Episode 89: Michele Simon On The Plant Based Industry
The Checkout speaks with Michele Simon about plant-based foods, new food biotechnology and the capitalist economics behind it all.
Michele Simon is a public health attorney, food policy expert, author, and thought leader in the plant-based foods industry. In 2016, she founded the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA), the nation’s only membership association promoting the interests of plant-based food companies. For five years as PBFA’s executive director, Simon grew the association to over 300 members, leading a team of policy and retail experts. Through her strategic efforts, PBFA fought off the powerful meat and dairy lobbies, and forged new marketplace opportunities for the plant-based foods industry. Simon has written extensively on the politics of food and alcohol. Her first book, Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back, was published by Nation Books in 2006. NYU Professor Marion Nestle (who calls the book “brilliant”) made it required reading for her nutrition students. Simon has a master’s degree in public health from Yale University and received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
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Episode #89 Notes
1:00 - What is your motivation?
2:30 - Why did you start the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA)?
5:00 - What are some of your proudest accomplishments at PBFA?
8:00 - What thoughts and concerns do you have for plant based foods?
11:30 - Why won’t ‘the marketplace’ fix the food system?
15:30 - On plant based food’s company advocacy.
19:00 - On greenwashing and cellular “agriculture”.
26:30 - On food tech and experiments gone awry.
35:30 - What happened to health as a core value in veganism?
43:00 - Book Recommendations!
Winners Take All, Anand Giridharadas
Billion Dollar Burger, Chase Purdy
A Foodie’s Guide To Capitalism, Eric Holt-Gimenez
