state governments? What is the guidance from attorneys general and surgeons general? And then what do the courts do when we start talking about who is responsible when something goes real, real bad wrong? These are hard questions, but we solved a lot of it around tobacco.

Sarah [01:12:25] I will say that Cigarettes too feels like a deep and wide well around public health communications, where it’s not sit down and let me have a complicated story with you. It’s we really have a lot of data on what works, what doesn’t, what motivates people. I think we have a listener who designed this billboard people still remember in their lives as getting them to quit smoking. You know what I mean? So we have the data there. And so I think that that is such a good place to really dig in. I think there’s an importance on emphasizing what does work and doing it instead of trying to explain why it works.

Beth [01:13:06] Yeah, that’s where I think education is a tough word. I would talk about awareness more than education, maybe.

Sarah [01:13:11] Okay, I like that.

Beth [01:13:13] And transparency. People love the word transparency. And a lot of what happened with anti-smoking campaigns is showing pictures of lungs.

Sarah [01:13:24] Well, and also to the industry of it, it’s like having those guys get up there in front of a congressional committee and be like, oh yeah, we knew it was killing you, we’re just trying to hide it. You guys, you could have that moment with soda. You could absolutely have that movement, which I think turned the tide that at least a little bit of what we’re experiencing, particularly with kids, when it comes to social media. When you had this woman whistleblower saying, they knew that these girls were looking at Instagram and experiencing this evisceration of their self-confidence and their self-image. And it’s like people are like, oh shit. I do think there’s a playbook here.

Beth [01:14:01] Yeah. And again, I think with AI, there’s a really good movement happening to say, what if we just don’t talk about it like it’s a person? And what if companies don’t present it like it is a person? What if keep the machines machine-like? That, to me, again, feels like government doing what it should do, not inhibiting progress, not taking us backwards, but being really clear this isn’t your therapist. You are not tapping a deep well of insight and knowledge here. This is a program. And so let’s make sure you know that. That is the role that feels right to me. And I think government has done that around soda in a lot of ways.

Sarah [01:14:40] And I also want to read The Age of Addictions on my TBR list. But I do want to put in a good word here for pleasure. There is so many sources of pleasure in human life. And for better or for worse, the modern existence has sold us a lot of lies about pleasure and a lot lies about the sources of the pleasure and a lot of lies about that pleasure should be convenient and quick and easy. And that’s not pleasure. That’s not pressure. That’s something different. That’s a quick hit. But I wouldn’t call that pleasure. Pleasure in life, including through food, including getting outside and doing all the things that we know, it takes time. It takes time. And a capitalist system that sells you on a convenient pleasure is lying to you.

Beth [01:15:27] But that is like, Sarah, if you talk about where are most people.

Sarah [01:15:31] I don’t know.

Beth [01:15:33] I don’t know. I think most I think most people want more time for sure. And I think most people are kind of like I don’t want to overthrow the system where you can come to America and make oodles and gobs of money. I want that. But I also would like to slow down a little bit. And I think that that is necessary if you want to start talking about our diets. Now, look, I just want to say about our diets. I know that we’re like trying to wrap up but there are a million pieces. And the thing about diets, I think our diets are improving as restaurants are getting worse. You know what I mean?

Sarah [01:16:07] Interesting.

Beth [01:16:07] I can cook a better dinner at home than I can go out and get now. And that has not always been true, but it is true right now. Unless I go to a very expensive restaurant for a special night out, for the most part, I can have a much better meal at home than I can get out in the world.

Sarah [01:16:22] You don’t have to convince me. I spit a Taco John’s breakfast burrito out of my mouth this morning. It was so disgusting and I threw it away. So look, you don’t have to persuade me on that.

Beth [01:16:30] There are a lot of places where I think things are changing because we want them to change and we’re doing it and it’s working and that’s great. And other forces are coming in and showing us we’re reaching the limit of spend as little money as possible to make as much money as without having government come in and redistribute all the wealth.

