Transcripts For MSNBCW Whats Eating America With Andrew Zimm

MSNBCW Whats Eating America With Andrew Zimmern March 23, 2020

Foodrelated illnesses like diabetes and Heart Disease are now epidemics. Our Life Expectancy is declining, and Health Care Costs are soaring. 1. 4 trillion is the impact to our economy. The truth is that this isnt completely our fault. Our diet has been hijacked by processed foods loaded with salt, sugar, fat, calories and chemicals. If you had to catalog the worlds least Healthy Foods, this is what they have. There is a whole section of the country that cant make a good choice because they dont have a good choice. Why is this happening . And what can we do to eat our way back to Better Health . Our belief is you either pay the farmer or you pay the doctor. Im andrew zimmern. Story teller, chef, world traveler. Thats delicious. Im exploring our country looking at the biggest social and political questions of the day looking at our food. There is no one solution. Hearing some amazing meals along the way. Mindy hot and fresh. And trying to figure out holy moly. Whats eating america. Every day in Grocery Stores across america, shoppers make choices that will directly affect their health and wellness. Hey, guys. Hello, hello. How are you . Are you guys ready to shop . Were ready. Absolutely. Excited to be here. Are you ready . I got this stuff down. Trust me. Julie hendrick son, husband david and their three children are a dualincome american family. Did we lose one . We did. Is that a regular thing, child lost in the market . Pretty much, right. Do i see some easy mac right there . We have to grab that. Julie works as a real estate agent, and dave manages an ambulance service. When it comes to food, like a lot of families, they believe they need to choose between fresh food and convenience. With our busy lifestyle and hockey and sports, were very into the carbs. Those do last a little longer. This is the struggle. Right. This is the struggle america has. Theyre luckier than most. They have the resources to buy anything they want here. But to help save time in the kitchen, they rely on quick and easy to process foods. Look, Dunkin Donuts milk. Today im inviting them to take a partner cooking lesson and challenge. Can i make a meal roughly in the same amount of time they make a meal from a box . Of course, i can. But i want to show them they can, too. Whats dinner tonight for you guys . We are going to do hamburger helper. We got a double pack. Skillet dinner, easy peasy. So i need you guys to pick what flavor. Taco. Beef. Okay, bacon cheese burger. Im shopping for a different kind of skillet dinner built from Fresh Produce and chicken. Oh, oh, lots of mozzas. They love the lots of mozzas. You like the white bread, right. See you at your house. Thank you. How long is all your stuff going to take you . Whats the box say . Yeah. [ laughter ] hamburger helper, or in this case turkey, is a 25minute meal. Im making my skillet dinner with chicken, a bit more prep than theirs, but the same amount of time on the stove. I call them brown and braze recipes, which i think are sort of the easiest. Your hamburger helper in a sense is a brown and braze. Im using chicken thighs dredged in flour and crisped, and diced tomatoes. Im just watching you. Im going to learn. Like the cooking shows i watch with my mom, but in real life. Look how pretty that is. Hes really pretty, too. Dont hurt his feelings. Wongwong. My skillet dinner cooks in half an hour. I use that time to make a salad with plums, feta cheese. If we want to be healthier, got to use new recipes. Who has time for that . My dad used to cook all the time. I love doing it, but time doesnt permit. I was trying to think the last time we cooked at meal together. I cant recall. I judge no one. You guys have to make a decision for your family life whats too much and find that balance. How youre eating and everything can be a little bit of a reflection of like whats going on in your life, too. Totally. [ laughter ] its not easy. While we debate the issues of time poverty, the boys sneak a box of snack cakes. We bought brownies. Empty calories, loaded with sugar, not the most appropriate advertiser. I want you to be healthy, your kids lives to be food rich. Looks great. Same amount of cooking time, two very different meals. Well, here, let me. Thank you. Very nice, thank you. Im going to do a little bit of that. Hold on, because you need a shallot. You want to try a bite . Its good . I want this one. What did you say . Its good . Yeah. I like the chicken right here. Wow. Left untouched, the turkey helper. Do you like the plums in the salad . Its kind of like a nice thing. Did you know they were plums . No. I thought they were like beets or something. I would not do that to you. That is a low blow. You like beets, dont you, leo . I like money. [ laughter ] is that a hint, like for 5 youll eat the snap pea . Make it 20. [ laughter ] thoughts, take aways from today . Well, i think we have a great day. Do you feel inspired . Re i d i do. I think you used a lot of ingredients. As long as we can make the kids sit still, we can make a living out of this for sure. We know we want to get better. Ignite his love of cooking and get me cooking more. Getting together as a family. Its cool. You got this. Choosing between convenient and healthy isnt always easy. But it can be done. The hardest thing in the world is to create a home thats filled with love that Everyone Wants to be in. You have that already. Yeah. Thats what its all about. Its tough enough to make a living let