Let us know what you thought of this episode!
Do you think that today's food trends could shape the future of our society?
Join us as we sit down with Dr. Morgaine Gaye, a groundbreaking food futurologist who has successfully predicted monumental societal shifts, from the rise of electric cars to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She shares her fascinating journey into futurology, highlighting the emotional rollercoaster of accurately predicting significant global events, and offers a rare glimpse into the rigorous process behind these predictions.
We also dive deep into Morgaine's personal history, revealing how her unconventional upbringing in a family with peculiar eating habits influenced her career.
Expect a candid discussion about the challenges of growing up with a bodybuilder father and a butcher mother, and how these experiences have shaped her food preferences. This segment unearths not just family dynamics but also the broader socio-economic factors that guide our food choices, providing listeners with a rich context for understanding the complexities of dietary habits and health.
Finally, Morgaine unpacks the intricate relationship between food industry practices and personal health. She navigates the pitfalls of outsourcing our dietary decisions to big brands, emphasising the need for informed, individualised choices.
Our conversation also touches on the evolving plant-based movement and the societal shift towards community-based living.
Wrapping up, we contemplate the transformative Age of Aquarius, a time marked by a move from materialism to compassion and understanding.
With personal anecdotes, professional insights, and forward-thinking predictions, this episode offers a comprehensive look at the future of food and society.
Check out Morgaine's Page in our Guest Directory here
Speaker 1: Hello, hello, it's Nadine and I'm here with this
00:00:05
week's episode of Life, Health and the Universe, and today is a
00:00:11
very exciting day for me because I'm joined by my guest,
00:00:15
dr Morgan Gay.
00:00:17
Welcome, morgan, it's great to have you here.
00:00:20
Morgan and I go back a very long way and, although I've
00:00:26
spent, uh, the best part of well what?
00:00:30
28 years in australia before that, before that we went to
00:00:35
college together, so that was a really long time ago.
00:00:40
So that's how we know each other and it's kind of is a
00:00:44
little bit of an excuse to catch up, because you know, life is
00:00:49
full and you're always on the move, it would seem.
00:00:53
But we're going to talk about some of the things that you do
00:00:55
as well.
00:00:55
And, yeah, we probably going to take up a bunch of our
00:00:58
conversation, but you probably get sick of people asking what
00:01:11
it is when you tell them what you do, and I often start my
00:01:20
podcast with a like a big intro.
00:01:22
You know, read the biography kind of thing, and I don't have
00:01:25
one for you, so I'm just going to intro you as you're a food
00:01:33
futurologist, amongst many other things, um and uh.
00:01:38
Yeah, you're a super smart cookie, but, as I said, you
00:01:44
probably get sick of people asking you what that is, but
00:01:49
that's where I'm going to start.
00:01:50
Welcome, that's all right.
00:01:52
Thank you so much for joining me.
00:01:53
You look fabulous.
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Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:01:55
Thank you so much.
00:01:57
It's early here, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just so interesting
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that we go back so many decades and we went to the same
00:02:07
university and our lives have gone in such different
00:02:10
directions in many ways not in all ways, I think, but it's
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almost like they eventually converge in some different
00:02:19
universe, which is great, and, yeah, it's just.
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It's amazing how time is, and my job is really about that.
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It's about time and I find that , you know, I spend a lot of my
00:02:33
time in the future.
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We're all supposed to be mindful and in the present, and
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most of my time I spend thinking about or living into the future
00:02:42
, for better or for worse.
00:02:44
So, yeah, what do I do?
00:02:47
It's a really difficult one to describe because, although I'm
00:02:51
called a food futurologist, food in some ways is the very last
00:02:55
part of my job, and people think maybe I'm a foodie or I'm a
00:03:00
chef, or that I like eating out or any of those things, and what
00:03:05
I eat and what I think about food and what I do for my job,
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and not the same thing.
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So I'm none of the aforementioned and what I try to
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do is show consumers, people, clients, whoever it is that
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wants to know what this future landscape of humanity looks like
00:03:23
.
00:03:23
So, if we go forward seven to 10 years time, what's that look
00:03:27
like in terms of preoccupations, geopolitics, economics, what's
00:03:32
the topics of the day?
00:03:33
What's the considerations of the day?
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Everything from just the cultural zeitgeist, the
00:03:41
aesthetics, the things that make people tick, and so I look at
00:03:47
all of that stuff and, of course , off the back of that, we'll
00:03:49
see.
00:03:49
Then, how do people go to work?
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What do people think about work ?
00:03:53
What motivates people?
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What do people want to eat?
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Why do they want to eat it?
00:03:58
So, for me, I'm more interested in the why than the what.
00:04:01
About the future?
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Why are we going to go there?
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And then what?
00:04:04
So what does that mean?
00:04:13
And that's it really?
00:04:13
So, generally, I am spending most of my job doing talks, big
00:04:14
sort of one hour trend briefings , I call them.
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They can be bespoke, they can be subject specific or they can
00:04:19
be general about this future landscape, and there's about 300
00:04:23
unique images per hour, because I make it super visual, because
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I think it's really hard to describe a future if you can't
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show it, so I try to show images of what that looks like and
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that might be.
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It's all visual of different things interiors, design, some
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food, some but then really talking about the why we're
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going to be living into this space and yeah, so I predict all
00:04:48
sorts of things and in the past I have predicted all sorts of
00:04:51
things.
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2018, I was talking in my talks about COVID.
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I never said COVID, but I showed pictures of people in
00:05:01
masks and hazmat suits and picture of virus.
00:05:02
I talked about Trump getting in the first time, way back when
00:05:05
he wasn't even particularly in the running.
00:05:07
I've talked about the British politics a lot over the years.
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I've talked about the dissolution of Europe, which is
00:05:15
yet to come.
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There's a lot of things yet to come.
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So there's a lot of things and sometimes it's very difficult
00:05:22
because I just heard something just a couple of days ago about
00:05:25
prediction I made in 2015 that hasn't come, but it's for 2030.
00:05:29
And I've just had some inside information that that's what's
00:05:33
now on the cards and I feel personally quite upset by it and
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quite sick because of it.
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I must have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because
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it's a very weird feat to be right about something that's so
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monumental, and it's not always it's never usually a good
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feeling.
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It's a very weird job that I have, so that's what I do.
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Speaker 1: Oh my God, I've got so many questions, Morgane.
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And like there's so many things that you said that I'm like take
00:06:03
a breath, and where do I go first?
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Oh god, well, let's just go right back, okay.
00:06:12
There's one thing I was gonna say, right, and I've been
00:06:15
planning this kind of line that I was gonna say to you, um, that
00:06:19
you're kind of like 21st century sage, right, or like you
00:06:24
know.
00:06:24
But then I read, I started reading your book, and it's one
00:06:30
of the first things it says is I'm not psychic.
00:06:32
And I'm like, damn it, she's debunked it already, before I
00:06:37
even got a chance.
00:06:38
But you kind of are right like you, okay, so you don't.
00:06:42
It's like, yes, you are, you're following, you're following
00:06:46
trends and behaviours and you know history and all of these
00:06:50
things, but you're bringing it together and you're predicting
00:06:54
things that haven't happened.
00:06:56
That's kind of stagey.
00:07:00
Speaker 2: Or like there is a little bit of it's like, if I
00:07:05
have some fee I don't even know how to describe them Some things
00:07:09
I just feel like I could predict, but I can't do it on
00:07:14
demand, like if it was tell me my fortune, am I going to meet
00:07:18
the man of my dreams?
00:07:19
But I get some information.
00:07:21
I don't really know how to describe it.
00:07:22
So I've just done quite well on the football scores.
00:07:25
I know nothing about football.
00:07:27
It definitely helps.
00:07:29
So I sometimes get some random bits of feeling, and I had a
00:07:35
feeling about a woman that I didn't really know two years ago
00:07:38
and I actually contacted her and I said I know you don't
00:07:41
really know me, but I sing in a female barbershop group and
00:07:45
you're our director.
00:07:46
You don't know that yet, but you inside yourself know that
00:07:49
we're the chorus for you and we know that you're for us.
00:07:52
And ultimately and I don't know how it's going to happen it's
00:07:55
going to happen and so and well, she is now.
00:08:00
It took two years.
00:08:01
I don't know how I.
00:08:01
It's just this feeling.
00:08:03
It took two years.
