Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

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Francine L Shaw: My only concern with any of it is he seems to have a lot of his own personal opinions about a lot of things. Yes. And I wonder how much it wouldn't be me if I didn't address this. I wonder how much his own personal opinions about food or any other of the health related topics that are gonna fall under this.

How much his own personal opinions are gonna affect him, looking at the science of those things.

Matt Regusci: Oh, that is such a good point, Francine. Because if you're a scientist, and unfortunately I think science has been bastardized within our immediate lifetimes, right? Like when this current generation, theoretically.

Science is you have a hypothesis. You test that hypothesis, and if that hypothesis turns out to be true, then okay, this was accurate. If the [00:01:00] hypothesis tends to be false, we are seeing now that people are moving around variables in order to get the hypothesis that they want to be true.

Francine L Shaw: Right? A hundred percent.

intro: Everybody's gotta eat and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans, Francine l Shaw and Matt Regus for a deep dive into food safety. It alls down to one golden rule. Don't eat poop.

Don't eat poop.

Matt Regusci: Hello? Hello, Francine.

Francine L Shaw: Hi Matt. Matthew. Did your mother call you that?

Matt Regusci: My mother called me a lot of things, but generally we can't say it on the show because it's...

Francine L Shaw: That's one of those things that we have in common.

Matt Regusci: That's interesting. So, okay. [00:02:00] I changed my last name. I was raised by everybody, but my parents within my family.

So my grandpa, God rest, his soul just passed recently. Amazing man. He had a lot of names for me. My grandma had a lot of names for me that were enduring. So Mattie, Matt, never Matthew. I guess if I was super in trouble, it'd be Matthew Eugene Regusci or Matthew Eugene Koons at the time. Get your booty over here.

Mateo. My family's Swiss Italian. My grandpa was born in Switzerland, so he would call me Mateo all the time, which is actually my son who's Junior. He is Matthew Eugene Regusci Jr. and we call him Mateo, but. Yeah. What were you called as a kid?

Francine L Shaw: I just thought a lot of things, none of them were endearing. I had no nicknames, none.

It was Francine period. And something, I don't think you know this something else that we have in common. I had multiple last names, a couple different last names. None of them legally except for my, like my [00:03:00] given birth name. Like I... Wait really? I'm not talking about married. I'm talking about is growing up I had two different last names.

Yes, but it wasn't legally changed. Yes. So my name from like birth to first grade was one thing. Then second to seventh it was another name. Then eighth 12th, it was a different name.

Matt Regusci: My mother-in-law was the same way.

Francine L Shaw: Talk about a messed up childhood. Yeah. But yes.

Matt Regusci: My mother-in-law was the same way. So she was Beatty McDonald, she was McDonald.

That's her biological dad's name, who interestingly lived with us for multiple years before he passed. Very interesting family. My, my mother-in-law's family, very similar to you and me, but she went by Beatty. Her name was not changed, but that was her stepdad's name throughout most of her life. So yeah.

Interesting times. Yeah. Very different. 'cause now they just change the last name, like legally [00:04:00] or they keep it.

Francine L Shaw: Right. Well, if you're adopted. But if you're not adopted, it's so weird. I don't even know how they registered me in school like that. Like you would never get away with that now.

Matt Regusci: No.

Francine L Shaw: No.

That would not happen. So.

Matt Regusci: Oh, the good old days where you just faked names. Wait, we do that now still, right? Yeah. It certain...

Francine L Shaw: Think about that. There's no school record of me. If you were to go back and try to find my school records from seventh to 12th or second to seventh grade, they probably don't exist. Right. 'cause like legally...

Matt Regusci: Right.

Francine L Shaw: ...here, I didn't go to school.

Matt Regusci: Luckily, I have made a career myself since I've changed my last name. I changed my last name while I was working at Primus Labs, and no one batted an eye about it didn't matter to anybody, but I could see how that could be very complicated. When I go, the only time it's complicated is that when I want to go take classes at a university and they wanna see my transcripts, and so my, all my transcripts for my whole entire school life is Koons.

Everything is listed as Koons. [00:05:00] But my name legally is Regusci now. So yeah, not often men change. My poor wife had to change her name twice, three times.

Francine L Shaw: I don't say any of that for any sympathy or anything 'cause all of that made me who I am today and I'm fine with that. I'm fine with the person I am today. So it is what it is.

Matt Regusci: It is what it is. Yeah. It was what it was. Yeah.