alone worry about where youre going to buy your groceries from. The odds keep getting stacked against us. Tv sports announcer five seconds left. Oh ho yeah, thats my man there. Tv sports announcer time out. Lets go to a commercial. Nooooooo not another commercial when you bundle your home, auto and Life Insurance with allstate you could save 25 . In fact, the more you bundle the more you can save. Put the other game on if its important to you allstate can protect it. Home auto and Life Insurance you could save 25 . If its important to you allstate can protect it. What . Bundle and save with allstate. Click or call for a quote today. You can enjoy the seafood you love from the comfort of home. If it ever makes it there. Spend 30 and get free delivery at red lobster dot com. When Julie Hendrickson and her family shop, they probably dont realize theyre being encouraged to buy processed foods by a system that limits choices for all of us. Many americans shop for their food in super markets, but how those super markets are laid out influences what we buy and what we eat. My friend monica mills is the former executive director of the Nonprofit Organization food policy action. Youll see all this beautiful fresh food, everything looks so beautiful and fresh and delicious. It is all on the perimeter of the Grocery Store. But the most trafficked part of the store, the center aisles, are filled with cheap fast temptation. Everything on the cereal aisle is so processed. We have jello. We have easy seasonings for tacos and what in the world, havent seen these for a long time, mashed potatoes in a bag. 70 70 of the american diet is made up of processed foods. Its a convenience that comes at a cost. There is added sugar, added salt, and added fat. Processed food is really made to make you eat faster and to make you eat more. There is something thats almost addictive to it. Dollar impact of foodrelated disease is estimated to be what . The National Association of Insurance Commissioners put out a study that said 1. 4 trillion is the impact to our economy. 1. 4 trillion. At least fullservice Grocery Stores like this give shoppers options. Not everyone is so lucky. We are what we eat, and yet the stores that are multiplying like rabbits are the Dollar Stores. There are more Dollar Stores in america than all the starbucks and walmarts combined. The largest of all the Dollar Store Chains is Dollar General, with more than 16,000 stores in 45 states, and with nearly 28 billion in annual sales. These kinds of markets land in lowerincome neighborhoods and towns with struggling Grocery Stores. Okay. Hello, dollar store. This is the Dollar General in moville, whiowa. There are 2,100 generals. They did not give us permission to film in this location. I found chips and candy, more chips, more cookies. Frozen pizzas. Okay, they have cheese, eggs, bacon and milk. Sugary cereals, canned goods. If you had to catalog the worlds least Healthy Foods, this is what they have. When i ask another customer if i can find fresh food here they dont have lettuce or tomatoes here, do they . She gets me a couple of tomatoes from her car. Oh, my gosh, you are so they dont get any fresher than that. You are so sweet. Movi moville used to have a full Service Grocery store. The Dollar General opens up couple hundred yards behind me and within a short amount of time, the local Grocery Store, the one local Grocery Store, is out of business. And that Grocery Store was located right here. This is our Grocery Store. This looks like the produce aisle. Produce was here. They had bananas down there, onions and potatoes were in here. Milk was further down. So sad. Its an oversized version of what i always thought was the saddest sight in the world which was an empty refrigerator. The Grocery Store began to struggle after the Dollar General opened. It closed 18 months later. Dollar general says they are not a contributor to Americas Health concerns. They told us they strive to provide affordable option to under served communities and that their stores are not meant to be fullservice Grocery Stores. Do you know percentagewise what the revenue drop was . It was about 15 to 20 . Steve maxwell is copresident of the Development Group that owns the store. Hes trying to attract another store into the space. Its like a food desert. You dont have any fresh fruit. The closest place you can buy Fresh Produce is a small Grocery Store nine miles away in kingsley. A Dollar General just opened there in february of 2020. For the residents ever moville, its the dollar store or nothing. Do you shop here a lot for gressel risk . Every day. What are you buying . Chicken alfredo. Where do you shop for groceries . High v in sioux city. How far is that . 17 miles. When we did have a small Grocery Store here, a lot of times wed want Something Like cilantro or tofu. They might not have it there. Hey, april, we got your cilantro. Its hard to go each way when ive already worked a 10, 12 hour day trying to provide for my family in the first place. They learn what its like firsthand what its like to have fewer healthy food choices. Those choices may get fewer for those who rely on government help through Assistance Program or snap. In 2018 the department of agriculture proposed replacing some of that snap money with a food ration called the harvest box. The administration claims the box will somehow improve beneficiaries nutrition and slash costs to the tune of 12 billion a year. There is absolutely no fresh fruits, no fresh vegetables, nothing that is fresh in this box. Using a usda list of potential