EP 149: Marina Schmidt - How Do We Feed 10 Billion People Without Destroying the Planet?

Our global food systems are at a breaking point. Climate change, geopolitical tensions, and industrial farming are pushing us closer to food insecurity every day. Can we find a way to feed 10 billion people while safeguarding the planet?

Marina Schmidt, founder of Red to Green Solutions, reveals groundbreaking ideas that reimagine how we grow, consume, and sustain food for a resilient future.

🎙️ What’s in the Episode:
1️⃣ Building Food System Resilience: How to adapt agriculture to survive droughts, floods, and supply chain disruptions.
2️⃣ Passive Impact for Lasting Change: Discover how creating systems can drive sustainable results—even while you sleep.
3️⃣ The Global Food Paradox: Why efficiency in food systems comes at a cost, and how agroforestry could be the answer.

👤 About Marina Schmidt:
Marina Schmidt is the visionary Founder of Red to Green Solutions, the leading global podcast on food tech and sustainability. Ranked in the top 5% globally, Marina's work spans research, policy influence, and media, making her a trusted voice for transforming global food systems.

💡 Quotes to Inspire:
(06:38) "Food is not just sustenance; it’s a gateway to health and sustainability."
(01:01:50) "Globalization makes food systems efficient but at the cost of stability."(01:12:20) "Agroforestry mimics nature, creating resilient ecosystems that feed both people and biodiversity."
(01:50:19) "Food system resilience is key to surviving climate disruptions."(02:01:00) "Create systems for passive impact, change while you sleep."

 ⏰ Timestamps:
(03:34) From Health Crisis to Food Sustainability
(05:50) Transforming Health Challenges into Purpose
(31:30) The Surprising Global Journey of the Potato
(45:28) Vibrant Plate Colors and Nutritional Benefits
(58:21) Globalization’s Impact on Food Systems
(01:08:55) Fixing Farming Subsidies for Sustainability
(01:15:35) Agroforestry: Nature-Inspired Food Systems
(01:22:26) The Monsanto Legacy and Pesticide Debate
(01:27:18) Why Europe Leads in Food Safety Regulations
(01:35:52) Western Diets Reshaping China’s Food Culture
(01:50:19) Building Resilient Food Systems for Climate Change
(02:01:00) Creating Lasting Change Through Passive Impact

If you care about food security, climate resilience, and innovative solutions that can sustain future generations, this episode is for you.

🔔 Subscribe, comment, and share to help grow the show and bring more transformative ideas to leaders and changemakers like you.

👀 Watch the full episode to uncover the tools and strategies that can redefine our food future—before it’s too late.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:17:23

Christian Soschner

Imagine a world where every bite you take shapes the future not just for your health, but for the planet itself. What if our food systems could thrive amidst climate change and geopolitical challenges?

00:00:17:23 - 00:00:36:14

Marina Schmidt

Food system resilience asks in case of disruption, how easily can we adjust the food system, reroute and still make sure that we have enough food to feed people?

00:00:36:18 - 00:00:56:11

Christian Soschner

The truth is, our global food systems are at a breaking point. Balancing efficiency with resilience feels like an impossible task. Yet hidden within the chaos lies the potential for innovation and transformation.

00:00:56:11 - 00:01:16:13

Christian Soschner

Industrial farming is efficient but leaves us vulnerable to environmental and supply chain disruptions. With every drought, flood or political conflict, we inch closer to food insecurity. Are we prepared to face these challenges?

00:01:16:13 - 00:01:32:07

Marina Schmidt

What about passive impact? What if you create if you if you focus on creating assets or creating systems that can make a positive contribution to the world without you having to do the action.

00:01:32:07 - 00:01:48:14

Christian Soschner

Marina Schmidt brings groundbreaking ideas from agroforestry to the concept of passive impact, offering a path to food system resilience that empowers changemakers like you. In this episode, we uncover.

00:01:48:14 - 00:02:16:08

Marina Schmidt

Agroforestry is the practice of producing food forests. So you you create systems which actually mimic nature. That means you have nuts and fruit trees, and then you have also medium sized shrubs. And then you also have ground vegetation. So in all of these layers you're growing food.

00:02:16:10 - 00:02:18:19

Marina Schmidt

And that's amazing because

00:02:18:19 - 00:02:38:12

Christian Soschner

How Western food culture reshaped global diets and the hidden costs of that shift. The inspiring concept of passive impact creating systems for change. Even while you sleep. The cutting edge solutions to redefining food sustainability.

00:02:38:14 - 00:02:42:03

Christian Soschner

From agroforestry to biotech innovation.

00:02:42:03 - 00:02:51:19

Christian Soschner

Marina Schmidt is the visionary founder of Red to Green Solutions, the leading global podcast on food, tech and sustainability.

00:02:51:19 - 00:03:15:14

Christian Soschner

With a listenership spanning over 160 countries. Red to Queen explores game changing innovations across seven seasons, from cellular agriculture to plastic alternatives. Marina's work bridges the gap between academia, policy and entrepreneurship, influencing leaders across industries.

00:03:15:14 - 00:03:31:20

Christian Soschner

Subscribe, comment and share this episode to help us bring critical insights to more CEOs, investors, and policymakers worldwide. Tune in now for an episode that could redefine your perspective and your impact.

00:03:31:20 - 00:03:43:11

Christian Soschner

Marina. Let's talk about the topic of, this podcast food. What? What inspired you? What inspired your initial interest in the food sector?

00:03:43:14 - 00:04:01:16

Marina Schmidt

Well, my initial interest came actually, from a health standpoint. I unfortunately, when I was 13, both my mom and, sorry, my sister and my dad got diagnosed with cancer. And it really made me question

00:04:01:16 - 00:04:19:06

Marina Schmidt

everything fundamentally, the way that we were living on a, on a baseline level, like how we eat, how we sleep, how we deal with stress in our family and especially nutrition became more important to me because of that.

00:04:19:06 - 00:04:56:09

Marina Schmidt

And I looked into various diets over the next two years, like during my teenage years, I was trying loads of different diets over over 7 or 8 paleo, keto, bulletproof. Like going in the exact opposite direction of veganism for a while, and of course, vegetarian. Vegan. Yeah. It's the, an array and trying to figure out what actually works for me and mainly what is the best to prevent to prevent.

00:04:56:11 - 00:05:24:23

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. Cancer or any kind of serious chronic diseases that got me into nutrition science nerding about it. And later, while being on a soul search for, what is my passion, I at some point also got into the food industry and realized, well, actually, all of my passions are related to food and specifically not just food and health.

00:05:24:23 - 00:05:30:07

Marina Schmidt

I actually my my work nowadays revolves all around sustainability in the food industry.

00:05:31:18 - 00:05:45:21

Christian Soschner

Let me ask you, at the beginning of your statement, the health aspects of food, what did you discover? What did this come up? What what what, truths did you find with your journey?

00:05:45:23 - 00:06:33:03

Marina Schmidt

Well, of course, let's say there are a few basic things that are hard to argue against. For example, eating a variety of vegetables, eating, a reasonable amount of fruits, especially ones high in antioxidants, limiting alcohol. Also wine. I know a lot of people try to come up with different arguments to make unhealthy products healthy by pointing out that there's one ingredient in wine or one ingredient, or one aspect of meat that's healthy and it's, of course, all about having a balance.

00:06:33:03 - 00:07:01:07

Marina Schmidt

It doesn't require you to never drink wine or never eat fatty meat. It's it's about trying to win the 80% by managing 80% of the time to eat low sugar, healthy fats. That doesn't mean necessarily oil. That's but also means walnuts, avocados, olives, in their whole form and in general, going for cooking yourself as much as possible.

00:07:03:03 - 00:07:29:00

Christian Soschner

Now I'm curious about your opinion. How do you perceive the response from society when you point at, this what you call, it's a truth that you can't neglect. Is is common sense already in the European society or could still be much more done, to make people aware of the risk factors to have in daily life.

00:07:29:02 - 00:07:30:08

Marina Schmidt

I think you get into

00:07:30:08 - 00:08:01:17

Marina Schmidt

a touchy feely subject around animal products. Because we love our animal products, we love our cheese and I mean, cheese has such a high fat content. It has a very high salt content. So it's generally we all have the tendency to try to sugarcoat our temptations. And that's very human. And I just like to remind myself, and I also do that with my push to not to.

00:08:01:17 - 00:08:32:08

Marina Schmidt

And it's been like I'm like, I mean, it has egg in there is sort of healthy. And then I just avoid thinking about the sugar and the fat and the pastry around. Therefore, I, I very much can emphasize with people who want to argue for fatty meat being healthy and that are and it's true there are useful compounds in these products.

00:08:32:10 - 00:09:07:02

Marina Schmidt

You can always find something you say, but it has a high amount of iron, or it has a high amount of xyzzy and what is important is to look at foods in as whole products. It has some benefits, but does that outweigh the downsides? And if it doesn't, then that's okay. You can still eat it. We just need to be honest to ourselves that right now we're not eating something healthy and we don't need to pretend that we are.

00:09:07:04 - 00:09:15:09

Marina Schmidt

We just have compassion with ourselves. Today I'm eating lots of crap. Yeah, that's just it.

00:09:15:16 - 00:09:29:08

Christian Soschner

It's very it's very well put. I think, food, awareness of the health impact of food is still very important. Your transitions then to food sustainability. What sparked your interest in this area?

00:09:29:10 - 00:09:30:07

Marina Schmidt

So

00:09:30:07 - 00:10:01:15

Marina Schmidt

about wait a minute. How long is that? I got an eight year ago. I founded a company in Career consulting. It's still running, which is due to the fact that we're working with the German government, and that's, of course, very stable contract to have helping academics to switch their jobs and to find their career passion.