00:08:04
I don't know how I.
00:08:04
It's just this feeling.
00:08:06
Sometimes I have a feeling and then when I've said it to
00:08:13
somebody or to about something I wished I'd never said anything.
00:08:14
I was shut up.
00:08:15
Why do you say, cause I shoot myself in the foot, I'm scared.
00:08:16
Then, oh no, if I'm right it's bad, if I'm wrong, it's even
00:08:19
worse, so anyway.
00:08:21
So I wouldn't say I'm a sage.
00:08:23
I wouldn't say I'm psychic sage .
00:08:26
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I'm psychic, but sometimes I get
00:08:28
some bits of information yeah, you got.
00:08:29
Then I have to prove it.
00:08:30
Yes, yeah, yeah.
00:08:31
So let's go right back.
00:08:33
Okay, so we went to.
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We went to college together.
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We studied theater.
00:08:37
You were in theater, weren't you in the theater stream?
00:08:40
Um, at a small college in the UK, did our degree there, but
00:08:44
you've got a doctorate.
00:08:45
Yeah, that's not in food futurology no, that is not.
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Speaker 2: I started um because I'd done a minor.
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I was doing a minor in music a little bit at dartington and I
00:08:59
dropped out of that and I was never interested in acting or
00:09:03
performing.
00:09:03
Really I was interested in making.
00:09:06
I was interested in space, I think I was interested in space,
00:09:13
in shape, in space, and so then I ended up going to some
00:09:19
lectures after university about Islamic geometry and I'd done
00:09:26
different things before that and after that and I'd grown up in
00:09:28
a Muslim country in the Middle East for a long period of time.
00:09:30
So I started looking at geometry and architecture and
00:09:35
then went down that route a lot more and had this question about
00:09:41
I don't know why are a, why are humans, why are we alive?
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What's the point?
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Not oh, I want to die, but what's the point of being alive?
00:09:48
And I wanted to answer that question.
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So I started doing looking at quantum mechanics and philosophy
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and that's what I ended up doing my PhD in.
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So it's like a quantum philosophy PhD Cool, looking at
00:10:05
the way things connect, and really that's sort of what I'm
00:10:07
doing.
00:10:07
Speaker 1: What you're doing now ?
00:10:08
Yeah, but where did your job come from?
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Like, are you the only person that does it?
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Did you make it up?
00:10:15
Is it a thing?
00:10:18
Speaker 2: All of those, all of those.
00:10:20
Yes, there are now quite a few futurologists and I've been
00:10:27
doing it for decades.
00:10:28
So when I first started and how I first started was probably
00:10:32
that I have a school friend who's known me since I was eight
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and because we go back such a long way and she knew me at a
00:10:42
time oh gosh and she was a TV producer and she was making a TV
00:10:49
series for BBC World called Business 2025.
00:10:54
And wow, that was futuristic 2025.
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I mean, wow, can you imagine?
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Right, we're almost there.
00:11:01
They and they were using futurologists and she had three
00:11:06
and she needed another one this is like three days before the
00:11:10
shoot and she said can you do it ?
00:11:12
You'll be good at that, you're good at that stuff.
00:11:14
She gave me the five topics.
00:11:16
She said just say anything.
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Just say anything.
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I mean no pressure, and she knew that I would be the sort of
00:11:22
person that would just step up and do it.
00:11:25
But what transpired is that I seem to be much better than the
00:11:29
futurologist.
00:11:29
And actually, one of the things that I do remember was electric
00:11:32
cars, and none of them.
00:11:34
They all said, no, there's no way we'll be driving electric
00:11:37
cars.
00:11:38
And I said, yeah, well, definitely, that's definitely
00:11:46
going to be a thing.
00:11:46
So it was interesting what's come up, what's happened since
00:11:48
then, because a lot of the predictions I was correct, even
00:11:49
though it wasn't my job job.
00:11:50
So I think that she knew that I had that capability in me and I
00:11:57
had lots of the different traits of making that a possible
00:12:00
job, because I think one of the things that you do have to have
00:12:05
and you have that much more in youth, I think but also my
00:12:08
character was quite fearless, because you have to be able to
00:12:12
step up there and say stuff that you believe in that nobody else
00:12:17
believes in, and to be shot down and to take that risk.
00:12:21
And so I was.
00:12:23
Really I was like a massive risk taker when I was younger.
00:12:27
It gets less, I think, as you get older, but I was super risk,
00:12:30
just like anything didn't care wild, would do it.
00:12:34
So I suppose she put me up for it and I did it and it kind of
00:12:39
set the ball rolling, but it took a long time to actually
00:12:42
monetize it and put value on selling ideas, because it's an
00:12:47
idea.
00:12:48
And then how do you prove to somebody that you're right or
00:12:51
that you've got an idea that they want, until you give it
00:12:53
away and then you have no commodity.
00:12:55
So it's been a real journey.
00:12:58
It's been really feels like I'm only just getting my feet under
00:13:03
the table not really, but you know, it feels like I'm only
00:13:06
just I'm now.
00:13:07
Speaker 1: I'm still learning all the time yeah, yeah, oh gosh
00:13:12
, hundred questions came up again and they've all kind of
00:13:15
dropped in and out.
00:13:16
Speaker 2: Um okay, so that's how you became a food
00:13:19
futurologist.
00:13:20
Speaker 1: Oh, that was yeah, you've kind of said you know
00:13:22
there's a lot of pressure on you because, um, what if you get it
00:13:26
wrong?
00:13:27
And obviously part of um you building up your reputation has
00:13:32
been like the amount of times that you've been accurate about
00:13:36
stuff, and the more you do that, the more trusted you become.
00:13:39
But do you get worried when you step into that role and you you
00:13:46
know someone's hired you to do a talk or to present on what the
00:13:50
food is going to be like in an organization and do you get
00:13:55
scared that it's not going to come true?
00:14:00
Speaker 2: Or do you get?
00:14:00
Speaker 1: scared that it is going to come true.
00:14:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, the food part is actually the easy part for me
00:14:06
.
00:14:06
So if I just if somebody, so I've had like long term.
00:14:09
So I did a job for Philadelphia cream cheese in Europe.
00:14:13
It was developing the vegan version and that was great and
00:14:16
that for me was sort of in my that's in my wheelhouse.
00:14:19
It's really my sweet spot.
00:14:20
That's good for me.
00:14:21
What's harder is when it's really generic to a company that
00:14:26
isn't in food.
00:14:27
And so, for example, if it's a because most, not always, but
00:14:35
most of my audience tends to be men, and if they're in like men
00:14:40
in finance perhaps might be a certain type of person.
00:14:45
And I've stood up on stage.
00:14:46
I've only had, I would say, three negative experiences ever
00:14:50
in my job and that will have been one when I stood up and
00:14:54
actually the questioning at the end went down a really weird
00:14:58
route about the royal family.
00:15:00
It was really odd and it was very odd.
00:15:03
I don't know why it went down that route and it seemed, I
00:15:07
don't know, it just got more and more difficult.
00:15:10
Yeah, sometimes it's not good, it's not pleasant and it's not
00:15:16
good.
00:15:16
And I don't get scared, obviously, when you're speaking
00:15:20
like in front of a thousand people and I don't have any
00:15:23
script or any notes.
00:15:24
So I never know how I'm going to be.
00:15:25
If I'm going to be flowing, I hope I am.
00:15:27
So I never know how I'm going to be.
00:15:27
If I'm going to be flowing, I hope I am, but I want it to land
00:15:31
.
00:15:31
I want the audience, I want to connect with the audience and
00:15:35
sometimes now it's more on Zoom.
00:15:36
But even now on Zoom, because I've got more used to Zoom over
00:15:40
the years, I can feel the audience on Zoom now.
00:15:42
It didn't be at the beginning, I couldn't at all, and I zoom now
00:15:47
.
00:15:47
I didn't be at the beginning, I couldn't at all, and I think I
00:15:49
just don't like it when there isn't a rapport.
00:15:50
So it's not that I'm afraid, it's just I want to be able to
00:15:52
connect with the audience and, irrespective of you know that I
00:15:54
get paid, I get paid, but I want it to be positive and I want
00:15:58
people to feel benefit from it.
00:16:00
So it's important that they get .
00:16:02
They think it's good.
00:16:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:16:06
You say in your well, I've read somewhere.