Sarah [01:16:51] And I would just like to put in a play. I know it’s easy to bust on everybody’s behaving badly and people are lazy and mean and rude. Got it. I’ve seen it in my own life. I’ve got the anecdotes also. I don’t love tattoos. That’s just the long and short of it. Personally, I don’t have any tattoos. However, I think you could make a case that there is a desire or at least a felt need to both slow down and experience some discomfort in the pursuit of pleasure, or else how do you explain the proliferation of tattoos? Which is nothing but a slowdown, immense experience of discomfort in the pursuit of pleasure. So, hey, look, I don’t love tattoos, but that’s a positive spin on that. There’s evidence, I think, on all socio-economic levels. That people are hungry-- what a perfect verb, pun intended-- for something more, for something different. And so I don’t know what the hell that has to do with wrapping up a conversation about SNAP benefits, but there you go.

[01:18:18] Well, Beth, this is relevant. Listen, as a piece of this wellness grand pursuit in American culture, sleep is definitely a part of that. And I saw this story about states and their bedtimes. And I’m very concerned that everybody’s going to bed way too late. The earliest bedtime was 11:04 in Hawaii. The latest was midnight in New York. So I, a while back on the news brief, asked people about their bedtimes. Now, this is just probably self-selection of our own audience. Lots of 9:30 and 10 o’ clocks, but a healthy discussion of you got to stay up late if you want to talk to teenagers, which is where I personally feel convicted right now because I do love an early bedtime, but I’m like, oh no, am I a bad mother because I’m going to bed at 9: 30? This is what it’s like to be in my head.

Beth [01:19:07] I haven’t gotten to staying up late to talk to a teenager yet because my teenager we joke about how she retires to her chambers at about 8 p.m. She loves an early bedtime. Now, I do think that she stays up late talking to her friends later than I would like, but I still think she’s going to bed earlier than the vast majority of her friends because she wakes up to a lot of text messages every day. Yeah, I love an early bed time and I make no apologies about it. I feel totally differently in my body if I go to bed after 10 o’clock than before, just completely differently.

Sarah [01:19:41] I just like going to bed. I just love it. I love the process. I love my bed. I love my little three pages of War and Peace I read. I love everything about it. I love my pillow. I just have all of it. Now, I have abandoned my sleep mask recently because I thought it was breaking my face out and I’m still sleeping pretty good. The sleep mask was not essential. But yeah, and I am also a very light sleeper. So I do think that sleeping with someone is a terrible lie we have perpetuated on the American public. That everybody really should just have their own bed and their own room.

Beth [01:20:14] Yeah, I don’t want any part of that. Because to me my favorite part of going to bed it’s like when Chad and I reunite at the end of the day. And I am touching him at all times in the night. I want to be with Chad all the time.

Sarah [01:20:28] That’s mind blowing to me. That’s crazy.

Beth [01:20:29] To me, it is what gives me like that sense of security and safety. And I really can just go under. No one is going to need me because Chad is right here.

Sarah [01:20:38] Do you not wake up when he moves?

Beth [01:20:42] No, not always. And if I do, I go right back to sleep.

Sarah [01:20:46] I think that’s bananas.

Beth [01:20:50] I didn’t call you crazy or bananas about your soda obsession, Sarah.

Sarah [01:20:53] I’m sorry. Listen, this is not a personality difference. Women are lighter sleepers. There’s like all kinds of stuff. It’s the hormones. And also because it’s evolutionarily appropriate because the women were caring for the babies and you got to sleep super, super light if you have an infant. And I guess you just keep it forever. I mean, I’m not playing since I’ve gotten rid of the sleep mask. If Nicholas like opens his phone because he does that. He listens to podcasts all night. Also he takes care of Felix’s middle of the night diabetes needs because you can go back to sleep faster. The light wakes me up. Just the light of the phone.

Beth [01:21:32] I’m just not like that. After about, I don’t know, when Ellen was about four, I became a really deep sleeper. Like when they stopped needing me in the night, I can just sleep.

Sarah [01:21:41] Not just that you’re crazy, I hate you. I think you’re mean and you’re bragging. That’s what I think. That’s how I feel right now. I feel attacked. What must that be like?

Beth [01:21:50] Well, I feel great. I love this conversation. Let’s keep doing this forever. Tell me more what’s wrong with me, Sarah.

Sarah [01:21:57] No, it’s what’s wrong with me. What it must be like. You don’t even understand like clicking his phone, like clicking his air pod case closed, that’ll wake me up. And when I say wake me, I’m talking-- now this is not every time. This very much depends on where I am in my cycle. An hour and a half to two hours I’m awake. And this is not because I’m getting-- don’t even DM me and say, do you get on your phone? Absolutely not. I avoid all light. I lay there with just my own thoughts. I am trying to calm down. I’m doing the breathing technique from the Marines. I’m doing all the things and I am awake for an hour and a half.