00:10:01:17 - 00:10:33:03

Marina Schmidt

I was never in charge of any career advice. I can give unsolicited career advice, but I'm not a career coach. What I did do, though, is I talk to hundreds and hundreds of people because we had, and we, we still have lots of corporations with job fairs. I go over 20 job fairs in the duck region. So hundreds and hundreds of people who would be at this transition point where they were super happy were not they weren't super happy.

00:10:33:03 - 00:11:09:14

Marina Schmidt

That's the issue. They were very accomplished. They were very successful. They had worked their way up the career ladder and they had security status. General, general, like income and everything. Like all the basic needs covered and competence in their field. However, they would get to what I call the ceiling of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They would bump their head against self-actualization and self-transcendence.

00:11:09:16 - 00:12:02:03

Marina Schmidt

So the Maslow's Pyramid of needs pretty much describes that we ascend in our needs. So we start out with just the basic needs of wanting to have shelter and security. And then, we, we go up into needs like social connection and, and the thing is that people would constantly tell me, I feel like I'm stuck in a golden cage, and I would constantly have people who who were our clients right, decide to just completely switch their career path and go to do doo doo doo doo doo several steps downwards or backwards to start in a different industry, but to start in a different career trajectory because they realize, well, but I need to

00:12:02:03 - 00:12:35:12

Marina Schmidt

have something that's aligned with my values. So after seeing this pattern hundreds of times, I had to ask myself, wait a minute, his career consulting my golden cage? Yeah, it was, it was. So after three years of just giving my all in to building this company, I left and I went on a hunt for what is it?

00:12:35:14 - 00:13:04:12

Marina Schmidt

And I had a few areas in mind. It was maybe in the area of a health tech, but more connected to what I mentioned before. Right. The, the health aspect. Or it could be in the area of energy, renewable energy. And actually I went through different positions. I worked, on supporting pan-European innovation, working with the World Economic Forum.

00:13:04:14 - 00:13:30:02

Marina Schmidt

I worked in consulting, looked into different industries, led consulting projects and mobility, also in health care. And at some point it was actually a yoga retreat that that really helped me. To clarify, I have to be in sustainability. It cannot be in health care. It needs to be in sustainability. The environment is calling me.

00:13:30:04 - 00:13:40:11

Marina Schmidt

But that's still too broad. So the last thing that really sealed my passion for life was to fill out a spreadsheet.

00:13:40:11 - 00:13:42:15

Marina Schmidt

So thanks.

00:13:42:15 - 00:13:44:08

Christian Soschner

Thanks to Microsoft.

00:13:44:10 - 00:13:45:04

Marina Schmidt

I'm so

00:13:52:05 - 00:14:12:11

Marina Schmidt

Yes. So the spreadsheet. Yeah. Just help me with the purpose of my life. It was originally from a friend of mine who was the founder of Klim, which is a return to agriculture company. He had put it together to, figure out which area he wants to found a business in.

00:14:12:13 - 00:14:34:11

Marina Schmidt

And, it has 150 he impact areas. I added a bunch of them. We also should have it on our website. We just took it down for a while, but we will. We'll put it back, in a relaunched version. It's it has been so helpful because I, we just went through these areas and I redid them from 1 to 10.

00:14:34:13 - 00:14:41:00

Christian Soschner

So, you know, can you send it to link to me then you can add it to the description of the podcast maybe. Yes.

00:14:41:02 - 00:15:03:23

Marina Schmidt

Yes, yes, I, I've had a couple of people already write me that. It was super helpful because what happened is I went through it and I a lot of these areas, I was like, I couldn't care less, you know, like a zero meaning like a I wouldn't even roll around in my bed for this at ten. Meaning I'm willing to pack my luggage now and fly across the world to work on this.

00:15:04:00 - 00:15:28:03

Marina Schmidt

Am I nine square? Regenerative agriculture, alternatives to plastics, food waste at the time, vertical farming that has changed. But whatever. So no. And my only ten was, cellular agriculture, which is the the field that I started, publishing on red to green, you know.

00:15:31:01 - 00:15:33:11

Marina Schmidt

Sorry. That was a very long winded answer.

00:15:33:13 - 00:15:58:10

Christian Soschner

No, no, it's it's it's great. It's great. We have time. It's a conversational format. And I love listening, to great answers, especially, when they're, so well formed, like yours. It's now it's it's really, it's really great to hear, how you transitioned from one point to another one. I would like, before we go into your podcast and, for sustainability, I would like to ask you one question about this golden cage.

00:15:58:10 - 00:16:27:02

Christian Soschner

I also see it in my environment very often that, people, when they're in their 20s, to wake up, to realize, like, I should do something against it, get a job, get an education, and they're fairly happy, for years and sometimes for decades. Then some people have family, others don't. They make a career. And when they are at this point that they should feel, they accomplished everything they wanted and they were striving for, for decades to suddenly find out.

00:16:27:02 - 00:16:48:11

Christian Soschner

I mean, I didn't find a better way, but I just call it we don't have a playbook for that situation. Why is that? What's your experience? You said you had a few hundred interviews with people who were in the same situation. Why? Two people come to this point where they say, okay, it's a golden cage and they need to break out, and don't feel, accomplished.

00:16:48:11 - 00:16:52:08

Christian Soschner

And fulfilled and say, okay, we have everything I want.

00:16:52:10 - 00:16:52:24

Marina Schmidt

Well,

00:16:52:24 - 00:17:22:23

Marina Schmidt

it does take time to figure out what is really the area that I want to make an impact in. And I think we tend to be default very focused on doing one step at a time. Like you get out of uni and you think, oh, how do I make a solid income? And then you accomplish that and then you realize, oh, well, how do I get the credibility and how do I get influence?

00:17:22:23 - 00:17:53:05

Marina Schmidt

And then you accomplish that and by doing it one step at a time, we navigate ourselves into the golden cage. We navigate ourselves into, a dead end in the labyrinth. If I wouldn't have had the luck of having this position at the very, very, pretty much the start of my career and founding right away, I'm not sure I would have had so much awareness on that, because it was so.

00:17:53:05 - 00:18:23:02

Marina Schmidt

It was so in my face, like it was impossible to overlook that. And it's it it's not like I had this realization, oh, this is necessary. I need to figure out my values. And then the next year I immediately found my values saying no. It took me at least like three years of 2 or 3 years of actively looking for it, going through different positions.

00:18:23:04 - 00:18:55:05

Marina Schmidt

And taking time to reflect and look inward. And the spreadsheet, as unsexy as it sounds, was freely the breaking point at which I had this breakthrough of of insight. Because once I saw it, like with numbers or all of my ninth and 10th are in this area, I just realized, like, how couldn't I have seen this? How couldn't I have already seen that I actually love food I love to have?

00:18:55:06 - 00:19:26:20

Marina Schmidt

I love this intersection of food and sustainability, like impossible and one. One other thing that was so valuable and actually again credits to Robert from Klim for that. The way that he approached the spreadsheet was once he had identified his nine out of ten and ten out of ten, he would dedicate a week to each topic to research and to break it down.

00:19:26:22 - 00:19:52:00

Marina Schmidt

And then he would see which topic you just intrinsically want to keep researching. I cannot stop looking up this topic. I just want to learn more. And that's the topic to go for. That's the topic to double down and act on. So in my case, it was in the area of cellular agriculture. So cellular agriculture is also known as cultivated meat.

00:19:52:00 - 00:20:13:10

Marina Schmidt

Like it's it's an umbrella term for different products including cultivated meat. So based meat it's like you can call it in many ways pretty much it's meat that you grow from. Instead of growing an entire cow over two years, you just grow what you actually want to eat. You grow the steak. And a lot of people call it lab grown meat.

00:20:13:16 - 00:20:44:00

Marina Schmidt

But that's not really true because nobody like, there's not going to be like a sign, like a scientist with a lab coat hovering over your a piece of steak and, you know, caring for it and growing it in the lab, like, this is not this is not how it's going to look like. But yeah, I started looking into that area and it was growing so fast at the time, and I felt like there's such a need for somebody to come in and structure it.

00:20:44:02 - 00:20:45:01

Marina Schmidt

And so I did.

00:20:45:01 - 00:20:46:17

Marina Schmidt

Yeah.

00:20:46:19 - 00:21:06:20

Christian Soschner

I love the twist in the, in the storytelling. I mean, with this Excel spreadsheet, you said hold off refraction and usually things that come up is meditation and, yoga retreats and stuff like that, and then the sudden twist, both analytically. And then I found this spreadsheet. I didn't have sort of the expected and it makes really it catches the attention.

00:21:06:20 - 00:21:07:19

Christian Soschner

It's awesome.

00:21:07:21 - 00:21:08:12

Marina Schmidt

That is so true.

00:21:08:12 - 00:21:20:10

Marina Schmidt

That's also a good point. It meets both the the heart, the spirit and the the brain. To tackle such an important topic as what am I supposed to do with my life? Right.

00:21:20:12 - 00:21:32:10

Christian Soschner

It's it's a it's holistic. It's holistic. It brings, in line the heart and the spirit and the mind is a good thing. What motivated you then to start a podcast?

00:21:32:13 - 00:22:01:17

Marina Schmidt

Well, actually, when I was, when I was like 16 or 17, I remember I started it stood next to, this it called a House for Elderly people. It was a little park. It was near near the place where I was living. It's just walking through this park with my feet in the grass. I was listening to a podcast and I had this revelation, like looking into the sun.

00:22:01:17 - 00:22:53:22

Marina Schmidt

I was thinking, oh my God, imagine being paid for talking to interesting people. Wow. I had this strong sense of that would be the best thing ever. So the idea of making a podcast had been with me for a while. I had started a podcast with my first company, in the area of leadership. And after having looked into myself and having found and after having found that the food sustainability is, is the area that I want to focus on, I realized, well, actually, the podcast format would be really useful there because at that time.