00:16:13
You do say in your book that you're, like, actually not a
00:16:16
foodie, you're not a chef, you're not really that into
00:16:18
cooking or anything.
00:16:19
Can you tell?
00:16:22
I did have to have a little chuckle, like just with the.
00:16:24
I haven't got very far into the book yet, but with your
00:16:28
descriptions of your like, where you came from and your
00:16:31
background as a child with food, can you give us some of the
00:16:37
things that you experienced?
00:16:51
Speaker 2: yeah, I mean I, you know, I grew up in a quite a
00:16:52
dysfunctional family of one child me and not really any
00:16:54
other relatives or anybody else around, and my dad was a
00:16:56
bodybuilder and a powerlifter and it was back in the 70s, so
00:17:00
he was trying to.
00:17:00
He was back before you could get all of these available
00:17:03
protein shakes and all of the things.
00:17:05
The information about fitness in a way was so limited.
00:17:09
It was the Arnie days sort of thing, you know.
00:17:11
So my dad was eating baby food and Complan and Filey's Rusks
00:17:18
and I don't know a lot of baby food a lot of calories in and
00:17:23
was quite exacting about food.
00:17:26
But it was the 70s and things just weren't that available.
00:17:29
You know it was, it was meat and two veg, basically, and my
00:17:33
mum was a butcher and I didn't like meat and it was.
00:17:37
You know, my mum used to think that you can't have a salad
00:17:39
unless it's unless it's summer, and probably it wasn't even
00:17:42
available anyway, you know, and the lettuce was probably the
00:17:45
iceberg lettuce and lettuce tomato cucumber as a salad right
00:17:49
.
00:17:49
Oh, just awful awful, but I mean for me.
00:17:54
Even as a child, I remember distinctly being dissatisfied
00:17:57
and disappointed by the food offering, and also by my parents
00:18:02
as well, yeah, and just finding the whole thing really
00:18:10
unsatisfying and miserable.
00:18:12
I think and I was just actually talking to my partner about
00:18:14
this yesterday that sitting at home at the table where my
00:18:18
parents were together so before the age of about nine or 10, we
00:18:22
had this enormous grand boardroom table that probably
00:18:27
seated about 12 in this dilapidated house that all
00:18:30
needed fixing up, that had sort of painting writing on the wall.
00:18:34
When we just needed a mess, we just painted it on the wall.
00:18:36
I mean it was the most bizarre.
00:18:38
But the table itself was this massive mahogany beautiful thing
00:18:41
and we'd sit down as three people the most tense meal ever
00:18:47
at one end of this table with nothing else in the room, and
00:18:50
you sort of can hear the knife and fork scraping and I'm
00:18:53
thinking I don't want to eat this, I don't like pork, you're
00:18:57
eating your dinner, I don't like pork and I sort of oh, just the
00:19:02
things that I wanted to eat.
00:19:04
I couldn't help my mum.
00:19:06
I mean one of the good things I suppose and I'd say this in the
00:19:08
book is that she only made proper food.
00:19:13
It was at least proper homemade food.
00:19:15
There was no packet ready meal, anything really.
00:19:18
And I wanted all of that because I was a child and of
00:19:20
course I did.
00:19:20
I did used to go up to my friend's house who had a chest
00:19:23
freezer which was like exotic, to my friend's house who had a
00:19:29
chest freezer which was like exotic and and she used to have
00:19:30
fish fingers and we used to get the fish fingers out of the
00:19:31
freezer and suck them, the breadcrumbs, off.
00:19:37
Speaker 1: I don't, oh my god, just the things that we, the
00:19:40
stories that you fit into that book and just the way you tell
00:19:44
them.
00:19:46
Speaker 2: I mean just the whole history of food.
00:19:48
I think every single family has got histories with food.
00:19:52
Speaker 1: I mean I know you do because your dad was a baker
00:19:55
yeah, so, yeah, like meals, we all sat around the table and it
00:19:59
was, all you know, very important that we all had um.
00:20:03
We had dinner together and you had to eat everything.
00:20:08
No one was allowed to leave the table until you'd everyone had
00:20:12
finished and the plates were empty and it was.
00:20:15
Yeah, so that was kind of like.
00:20:17
It was kind of a bit scary.
00:20:18
Sunday lunch was at lunchtime, didn't have dinner.
00:20:23
Yeah, didn't have um tea time.
00:20:25
We had lunch and it was always a roast and sunday breakfast.
00:20:30
I think we all had to sit around the table as well um but
00:20:34
yeah, I just remember, remember it being um.
00:20:38
I remember getting told off because I wanted tomato sauce on
00:20:42
my roast dinner and I cried when I wasn't allowed.
00:20:47
And now I look back and I'm thinking well, if you give me
00:20:49
fucking tomato sauce on everything else, of course I'm
00:20:53
gonna want it on my roast yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, but we
00:20:58
were.
00:20:58
I mean, we did have a little bit of the beef burgers and chips,
00:21:02
you know, fish fingers, chips and peas, baked beans on toast
00:21:06
situation going on.
00:21:07
The first time my mum used a bouquet garnet.
00:21:09
She, she left it in in the thing and I was like mum, I've
00:21:14
got a tea bag in my dinner.
00:21:19
Speaker 2: Well, you were definitely way ahead of the
00:21:20
curve.
00:21:21
I mean, my mum wouldn't even know now what a bouquet garnet
00:21:24
is like.
00:21:24
She has very limited, limited knowledge of of that.
00:21:30
She just made plain basic.
00:21:32
I say that's not true.
00:21:33
She made, she didn't all.
00:21:34
It wasn't all plain basic food because she'd been in africa and
00:21:38
we had these weird curries that my dad still makes.
00:21:41
My mom hasn't can't remember it , but my dad's still making
00:21:46
these weird curries.
00:21:47
That were the african curries and they have different
00:21:50
condiments on the side of the plate, which is pineapple
00:21:53
chopped pineapple sultanas, um, a desiccated coconut.
00:21:58
It was very odd and yeah, it was basically a dessert.
00:22:03
It was a dessert.
00:22:04
It was like fruit salad with curry.
00:22:06
It was an odd, odd thing my parents are very strange with
00:22:12
food.
00:22:13
Speaker 1: How much do you think that's influenced what you do
00:22:18
with your own food today and like?
00:22:21
Do you feel like that's separate from your work?
00:22:26
Um?
00:22:27
Speaker 2: is.
00:22:27
Do you feel like that's separate from your work?
00:22:29
Yeah, that's, it's definitely separate from my work because I
00:22:32
mean, I absolutely didn't want to work in food and the most.
00:22:37
The biggest sea change for me in terms of food was and I think
00:22:41
it's in the book, I can't remember it's so long ago, but
00:22:44
um but I met a friend at school who I went to his.
00:22:49
I met him at a party.
00:22:50
It was in my year at school, we were about 13.
00:22:52
I met him at a party, went to his house from the party and I
00:22:58
just remember this house was like something from my dreams it
00:23:01
was.
00:23:02
It was like I found my people and it was this farmhouse on the
00:23:06
hill.
00:23:07
It was at night, it was in the summer's evening and the French
00:23:12
windows were open and the curtains were billowing.
00:23:15
Through the French windows, classical music was playing.
00:23:18
I went into the house.
00:23:19
The mother was sort of German and a little bit hippie.
00:23:22
She was like would you like some homemade peach nectar?
00:23:25
I was like I found my people, thank you.
00:23:27
So I'd come from this extremely .
00:23:31
I was living with my mom.
00:23:32
We were really in poverty and free school meals and extremely
00:23:37
working class, and then I found this bohemian, very bohemian
00:23:42
family and I stayed and they had a bath in the middle of the
00:23:46
room and there were all plants from the outside growing inside
00:23:49
the house.
00:23:50
It was an absolute bohemian madness, really crazy.
00:23:53
And I stayed there and lived with them for about six months
00:23:56
that night and they were making their own pizza bases and
00:24:03
elderflower champagne and I don't know, probably knitting
00:24:06
their own shower curtains, I don't know.
00:24:09
And and it just took me into the roots.
00:24:12
I was already vegetarian.
00:24:13
It took me down that route of real.
00:24:15
That was just the eight, it was the early eighties.
00:24:17
It was whole foods.
00:24:18
You know, it was the, it was the whole meal, whole food,
00:24:22
lentil.
00:24:23
The whole thing took me into then.