harvest box offerings, monica put together a sample. Its a box of processed foods with a long shelf life. We have instant nonfat dried milk. Pear halves, apple juice. Sure. Peanut butter, cheese. Spam. Then monica filled the second box with foods people can already purchase with their snap dollars for about the same cost. Lean ground beef, fresh tomatoes. Picking the box is a nobrainer when theyre snap participants or not. All of this is Fresh Produce and everything here is canned and box. This one looks like has Fresh Produce. I would take this one. My oldest son has a dairyfree, glutenfree diet. Could you even use a lot of this stuff . Most likely no. The harvest box idea has so far been rejected by congress, but a plan to shrink the snap program is underway. Starting april 1st, a new usda rule will eliminate snap benefits for nearly 700,000 people. The first part of a larger effort to trim the program by 3 million recipients. What do you think of the trump administrations plan to cut snap . I think it is a travesty. I think it is harming the poor for being poor. Processed foods cost less and last longer on the shelf. Cuts to snap may mean many lowincome shoppers will be left with no choice but to buy less healthy options. That means i buy two boxes of corn flakes because that will last longer than a package of chicken. This administration wants to cut food stamps. They want to cut programs that help the poor. They want to make it harder every step of the way for those who struggle the most. So theres 21 out of 30 kids have chocolate milk . Thats the most popular. And conveniently loaded with 18 grams of sugar. Berty cut. Well dub it. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Everything was so fresh in the beginning. But that plug quickly faded. Luckily theres febreze plug. It cleans away odors and freshens for 1200 hours. Breathe happy with febreze plug. Unlike ordinary memory wsupplementsneuriva . Has clinically proven ingredients that fuel 5 indicators of brain performance. Memory, focus, accuracy, learning, and concentration. Try neuriva for 30 days and see the difference. Your cells. Trillions of them. Thats why centrum contains 24 key nutrients to feed your cells, supporting your energy so you can take care of what matters most. Centrum. Feed your cells. Fuel your life. But family can only tell you sot much. About your history. I found some incredible records about samuel silberman. Passenger manifests, census information, even wwi draft registration cards. The records exist. Theyre there, theyre facts. That made it so real for me, it wasnt just a story anymore. Bring your Family History to life like never before. Get started for free at ancestry. Com that Liberty Mutual customizes your insurance, i just love hitting the open road and telling people so you only pay for what you need [squawks] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Less than half a mile from the Dollar General in rural moville, iowa, is the local public school. Woodbury Central Community school teaches up to 625 children every day. Its cafeteria provides lunch and breakfast, too. How many of you had breakfast here at school this morning . Did the rest of you have breakfast at home . Yes. Gotcha. I had frog legs. You had frog legs . Ewww. Now, hold on, dont knock them till youve tried them. Theyre really, really good. While Childhood Obesity and dee bites are at record levels, kids consume 50 of their daily calories at school. Do you think he wants to join us for lunch . Yeah. I would love to join you for lunch. First we have to show him how kindergartners lineup. I cant wait to see what these kids are eating and why. Im going to do oranges. All right. Chocolate milk. Thats the most popular obviously. And conveniently loaded with 18 grams of sugar. So theres one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20, 21 out of 30 kids have chocolate milk. Do you want some help . Im a certified dad. Its okay. Not the first cookie pack ive opened in my life. How did you do that . Magic. Todays lunch, chocolate milk, chocolate chip cookie, a thin slice of pizza, raw carrots. I have to tell you, old dried carrots that are almost expired do not taste great. Its no wonder that the kids finish their cookies and sweetened milk before anything else. These processed foods taste better. Processed Food Industry still very much has a foothold in our cafeterias. Betina is a mom and author. Her popular blog, the lunch tray, has become a leading voice in the school lunch debate. They dont have the infrastructure for scratch cooking. Were not paying them enough. Every School Service provided is paid for by local tax dollars. Most School Lunch Programs are purchased by funds for meals. The School Lunch Program is 29 of the kids here atwood bury, the federal government pays the school. School districts are given a certain amount of money based on the economic status of the kitd who comes through the line. Free lunch 3. 50. Little less for reduced price and the full paying kid pays the fee. In other words, most School Cafeterias are kind of like restaurants. Out of that money, they are supposed to cover Everything Associated with the meal program. The payroll, the lights, the trash collection. So they really want participation. Kids in the door grabbing trays. Whats your favorite food at the school . If schools want to sell more food, they have to appeal to kids taste buds. But the national School Lunch Program also sets nutritional and caloric standards for reimbursable meals. Those stand

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