00:22:53:22 - 00:23:28:22

Marina Schmidt

So it was 2020, the area was growing rapidly. There was loads of hype around selling agriculture because of the peak of popularity within the industry. And I felt like when you would look into it from the outside, you would. And in general in food as well. You you have two formats. You look at a podcast and I remember I looked at a podcast in the area and I thought 283 episodes on investing in regenerative agriculture.

00:23:29:03 - 00:23:55:14

Marina Schmidt

That's that's, that's very detailed. Like, where am I supposed to get like 200 hours of to get into this topic? Right. And then on the other hand, there were formats, both both podcasts and articles, which which is constantly jump from topic to topic. That would be a little bit uncultivated to me. It would be a little bit on food waste, would be a little bit on, this and that.

00:23:55:19 - 00:24:36:13

Marina Schmidt

But it wouldn't go deep. And, and I felt very frustrated with that. I felt in my work that I did beforehand, for the largest corporate venture builder in the world, creative doc, my job was to take huge areas like mobility in Europe and lead a team to break it down into its constituent parts. So how do you analyze market possibilities and potential business models in a huge field like consumer mobility in Europe?

00:24:36:15 - 00:24:56:17

Marina Schmidt

Yeah, just faced with a blank sheet and, what the hell, where should I start? To get through it and to actually validate potential business ideas, what you need to do is to start breaking it down into bigger topics. And it's subtopics. So. And mobility, it could be okay. We can look at it from a vehicle perspective like what are the different vehicles.

00:24:56:22 - 00:25:32:04

Marina Schmidt

We can look at it from a people perspective. What are the different groups of people who need mobility? And then you keep breaking it down and see from which angle can we look at this? I, I decided to apply that craft and that knowledge, to the area of food sustainability. And up until today, my experience, as a lead venture developer is the most hands on knowledge that I've used for the Right to Green podcast.

00:25:32:06 - 00:25:57:21

Marina Schmidt

And that is also what distinguished it and went allowed me to get sponsorships like two weeks into, into the podcast. Right. Because there's no other podcasts that goes so deep into each topic. Like we generally cover everything in 12 episodes, 12 episodes, cellular agriculture, 12 episodes, and Food Waste 12 episodes on plastic alternatives and so on and so forth.

00:25:57:23 - 00:25:59:11

Marina Schmidt

Yeah.

00:25:59:14 - 00:26:10:21

Christian Soschner

You mentioned, the room with right for topic cellular agriculture, which in a room, agriculture, food waste, plastic. Did I miss one.

00:26:10:23 - 00:26:12:18

Marina Schmidt

In terms of my passions or.

00:26:12:20 - 00:26:14:11

Christian Soschner

A passion? Your podcast.

00:26:14:13 - 00:26:19:14

Marina Schmidt

There's so many no, I mean, the list has grown.

00:26:19:16 - 00:26:28:06

Christian Soschner

I was just I was just looking. Said four areas and then 12 episodes. So I thought, what comes after episode 48 then?

00:26:28:06 - 00:26:59:04

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. No, no. Well, it kept going. I mean, we also, I also did a season on food history, because, I actually then studied science and technology history with a focus on agriculture and food. So it was very fitting. We did a season on the consumer acceptance of alternative proteins. We did a season on biotech and food, which is even more niche, even more in depth.

00:26:59:06 - 00:27:40:11

Marina Schmidt

And the most recent season, was one where I talked with, the managing director of a foundation, and we read, I think, 6 or 7 books on the food system and discussed them and shared the key takeaways. So each season is different. And I could I could keep going with this for years. Like, I don't think I will run out of, passion topics, which is also, an interesting point for career decisions, because the question that I ask myself is also, can this industry keep me interested for my entire lifetime?

00:27:40:13 - 00:28:14:12

Marina Schmidt

And at this level, the scope needs to be at the right. Yeah, at the right point of zoom. If I, if I would have just zoomed into. I'm only going to cover cellular agriculture, I would have been puking by now, just every day waking up, just puking about. I actually, I actually coined the term in the industry called alt protein fatigue syndrome, which is if you've had too much content on the topic and you just cannot stand it anymore, which I have definitely had a time.

00:28:14:15 - 00:28:29:08

Marina Schmidt

So it's like I cannot hear anything about plant based anymore or anything about cell based, like just please you, you can haunt me with this. I'm better. No, I have recovered a bit there.

00:28:29:08 - 00:28:37:16

Christian Soschner

There are enough topics open that you can talk about on your podcast. And this would go far beyond, episode 48. And you could keep, moving forward.

00:28:37:18 - 00:28:42:16

Marina Schmidt

Yeah, I think we are at 70, you know, 70 episodes or something.

00:28:42:16 - 00:28:57:09

Christian Soschner

You could what was one episode, one, revelation of one insight in your podcast in 70 episode. So that stood out.

00:28:57:11 - 00:29:04:23

Marina Schmidt

There were a lot depends on your area of interest.

00:29:08:03 - 00:29:24:08

Christian Soschner

Let's talk about, for example, throughout history, you mentioned it. It's, it's some episodes on food history. What was one insights that you gained with these episodes in food history that's worth sharing with the audience?

00:29:24:08 - 00:30:08:07

Marina Schmidt

Well, one of my favorite episodes that we did was the first one of the season, which just on the history of potatoes, Cinco potatoes saved and killed millions of lives and the purpose of the food history season was to make food history more applicable, because you can absolutely get lost in covering food history. I once listen to a podcast which talked for an hour on the history of dates, and by the end of it I was like, okay, so the date tree can be used like the wood can be used to build boats, but like what is how am I going to use this knowledge?

00:30:08:09 - 00:30:50:13

Marina Schmidt

So the season that we did was specifically about consumer acceptance and understanding the way that we interact with food based on the history of food with potatoes. What I loved is that it's such a good case for something that's extremely useful and still was rejected for a long period of time, but like 200, 300 years, depending on which which area in Europe you look at the potatoes actually come from the region, Bolivia, Peru, which is like nowadays Bolivia, Peru.

00:30:50:15 - 00:31:24:24

Marina Schmidt

And they came with the Colombian exchange to your. And at that time, you must say that they were also not such a good product. Right. If you would create us create a parallel to plant based meat. Right. The first iterations are not very good. And the potatoes weren't good because they weren't used to them. European climate and the episode I actually say, the, the European climate was confusing the potato, you know, it's like, yeah, it's it's so cute.

00:31:24:24 - 00:32:03:09

Marina Schmidt

Like, think about a confused potato. Yeah. Because the, the summers would be shorter. And by the time the potatoes, which were used to a Peruvian climate would start growing, it was already autumn again, and they would die. So it took breeding. As with a lot of our food nowadays, it took active breeding to make potatoes fit for the European lands, which is funny because potato is the most successful immigrant in terms of food, as we usually believe that it's a native species.

00:32:03:12 - 00:32:26:17

Marina Schmidt

If you ask people on the street, like where the potatoes come from, they're like, oh, I mean, like from Germany, you know, I was like, oh no, they're from Belgium. You know, like everybody has like ownership of potato. It's like it's our, our thing, our, our tuber. But for a long time potatoes were actually, met with disgust because people thought that

00:32:26:17 - 00:32:28:17

Marina Schmidt

you are what you eat.

00:32:28:19 - 00:32:59:04

Marina Schmidt

And in the 17th century, that was meant more literally. So people would actually believe that they would develop leprosy by eating potatoes because leprosy is interesting. Yeah. And if you look up Google images on leprosy, you will understand why, you don't have to if you don't want to be a little bit disgusted. I have done that and I have verified.

00:32:59:06 - 00:32:59:13

Marina Schmidt

And

00:33:08:12 - 00:33:29:21

Marina Schmidt

few, plants which cause hallucination, vomiting or even death. And that is just very much connected to our sense of safety nowadays. We think we are so sure about the safety of our foods, but that's something that's pretty novel in terms of human history.

00:33:29:21 - 00:33:57:00

Marina Schmidt

Like things used to be much more shady, and we can be very grateful for the safety of our food system. So it actually took a long time for potatoes to be to be accepted. It took PR stunts and it wasn't enough for a scientific institution in France to say, yeah, they are safe. It really took actual celebrity endorsement at that time already.

00:33:57:02 - 00:34:26:22

Marina Schmidt

And also the promotion through French fries or Belgian fries, as they are sometimes called, because supposedly it was was originated in Belgium. And the co development with ketchup. So yeah. You see like it's not if you think about the potato, which is actually pretty nutrient dense compared to most grains, and it's super resilient because it grows in really bad soil.

00:34:26:24 - 00:34:36:13

Marina Schmidt

And third benefit, it cannot be it's not that prone to theft because if a troop marches over

00:34:36:13 - 00:34:53:13

Marina Schmidt

your land, they are not going to start digging out potatoes. They will steal your wheat that you have sought, but they will not like, get out their shovels and steal all your potatoes. So the status was super important, but they were still,

00:34:53:13 - 00:35:01:00

Marina Schmidt

they still had such a hard time getting consumer acceptance.

00:35:01:02 - 00:35:22:19

Christian Soschner

I think, talking about the history of the food industry is super fascinating. Also about the industry in general. I mean, industries in general are young. They are not even compared to human history and to evolution. It's about 150 years and not more. And a lot of wars have been fought over food and most of human history.

00:35:22:19 - 00:35:41:02

Christian Soschner

People were fighting to get enough to eat before it was industrialized. I think also, I mean, when you think back to Europe, I think, industrial food was not the norm here in Europe. Or do I have the wrong perception? Even in the 60s and 70s of the last century?