My kids never complain about their childhood. They complain about their childhood, but they usually do that to their mother. Not so much to me. 'cause I'm like, really? You wanna trade parents? My mom, my wife would say that like in college, my wife would complain about my mother-in-law.

Right? Because every everybody does that. Everybody complains about their parents. It just is. It's like you hit a stage in life, you think your parents are gods, then all of a sudden you go from...

They know nothing. Yeah.

...rational thought to abstract thought. Then once they start getting the abstract thought, then they realize, Wait, my parents aren't perfect? They're flawed people? [00:06:00] And that's like...

They're human beings?

Yeah. That's like an existential crisis, right? And so then, which is what they call teenage years is an existential crisis. I think every teenager is going through an existential crisis. By the way, if you think like that as a parent, that every teenager is going through an existential crisis.

It makes parenting way more fun. 'cause then you can just mess with them. You could start, you can just, I ask my kids all the time when they're teenagers, they talk about all the things that they know you are wrong. This is how it really is. Then I start asking 'em questions like, you know what? You're absolutely right.

I forgot about this. You're in the phase at which you know everything, which is awesome because there's a lot of things that I don't know that I would really like answers to. Like, for instance. We go to church every Sunday. Is there really a God? Can you tell me? Is there really a God? Here's another one that I really wanna know.

What is the meaning of life? Can you explain to me what the meaning of life is? And then my teenagers will just leave. They just like conversation's over, [00:07:00] I'm done. But I just mess with them like that. And then by the way, that kind of alleviates conflict if you have a good relationship with them. Right? If you don't have a good relationship with them, that just pisses 'em off.

But if you have a good relationship with them, then they then, then they're like, okay, this is no longer a constructive, dad. We're done.

Francine L Shaw: What news is though, they do come back around.

Matt Regusci: Yes. When they have kids. I'm waiting for that time. I'm biding my time. I wanna be a grandparent. I'm gonna be super excited about being a grandparent.

I can't wait. Let me rephrase that. I say this to my children all the time. I will be super excited to be a grandfather, but I can wait. I can wait.

'cause we have babies in our house perpetually, right? We always have babies in our house because we do foster care for high risk children, so not just babies, but babies with feeding tubes and oxygen and all this.

And so my kids love playing with the babies, but they understand how much work babies are, like my teenagers and most of my kiddos. Are not biological kiddos, and [00:08:00] many of them we got when they were 12, 13, 16. And so they're what you would consider high risk for teen pregnancy. The kiddos that I, I have... some of them, but they're not because they understand how much of a pain in the butt babies are and they're like, you know what, no.

When we have babies, I've had multiple white kids say, when we have babies, can we just drop 'em off at your house? Until they're all trained and they're about a year old, and then we'll take 'em back. Absolutely. I would love that. You could just gimme your kids for a year. I would totally do that. My wife and I, great.

And people say, you can't train a baby. That is such BS, by the way. We'll get foster babies that have not... that have been malnutritioned, that were addicted to drugs when they were born, all these things, and so they're like... they'll like scream all night long, right? Like really tough. After about a month, my wife and I will have them...

it would be just through pure consistency of raising them, they morph into a [00:09:00] completely different baby. It's fascinating to watch, and if it was one time that could be an anomaly, but we've had 10 babies come through our house just in the last four years and it's happened with all of them consistently.

So routine can... Obviously, consistently feeding your baby is a pretty high priority. Like.

Francine L Shaw: They like to be fed.

They like to be fed.

Basic necessities.

Matt Regusci: Consistent naps. People don't know this, but babies need... they need 20 hours of sleep. They need a ton of sleep. And so we have our babies down at in bed at six o'clock.

They wake up at six o'clock. Now they wake up through the night to feed like the little babies. Wake up. Couple nights, a couple times the night to feed, and then they're up for a couple hours. Then they have a nap for an hour or so. Then they're up for another couple hours. Then we have a nap, and so they're sleeping.

They get this consistent sleep pattern, which is really, really helpful. But that had nothing to do with our topic that we're...

Francine L Shaw: No, but it's so funny, you said in the last couple years you guys have had 10 babies. Babies. And I laughed because at one [00:10:00] point I felt like your wife was picking up babies. Like I pick up groceries.

Matt Regusci: I know. Well, and she works the NICU, right? My wife is a NICU nurse. In fact, I'm wearing the NICU... wearing the children's hospital sweater vest right now that my wife got me, and I tell her all the time, this is not like a convenience store on, you can't go shopping for babies at the, at the NICU.

Francine L Shaw: I'm talking to you on the phone and you're like, I gotta go.