Beth [01:22:35] When you’re battling your hormones, there is no technique that helps. So days 16 to 19 for me, this is what I’ve learned, I’m waking up at 3 a.m. for no reason whatsoever. It’s just it’s 3 a.m. and I am awake and I will be awake until I get out of bed. And I just get up at like four now because there’s no point in fighting with it anymore. I’ve tried everything. The whole list that you made, reading a little bit trying to go back to sleep, getting to drink the water trying to go back to sleep. Like I’ve tried all the things. There are no things for me. 16 to 19, it’s just a 3 a.m. wake up time and it sucks.

Sarah [01:23:14] Okay, I’m a little less mad at you now.

Beth [01:23:16] Thank goodness for me.

Sarah [01:23:20] I feel like you’re less mean now that you have admitted to this 3 a.m. situation. It’s just the worst.

Beth [01:23:26] I wasn’t hiding it. It’s just like the rest of the time, though, I can sleep through just about anything.

Sarah [01:23:29] Stop. See, you’re bragging again.

Beth [01:23:30] As long as I’m with Chad, not in a hotel. I really struggle in a hotel. That’s why I don’t want to sleep alone. Because when he’s gone, I sleep poorly. It is like putting myself on the charger at night. I just to be right there next to Chad. And that’s what enables me to sleep.

Sarah [01:23:48] We were like that for years and years and years and now I’m like could you go find your own room? Thank you so much. I love my husband very, very much.

Beth [01:23:54] Yeah, I’m not saying I love Chad more than you love Nicholas. It’s just, it’s just different. He has a physiological effect on me that enables me to sleep.

Sarah [01:24:02] Now, I will say this. I have, in fact, found a thing that does work. It does not work all the time, but it works pretty well, I would say, 75% of the time. Even in some of those tougher parts of my cycle. I saw this on Instagram once. See, it’s not all bad. This lady was like I’m going to share my family’s technique for going back to sleep. Okay, this is with your eyes closed. And I’m going to show you on the video. So you look up, down, up, down, down.

Beth [01:24:28] With your eyes closed.

Sarah [01:24:29] With your eye closed. Down up, right, left, right, left. Left, right, left, left right. Then you do up at the top clockwise once, twice, and then counterclockwise twice. And then you cross your eyes twice. All with your eyes closed. It’s like EMDR. It’s a lightweight EMDR, and it freaking works. I was trying to explain this to Nicholas, I will wake up in a thought. It is like I’m speaking in a conversation. Like, there’s no soft on-ramp to my consciousness, okay? It’s like they’re blended. I don’t know how to explain it. When I wake up and my mind is really busy, that really helps. And I’ve sent it out, this technique, to a couple of other friends who wake up and have trouble going back to sleep, and they’re like, holy crap, it really works. It does work. Again, not 100% of the time, but it really does help.

Beth [01:25:23] I think there are lots of things that really help. When Chad is gone, I will turn on a lot of like yoga Nidra, which is a similar. It is gathering your concentration up and bringing your concentration to your body and bringing it to smaller and smaller and smaller places until you finally go to sleep. And I think that’s really helpful. And I also just think that there are just a lot of places in my life where I’m like, oh, the hormones always get the point and it’s me zero. Always. When I’m fighting with the hormones right now, the hormones are winning.

Sarah [01:25:58] They in charge. I just try to keep my hormones happy. That’s all I try to do in life. It’s a constant battle. Well, I need to go to bed after this episode, because we have been talking for a very long time.

Beth [01:26:06] Yeah, it was a long one.

Sarah [01:26:08] All right. I hope you guys enjoyed it.

Beth [01:26:09] Let me just make sure I run through my list. I am crazy. I’m bananas. I’m mean. I’m bragging.

Sarah [01:26:13] Mean. Attacking. Bragging. I deep sleep. That’s a brag. In 2025, we can all agree that I sleep deeply. It’s a brag.

Beth [01:26:22] I’m not going to lie to you in the name of being humble.

Sarah [01:26:27] I like it. We will be back in your ears. Until then, find us on Substack and keep it nuanced, y’all.