00:35:41:04 - 00:35:47:13

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. It depends all on your definition of what's industrial. Right. And how what's your sure.

00:35:47:15 - 00:35:51:03

Christian Soschner

What's what's your definition?

00:35:51:06 - 00:36:52:04

Marina Schmidt

Well, it's actually interesting. It's an interesting question because, I would say industrialization is very much connected to standardization, to using machinery, to using automation, and to creating food at a very standardized level, usually packaged. So industrial food co-developed with different packaging methodologies. There's this, really interesting book I'm reading at the moment on how industrialization created this chasm between cities and the rural environment, so that if you think about, industrialization, it's very it's a lot about standardizing and it's very tied in with accounting.

00:36:52:06 - 00:37:29:09

Marina Schmidt

So when accounting, when when we try to apply accounting methods to agriculture, we face a lot of problems because food and the way that it's actually produced on the field is very, very hard to account for. The quality and the size and the quantity is constantly changing. It's super hard to, to, create, create a predictable plan because it is exposed to the weather.

00:37:29:11 - 00:38:16:01

Marina Schmidt

It is exposed to so many external influences, you cannot predict and you cannot control. So we it's interesting that that accounting and trying to apply accounting to farming was the industrialization of our food system at its core. But it was really, really hard. And that's when being a farmer changed to being an agri business. In German. We actually have this distinction between, a farmer and and farmer owned, owned land versus a, a land, a land which is somebody who is pretty much like an economist of the land.

00:38:16:07 - 00:38:40:21

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. So it's also fascinating to think about, the fact that, agriculture wasn't always a business. Nowadays, it's so obvious to us it's all about making a profit. But for the longest time in human history, it was way more chaotic. Also. And that was that also created lots of

00:38:40:21 - 00:38:52:08

Marina Schmidt

problems regarding famine. But for most of human history, it was, the farms purpose was mainly to feed the family.

00:38:52:10 - 00:39:04:12

Marina Schmidt

With a bit of trade, of course. And to oftentimes the farms purpose was also primarily to be a house or, legacy, and not just an economic entity.

00:39:04:12 - 00:39:24:24

Christian Soschner

That people had to work most of the time, to, to produce the food. I remember in the 70s, I'm close to 50 now. My grandparents had a small farm, and it was what you described, basically a few potatoes, a few pigs, and they ran the farm to feed the family or the close relatives. Basically, this was the purpose.

00:39:24:24 - 00:39:49:05

Christian Soschner

And they also remember from the 70s that not all food was available all the time. Yeah, in shops. And this is why I started thinking Benetton, had in the 90s were was about 2030s. I was thinking about, how did it change and why did it change? And why did we feel the need to industrialized the whole, food value chain?

00:39:49:07 - 00:40:11:02

Christian Soschner

And the answer I found was basically, we need to feed the people. And, we need to make sure that, food is distributed evenly. And the only thing that you can, can, can use back in the 70s, 60s and the 80s of the last century or before was basically industrial assets to make sure that the population in our, in our environment has enough food to eat.

00:40:11:02 - 00:40:19:06

Christian Soschner

People who are hungry can become pretty nasty. What reasons did you find in your research, for this, push finger sterilization?

00:40:19:08 - 00:40:32:04

Marina Schmidt

I actually have a counter question from your experience. Like, if you think back to your 20s, how was the food quality? Did you was it actually better?

00:40:32:06 - 00:40:36:03

Christian Soschner

What was the food quality? When I think back mid 20s, 20.

00:40:36:05 - 00:40:44:01

Marina Schmidt

And I specifically would focus on vegetables, fruits, you know, the common culprits of, industrial criticism.

00:40:44:03 - 00:41:10:01

Christian Soschner

I, I didn't make a statistics about it. And I can't look inside. What's happening inside an apple, for example? How much vitamins are still in there? I read a lot of, statistics that, that's pretty much in line. So they, I have different opinions on these topics. When they look at the availability of food systems, I can easily answer a question.

00:41:10:01 - 00:41:13:20

Christian Soschner

I can easily answer that availability is much better than in the 90s.

00:41:13:22 - 00:41:15:03

Marina Schmidt

Of course, pretty much.

00:41:15:03 - 00:41:39:12

Christian Soschner

I can buy anything I want any time of the year. Does it make sense when I compare my childhood experience with my grandmother's farm and, vegetables and herbs, in Paris, homegrown Paris? They were much better in the mountains. I mean, maybe it's a bit glorified. I was 6 or 7 years old, and we did a lot of hiking in the Syrian mountains.

00:41:39:14 - 00:42:03:12

Christian Soschner

And when we found blueberries, it tasted much better. Like the blueberries I can buy in winter in a shop. Yeah. The thing was striking. The 70s in the 80s still were not available in winter. So blueberries. The only time when we found blueberries were hiking in the mountains in summer. It was July, August, basically September. And then they began to grow.

00:42:03:13 - 00:42:34:08

Christian Soschner

Not not there anymore. It's hard to tell. I mean, the availability is better. Whiter means, no nutritional value. I read some times that it has gone worse now that an apple is not, as, healthy as it was 40 or 50, 60 years, 100 years ago. But I did never run any statistics about it or read sufficient material to make a judgment.

00:42:34:11 - 00:42:38:23

Christian Soschner

What's your opinion?

00:42:38:23 - 00:43:06:14

Marina Schmidt

Well, the prevalence of nutritional deficiencies seems to be on the rise, especially for women, because women tend to eat less but still have high nutritional needs. So you just end up as a woman exposed to less potential nutrients. I think it's especially important, for women to focus on a nutrient rich diet. And,

00:43:06:14 - 00:43:09:16

Marina Schmidt

very nice.

00:43:09:18 - 00:43:20:18

Marina Schmidt

The rule of thumb in the area of vegetables and fruits is to go for darker colors. So it's an indication for

00:43:20:18 - 00:43:39:08

Marina Schmidt

antioxidant richness. For example, if you compare a banana and a mango, which one? Which has more antioxidants? It's the mango because it's a richer, darker color. Mango for the strawberry. Strawberry wins. Strawberry versus blueberry. Blueberry wins.

00:43:39:09 - 00:44:09:11

Marina Schmidt

Right. It's a cooler berry versus blackberry. BlackBerry wins in general, right. So it the same thing applies to vegetables. If you compare it to Chini, which is one of my favorite vegetables, with something more darker, like a sweet potato, like a bright orange sweet potato. Of course, sweet potato wins, right? And, Yeah, that that way of it doesn't mean that you should never eat bananas or never eat skinnies.

00:44:09:11 - 00:44:38:04

Marina Schmidt

I eat way too many skinnies. But by diversifying the color of food, we can make sure that we get, Yeah. A broader spectrum. And interestingly, in my area of work, it's it can be a bit hard to actually even say I'm not vegan. Right. In the specific niche where I'm working and but I am not me.

00:44:38:04 - 00:45:19:05

Marina Schmidt

I'm not vegan, and I sometimes do eat meat on rare occasions. Because the same way, like it's a little bit a tiny bit of diversification, maybe useful. I cannot tell you 100%, by the way. And I would say the important part is to also take time to appreciate. And I think that's what we have forgotten, that if we get to eat meat, which is a real luxury, and it is a real luxury to take a moment and just be like, oh, thanks, that I can have this.

00:45:19:07 - 00:45:40:15

Marina Schmidt

And thanks that this animal, you know, it wasn't their choice, but thanks to this animal, and bless them in a way as as esoteric as this sounds, just to approach it, less nonchalant. Yeah.

00:45:40:15 - 00:46:05:09

Christian Soschner

It's fascinating topic for me. I got interested in health and the impact of food. On health in the 90s. And the reason was quite simple. I was, an ambulance man, and I saw people dying and men mostly having heart attacks in their 40s. Wow. And, was a neighbor in our house. It was a thing.

00:46:05:10 - 00:46:11:00

Christian Soschner

You the 40s, 42, 43 or something. And from one day of the other, he was gone. He had a heart attack.

00:46:11:00 - 00:46:11:12

Marina Schmidt

Wow.

00:46:11:15 - 00:46:47:06

Christian Soschner

And I started questioning as as, why is this one person dying? At 42, 33, while another man, grows into his 80s, 90s, relatively healthy and has a longer lifespan? And the usual answer that I got in the health care system back in the 80s and 90s was not very satisfying, was basically, why do you care when you are sick, go to a hospital and also I did look at, the Roman Catholic Church because it's God's it's God's will.

00:46:47:06 - 00:47:09:12

Christian Soschner

Such things happen. And there was more on the side. I said, what can I do? What can I do to avoid, illness and severe diseases? And started researching, but not so much in the Western system or in the eastern system with martial arts. And Jerry found a lot of people who had a lot of information about what people need to do to stay healthy, basically.

00:47:09:12 - 00:47:31:20

Christian Soschner

And when we talk about nutrition, it was one of these, books that I like the most because it's easy, it's easy to read this, Patrick, I think it's Patrick Calvert. It's it's over 20 years old now. And he made the statement that, the nutritional value of nowadays, industrial foods is not, as good as it was, 40, 50, 60 years ago.

00:47:32:00 - 00:47:47:04

Christian Soschner

And his recommendation was supplement it. And this is what I do now for the last 20, 20, 30 years to answer your questions. But for how do you how do you see the nutritional value of foods these days?

00:47:47:07 - 00:48:18:07

Marina Schmidt

Well, I am not a certified nutritionist. Just to to add this disclaimer, it's based on my that's based on my research in the area myself. It's I have recently talked to a doctor, like, previous Patricia from Harvard, who practices here in Lisbon. The premise says at the rate, like the kind of nutritional deficiencies that are considered normal in Europe.