00:24:24
It took me into that space for myself.
00:24:26
But terms of a job, my job's completely separate from what I
00:24:32
do for for my food.
00:24:34
Speaker 1: I think well it's then of course, I know a lot, so
00:24:52
let's talk a little bit more about um trends, right?
00:24:57
So you follow trends and in in your book again you talk about
00:25:02
how, um, we, what?
00:25:05
Well, the subtitle is why we eat and what we eat.
00:25:08
And you pretty much say you think you know that, you think
00:25:12
you're making your own personal choices, but really you're not.
00:25:15
So how does that?
00:25:19
Speaker 2: all work.
00:25:19
Yeah, I think that's.
00:25:23
It's really of all the things.
00:25:26
In some ways, that's the biggest idea in the book, or?
00:25:30
the biggest thing that I hope people grasp is that you think
00:25:34
that you're making a free, you think you have free will in what
00:25:37
you choose.
00:25:38
Of course you do in some ways, but there are a lot of
00:25:42
predestined factors going into choice and I think we know we're
00:25:46
being manipulated in clothing when we talk about fashion, but
00:25:49
with food we think no, I like this but I don't like that.
00:25:52
And it's really about socialization.
00:25:54
It's about who your friends are .
00:25:56
For example, it's like in Australia, tim Tams or a
00:26:03
lamington.
00:26:03
It's a cultural norm that people are used to and then you
00:26:10
bring a lamington.
00:26:11
That because the court, there's a cafe right on the corner by
00:26:14
me here and it's the cafe that's been sort of the accolade is
00:26:19
that it brought the flat white to london or the uk and it's
00:26:23
australian and it sells lamingtons and I can tell you
00:26:26
they're not that popular except with Australians.
00:26:28
So it's because we don't have the cultural history.
00:26:32
They sell Anzac cookies.
00:26:34
They've got loads of the Tim Tams, they always sell them,
00:26:37
they have those things.
00:26:39
But it's because it's a cultural thing for Australians,
00:26:43
not that other people taste and they go, wow, love those Tim
00:26:46
Tams, got to have some more of those.
00:26:48
And I think it's the same for British people when they smell
00:26:52
someone walking down the street on a maybe, especially on a cold
00:26:54
day, and they've got chips and you can smell the vinegar.
00:26:57
There's just something about that.
00:27:00
When you're British, when you go, oh, there's a delicious
00:27:04
history that's connected to our olfactory bulb and our memory
00:27:09
and so all of that plays into our choices, plus the fact that
00:27:14
we are.
00:27:14
You know, if you're a vegan, you don't tend to hang around
00:27:17
with lots of people who want to go to McDonald's.
00:27:19
Your McDonald's friends are, because you're a McDonald's
00:27:23
person typically.
00:27:24
You know like attracts like.
00:27:26
So we find our food tribes.
00:27:28
So it's all really interconnected.
00:27:31
And brands spend a lot of time honing in on who is their
00:27:36
consumer target market and then playing into that.
00:27:39
So we know from you know my job is part to know all of this
00:27:42
about texture and taste and packaging and branding what
00:27:47
attracts people.
00:27:48
So, for example, children don't like texture, they like creamy.
00:27:52
They don't want things with bits in.
00:27:54
If it's got bits in, they don't like that.
00:27:56
So, like, the orange juice with pulp isn't typically a
00:27:59
children's preference.
00:28:00
And it gets the same with old people.
00:28:02
It's why old people love ice cream.
00:28:04
So if you're old, you love an ice cream, you go back into that
00:28:09
curve and also our taste buds die.
00:28:13
So that's why we start to prefer more complex flavors as
00:28:17
we get older, like coffee, like darker chocolate, things like
00:28:22
olives not always but generally and beer tend to be an older
00:28:26
person's profile taste, not a child.
00:28:29
So already we're starting to see that profile.
00:28:32
But your taste buds die as you get older and older.
00:28:34
So then of course, when you're much older, you need to salt
00:28:37
your food more.
00:28:37
Perhaps you need stronger flavors.
00:28:39
People start putting chili in and things like that.
00:28:42
So already we're starting to create a preference thing.
00:28:46
Then you think about textures and we divide it up into texture
00:28:50
preference people.
00:28:51
So, for example, smooshers are people like Oprah Winfrey
00:28:56
perhaps, who likes mashed potatoes.
00:28:58
She'll push smooshy things through her teeth.
00:29:01
There's something about creaminess that attracts her,
00:29:08
creaminess that attracts her.
00:29:09
Other people like crunch, so they're crunches.
00:29:10
Other people are meddlers.
00:29:10
They want something that's soft and chewy and crunchy.
00:29:12
They want all of that kind of party in the mouth experience.
00:29:14
And so, for example, even countries are divided by texture
00:29:19
.
00:29:19
So America like chewy cookies.
00:29:23
Chewy is their thing and that's why all the cookies for them
00:29:26
chewy cookies, chewy is their thing and that's why all the
00:29:29
cookies?
00:29:29
For them it's big cookie, chocolate chip cookies that are
00:29:34
chewy, english people biscuits.
00:29:35
They're crispy because that's why you dip them in your tea.
00:29:36
It's a crispy thing.
00:29:37
So already culturally there's a divide.
00:29:38
So it starts.
00:29:40
There's just so many concentric circles of preference and taste
00:29:44
where you're choosing or you think you're choosing, and then
00:29:49
there's also the thing about perception.
00:29:51
So I've done tests and I think it's in the book where I was
00:29:55
asked to drink.
00:29:55
There were different tests and one was that we were all to
00:29:58
drink this white liquid in this little shot glass.
00:30:00
It was disgusting, absolutely disgusting cold white liquid,
00:30:06
quite creamy, and it tasted to me like fish, something like
00:30:10
liquidized fish.
00:30:11
It was horrible and we didn't know what it was.
00:30:14
And they said all they'd done is change the color of what it
00:30:17
was, because what it was was cold Heinz tomato soup and when
00:30:22
you take away the color and you take away the reference points,
00:30:26
people can't identify it.
00:30:28
And that's why all of those signals, those consumer signals,
00:30:32
make people believe that it is what they think it is and that
00:30:36
they like it, and that's why we've got things like pink.
00:30:39
These don't have to be artificial.
00:30:42
You can use wild blueberry powder to make food for your
00:30:46
kids pink and it makes them think it's 11% sweeter.
00:30:49
So you can fool them, so you can do naughty things like that.
00:30:52
But it's what brands do Pink food we think it's sweeter than
00:30:55
it really is.
00:30:56
Or bright lights in any kind of fast food chain.
00:31:00
Dunkin' Donuts do this.
00:31:01
They put really bright lights in their places and they've got
00:31:04
a really high rating for good coffee because it makes you
00:31:07
think the coffee is stronger if the lights are brighter.
00:31:09
So there's a ton of these tricks and so that's why we
00:31:14
think that we can tell what our palate likes.
00:31:18
But we're influenced every step of the way, and smells are
00:31:22
pumped into bags.
00:31:22
So popcorn, when you open the bag of popcorn, smells amazing
00:31:24
because it's the popcorn that's been pumped into bags.
00:31:26
So popcorn, when you open the bag of popcorn, smells amazing
00:31:27
because the popcorn that's been pumped into the air in the bag.
00:31:30
It's not the actual popcorn itself so you know food business
00:31:35
is really really clever, really tricky yeah when you wrote the
00:31:40
book.
00:31:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I always, I kind of feel like this is
00:31:45
almost like a dirty secret of the food industry and that and
00:31:49
that, like if you, if you're working with them, that you
00:31:53
shouldn't be telling anyone what they're doing, kind of thing
00:31:57
yes, like so like is that?
00:31:59
Was there any kind of, is there any kind of like thing that
00:32:06
holds you back from saying oh, I better not say that, because
00:32:09
Bob you wouldn't be able to tell me if there was.
00:32:13
Speaker 2: Oh, no, no, I mean because I signed an NDA with all
00:32:16
the brands.
00:32:16
There's lots of things I can't say.
00:32:20
But I can't say what they're doing, or you know, there's a
00:32:25
lot of things I can't say.
00:32:25
And when I first wrote the first draft of the book, by the
00:32:28
way, the book started a bit like you know, if you've ever made a
00:32:31
vase on a pottery wheel, it starts like this and it
00:32:34
collapses.