My wife's going to pick up a baby. And I'm like, what? Yeah. Yeah. You, you are very special people and not sincerely. You are special on your own and in another way. But you...

Matt Regusci: I doubt. Yeah, I definitely, but you're using like air quotes, Matt is "special".

Francine L Shaw: But it takes special people to do what you guys do. It really does.

And on a whole new level because you have a lot of special needs children and I mean that there, I have a lot of respect for what you...

Matt Regusci: But you know, what I found is that having as many children as we have had both forever children, we have 11 forever children, [00:11:00] and we've had like 10 foster babies come through the house.

The amount of patience that I have learned over the last two decades of being a parent is priceless for managing people in a company. First off, it just helps me with patience. They have emergencies that pop up. Okay, we'll cover, we'll figure it out. So the culture that's created within the organizations that I run is, is nice because I understand, right?

Like I just...

Francine L Shaw: Right. When I... that's important in any business. I think the businesses that don't have that kind of culture are mistaken. That's a problem.

Matt Regusci: Well, and in food compliance, anybody who's listening to this show and is... your career is food compliance. You have to have a lot of patience to be like a food safety and quality manager of a company.

Oh my gosh. You have to say the same things over and over and over and over again. Somebody asked me, do you feel like you say the same things over and over again in your career? [00:12:00] Absolutely. I feel like I say the same things over. Does that frustrate you? No, I'm a parent.

Francine L Shaw: I just had this conversation the other day.

I don't care what aspect of the food service industry you work in. It is like that. So I did a favor for somebody the other day. I have not taught a class in years, not because I can't or don't have the knowledge. You just moved to your career. I choose not to. Yeah. Somebody was in a desperate need that I had a health department issue, and so I agreed to help them out.

We had this conversation the other day. I said, it's like having children. This business is like having children. It's not one and done. You don't say something one time and expect your employees to remember. You have to say it repeatedly. It's like over and over and over because you're constantly training them and it's the constant reinforcement.

They're just looking at me and rolling their eyes and I'm like. It's the only way you can be successful.

Matt Regusci: And food, it's interesting 'cause people in the food safety departments or food [00:13:00] compliance departments of an organization and marketing really could get along very well. 'cause the jobs are very similar in marketing and sales.

You have to say the same thing over and over again. Particularly in compliance in training employees, you have to say the same things over and over again, and marketing is the same thing. You're giving the message over and over again consistently in different ways that finally someone goes, oh yeah, you know what?

I want that product. This makes sense. All of a sudden, this messaging clicks. Very, very similar to food compliance. You're saying the same things over and over and over again and in different ways, and if you have patience with it and you don't get frustrated. And you understand that's just part of your job.

After a while, people will understand with the consistent messaging that this is what they just need to do.

Francine L Shaw: Well, restaurant training, production, it's all like that. It's all like that. You're just, it's the same message over... you can't say something to somebody one time [00:14:00] and think that they're gonna... and that's what corrective action's about as well.

Yeah, all of it. It's just, it's constant reinforcement.

Matt Regusci: Constant reinforcement.

So speaking of patience and constant reinforcement, our topic today, this kind of goes really hand in hand in a abstract way. We're talking abstract like teenagers, not like babies, teenagers gotta think abstractly. Our topic today is, looks like we're gonna get a consolidation of the administration.

Francine L Shaw: It sounds that way.

Matt Regusci: Yes. So the topic today, and this was on X, I think it's fascinating how the formally known as Twitter, right? It's like Prince, right? He couldn't go by Prince. He had to go by the man formally known as Prince. X, former known as Twitter is like the sounding board of our administration. And Kennedy just came out on X and announced that [00:15:00] the 28 divisions are gonna be consolidated into 15. 10 regional divisions will be consolidated into 5. It's interesting 'cause some of the different articles that we read, like on Food Safety News about this, it said that 10,000 jobs are gonna be cut through this consolidated, but in the Fact Sheet from the Health and Human Services, it's saying that it's actually gonna go from 82,000 in full-time employees to 62,000 full-time employees. So 20,000 jobs are gonna get cut, and it's going to be called Administration for Healthy America, AHA, which is gonna be interesting. What were we saying? We're cautiously optimistic about this. Yes. I'm not cautiously optimistic. I'm not. Okay. I like, I don't know.

You and I had a conversation about this about a month ago, a podcast that launched about a month ago. About all the cuts and stuff [00:16:00] and is that good? Is that gonna be helpful? Yes, if they're redundant, but they're talking about cutting $2 billion from this whole entire thing, it's gonna save the taxpayers $2 billion.