00:48:18:09 - 00:49:01:10

Marina Schmidt

In Japan, you would immediately get an Ivy. I really think because, because they take nutritional deficiencies much more serious. And I, I personally do take supplements, but I take supplements based on, a doctor actually recommending me them based on tests that they did. So again, a bit of personalization is probably good. I think personalization and food is a bit overhyped when you that that there are like these micro trends of like oh personalized snack bar.

00:49:01:10 - 00:49:43:15

Marina Schmidt

So something and I'm like okay, come on. Like, hey, just eat an apple. But when it comes to actual health and supplementation, yes, it is absolutely something that I resonate with. And something where I recently decided I will have a budget each year. And I think it's maybe like a, €900,000 for actually just like health related expenses in terms of supplements, specialty doctor visits, going to a traditional Chinese medicine specialist regularly, going to a physiotherapy.

00:49:43:18 - 00:50:13:14

Marina Schmidt

It's just it's probably the best investment because whenever somebody is sick, you know, as soon and we all know this as soon as we are sick, the number one thing we want is to be healthy again. Again. Nothing else matters. I don't care about an extra digit on my monthly income. I don't care about this or that. Like health becomes a top priority.

00:50:13:14 - 00:50:46:11

Marina Schmidt

And it's such an irony that it tends to be a topic that gets left behind. Otherwise it's it's actually ludicrous. If this is so important, we should actually all have like a proper budget. Like this is an investment in my future. This is the best investment probably possible, right? Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. That's super important. Also, to read books on the topic and to educate ourselves on it and to put our money where our mouth is.

00:50:46:12 - 00:51:08:09

Christian Soschner

Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. I mean, generally, I like sharing opinions on this podcast. When people are looking for advice, you should always go to a certified specialist and yeah, not on a podcast, but I think it's important to it's important to, raise the general public perception on certain topics like food. I totally agree to what you say.

00:51:08:09 - 00:51:34:09

Christian Soschner

It's super important, especially in our knowledge society these days. We're all about, processing information and making the right connections. Without proper nutrition, people function, worse than someone who takes care of, sleep, exercise, and food. It is one of the cornerstones of health science. Proper decision making, in my opinion.

00:51:34:12 - 00:51:48:16

Marina Schmidt

Yeah, yeah. And if, for example, again, for women specifically, iron deficiencies are so common, so common in Europe, we have a lot of vitamin D deficiencies, B12,

00:51:48:16 - 00:52:07:20

Marina Schmidt

for anybody who is more in like the vegan vegetarian side. And in terms of, lactose, a lot of people are, intolerant to lactose and they don't know it. I found out that I'm intolerant to lactose.

00:52:07:22 - 00:52:25:21

Marina Schmidt

I swear to you, I would have never thought so. You would just happen to be part of tests that I did in general. And then I found out that I have an allergy to trees and grass, which is really funny, right? This, like, oh, I work in sustainability,

00:52:25:21 - 00:52:30:17

Marina Schmidt

but I'm. I'm such a city person. I'm allergic to trees and grass.

00:52:30:19 - 00:52:42:16

Marina Schmidt

Of course, I'm generalizing here. Specific kinds of those. And an intolerance is not an allergy. You don't have lactose allergies. It's a it's a lactose intolerance, which actually is funny. It's a very

00:52:42:16 - 00:52:59:20

Marina Schmidt

Western way of looking at the topic, because the majority of the world population cannot digest lactose. If you look at Asia, if you look at Africa, these continents are just.

00:52:59:22 - 00:53:24:16

Marina Schmidt

You cannot talk about lactose intolerance, because that's not the norm. It should actually be a condition. If you are lactose tolerant, it's like, oh, you're lactose tolerant. Wow. Amazing. You're part of the 4,030% of the world that can actually handle lactose. Otherwise you're just normal. You can't. So I would also really recommend people to just get a check, even if you can.

00:53:24:16 - 00:53:51:21

Marina Schmidt

Like, I really couldn't imagine. I grew up with cream cheese. That was like half of my blood was made up of cream cheese. It was breakfast, lunch, dinner. Cream cheese. Oh, it's on everything. Waffles in soup. You know, I would sometimes even entire cheddar cheese. Another cheddar cheese. Brie at once. Like years ago. So try try it.

00:53:51:21 - 00:53:55:12

Marina Schmidt

Just just test it out and be surprised. Know? Yeah.

00:53:55:15 - 00:53:58:21

Christian Soschner

You grew up in Berlin. It's hard to remember, right?

00:53:58:23 - 00:54:01:16

Marina Schmidt

Yes, I grew up in Berlin, but I live in this for now.

00:54:01:18 - 00:54:08:22

Christian Soschner

Yeah. So it's the German. It's basically the German breakfast. As chairman of, cream cheese. Yes. Shops here.

00:54:08:24 - 00:54:12:15

Marina Schmidt

Yeah, yeah. Super, super popular. And you grew up in Austria.

00:54:12:17 - 00:54:36:04

Christian Soschner

In Australia's, in Styria mountainous area. And, this leads me to the next question then, it's a good pitch. I mean, I experienced scarcity in the 70s and 80s and, from what I got from my grandparents, I mean, they lived through World War Two, basically. Cause it was rather the norm also. But they told me about the experiences of their grandparents, whenever they were hungry.

00:54:36:04 - 00:55:14:15

Christian Soschner

I mean, milk for example. I mean, today we have really great times. We can make choices about what we eat. When I think back to my grandmother, stories about her grandparents, the just. That's what, they could get to hold on, to feed themselves and, fight against hunger and, with industrialization. So my opinion is, it was necessary to feed the people and to come to a state and society that we have right now that we can make conscious choices about food because we have, an abundance of food in the Western that's called in the Western world and parts of other about I mean, there's still a lot of

00:55:14:15 - 00:55:32:15

Christian Soschner

work that needs to be done to distribute food to everybody on this planet. But in certain parts, we have solved this problem of food distribution. When you go to a shop now, I can eat everything. Not everything is healthy. But at least, I don't have to experience hunger.

00:55:32:17 - 00:55:33:11

Marina Schmidt

Yeah.

00:55:33:13 - 00:56:02:24

Christian Soschner

The problem that I see nowadays is that with canned foods, for example, hypo industrialized food, sugar, the content of sugar, went up. It has some further health, negative health impacts that we have to fight. Which leads me to the next question. I never did, research on the topic, problems in the food industry that we need to address, in your opinion, what are nowadays the 4 or 5 most pressing topics that we need to solve to improve?

00:56:03:05 - 00:56:07:11

Christian Soschner

Our society?

00:56:07:13 - 00:56:07:20

Marina Schmidt

It's

00:56:07:20 - 00:56:31:07

Marina Schmidt

interesting that you, that you mentioned, what you said about the scarcity topic. It is a very good point that we need to remind ourselves that for most of human history, the lack of food was or the threat of lack of food was a constant. And, generally worries about the future of food tend to peak.

00:56:31:09 - 00:57:06:01

Marina Schmidt

For example, in the 20th century, they peaked in the 20s and 30s, in the 50s, in the 80s. And like they peaked with Corona, we suddenly got a little bit of the taste of like, oh, what if the shelves are not completely stocked full? Right. Unimaginable. So it's a good chance to just appreciate the luxury that we have in the Western world, which is highly based on globalization.

00:57:06:03 - 00:57:41:16

Marina Schmidt

I've had this discussion with Frank, my co-host in the last season, because Frank is very pro globalization, and I'm a little bit worried to a certain extent, because the the thing is, we have this abundance because of globalization, because in the Western world, if Ukraine doesn't deliver, we can just go and get this from Africa as the as the countries, the nations.

00:57:41:18 - 00:58:32:14

Marina Schmidt

At the longer end of the stick, we can use globalization to get our sources of food just from a different place. But that doesn't that isn't the case as much for countries in in the developing world, which focus on producing food for an export market but that don't have such, good financial buffers to then just be able to buy up all that they need because they, we, we went from a system where local communities would be able to somewhat sustain themselves to a system that's the very efficient, hyper, hyper interconnected.

00:58:32:16 - 00:59:03:23

Marina Schmidt

There's actually if you look at the systemic theory, you can look at systems right as nodes and the connections between these nodes. And something that makes systems more unstable is when nodes become bigger. So you have bigger companies, bigger multinationals, and the connections between them become tighter and more similar. That's what you can, for example, observe in the financial industry.

00:59:04:00 - 00:59:31:17

Marina Schmidt

Silicon Valley Bank has issues and it creates this domino effect because everything is tightly interconnected and boom, people do a bank run. And because the banks are operating in such a similar way, they are exposed to the same kind of risks, and you have this huge ripple effect throughout the system. So the interconnectedness of a system makes it more efficient, but it comes at a price.

00:59:31:19 - 01:00:00:24

Marina Schmidt

And we it's interesting because we need to think about and instead of either or. So the the concept that I'm also that I've also been working on with anti-growth futurism kind of framework that I've been working on is all about embracing the end. We do need globalization. Yes, that's useful, but we also need regional food production.

01:00:01:01 - 01:00:34:21

Marina Schmidt

We do need something that's extremely efficient and tight, but we also need something that's equitable and fair. So, it's embracing these diagonal forces that will create a food system which is balanced and that is innovative and forward thinking, that is, fair and equitable, that is efficient and resource, aware. And that's also in line with nature and, ecological.

01:00:34:24 - 01:01:03:12

Christian Soschner

Mix makes total sense, makes total sense. I think was a necessity out of the 1980s, 89, especially at the end of the decade when the Eastern Bloc fell apart. Comicon states, fell apart, I think, communism, lost. And the big fear back then was that this whole area in the world around Russia, Soviet Union, China, we've just, drift off into chaos.