00:32:34
You cut it down and in the end you end up with a bowl.
00:32:36
Maybe that's just me.
00:32:37
Well, that's what the book started, like this huge thing,
00:32:41
and ended up whittling down because I was so sick of it by
00:32:43
the end and, sadly, as you may have noticed, there are some
00:32:47
typos in there, so there are a few missing bits of punctuation
00:32:51
or it's just.
00:32:51
It's infuriating.
00:32:53
I just got so sick of it.
00:32:54
I thought better done than good , get it out, Because the
00:32:58
publisher originally and this is before COVID, the publisher
00:33:02
wanted me to expose and it'd be a lot more of a dirty secret
00:33:07
expose and I couldn't do that.
00:33:09
So what?
00:33:11
everything I've said in the book is not something that um you've
00:33:16
signed a disclosure kind of thing no, no, no, this is just
00:33:19
stuff that I know, that I've been experienced, I've
00:33:22
experienced myself, or that I this is not stuff that I've
00:33:26
learned in a company that they said whatever you do, don't tell
00:33:29
them, we're doing this.
00:33:30
So there's none of that and there's no sort of insider
00:33:34
secrets per se.
00:33:35
It's just common knowledge within industry and people know,
00:33:39
yeah, and that's it really.
00:33:42
But I mean I think more, more than that.
00:33:44
It's more of a journey about.
00:33:45
I mean what I'd hope for the book is that it's more of a
00:33:47
journey about.
00:33:47
I mean what I'd hope for the book is that it's my bit of
00:33:49
story about food.
00:33:51
Yeah, a little bit about personal story about food,
00:33:53
because I think everybody has it , everybody, and there's so much
00:33:57
and I didn't say all, but there's so much to say about our
00:33:59
own relationships with food, because it's the one thing that
00:34:03
you can't escape.
00:34:04
It's really difficult, even if you're not eating anything.
00:34:05
It's the one thing that you can't escape.
00:34:06
It's really difficult, even if you're not eating anything.
00:34:07
It's because you have a dysfunctional relationship with
00:34:10
food or there's something in there.
00:34:12
It's about relationships, family, and food symbolizes
00:34:16
mother.
00:34:16
So it's a real.
00:34:20
We're tightly bound with it all .
00:34:24
And then the part that is about people waking up to the fact
00:34:29
that they think they're making a free choice, but they need to
00:34:33
have a little bit of a recalibration, because even the
00:34:38
businesses that are selling you health are still selling you
00:34:41
something, and I think that's the thing, is that to really.
00:34:49
I mean and you know this better than anybody it's getting back
00:34:50
to the absolute fundamentals, which is the human system, and
00:34:54
not just everybody's human system.
00:34:56
It's your human system, because it doesn't.
00:34:59
What works for your human system doesn't work for my human
00:35:02
system, and I think that's thing.
00:35:04
It's why, when people do diets or whatever, they don't work for
00:35:08
everyone, and it there'll be the majority of people that
00:35:12
it'll be the, the holy grail, but not for everybody.
00:35:17
So, for example, a lot of people who are vegan or vegetarian
00:35:20
will eat a lot of legumes, beans and whatever.
00:35:23
I cannot eat legumes and beans and whatever.
00:35:24
I cannot eat legumes and beans and whatever because I'm
00:35:27
allergic.
00:35:28
I can't digest them.
00:35:28
So I can't digest the lectin and the protein in beans.
00:35:33
It makes me unwell, so that's me.
00:35:36
So it's no good Anybody come and say oh well, what you need
00:35:39
is some tofu and some tempeh.
00:35:41
Yeah, no, not so much, and that's why I think that we've
00:35:46
farmed out, we've outsourced our health and wellness and our own
00:35:51
self-autonomy to not just the big brands because we've done
00:35:57
that for a long time, where we've gone hey supermarket, feed
00:35:59
my family, but also to the brands that we, or to the people
00:36:04
who that we think really do know and even they don't know.
00:36:09
Not, no, no, you know, we are really so unique, each one of us
00:36:12
, and I think it's that you know our dna and our family history
00:36:17
and everything.
00:36:17
So it's we are.
00:36:20
Speaker 1: We're complex and we're also simple yes, I always
00:36:23
say that a lot.
00:36:24
Yeah, we, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, um, yeah, it's.
00:36:29
It's like people might get say to you oh you look amazing, what
00:36:34
do you do, kind of thing.
00:36:36
But again it's like, well, make educated decisions right, and
00:36:58
to be kind of it's almost like you just need to be aware of
00:37:03
what's going on.
00:37:04
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm, yeah but there is some shit going on
00:37:10
right.
00:37:11
Speaker 1: Are there any shit things that you think?
00:37:13
Speaker 2: oh, that's just like, yeah, I mean, it's very tricky.
00:37:19
It's very tricky because so I was at a.
00:37:22
I was at a well-being happy.
00:37:25
It's called the happy place festival by somebody who's quite
00:37:29
well known in the UK called Fern Cotton, who's married to
00:37:33
one of the Rolling Stones' sons and she's written lots of books
00:37:37
about happy place and she's been quite successful.
00:37:41
But actually saying, I'm not that happy and I've had to
00:37:44
really get into touch with myself and my own wellbeing and
00:37:48
she's had eating issues, she's disclosed all this.
00:37:51
She's trying to give women tools to feel better and to be
00:37:55
authentic and real and it's great because it's coming from a
00:37:57
person that you might not think struggles with all of that.
00:38:00
So she set up this festival called the Happy Place Festival
00:38:03
and I went there and my friend was selling a really great.
00:38:06
He's a marine biologist and he works a lot with different sorts
00:38:09
of seaweeds and he's amazing.
00:38:11
He's really doing good stuff.
00:38:12
But that's the difficulty is that what he's selling is wild
00:38:18
Hebridean, different types of seaweed which is full of iodine
00:38:22
and natural sources of just really good stuff.
00:38:24
That's all he's selling is just seaweed.
00:38:26
But then there are other stands there selling other things and
00:38:30
one of the stands there was the company Dole a big American
00:38:35
brand, I would say Dole and they sell like tinned fruits and
00:38:39
things like that, and they were selling a little snack pot or
00:38:41
something and it said you know the good for you vegan snack.
00:38:45
And I said okay, so better for you.
00:38:47
I said better than what?
00:38:48
Oh, well, better than the other things you might choose, like
00:38:51
what you know once you start to drill down and I did.
00:38:56
And I challenged the brand manager, who just happened to be
00:38:59
there that day, and I said can I have a look at the ingredients
00:39:01
, do you mind?
00:39:02
I went, oh, carragee and gum Interesting Guar gum, right.
00:39:05
So.
00:39:06
So what is it?
00:39:07
So what's the positioning on it ?
00:39:08
What is this that you're saying ?
00:39:10
So we just got into it, and I think that's what's difficult.
00:39:12
So, on the face of it, you go, oh, it's fruit and it's some
00:39:19
coconut yogurt type custard.
00:39:22
It's healthy.
00:39:24
And then right, yeah, and then you start looking down what it
00:39:28
really means, and I think that's the thing is that we're still,
00:39:31
there's still some watchwords that help brands position for
00:39:35
people, and that's their job.
00:39:38
By the way, I don't blame them.
00:39:40
It's difficult, you know.
00:39:41
What's really difficult is that their consumers are wanting
00:39:45
options, they're wanting solutions and then typically
00:39:49
often not wanting to invest time to make that happen for
00:39:53
themselves, because they're well , I'm busy and everybody's got
00:39:56
the same amount of time in the day.
00:39:57
But the reality is people want to apportion their time
00:40:02
differently.
00:40:02
They don't want to spend an hour making X, y, z.
00:40:06
They'd rather spend an hour watching their favorite TV show,
00:40:09
and that's how they want to apportion their time.
00:40:12
And so brands create solutions for those people like that.
00:40:16
But we have power to choose, and I think that's the thing is
00:40:20
that we can choose differently.
00:40:22
But that's the difference between why have you got biceps
00:40:29
and I haven't.
00:40:29
It's because I've chosen to do a lot of things to make my
00:40:34
biceps big that you haven't chosen to do.
00:40:36
It's tricky, it's really tricky , right.
00:40:38
It's about choice, and the brands are there because they're
00:40:43
offering solutions that people are asking for and their
00:40:46
shareholders are needing money.