You and I talk about this all the time, while we believe in government efficiency, I don't know if we need $2 billion cut from this department, but it's like anything else. Everybody wants to protect what they want to protect, but yeah. What are your thoughts?

Francine L Shaw: So this is something that we've been talking about for a long time, that the agencies, there were too many agencies and it needed to be more streamlined and more effective.

Yes. If it's done properly, I think it could be a very good thing if the emphasis is on the appropriate needs. Now what the appropriate needs are may mean different things to different people.

Matt Regusci: So should I read the fact sheets? You want me to read? Go off [00:17:00] and read the fact sheet and then we can talk about it.

Yeah, that'd be a good idea. Okay. Alright, so here's the fact sheet from the federal government. Okay, so this came out just yesterday and yesterday. As of this recording, which is, we're recording this on March 28th, this will land mid-April. Alright, so the restructuring of HHS is proceeding in accordance with President Trump's executive order, implementing the President Department of Government Efficiency Workforce, which is DOGE, Workforce Optimization Initiative.

Over the last four years, the Biden Administration's HHS budget increased 38% and staffing increased by 17%. Which is crazy because I don't think that's really, I mean I know it's been happening in the FDA, but like the food side of stuff, I'm not sure what those people were doing because getting had more outbreaks.

Francine L Shaw: Well, they were getting major cuts in food. Yeah. This year.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. It's crazy. So number one, on this fact sheet, the plan combines personnel, cuts, [00:18:00] centralization of functions, and consolidation of HHS Health and Human Services divisions, including the current 82,000 full-time employees will be reduced to 60 2028 divisions will be consolidated to 15, 10 regional offices will become five human resources, information technology, procurement, external affairs, and policy will be centralized.

So all that will be become one department. Point number two, regarding the FDA, CDC, NIH, and CMS. FDA will decrease its workforce by approximately 3,500 full-time employees with a focus on streamlining operations and centralizing administration functions. This reduction will not affect drug and medical devices nor food reviewers, nor will it impact inspectors.

So of those 3,500 cuts, none of them are gonna be on the field, boots on the ground type of jobs that are gonna be cut, those all stay [00:19:00] the same, which is good, right? We need actually more of those, not less of them. The CDC will decrease its workforce by approximately 2,400 employees with a focus on returning to its core mission of preparing for the responding of epidemics and outbreaks.

This includes moving ASPR under CDC to enhance coordination of response efforts, which will be good. Note: the CDC decrease would only be 1400 jobs if you include the individuals coming over from ASPR, approximately a thousand individuals. So they're consolidating those departments, so theoretically they function more efficiently.

The NIH will decrease its workforce by approximately 1200 employees by centralizing procurement, human resources and communications across its 27 institutes and centers. So this is like when corporations merge and you have redundancies in things like finance [00:20:00] and HR, and that type of stuff.

Most of the time those jobs are cut the most because you can consult... consolidate them easily. So all the administrative type of redundancy jobs are going to be cut.

Francine L Shaw: Right. So for the, for the people that don't know, tell 'em what NIH is? National Institute of Health.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. National Institute of Health.

Alright. So the NIH seeks to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. That's their function.

Francine L Shaw: I use them as a resource a lot.

Matt Regusci: Oh, yeah. What do you use them as a resource for?

Francine L Shaw: If I'm writing an article or doing research for something. CDC, FDA, I use all of those as resource. Yeah.

Matt Regusci: Okay. The consol... point number three. The consolidations and cuts are designed not only to save money, but to make the organization more efficient and responsive to American needs and to implement the Make America Healthy Again goal of ending chronic disease epidemic. [00:21:00] Which is interesting because that has not been the goal of the food industry at all.

Francine L Shaw: What was the first thing you said about that one? I'm sorry.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

The consolidation and cuts are designed not only to save money, but to make the organization more efficient and more responsive to American's needs and to implement the Make America Healthy Again, goal of ending chronic diseases and epidemic, so like heart disease, cancer, all that stuff, like streamlining it to help reduce those things.

Okay. No additional cuts are currently planned, but the department will continue to look for further ways to streamline its operations and agencies. That's number four.

Number five. A new administration for, quote, healthy America Administration for Healthy America. So AHA 'cause we have to have an acronym in the government.

We have to have an acronym in food compliance in general.

Francine L Shaw: So we're cutting administration, but now we're adding administration back in.

Matt Regusci: Well, yeah, because you're gonna take 27, right? [00:22:00] Put it to 15. So now it's an right. Yeah, exactly.