01:01:03:14 - 01:01:35:02

Christian Soschner

And as far as I remember back then, the idea of the Western world, especially the Western European countries, United States, was, to support these countries so that they can reestablish, stable governments, the economy, and started trading with them, which in my opinion, was, the push towards prosperity that we saw in the last 20, 30 years, which also created, another series of problems that we have to address now and didn't exist before then.

01:01:35:02 - 01:01:50:21

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. And that's very, very normal that if you look at the, technology history, we tend to work our way from one shitty solution to the next shitty solution. I think very down to earth. You can just say

01:01:50:21 - 01:02:01:16

Marina Schmidt

that's why it doesn't make sense to pick apart renewable energy and be like, but this isn't perfect, but lithium ion batteries.

01:02:01:18 - 01:02:39:02

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. It's not perfect. That's not how humanity operates. It's just like, okay, we have we're we're burning wood. We are creating mass deforestation. Damn it. Let's switch to coal. Grade coal doesn't create that much direct deforestation. Fantastic. Oh, our cities are smothered in smog. Whoopsie. Well, let's switch to gas and electric electricity. We have solved it because we just push the coal production further away and we're using fossil fuels still, but oh, whoops.

01:02:39:02 - 01:03:00:04

Marina Schmidt

We have climate change, Well, we need to switch to renewables and then we are like, oh, thanks. You just keep going. But you cannot you cannot get stuck at one level. You cannot be like, imagine. Like people at the wood stage would have been like, we are going to wait till the perfect solution arises. We're just going to keep burning wood all over the world, you know?

01:03:00:06 - 01:03:23:08

Marina Schmidt

No. And all of these technologies are still in operation. We sometimes think about one replacing the other. And that was the case in the food industry as well. Like, during the hype of cell cultivated meat, like I saw a company that had an on its office walls. We are going to close the last factory farm on earth.

01:03:23:10 - 01:03:56:15

Marina Schmidt

And I remember seeing this and I actually laughed out loud at my computer. I was like, I'm a computer. It's got my Mac. And I thought, guys like, that's not how it works. Like, yeah, alternatives will supplement the production and at some point they will displace it. But it's not that. It's not like, somebody will something will completely steal any kind of access to meat that is industrially grown.

01:03:56:15 - 01:04:24:10

Marina Schmidt

It takes a lot of time for systems to change. And it's, you know, there's a really good practice when you think about the future, like, let's say ten years into the future, to be better at predicting the future. It helps to contrasted with looking ten years into the past, or even, let's say, 20 years, because it's even stronger, right?

01:04:24:10 - 01:04:50:10

Marina Schmidt

You think 20 years into the past, I was 23 and you remember how different your life was. You remember how different the internet was, or phones, or global transport, like, all of these things, like. And then you with that in mind, you can better evaluate, 20 years from now, how different the world will look like. Yeah.

01:04:51:19 - 01:05:13:14

Christian Soschner

Absolutely. Absolutely. That's when I look back 30 years, the internet didn't, in this form that we have right now didn't even exist. I think it was 1993 when the CERN institute put into the public domain the World Wide Web, which enabled then these, fallen technologies and business models like Amazon when, I mean, I love reading.

01:05:13:19 - 01:05:44:19

Christian Soschner

Think it's quite obvious. Yeah. When I think back to the 80s, whenever I wanted to buy a book, that. Oh, yeah. Not something that people like reading on the countrysides. It was almost impossible to get this book. I mean, we had to, to two bookstores in my hometown. It was, below 12,000 inhabitants. And whenever I wanted to read something crazy like fantasy literature in English, and I went to a bookstore and said, can you organize that?

01:05:44:21 - 01:05:53:04

Christian Soschner

People looked at me that. Do you really think, boy, I spent four hours signing your book somewhere for no money at all.

01:05:53:06 - 01:05:54:06

Marina Schmidt

And,

01:05:54:08 - 01:06:14:10

Christian Soschner

I had to travel once a year to Vienna, to an English bookstore, and Terry could buy this book, and Amazon changed the game. I mean, this was, for people growing up in the countryside. The game changer with Amazon was making the world's library available anytime in the world and making sure that logistics work. And it's a tremendous change.

01:06:14:12 - 01:06:36:15

Christian Soschner

When we look into the future, I would like to hear your opinion on the food system, 2200 years. And, you would have the possibility to model the entire food ecosystem the way you want it to be, and you think it's most sustainable and, beneficial for humanity. How about the food industry look like.

01:06:36:17 - 01:06:36:22

Marina Schmidt

The

01:06:36:22 - 01:07:04:16

Marina Schmidt

key lever to address are the subsidies. So if you would in my opinion, if you would address what is profitable in the food industry, it would be one of the most powerful ways to shift things. So here I'm getting also into the how, not just the what. So the what the where it should move is I'm a big fan of agroforestry.

01:07:04:18 - 01:07:07:22

Marina Schmidt

It's a bit of a crush of mine. Atopic crush of mine.

01:07:07:22 - 01:07:35:16

Marina Schmidt

Agroforestry is the practice of producing food forests. So you you create systems which actually mimic nature. That means you have nuts and fruit trees, and then you have also medium sized shrubs. And then you also have ground vegetation. So in all of these layers you're growing food.

01:07:35:18 - 01:07:38:02

Marina Schmidt

And that's amazing because

01:07:38:02 - 01:08:00:16

Marina Schmidt

you don't need to use as many pesticides because there is if you design it correctly, there is a bit of a balance in the system. You also don't need that much irrigation. I was talking to somebody who is growing a food forest in Costa Rica, which is near Lisbon, on the other side of the river.

01:08:00:18 - 01:08:29:22

Marina Schmidt

He grows papayas, mangoes, avocados and passion fruit. Just crazy. And that's that's possible. Also root color and loads of things. Like he can. He feeds his entire family. He feeds the the neighbors. He has loads of things left over. He said. They have a fresh guacamole every day. And you know that avocados tend to get a bad reputation for being water intensive.

01:08:29:24 - 01:09:01:16

Marina Schmidt

Well, he actually doesn't need to irrigate his property because he is catching the rain on his property that he's even using the wastewater coming from the shower. And because the it's well designed, the when it rains, more of the water is flowing to the avocado trees and, and because there's a lot of shade, they don't require that much irrigation.

01:09:01:16 - 01:09:33:04

Marina Schmidt

So all of this just shows us, well, you the beauty of this is that it's amazing for biodiversity. Like on his property there are actual insects. There are insect. Wow. We're not used to having insects around anymore like this. We it's it's crazy actually. And that's something that I believe could be such a game changer because we lack biodiversity.

01:09:33:06 - 01:10:07:04

Marina Schmidt

But the issue is that our subsidies in the farming sector are based on the size of the land. The more hectares you have, the easier you you get subsidies. Of course, there also are different ones for having, for actually animal agriculture. We gets a lot of subsidies on its own, but just looking at vegetable production, for example, the problem, the issue why agroforestry is not profitable is of course, it's more labor intensive.

01:10:07:06 - 01:10:37:05

Marina Schmidt

Yes. Mostly to pick stuff. But the main issue of why it's not profitable is because there are not sufficient subsidies, because within like a couple of hectares, you can grow so much food with this method, but you are not going to get any good money for that. And of course you are growing, less quantity per, per product.

01:10:37:07 - 01:11:07:24

Marina Schmidt

So it's also harder to sell it to a global market. This system is better for regional food production, but in general, I think if, if anybody wants to pursue the dream of having a farm because that has become pretty popular. I don't know if it's just in Portugal, but like so many people tell me, oh, I would love to buy, property and then have my own vegetable garden and stuff like that.

01:11:08:01 - 01:11:47:07

Marina Schmidt

Growing a food forest is a long term commitment. But the beauty, the beautiful thing, is that it's also it does increase the value of a property insanely. And it is one of the best ways to create a, an ecosystem that also gives back to the local environment. And it's also pretty resilient to climate change. So yeah, big, big passion topic of mine, I think I it's one of the topics that I want to cover on the Red to green podcast soon, depending on which partner to refine for the season.

01:11:47:07 - 01:12:00:15

Marina Schmidt

So we usually work with foundations nowadays to, to fund the seasons. Regenerative agriculture and agroforestry are fascinating topics to look into.

01:12:00:16 - 01:12:12:08

Christian Soschner

I never heard about it. Can you describe the basics of agroforestry a little bit better for me that that gets, better understanding of this topic?

01:12:12:10 - 01:12:43:19

Marina Schmidt

So the, the baseline is that we have, pretty much the industrialization of farming has led us to create farming systems, which are extremely unnatural, where you would never, ever, ever see just an entire feel like hectares and hectares filled with hundreds of hectares of soybeans, never, ever. And that makes the plants so, exposed to pests.

01:12:43:24 - 01:13:16:18

Marina Schmidt

Also, and generally the weather and the climate, because the wind can just rush through this huge blank field. The principle of agroforestry is that you integrate trees and shrubs and ground vegetation. It agroforestry is not ideal to produce loads of soybeans. It's not going to be the most optimized to produce one commodity at a high scale. It has a different purpose.

01:13:16:18 - 01:13:52:19

Marina Schmidt

And that's also what's so interesting about it. We tend to when people say that the yield is lower. Yeah, well, per product, but, we need to think about the various benefits that a solution can have. Agroforestry is not going to produce all it, all the needed soy and wheat in the world. But it can be such a climate resilient solution for local food production, which is more important as our global supply chains are becoming more volatile.

01:13:52:21 - 01:14:44:05

Marina Schmidt

So when you, when, when you plan in agro forest, you try to mimic an actual system, which makes it also very complicated. It's it's a it's quite an intellectual task because and agro forest in the south of Portugal, it's going to be very different from an agro forest in Norway, as different as it can be. So it's all about understanding the local vegetation, the the soil that you have and creating something that works as an ecosystem, not just as one product, which in the end is also beautiful because an agro forest gives you the possibility, to have loads of different fruits and vegetables at your disposal.