00:40:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a big big one really isn't
00:40:55
it I guess, and, yeah, raising awareness is important, which I
00:40:59
think that what your, your book does, um, yeah, I mean the
00:41:05
brands do respond.
00:41:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, right no, the.
00:41:10
Speaker 1: the one thing I think of is like there's a I don't
00:41:13
know if they have it in the UK, but there's a.
00:41:15
There's a lolly or you know sweet company called the Natural
00:41:21
Confectionery Company, right, lolly type things in a bag and
00:41:37
it's all right, natural.
00:41:37
And and uh, louis got some in a birthday bag.
00:41:38
You know, he went and we kind of usually tip him out and I was
00:41:40
like, oh look, let's have a look online, because it was a
00:41:43
obviously part of a multi-pack, so it didn't have the
00:41:46
ingredients.
00:41:46
And we went online and it was like made in Thailand, which is
00:41:53
okay, but it was like the ingredients list was like
00:41:59
literally hundreds of things in the natural confectionery, yeah.
00:42:06
And so we also.
00:42:07
We get tricked because we're trying to do the right thing.
00:42:10
We also we get tricked because we're trying to do the right
00:42:15
thing.
00:42:15
And you think, well, I want to give my kid some sweets because
00:42:19
I don't want them to miss out, and so I'll choose the ones that
00:42:21
are the healthiest.
00:42:24
Yeah, sweets are healthy, which I'm always telling my children.
00:42:30
Speaker 2: It's super difficult.
00:42:31
It's so, so difficult.
00:42:32
Difficult, especially as a parent, because you're
00:42:35
confronted with keeping them not like.
00:42:37
You don't want them to be the weirdo and you want them to be
00:42:40
able to.
00:42:41
You want them to be able to choose help.
00:42:44
You want them to be able to choose for themselves and I
00:42:46
think if you restrict it all, then they go the.
00:42:50
I've seen that where they go the other way, where they want it
00:42:52
all.
00:42:52
It's almost like if you let them have it all, then they go
00:42:52
the.
00:42:52
I've seen that where they go the other way, where they want
00:42:53
it all.
00:42:53
It's almost like if you let them have it all, they don't
00:42:56
want it.
00:42:56
If you don't let them have any of it, they want it all and then
00:42:59
they go crazy.
00:43:00
It's so, so difficult.
00:43:01
That kind of parenting, especially now because of social
00:43:05
media, of exposure to things way more than we had, um, and
00:43:11
also send them to parties and oh , tricky, so tricky it's all
00:43:18
difficult, yeah, you just, yeah, we just try and treat them like
00:43:22
normal human beings and help them make, um, favorable choices
00:43:27
and not overdo it with most things.
00:43:33
Speaker 1: Um, um, what else?
00:43:36
And here we go, uh, okay, so what's the difference between
00:43:44
something, uh, gaining popularity and a trend?
00:43:48
So let me give you an example.
00:43:49
I was thinking about this.
00:43:50
I read in your book about veganism and how that's gained
00:43:53
in popularity, and you kind of go historically, why some of
00:43:58
those things would have happened , even though people wouldn't
00:44:01
necessarily realize that they've made the decision to change
00:44:06
their diet to to a vegan diet.
00:44:08
Um, so let me I'll use me as an example, right, so we started
00:44:15
doing crossfit, however, many years ago, long time ago, but
00:44:20
there was a diet attached to it.
00:44:22
There was a diet called the zone diet originally, which they
00:44:26
kind of advocated for.
00:44:28
So a lot of crossfitters followed the zone diet then the
00:44:33
pain.
00:44:33
Well it's.
00:44:34
Oh, okay, it was zone diet was kind of broken in.
00:44:38
Food was broken into blocks so depending on your body weight
00:44:42
you'd have you'd be able to have blocks of protein, fats and
00:44:45
carbohydrates.
00:44:46
Um, right, okay, and depending on what your goals were, how
00:44:49
many times you were exercising and stuff, so it kind of
00:44:54
included not so favorable foods it was.
00:44:58
It was in there.
00:44:59
It was kind of like you can have them, but then they're not
00:45:03
ideal.
00:45:03
So that was all you know, eat real foods and stuff.
00:45:14
And so we've kind of gone down that route as part of and it is
00:45:15
part of our culture, right, it's part of what crossfitters do
00:45:19
they?
00:45:19
They, yeah, they follow a paleo diet and it's definitely led us
00:45:23
down a pathway in all other parts of our life right with
00:45:31
something like the paleo diet?
00:45:34
um, would you say that that is a something that's gaining in
00:45:37
popularity, or has gained in popularity, or is it a trend?
00:45:43
Speaker 2: oh, oh, yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely a trend.
00:45:46
Yeah, I mean so you're, you're not talking about a fad, no, a
00:45:51
trend, because a fad.
00:45:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a trend.
00:45:53
A fad's kind of a bit more short term, is it?
00:45:55
Speaker 2: It is, yeah, yeah, a fad's really like, I don't know,
00:45:59
whoopie pies or something like that.
00:46:02
You know it comes and goes.
00:46:03
It's a moment, yeah, I mean the thing is with veganism it's
00:46:18
more about the plant-based movement.
00:46:19
I would say so, this whole plant-based movement, because
00:46:20
the vegan meats have declined.
00:46:21
They've had a.
00:46:22
They've declined during covid, the vegan meats, because most of
00:46:23
them, when people have had time to read the back of the packet,
00:46:24
they've gone.
00:46:25
Wow, that's quite a lot of ingredients on there that I
00:46:28
can't pronounce and I have tummy ache a lot.
00:46:30
I wonder why?
00:46:31
Because it's hydrolyzed pea protein and it's all sorts of To
00:46:35
make it taste it's all sorts of rubbish.
00:46:37
Yeah, to make it taste like bacon, right, yeah, so that's
00:46:41
been part of the issue is that they've now.
00:46:43
So it's declined because a lot of brands jumped on the
00:46:47
bandwagon when they started to see that rise of popularity of
00:46:52
plant-based meats, started putting out any old rubbish.
00:46:55
It got to a critical mass.
00:46:57
Then, during covid, people started reading the, the, and
00:47:01
then, and then a lot of them have gone, have disappeared off
00:47:04
the, off the market, right, so there's not that many left.
00:47:07
There's no, there's comparatively, um.
00:47:11
And then you've got, of course, the paleo strand and one of the
00:47:13
things with trends always is that it's a little bit like
00:47:16
massive rise in ai.
00:47:18
Of course there's going to be, and there's already the the.
00:47:21
You always have to have the balance, the flip side of the
00:47:23
coin.
00:47:24
So what we also see is this huge rise of people living off
00:47:28
grid, much more gardening, living home, community,
00:47:33
community-based networks, like a whole community systems, living
00:47:39
, communicating, people coming off social media, people
00:47:44
promoting not using cards to pay and using money.
00:47:47
You know that whole thing.
00:47:48
So it's gone.
00:47:49
It's like the polarity and paleo and plant-based not exactly
00:47:56
exactly opposite sides of the coin, actually, no, but it's
00:47:59
about, you know, the paleo and the plant-based.
00:48:03
It depends on what sort of plant-based, because you could
00:48:06
say I'm vegan and you could eat chip sandwiches.
00:48:08
Yeah, you could eat you, you know.
00:48:10
I mean really, you know there's a million things that you could
00:48:15
eat that don't involve meat or dairy and you could say, well,
00:48:18
I'm a vegan.
00:48:18
It doesn't mean to say that I am a healthy, balanced,
00:48:22
food-eating person.
00:48:23
So I think that paleo is really more in that clean eating space
00:48:30
.
00:48:30
Yeah, right.
00:48:35
And I don't, and that's absolutely a trend, completely,
00:48:38
yeah, yeah, completely, that people have the.
00:48:41
I mean, it's such.
00:48:45
It's so difficult because on one side, we know that the
00:48:50
cheapest way to eat is to cook from scratch and the healthiest
00:48:56
way to eat is to cook from scratch.
00:48:58
You know exactly what's in it.
00:48:59
You're buying the ingredients as close to source as possible.
00:49:02
So get some veg, get some potatoes or whatever.
00:49:05
You can make a big meal.
00:49:08
If you are impoverished, you don't have a lot of money, but
00:49:11
your family, some rice, whatever , and you could make a big meal
00:49:15
for people.
