Show Notes
No matter your politics, you want the food you and your family eat every day to be safe. So why do so many of the products on the grocery store shelves have worrisome food chemical additives that have been banned in other countries, including many linked to cancer and behavioral problems in children.
To help unravel this, Ken is joined by EWG’s Vice President of Government Affairs Melanie Benesh to do a deep dive into the world of food additives. They discuss how the failures by federal regulators at the FDA have allowed food companies to add troubling chemicals linked to serious health problems into countless foods, and how some states like California are taking a stand on behalf of consumers.
More from Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode
A bill to ease Californians’ access to balcony solar, also called plug-in PV, just cleared the state Legislature and is now sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk. If he signs the bill, SB 868, California could become the tenth state to legalize this simple technology: a solar panel that plugs straight into a wall outlet and be fixed to a home’s balcony, no permits or rooftop installation required. In today's episode, Ken sits down with EWG's own Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior vice president for California. She's a longtime clean energy advocate who has spent decades fighting for consumer access to solar, from early rooftop solar policy battles to today's fight for balcony solar. Their conversation traces how the idea made its way from Germany to Utah and now to California, why the state’s three major investor-owned utilities fought it every step of the way, and why this could be one of the biggest wins yet for everyday consumers in the fight for affordable, distributed clean energy.
Tens of thousands of people got sick this summer from a foodborne illness outbreak that was preventable. In today’s episode, Ken speaks with Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, about the cyclospora outbreak sweeping the U.S.
"Ask where the landfill is, and you'll find where the Black people live." That's what Vernice Miller-Travis' grandmother told her.
Dr. Georges Benjamin is the CEO of the American Public Health Association, with 25 years at the helm of one of the most respected public health institutions in the U.S. And he’s Ken’s guest today. At the beginning of 2025, Benjamin made an appearance on Ken’s livestream during Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 's Senate confirmation hearing to be health secretary. At the time, Benjamin warned what could happen with RFK Jr. as the national head of public health. Fast forward to today, America faces its worst measles outbreak in 35 years, with over 2,300 cases and counting. Taylor Farms, already potentially linked to a deadly E. coli outbreak, is at the center of a massive Cyclospora outbreak tied to contaminated lettuce sickening thousands. Benjamin unpacks how we got here, what RFK Jr. gets wrong, why Make America Health Again was never going to get the support it needed from Republicans and why gutting public health infrastructure has consequences.
Everyday we rely on governmental regulatory systems and animal testing to tell us if the chemicals we’re exposed to will or won’t hurt us. But what if AI could help us get more ethical and more accurate answers and avoid animal testing altogether?