01:14:44:07 - 01:15:12:16

Marina Schmidt

If for people who are interested in the topic, an introduction book to it, which just talks about it from a conceptual stage. So to understand like why it works is Regenesis. I really enjoy the book. We, we were meant to review, review it on the podcast, but didn't get to it because I got too hung up on Monsanto talking about Monsanto.

01:15:12:18 - 01:15:28:20

Marina Schmidt

Oopsie. Yeah. But there are also a couple more practical books on it. If you if you just Google it, you'll find, several ones. I think it's, a very fascinating topic.

01:15:28:23 - 01:15:44:14

Christian Soschner

It sounds to me like, rebuilding nature. So basically moving away from monocultures back to how the reality for our grandparents was or for my grandparents was back, 50, 60 years ago, 70 years, 80 years ago.

01:15:44:16 - 01:16:13:11

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. So, I think agroforestry is even more specific, right? Like, it's it's a small holder farm doesn't equal agroforestry. And it's the thing that distinguishes it. It's not the size. You can have large agro forests. It's the way that it's designed to be in combination with each other and in an ecosystem.

01:16:13:13 - 01:16:21:05

Christian Soschner

That's an interesting thought. I have to read this. I have to read this books. I think, I just googled it a little bit in the. Yeah. Interesting pictures.

01:16:21:05 - 01:16:24:23

Marina Schmidt

There's more books on your reading list. Oh, yeah.

01:16:24:23 - 01:16:46:04

Christian Soschner

I unfortunately, this is a this is a downside of the invention of the internet. It's like books are available. It was easier for, 50 years, 40 years ago. You mentioned, Monsanto. Monsanto. What caught your attention with this company?

01:16:46:06 - 01:16:47:05

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. Well,

01:16:47:05 - 01:17:24:21

Marina Schmidt

I used to have a bit of a thing for true crime. And if you're into true crime, there's plenty of true crime to be had with Monsanto. Monsanto is a company that started out in the seed business. Actually, in the, pesticide, area. Well, if you look back at their very, very beginnings, they were, for example, one of the largest providers of, I think sucrose for Coca-Cola.

01:17:24:23 - 01:18:06:05

Marina Schmidt

And then they got into pesticides, and they became a seed company by creating, genetically modified seeds. And they were also pretty much the a key pillar in creating such a bad reputation for GMOs, because the purpose of the genetically engineered crops would be to resist glyphosate use. So glyphosate is the most used, weedkiller in the world.

01:18:06:07 - 01:18:38:03

Marina Schmidt

And it's so potent that if you spray it anywhere, it interferes with the metabolism of, plants. So just kills everything. Which led to roundup the product. So roundup is the entire formulation, and then you have glyphosate as the one of the ingredients. Not sometimes. Not even the main ingredient, which led to, the. Wait a minute.

01:18:38:03 - 01:19:08:22

Marina Schmidt

I lost my train of thought. So you you pretty much. Monsanto was making its money selling roundup, but farmers could only use it before seeding or after the harvest because it would kill everything. Today, if you genetically engineer the plants to be resistant, to glyphosate, then you can spray it on your plants, and it kills everything but your plants.

01:19:08:24 - 01:19:40:21

Marina Schmidt

The thing is, from a farmer's perspective, this is extremely useful. Which which is also why Monsanto became the one of the largest seed players. It got into the seed business and it just took it over. It is useful and it has a purpose. And that's why I always try to not be black and white with these things. Like there are benefits to this and it definitely contributed to a decrease in prices of soy and so on.

01:19:40:23 - 01:20:07:06

Marina Schmidt

But of course, there is also the issue of higher pesticide contamination. If you are suddenly able to just spray this thing on your plants, and the main issue with Monsanto is that they for a long time were pretending that this is just super harmful, that, you know, they were pretending that it's not harmful. They're just like, oh, yeah, sure you can't.

01:20:07:06 - 01:20:33:21

Marina Schmidt

You can just spray it in your garden. You won't even need to wear protective shoes. You can just be like and flip flops, just like, oh, yeah, I just spray my plants right. To get rid of weeds. But it is more it's there is enough research by now that it is more harmful than Monsanto. Pretended it is.

01:20:33:23 - 01:21:07:21

Marina Schmidt

There have been a lot of litigations in the US, especially people suing Monsanto for claiming it's non carcinogenic. But then developing, nonstop. I may butcher the, the name. It's, for a specific type of cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I think, And winning these lawsuits. So Bayer, a German pharmaceutical company, bought Monsanto and then also buy your share price.

01:21:07:23 - 01:21:44:19

Marina Schmidt

Really took a hit after buying Monsanto because the the litigations just kept flooding in. I, I, I was very interested in this topic. I looked a lot into it. It still makes my heart sink a little bit, and it makes my gut feel a little bit nauseous. This this entire field. It was also the first time in the history of the To Green podcast, which is by now four years old, that I had to actually ask a lawyer to write me a disclaimer to not be sued.

01:21:44:21 - 01:22:06:16

Marina Schmidt

And again, I'll have to add a disclaimer. These are just my personal opinions, and maybe I'm just making satire. And this is all not serious. I have no idea about anything. I don't know, I'm just sharing my opinions of Monsanto, which are totally not not founded. Don't see me. Please. Thanks. Yeah. So it's it's a serious topic to address.

01:22:06:18 - 01:22:37:15

Marina Schmidt

In the end. It doesn't it doesn't make sense to eat less vegetables of fruits. Being afraid of being exposed to pesticides. It's pretty much like trying to earn less money because you're afraid of paying taxes. Just just earn money. Don't worry about the taxes, please. Just earn your money. So yeah, that's it. Eat your vegetables. Don't worry about the pesticides.

01:22:37:15 - 01:22:44:11

Marina Schmidt

Of course. Which wash your stuff. Right. But it's it's it should never keep you from eating a carrot.

01:22:44:11 - 01:22:46:03

Marina Schmidt

I.

01:22:46:03 - 01:23:10:12

Christian Soschner

I totally agree that there is also a huge difference between the US and the European markets. When I think back about my trips to Canada, the behavior of people, and when I compare it with Austria and the quality of food we have in Austria, I think this is one good thing in Austria that our politicians take care that we have, good standards and, good regulations, which sometimes is necessary.

01:23:10:12 - 01:23:34:18

Christian Soschner

I worked in the food industry 20 years ago. The sugar industry. The thing is, with beef, I mean, intention, when I look at the health perspective of sugar, I mean, sugar is one of the major reasons of, increase in cancer, in my opinion. Sugar is everywhere. You know, all kinds of foods, and people just eat too much.

01:23:34:20 - 01:24:02:09

Christian Soschner

Is this the intention of the sugar industry? I'm not so sure, because, I mean, the upset of sugar, for example, is, that, you can preserve food and you can make sure that people have enough access to food at all times of the year, which was not the norm a couple of decades ago. The overconsumption is just, the, the responsibility of the industry or is it the responsibility of people or is it the responsibility of politicians?

01:24:02:11 - 01:24:25:11

Christian Soschner

How should be, tackle such problems? What do you think about how how should we tackle situations like Monsanto or, these overly sugary, products that we have now on the shelves? Should we put the responsibility with the people and say we need, we, the politicians and industry has to provide food, but it's your responsibility to make the right choices.

01:24:25:13 - 01:24:29:16

Christian Soschner

How should we take into situations? How should we solve them?

01:24:29:18 - 01:24:30:02

Marina Schmidt

Well, I

01:24:30:02 - 01:24:59:06

Marina Schmidt

think these are two separate pathways. Right? You have the overconsumption topic, and then you have the actual, food health standards in terms of toxicology, what are the kind of amounts of pesticide residues that we allow? What are the kind of pesticides in general that we allow a lot of the pesticides that are still legal in the US are long time banned in Europe.

01:24:59:06 - 01:25:03:04

Marina Schmidt

So Europe, in the food industry, right? From an

01:25:03:04 - 01:25:28:11

Marina Schmidt

internal perspective. Also, I recently was at a conflict conference on regulation in Europe. Oh, and I it's actually a it was a world wide regulation conference based in Spain talking about regulatory approvals of novel food products. Europe is seen as the hardest place to get approval because it's, strict market.

01:25:28:13 - 01:25:57:13

Marina Schmidt

And as a company that's trying to push innovation, that's something that is often criticized, like, Europe is so slow with the regulatory approval and the these criticisms are also reasonable because oftentimes it's based on bureaucracy rather than actual safety. So, that's the one part, and it's also a cultural decision, because in Europe it's not just about the safety.

01:25:57:13 - 01:26:39:21

Marina Schmidt

It's also about the member states, at with a majority approving the introduction of a novel food. But I'm, I'm digressing. So if you compare the US in Europe, you can see that the pesticides that are approved are, much more stringently controlled in Europe. If you look at overconsumption, if you believe that it's that the way that people eat is all based on personal willpower, then you would have to assume that Americans have just generally lower willpower.

01:26:39:23 - 01:27:20:15

Marina Schmidt

And if you and by now also the UK, because the UK and the and the US are a bit more similar in terms of their consumption habits by now. So I don't of course, people have a personal say, but we tend to underestimate how strongly we are influenced by marketing, by advertisement. By the kind of availability of food, if you are like, I mean, in the US, the so much harder to get affordable, healthy food again, something we can be very grateful for in Europe.