00:49:15
But on the flip side of that, there there is such food poverty
00:49:21
and restriction that some people might not even have gas
00:49:25
or electric to be able to cook with, and so in the uk this is
00:49:29
quite a thing at the moment.
00:49:31
So then they get things that are coming from the food banks,
00:49:36
and the food banks are not giving them fresh food.
00:49:37
They're giving them tinned food and processed food.
00:49:40
So in some ways is clean eating a privilege, because you've got
00:49:46
time and you've got the education and the capability,
00:49:52
and so then you think, well, if it's not clean eating, then it's
00:49:55
packaged food, and that's because I've got my food from a
00:49:58
food bank?
00:49:58
I don't know, I mean, this is the thing.
00:50:00
There's just not one simple answer.
00:50:05
Speaker 1: But I think that paleo suits a lot of people Not
00:50:08
everyone, but it suits a lot of people a lot of people not
00:50:16
everyone, but it suits a lot of people.
00:50:16
And I guess you I mean you you talk, talk about trends and
00:50:18
quite often some of the well, I've heard you on an interview,
00:50:22
um, talking about air protein as an example, when I've seen you
00:50:25
talk about, you know, these kind of quirky things where you can
00:50:28
package breathing air or something.
00:50:31
Was that one a while ago, or something?
00:50:33
There's something, no, no, no, I can't remember, I can't
00:50:38
remember it was something and it was like some random kind of
00:50:42
thing, that it would become like fresh air kind of thing.
00:50:47
Fresh air in a packet, though no no, I don't think I've ever
00:50:53
said that.
00:50:54
But anyway, yeah, air protein was one um and they kind of that
00:50:59
.
00:50:59
Although, like a lot of the things that you predict sound a
00:51:02
little bit out there, they do come true.
00:51:04
But when you, when you kind of think that some things are
00:51:09
trends, like healthy eating, that's kind of like a trend.
00:51:14
Some trends aren't bad right.
00:51:18
Speaker 2: Oh no, oh God.
00:51:19
No, not at all.
00:51:19
I don't think trends are bad at all.
00:51:25
Speaker 1: And we can kind of look at the food industry and go
00:51:28
, they're trying to make us buy.
00:51:30
You know the food industry and go, they're trying to make us
00:51:34
buy.
00:51:34
You know they're directing our attention to certain types of
00:51:35
food.
00:51:36
Or you know, like you said, um, the the coffee thing with the
00:51:38
bright lights, and it's like you can feel a little bit tricked
00:51:42
like they're.
00:51:42
You know it's a big half.
00:51:44
We're not, we're not actually making any of our own choices,
00:51:49
but but there are some ways that it has a positive impact as
00:51:53
well.
00:51:54
Speaker 2: Not everyone's out to get us.
00:51:55
Well, this is the one thing that I think.
00:51:59
They're only making stuff that they think you want and if you
00:52:03
don't buy it, they don't make it .
00:52:04
And such a high percentage I mean such a high percentage of
00:52:09
foods that are.
00:52:10
It takes about three years for a brand to come up with an idea.
00:52:13
Now bigger brands come with an idea, do all of the due
00:52:16
diligence, because it's a big deal.
00:52:18
You know you can't be killing people with what you make and
00:52:21
and the bigger you are, the more checks and balances you have.
00:52:23
Then you've got to do all the marketing and get that on the
00:52:26
shelves.
00:52:26
It takes about three years and most of them only last six
00:52:29
months on the shelves because people are the litmus test.
00:52:34
If people don't like it, then they're not going to make it
00:52:39
anymore.
00:52:39
So you have a lot of power as a consumer and they're only
00:52:42
making these snacks with whatever you know, the coconut.
00:52:46
They're only doing that because they've found a gap in the
00:52:49
market where consumers are saying we want that thing.
00:52:52
Yeah, you wouldn't have been making a plant-based coconut
00:52:59
custard thing 10 years ago for consumers because the market
00:53:03
wasn't there.
00:53:04
So I think that we are so powerful beyond our wildest
00:53:08
dreams as a consumer, with what we buy, what we choose.
00:53:12
That is exactly how we vote and the politics of food is the
00:53:17
biggest way we vote.
00:53:18
And the politics of food is the biggest.
00:53:19
It's the biggest way we vote.
00:53:21
You think it's the election, but actually it's how you shop.
00:53:25
It's massive.
00:53:26
It's massive because it affects communities, affects shipping,
00:53:31
affects cultures in the world.
00:53:33
You know you're buying quinoa.
00:53:34
You're probably buying it from, depends on where the quinoas
00:53:37
come from.
00:53:37
There is British quinoa, but there's also things from Peru.
00:53:41
And then you think about the community in Peru.
00:53:43
You know how you shop matters.
00:53:44
It really matters, and it's a huge responsibility for people,
00:53:51
and I think that that's what food is.
00:53:52
Again, going back to it, it's mother.
00:53:54
It is the complete nurture of self, family, community, planet.
00:54:01
It's huge, but hey, no, but no, no pressure no pressure for you,
00:54:06
pressure people, but it yeah, you know it.
00:54:10
If you want it, if you want to take it on, you can and and I
00:54:16
mean right now, since, since brexit in the uk, one of you
00:54:19
know, there's a lot going on in the world and it's hard to keep
00:54:22
up and, no matter what you desperately want to keep up,
00:54:28
it's still difficult, right, because there's a lot of
00:54:30
information and what's true and what's not true.
00:54:32
And for us, brexit happened.
00:54:34
People don't know this.
00:54:35
Brexit happened.
00:54:43
People don't know this.
00:54:43
I mean really genuinely don't know that the labeling laws were
00:54:45
governed by the European Union, so for the whole of Europe
00:54:46
they're governed.
00:54:47
When we come out, then it shifts for the UK.
00:54:48
What also happens is that we start to buy fruit and veg from
00:54:51
countries that are not regulated within the EU and that means
00:54:56
that they can use sprays on crops, when it's non-organic,
00:55:00
that are considered to be carcinogenic, that the EU would
00:55:04
not allow.
00:55:04
But now Britain are buying those in.
00:55:06
Nobody knows this.
00:55:08
So you buy some oranges.
00:55:10
It's pretty hard to get organic oranges in the UK.
00:55:13
So you buy regular oranges and you think, well, they're oranges
00:55:18
and you're peeling them and you've always shopped for the
00:55:20
last, most of, for some people, all of their lives trusting that
00:55:24
, even if it's not organic, it's not deadly.
00:55:26
But when you read the little tag on the bag of oranges, it's
00:55:31
got things in it that said this is carcinogenic, in the tiny
00:55:35
small print.
00:55:36
Holy crap in the tiny small print.
00:55:39
Holy crap.
00:55:39
Because we can now have things from countries that are not
00:55:42
allowed within most regulations within the world.
00:55:45
We're buying things from countries that are unregulated
00:55:49
and nobody knows, and that is a massive responsibility on the
00:55:53
consumer.
00:55:53
And they can say, well, we put it on the packet, yeah.
00:55:56
But come on, who would have thought to have read the tiny
00:56:01
little label on the bag of orange?
00:56:02
You know, they're just, they're just oranges, there's no
00:56:04
ingredients in these.
00:56:05
What would I need to read the ingredient label?
00:56:07
Speaker 1: that's tricky yeah that's tricky wow, that's heavy
00:56:13
sorry, I suppose was this?
00:56:14
Is this the?
00:56:15
Speaker 2: is this the light and fun podcast works?
00:56:18
Speaker 1: oh, no, it's life out of the universe.
00:56:20
We want to know all of the things that are going on and be
00:56:24
like conscious humans.
00:56:25
Right, that's based.
00:56:26
That's one of the things I love about you know, hearing these
00:56:30
things is we, we can make, if we , the more we know, the the
00:56:34
better the choices we can make, whether it's with our food,
00:56:37
whether it's with our lifestyle, the what we listen to on the,
00:56:41
you know, on the socials, or whether we watch the news or not
00:56:44
.
00:56:44
All of those things, yeah, like yeah, yeah, they're important
00:56:49
and um, yeah, we can make much more.
00:56:51
We have hit the hour and I, um, yes and uh, I have got
00:57:01
something else, just a little thing.
00:57:03
Well, it's not really little, but like just gonna hit you with
00:57:09
it.
00:57:09
Anyway, I am like I follow a few different people in esoteric
00:57:19
areas and there's been a lot of talk in the last little while
00:57:25
about, you know, this dawning of the age.