So this Administration of Healthy America will consolidate the OASH, the HRSA, the SAMHSA, ATSDR, and NIOSH. God, I didn't even know there was that many organizations.

Francine L Shaw: It did say alphabet soup.

Matt Regusci: It's a total alphabet soup. So as to more efficiently coordinate chronic care and disease prevention programs and harmonize health resources to low income Americans, the division of AHA will include primary care, maternal and health, and child health, mental health, environmental health, HIV/AIDS, workforce, and support all US surge in general and policy teams.

So this is gonna, this is like overarching more than just the FDA, right? This is like everything that does it. Fascinating. Okay.

AHA [00:23:00] will have a new administrative secretary for enforcement to provide oversight to the Department Appeals Board, DAP... DAB, excuse me, Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals, OMHA, and the Office of Civil Rights, OCR to combat waste, fraud, and abuse.

Seven: HHS will combine the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, ASPE. Geez Louise. And the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, AHRQ, into the Office of Strategy to conduct research that informs the secretary's policies and evaluates effectiveness of the department's programs for a healthier America.

And then number eight: the critical programs within the Administration for Community Living, ACL, that supports older adults and people of all ages with disabilities to be split across the administration for children and families, ACF, assistant Secretary for [00:24:00] Planning and Evaluation, ASPE, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS.

Those are the talking points. That was a lot. That was a lot. Okay. And that came out yesterday. So this is like, overarching... this is their bullet points. What this looks like? Well, nobody really knows, so you and I get to talk about it like we know.

Francine L Shaw: So on the surface it looks and sounds okay. Yeah. But while we're combining... which is good. Combining and reducing is amazing. I guess it's a wait and see like what programs are gonna be left. Yes. You know what I mean? While it says that the goal is to help the [00:25:00] low income and those in need, which programs are gonna remain and which illnesses and diseases are they gonna decide are legitimate and aren't. And all of that remains to be seen.

And as far as the food is concerned, there's such a severe shortage of actual inspectors. Yes, there was too much overhead. We all agree with that. I think most people in the food service industry agree. There... we were top heavy, but we need more boots on the ground, so to speak.

Yes. Are we gonna address that? Because that's where a lot of the problem... yes... is not to mention where does their authority stop? Right. This not being allowed to shut down a, an organization or close an organization that is clearly not doing things that they're supposed to be doing, and there's health... severe health [00:26:00] violations occurring, that's a problem. Or one agency not being able to talk to another agency. If we're eliminating the agencies, that should no longer be a problem.

Matt Regusci: Theoretically, yes. Theoretically, they should be able to talk to each other better if they're all underneath one umbrella. What this doesn't do, though, in that episode that we did about a month ago or so, this doesn't address what you and I were talking about, which is creating one overarching food safety department. So USDA is still doing USDA stuff. So FSIS is still underneath its individual department. Right? So all the state departments that are working with FSIS and the FDA are still gonna be doing that individually. The same with the counties and all that different type of stuff. So that doesn't create what you and I and a lot of people in the food safety world would love, which is an overarching food safety department that incorporates that.

Francine L Shaw: But when you do something like this, do you start at the [00:27:00] top or do you start at the bottom?

Matt Regusci: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Okay. So you and I have also made... we've had a long career of doing a lot of different things, including restructuring failing organizations. Right? You've done that multiple times in restaurants. I've done that multiple times in the food compliance world, and this is what happens every single time a company is failing, or a department, or an organization is to... is failing. The investors, people are putting the money into it, are like, Hey, listen, I don't wanna put any more money into this till the... it's functioning correctly.

Right? So I can see that the organization is functioning correctly. So I... although I have mixed feelings about this, one of the things I can see is if all of a sudden now this reorg allows them to figure out what pieces of the are of the administration can be cut to create more efficiencies. Then once those efficiencies happens and there's, say, there's $2 billion now in the budget, [00:28:00] is that $2 billion going to disappear or is that $2 billion now going to be able to be reinvested into on the field type of stuff? Maybe giving state departments more money to manage food safety better within their local jurisdictions and stuff.

I am worried that we're going from 10 regional offices to 5 regional offices. I'm worried about that because I feel like regional offices could be very efficient because if they're on the ground closer to where the food is being made.

Like, wait... Washington DC is a powerhouse of a lot of things. It is not where our food is grown. There are no farms anymore in Washington DC. I don't know. Maybe there are, but if there aren't very many and they're niche, there's not...

Francine L Shaw: I've been to DC lately. I can tell you they're building more roads. They're not putting in farms.