00:57:27
Well, the dawning of the age of Aquarius, like where we
00:57:30
literally did go into Aquarius.
00:57:32
I think it was Pluto went into Aquarius for the first time in
00:57:36
like 274 years or something, and so like there's this shift for
00:57:42
humanity and it kind of, yeah, it's all started and although
00:57:50
you're a food futurologist.
00:57:52
I'm not going to ask you your predictions.
00:57:56
Oh, you should.
00:57:57
Okay, what are your predictions ?
00:57:59
But I've.
00:57:59
Okay, what are your predictions .
00:58:01
Speaker 2: I talk about this, so this is oh yeah, this is right
00:58:04
up my street.
00:58:05
So, oh yeah, completely yeah.
00:58:09
When I'm looking at, you know, when I'm looking at these trends
00:58:12
or whatever, I mean, I look at these curves of humanity, and 91
00:58:16
year cycle is a big one, okay, um, there's a lot of different
00:58:20
cycles and this 270 year thing is that we're changing a
00:58:24
complete way of humanity being and the motivating factors into
00:58:32
another way.
00:58:33
So if we take it out of the esoteric and we, you know,
00:58:36
because a lot of people think, oh well, that's woo, woo or
00:58:39
doesn't really apply or it's astrological or whatever, there
00:58:42
is still another place for that.
00:58:44
And I talk to you know, when I talk to businesses about this,
00:58:48
it's exactly the same thing.
00:58:49
It's that the reason I knew 2020 was that that was a.
00:58:55
For me, that was an eight year prediction.
00:58:57
So I started in 2012 saying this is coming.
00:58:58
This is coming because that was a.
00:58:59
For me, that was an eight-year prediction.
00:58:59
So I started in 2012 saying this is coming, this is coming
00:59:01
because that was almost the pivot.
00:59:03
And then you've got six years until 2026.
00:59:07
I mean, this year is it's volatile, there's a lot of
00:59:11
volatility and war and next year also, things that are going to.
00:59:15
It's almost like if trump in don't think it's going to be for
00:59:19
four years because things are going to shift.
00:59:22
It's shifting, it's just not what it seems.
00:59:25
Nothing is what it seems.
00:59:26
There's going to be a lot of reveals yet to come.
00:59:28
Things about COVID coming out the woodwork, things about
00:59:32
lockdown coming out the woodwork , information that's still
00:59:36
becoming available to us.
00:59:38
There's a lot of revelation in the next, in these six years,
00:59:42
and also breaking down of systems, which is part of this.
00:59:46
As we move into a new age if we want to call it that the age of
00:59:49
Aquarius, you don't just have a seamless transition from what
00:59:54
state of being and one way of operating in the world and all
00:59:58
of the systems and all of the things which has been about
01:00:02
having.
01:00:02
Really it's been a system of having, having money, having a
01:00:04
job, having a better job, moving into knowing where kindness is
01:00:11
going to be a massive part of the value system.
01:00:13
We haven't had that luxury, that knowing and the kindness
01:00:17
and understanding what it means to be human.
01:00:18
We haven't had the luxury that knowing and the kindness and
01:00:19
understanding what it means to be human.
01:00:19
We haven't had the luxury of even thinking about that in the
01:00:22
last 270 years We've been busy with all of the other stuff,
01:00:26
like how do you get light and how do you heat your house and
01:00:30
things like that.
01:00:31
So this is the next phase and these six years are a complete
01:00:36
and utter overhaul of humanity in a way, and that happens on a
01:00:40
personal level.
01:00:41
So that's why there's a lot of breakup of relationships.
01:00:44
There's a lot of things dissolutions of governments it's
01:00:47
why we'll see the fall of Europe.
01:00:49
I believe it's why we'll see all of the ways that things have
01:00:52
come together and sort of held together relationships in the
01:00:57
widest context, way in which we can trust banking systems or
01:01:01
housing systems or growing systems, food systems,
01:01:05
governmental systems, and how the way it's all held together
01:01:08
starts to kind of it's like there's like a tremor and an
01:01:12
earthquake and it's breaking up and it's messy and people get
01:01:15
scared and there's an insecurity and there's a fear.
01:01:18
And what people are attaching to a lot of businesses are
01:01:21
attaching to data to feel safe.
01:01:24
Give me statistics and data and things where I can go okay,
01:01:28
I'll be okay, I'll feel okay, and the algorithm will cause
01:01:32
we've, we've got all.
01:01:34
We're all algorithms up, so we're trusting again.
01:01:36
We're all algorithms up, so we're trusting again outsourcing
01:01:38
our faith, our feelings of goodness into something other,
01:01:44
which we've done for so long.
01:01:46
And until we bring it back to the self, we'll start to
01:01:49
stabilize, and that's what the next phase is.
01:01:51
So it's all going to come good, it's really going to be good
01:01:57
and I think the future is really positive.
01:01:59
But it's a very tricky, messy time.
01:02:01
The dog's in the plant.
01:02:03
Oi, truman, truman, truman, oi.
01:02:08
Speaker 1: What's he doing?
01:02:09
Speaker 2: He's dug up.
01:02:09
I don't know.
01:02:11
I think he's found a crystal in the plant.
01:02:12
I don't know what he's doing.
01:02:15
Speaker 1: Anyway, sorry, sorry about that, that's all right,
01:02:18
naughty truman, I was hoping my dog didn't start scratching
01:02:21
crystals in all, my plants.
01:02:25
Well, crystals help your plants grow I uh, yeah, I love that, um
01:02:31
, and I just find it amazing that there are so that, like
01:02:36
I've heard from so many different kind of directions,
01:02:40
this same sort of feeling, and it is, yeah, really this feeling
01:02:44
of, yeah, there's, there's stuff changing, and I guess one
01:02:49
of the things that I want to do as well to share on the podcast
01:02:52
is to help people understand that so they're ready, because,
01:02:57
yeah, it could be pretty scary if you, if you just kind of like
01:03:00
not up to date with that stuff, right, it's like all of the
01:03:06
things that people I think they're trusting for a long time
01:03:09
.
01:03:10
Speaker 2: Yes, can't necessarily be trusted anymore a
01:03:14
lot of people are feeling, I think, think, insecure, scared,
01:03:17
wobbled.
01:03:18
There's no plan, there's no.
01:03:20
You know, the old paradigm is not working.
01:03:23
However, I do think and I just wanted to say this you know that
01:03:27
some people like me are talking about these future things and
01:03:37
some people and you're a great example of this are living them.
01:03:39
You are living in the future.
01:03:41
You're not talking about it because you made a choice quite
01:03:46
a long time before.
01:03:47
This was the the.
01:03:50
You know, whether you're aware of it or not, you're feeling
01:03:52
something that's, that's the pulse, and you're going with
01:03:56
something that feels right for you and living into a future
01:04:01
existence which will be more desirable as time goes on and
01:04:06
that more and more people will want, and you chose it at a time
01:04:09
when, more and more, most people were not going that
01:04:12
direction so you're living into the future, which is we
01:04:16
literally chose it like six months before before we yeah, um
01:04:21
yeah we got out, went to the uk , did our three-month visit,
01:04:26
moved out of the city and then, like shit, hit the fan.
01:04:33
Speaker 1: Oh, that's great, absolutely yeah, no, it's
01:04:36
amazing.
01:04:37
Speaker 2: You know you're living the future, you're living
01:04:42
in this sort of if you were, the blueprint of the future of
01:04:47
humanity.
01:04:47
There you go, viewers.
01:04:51
Speaker 1: Nadine, it's a blueprint.
01:04:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly what you're doing is the future of
01:04:56
humanity, really A very large majority of people who are going
01:05:01
to thrive.
01:05:01
Survive is what we're all busy doing.
01:05:05
Speaker 1: Yeah.
01:05:05
Speaker 2: But you're thriving.
01:05:06
That's the difference.
01:05:09
Speaker 1: Thank you.
01:05:09
Yeah, that's a beautiful note to end on.
01:05:12
I've absolutely loved catching up with you.
01:05:17
Thank you so much for sharing all of the things with us.
01:05:20
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
01:05:22
Speaker 1: Yes and hopefully it won't be too long before we talk
01:05:25
again.
01:05:25
Lots of love, that would be great.
01:05:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much, bye, bye.