Matt Regusci: Our food [00:29:00] is not being processed. It's not being grown. It's not... I mean, it's definitely being distributed throughout DC but it's not being distributed from DC to other places.

Francine L Shaw: I should say more highways, roads is a clear distinction of where I live.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, right. Where you live are roads.

Well, hopefully you're like, man, it'd be really nice if sometime this decade, this road got paved is where you're from.

Francine L Shaw: Yeah. If they would pave this, it would be... yeah, exactly.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. They're doing highways.

Francine L Shaw: Or rechip it.

Matt Regusci: Rechip it. Yeah. So this is interesting. So because... because last... when we talked about this a month ago, we were talking about how like, okay, are they slashing and burning this organization to the ground and then whatever is rebuilt from the ashes, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, is it gonna be better or is it going to be worse?

They all, it seems like there's a [00:30:00] plan. What does that plan look like when they get into the details? This is a bullet point strategic plan. You can put this in a PowerPoint presentation, but when you take that, then you actually go and put it into action. What does that look like?

Francine L Shaw: And when you go from 10 to 5, how are they gonna staff those 5?

Are they keeping them staffed as they are or are we going to add more staff? Because... Yeah, I know. That is really scary if we keep 'em staffed as they are and slash 'em by 50%.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. This is new for our country. Right? I do think the emphasis now is on making our food healthier and less industrial chemicals and all that type of stuff.

Because a hundred years ago when, or more than, were... more than a hundred years ago, or a hundred year... some, yeah, a little bit more than a hundred years ago when these departments were created, the FDA, the USDA, that type of stuff. The whole premise of this was, let's not [00:31:00] acutely kill people. Our food world was very different back then.

People were dying because the food was spoiling because of pathogens and because of real bad chemicals that were in our food to preserve it that were legitimately killing babies.

Francine L Shaw: What were they putting in the milk? Can you remember what they were putting in the milk?

Matt Regusci: Yes. Oh my gosh. It's the same product that is used to embalm people... formaldehyde. Again, this is the second episode in a row. We talked about coffee, the chemicals they put in decaf coffee and we referenced Deborah Blum's book Poison Squad. But yeah, it was formaldehyde in milk. By the way, anybody who has not read that book, that is a fantastic read. It reads like a story.

She's telling the story of how food safety regulations came into the United States and it's fascinating what was going on like a hundred years ago. But yeah, it was formaldehyde in milk, sodium [00:32:00] borate in all different types of food, and it was to preserve it. There were obviously some companies that were doing this maliciously.

If a little bit of formaldehyde is good, then maybe a whole lot of formaldehyde is good, right? And nobody really knew what these chemicals were doing back then when they were putting it in, other than it was prolonging food and people weren't dying of pathogens. But they were dying. Right. All these chemicals killing them.

So what I think is interesting about Make America Healthy Again, that this could be the next huge paradigm shift in the food industry that would be similar to what happened a hundred years ago. In the food industry now, food scientists are amazing people. Their knowledge, their ability to create products is borderline genius, if not absolutely genius. How products are being created over the last 50 years it's just absolutely amazing.

Francine L Shaw: Well, and I feel like we're so far behind the [00:33:00] rest of the world with what we allow Americans to eat.

Matt Regusci: Yes.

Francine L Shaw: As far as the chemicals that we put in products. As opposed to, say, Europe. They can't have Skittles. They can't.

Matt Regusci: Or if they have Skittles, it's a different type. If they just can't have the titanium in the...

Francine L Shaw: Or they put warning labels like...

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: ...big warning labels. They can't have the Swiss rolls.

Matt Regusci: That... if you wanna know what we're talking about, four months ago we did a podcast on the products that we can consume in the United States that are illegal in other countries. That was...

Francine L Shaw: Some of them we were just devastated about because it's Oh my heavens.

Matt Regusci: All of them. Like all of them are in my pantry.

Yeah. So we have to look at this in two different ways, because this is happening simultaneously. One is the whole entire consolidation and changes of the departments that run food compliance, those are going to change. If that changes for the better or for the worse, when it comes to [00:34:00] outbreaks, CDC notifications and the FDA's epidemiology, all that stuff, how is that going to function with all these changes?

Is that gonna be better or worse? To be determined. Cautiously optimistic. We hope it will. Not quite sure yet. Right. We don't know about that.

On a separate note, what 100% will be done just because of Kennedy, it like... it's his lifelong mission and now he's in control over this is there's gonna be a lot more regulation and a lot more of a microscope put on the minute amount of harmful chemicals that consumed over a lifetime will give you cancer, will give you heart disease, that type of stuff, not just chemicals, but ingredients as well. So corn syrup, seed oils, all these type of stuff that may not, they may have chemicals in them to extend shelf life, but they may not, they could just be the ingredients. Really doing a deeper dive on [00:35:00] what are the health effects of these over a long period of time and should we be consuming them as much.

That's, there's a very large minority that have been very vocal about this over the last, I would say two decades. But now all of a sudden that large minority is running this department and what is that going to do to our food? And will we see... it's not gonna affect the people who are like 50 to 80 now. I don't think it's going to help much with them. Maybe minutely.

Francine L Shaw: We've been eating it all our lives. There's no hope.

Matt Regusci: We've been eating all of our lives, right? But like for kids, the next generation, right? Will we see a significantly lower amount of cancers and health... chronic health diseases like diabetes and heart disease and all these other types of stuff. That we're starting to see kids getting [00:36:00] diabetes, not type one diabetes, type two diabetes in like high school now. Right. Because of the... or because of the food that they're eating. So that 100% is going to be something that's gonna be a complete and total paradigm shift, an absolute disruption in the food industry. And will that increase food costs? I don't see how it can't. It's going to increase food costs, at least in the short term, while all these food companies are trying to figure out what ingredients to use, what chemicals they're allowed to use, et cetera, et cetera.

Francine L Shaw: I agree.

My only concern with any of it is he seems to have a lot of his own personal opinions about a lot of things. Yes. And I wonder how much... I wouldn't be me if I didn't address this. I wonder how much his own personal opinions about food or any other of the health related topics that are gonna fall under this.

How much his own [00:37:00] personal opinions are gonna affect him looking at the science of those things.

Matt Regusci: Oh, that is such a good point, Francine.

Because if you're a scientist, and unfortunately I think science has been bastardized within our immediate lifetimes, right? Like when this current generation. Theoretically, science is you have a hypothesis. You test that hypothesis, and if that hypothesis turns out to be true, then okay, this was accurate. If the hypothesis tends to be false... we are seeing now that people are moving around variables in order to get the hypothesis that they want to be true.

Right. A hundred percent.

And so this is what you're talking about right now is the opinion. Going to alter science versus is science going to affect facts and this [00:38:00] ultimately change the way that we consume things, right? Are we going to actually see this as truth or not?

Francine L Shaw: Because I'm somebody that typically thinks in very gray terms.

I think in very gray terms, yes. However, there are things that are very black and white. Like right is right, wrong is wrong. You know what I mean? So, and scientifically things are or they aren't. Math either is or it isn't. You know what I mean? Right. There are certain things that are... just are or aren't, even though I think very gray.

Matt Regusci: Yes.

Francine L Shaw: So I just hope that is how it works.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: If that makes sense.

Matt Regusci: I'm not even cautiously optimistic about that. This is how jaded millennials on down are. Okay. So I'm the oldest of millennials. I was born in 82, the graduating class of 2000. [00:39:00] I'm not sure that I can believe that it will. And then right now, every single time I look at something like some study or whatever, I'm like, okay, I wanna replicate that in my own lab.

Can I replicate that? My own lab? Like really, I'm having so much fun having a lab. It's gonna... this is very bad for the industry. Very good and very bad, depending upon who you are, because this next year we're testing so many different categories, and we're gonna be really finding out what chemicals are really in these things just because I have a hard time trusting anybody anymore.

Francine L Shaw: So I... I'm the one that brought this up. And I'm clearly not a millennial.

Matt Regusci: No.

Francine L Shaw: I'm the youngest of the Baby boomers.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. I think you're more objective than the average, though. I think maybe it was your, the Baby Boomers Era and Generation X that started going, I just don't trust this anymore. Like, and then it really got bad going down the line.

Yeah. I think science, the word, the term [00:40:00] science has been, there's a lot of distress in that. So even if these facts come out to be facts, even if the stuff comes out, it's gonna be interesting to see who believes it and who doesn't. What power he and his new administration is going to have. When I say he, Kennedy, and the the departments that he's bringing on board, what type of factor they're gonna really have.

Francine L Shaw: Who are they gonna hire? Who are they gonna hire?

Matt Regusci: Yeah. You and I had this conversation on a podcast. Who golfs well, who hunts well. I don't... like cronies. I don't know. Are they gonna be cronies or are they gonna be...

Francine L Shaw: 'Cause that's gonna determine.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: I hope that they hire people that are qualified, that are scientists that know the answers to the food, whatever.

I don't care what department we're talking about there, but there are some things that I read that are scary. Yes. And, and or those skewed. And I'm not somebody that watches one station. Right. Or reads [00:41:00] one article. Yes. I read a very broad scope.

Matt Regusci: Francine and I on our text threads all the time, we'll bring up an article from all different places.

We'll bring up articles from The Guardian, we'll bring up articles. Just her and I personally, and we also do that on the show as well. But her and I personally go back and forth between all these different news places. Ground News is a good one too. I don't know if you've ever seen Ground News. Ground News is great because it rates all the... where... who's picked up this article? So what type of... who picked up this article? Is it more of a Democrat Slant or Republican slant. And that's really helpful too, 'cause when I read the article, I get to know right off the bat, is this going to be slanted more conservative or slanted more of a liberal type of a thing? Which is great for me. I love understanding that, so that I understand the context going into it.

Francine L Shaw: And sometimes you can read something international.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: Something that was written in Europe. [00:42:00]

Matt Regusci: Yes. Okay.

So initial thoughts on this?

Francine L Shaw: My initial thoughts are change is good. Again, I don't necessarily agree with the way it's taking place.

I said that before, but change is good. On the surface, the concept sounds good 'cause that's what we've been asking for a really long time, is to consolidate. Yeah. But it remains to be seen. Yeah. Cautiously optimistic is the term that we... The phrase that's been coined.

Matt Regusci: I love and hate whoever created that term, by the way.

I love and hate it 'cause it used so frequently and I use it all the time too, and I'm like, Ugh. Can't believe.

Francine L Shaw: I, well, it's like pivot during Covid. I freaking hate that term, but I find myself on occasion using it. I hate it.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. I agree with you. It's true to be determined. At least we're getting some more details.

We'll [00:43:00] keep everybody up to date on that because, uh, it seems like our audience is interested in it. 'cause it seems to be the most widely listened to shows are the ones where we're talking about this. And I, and it makes sense because there's a lot of changes that are happening and we need to keep everybody... our whole... everybody who listens to our show needs to be up updated on this 'cause it's going to directly affect their career.

Good or bad, this is going to be a fundamental paradigm shift in the food industry, and I think it'll be good for some people. It'll be viewed good for some people. It'll be viewed bad by other people. And it's, it is not based upon a political slant even, an economic slant is what right? Will be good for some people and not good for other people.

And we're talking about a change that... like this, Make America Healthy Again with the food, chemicals, dyes, ingredients, all that stuff changing. This is not something that we're going to be able [00:44:00] to see instantly. It is gonna be something that we're gonna have to track over a long period of time and Americans like immediate gratification. Like...

Francine L Shaw: Instant gratification is our thing.

Matt Regusci: That would be the American motto is instant gratification. Right. I don't... This is not instant gratification, this is instant pain for potential long-term gratification.

Francine L Shaw: Right. Well, and there are so many underlying factors that are gonna determine whether or not this is good or bad, but I think we're gonna know relatively quickly which direction it's gonna go.

Yes. Yeah. Or has the potential to go.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, and Clean Label Project. The organization that I do the certifications and testing for, there are amazing brands that we work with that really believe in this stuff, but they're a minority of many food brands in the [00:45:00] United States and the world that are interested in providing great products, but that may not be healthy for you.

Francine L Shaw: If they put a Major League baseball coach.

In charge of the food service division, it's probably gonna go poorly.

Matt Regusci: I don't know. It depends on like it, it takes a lot to run a Major League Baseball organization.

Francine L Shaw: I'm not discounting what they do, not discounting what they do or not. Some of 'em do an... they do an excellent job, but it may go very poorly.

Matt Regusci: A former president was a Major League Baseball manager. Bush was, uh...

Francine L Shaw: I think so. Maybe I picked a wrong category. Maybe I picked a wrong category.

Matt Regusci: Maybe I stuck with wrestling. Stuck with wrestling. Okay, so there we go. [00:46:00] That's where we are right now. I'm guessing when this episode lands in April, not much is gonna be changed between these bullet points from what we're talking about now, but if they do, we will definitely be on it.

Francine L Shaw: Looking out my window for the men in black.

Matt Regusci: Francine is on some sort of conspiracy theory. She and I are gonna be off because of this podcast and what we're saying.

Francine L Shaw: I'm not on a conspiracy theory at all. I think most of them are bunch...

Matt Regusci: Except for the men in black that are outside your office right now.

Francine, great episode. Again.

Francine L Shaw: It was fun.

Matt Regusci: Bye. On that note, don't eat poop.