01:27:20:15 - 01:27:45:11

Marina Schmidt

I think, like I remember once I was at a supermarket and I bought loads of vegetables and tubers and cabbage, and it was just two big bags and it ended up I still remember it was €33 and like $0.14 or something. And the woman behind me, she actually was. And that's unusual because in Germany we usually don't don't make comments.

01:27:45:11 - 01:28:14:02

Marina Schmidt

If it's comments, then it's like negative complaints, right? Which is like, oh my God, like, wow, that's so cheap and so much food. Because I was just buying mostly vegetables and fruits which are not processed and which are fortunately in our region, cheaper than most processed stuff. And that's such an incentive. So I think, it is it is policy action.

01:28:14:02 - 01:28:57:17

Marina Schmidt

And it's also super important to drive these behaviors that supports positive behaviors. We in the Western world, we think we are just individuals and it doesn't matter where we live and it doesn't matter and what kind of political system. We are just doing our thing and we are making our decisions and we are so independent. But if you look at it, comparing different countries to each other and the consumption habits, you, you realize like, wow, there is there's a lot of influence through our system and the globalization has created something that is somewhat of a global standard diet.

01:28:57:19 - 01:29:33:03

Marina Schmidt

Wheat has become so prevalent which wheat is not very nutritious, dense, especially in a white processed form. Right. We have with we have replaced a lot of regional traditional diets, which were maybe more specific, but sometimes also more healthy with a more Western approach, a pretty, like, Americanized, food system. And I think in Europe, it's still there's a lot of cultural heritage.

01:29:33:05 - 01:29:45:04

Marina Schmidt

So we tend to be proud of our different food traditions, and we tend to hold on to that. And it's a lovely thing, actually.

01:29:45:04 - 01:30:09:24

Christian Soschner

Why what's your opinion? Why did this happen, this Americanization of the food industry, let's just call it that way. I mean, with McDonald's, Burger King, industrial, industrialized foods, canned food, price wise, I mean, there's no logic whenever I decide, to just stay away from, I put processed, highly processed foods and just buy vegetables. I'm always surprised how cheap it is here in Austria.

01:30:10:01 - 01:30:30:11

Christian Soschner

I don't know if it's everywhere in Europe, but at least in Australia, I think it's 50% less. And, for vegetable soups. And it's pretty quick and, super healthy, super cheap. So there is no reason to go to McDonald's and there is no reason to go to, to, on a daily basis. I mean, sometimes having a burger is a good thing.

01:30:30:11 - 01:30:53:03

Christian Soschner

It's it's fine. It's, it tastes good. It's, Good. Sweet. But why? Why was that so much, why do so many people choose, consciously or subconsciously, to stay with highly processed foods, when they have other choices available? What's your opinion on that? Why did it happen?

01:30:53:20 - 01:31:28:21

Marina Schmidt

Well, the the we had a really interesting podcast episode. I just looked it up. There was a 5.11, on how China became the second largest dairy market in the world. It's one of the most, most listened to favorite podcast episodes of Red to green because it is quite a gripping story. China is primarily comprised of lactose intolerant people or the normal, the normal lactose intolerant people.

01:31:28:23 - 01:32:14:21

Marina Schmidt

It's about like 93% or so of their population cannot digest lactose. So it's, if you look at the statistic that it has been the the second largest dairy market is on the trajectory to become the largest dairy market. Of course, that is driven by a huge population, but still, it is actually crazy that, the, the Prime minister's in the past, one of the prime ministers in 2005 were saying, we want to make people eat, the equivalent of like 300, grams of dairy a day, which is, I think, the same or even a bit higher than in the US.

01:32:14:23 - 01:32:50:10

Marina Schmidt

It's it was even driven by a political initiative by the Communist Party that was promoting dairy in schools. That was supporting dairy farmers in China, that was supporting imports. So you would have to think, you know, you look at this and you're like, that doesn't make any sense. Your population is lactose intolerant. Why are you spending all this money and PR to promote a Western diet, which is dairy based in China?

01:32:50:12 - 01:33:33:13

Marina Schmidt

And it's in this case, it's also connected to the halo of the Western world. Right. So when Starbucks and McDonald's opened up in China, they brought, for example, Starbucks brought coffee culture to China. And we know Starbucks is very dairy based. These chains are very associated with modernism. And, China has had a very severe history of famine, mass famines in the past, unfortunately.

01:33:33:15 - 01:34:02:21

Marina Schmidt

So, as part of the, there was this the sense that Chinese, are a bit weaker and actually it feels a little bit edgy for me to say this, because, of course, I'm not Chinese. And that's why in the episode I'm actually quoting, an expert on this from China, to make sure I'm actually just quoting him.

01:34:02:21 - 01:34:36:11

Marina Schmidt

These are not my my words. Right. But the baseline is that with the Olympic Games, I lost, the, year, I think it was in the end of the 20th century, when the first time Olympic Games were shown in China, it made a huge impression on the population because they, the Chinese would see Western athletes, which would seem to be so much stronger and taller.

01:34:36:13 - 01:35:12:16

Marina Schmidt

And the idea was, oh, maybe it's dairy. And to an extent dairy does seem to. Dairy consumption does seem to correlate with height, increased height. It's a very dense food. And you could maybe get into the authority territory of arguing. Well, it also increases growth hormones. So it may at the At is during a specific time growing up increase your height due to that.

01:35:12:18 - 01:35:40:19

Marina Schmidt

So because there is such a connection between dairy, the western world strength, that led the Chinese Communist Party to promote dairy, to say, look, we have this one child policy, but that one offspring that you're going to have, we are going to feed it. Well, they're going to get the best nutrients. They're going to have milk powder, you know, proper dairy.

01:35:41:00 - 01:36:10:13

Marina Schmidt

So they grow up being big and strong. It's, up up until this day, I think it's the most perplex weird. Case study of a Western ization of a food system that was actually much better before, like, breast cancer rates was extremely low in China. And there was a rise of breast cancer rates with the introduction of dairy.

01:36:10:15 - 01:36:36:02

Marina Schmidt

Right. And it just doesn't serve our bodies just like it doesn't serve mine. Even though I'm European. It's just one example, where we need to consider the cultural effect and the political narrative and the belief that West is modern and modern is good.

01:36:36:02 - 01:36:53:00

Christian Soschner

Yeah. Coming from a times of scarcity, I think China also had some tough times in the last century, before 89. But many can understand for what you say. I can understand politicians when they say, okay, we want we don't want to go back to, to times of scarcity and, yeah, want to see our people suffer.

01:36:53:02 - 01:37:07:08

Christian Soschner

And when it looks like Europeans, United States have solved the problems with food availability, why not copy it? Why not just copy it? You mentioned the Olympic Games. I think you were talking about 2008. Is that, right. 2%.

01:37:07:10 - 01:37:14:17

Marina Schmidt

Yes. 2008. Oh. It's just that was. But was that really the first time? That's insane.

01:37:14:19 - 01:37:22:09

Christian Soschner

I don't know, it's I did a quick research edition. So 2022 Winter Olympics and 2008.

01:37:22:11 - 01:37:55:11

Marina Schmidt

But that's when they were hosted in in Beijing. Okay. With that, that that's true. But then the first time it was aired, the first time the Chinese were opposed to this was earlier, and then there where they were hosted in Beijing, which a lot of the Chinese dairy producers used to promote themselves, pretty much said that some of the, Chinese dairy companies were actually funding the Olympics since, like associating themselves with the Olympics.

01:37:55:13 - 01:38:05:04

Christian Soschner

So we are talking about the time before 1989, basically. Yes. Okay. Yeah. No. Totally makes sense. Totally makes sense to think, I think go ahead.

01:38:05:04 - 01:38:42:07

Marina Schmidt

And and another really interesting point is when Nixon visited China, they gifted him a candy called White Rabbit. And it's made of dairy. Like, just think about this. Like a president from the US visits your country. You're gifting him a dairy. Candy like that just shows you the kind of status that dairy developed in China. The kind of reputation that you literally you give this to a president, while to me.

01:38:42:09 - 01:39:01:20

Christian Soschner

When I remember the history of China. Right. I think, before World War two and the immigrants were told they were, target of occupation. So there was a lot of war, Japan, I think also United States, Western countries involved in that. And what decisions of the politicians was to have more children, to have a larger population.

01:39:01:22 - 01:39:22:01

Christian Soschner

And with that comes the problem. You have to feed them. And so in this context, it makes sense basically to switch to an industry where you think, other, other regions of the world have a competitive advantage when it comes to warfare and, security of a country.

01:39:22:03 - 01:39:24:07

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. So it's interesting

01:39:24:07 - 01:39:58:24

Marina Schmidt

because a lot of the dairy consumption of China is imported. And in general, animal agriculture is pretty intensive. Right, right. So and there's a difference. I would I would really separate primarily two kinds of animal agriculture. If you think about grasslands, grasslands which are very prevalent, for example, in the, in northern Europe, they tend to be unproductive because we humans cannot digest grass.

01:39:59:04 - 01:40:32:04

Marina Schmidt

So it totally makes sense to have, ruminants, a cow digest the grass and produce meat and dairy, which is available for human consumption, gives human calories. And, there's a concept called circular, animal agriculture, where you pretty much would argue we should have as much agriculture as can actually be sustained by local grasslands.

01:40:32:06 - 01:41:09:03

Marina Schmidt

But the main problem with animal agriculture is that this just makes up a tiny slither of it, because most of our industrial agriculture is, fed by mono crops, soy brought in from Brazil, which, and general Latin America, which creates a deep imbalance in nutrients. Like you bring in all these nutrients, you bring in all these nutrients. They're they're eaten by our industrialized cows.

01:41:09:05 - 01:42:03:09

Marina Schmidt

And then you have a huge issue with over fertilization, with which just too much of a good thing. It's not good, right? If you would just slather your houseplants in fertilizer, you just dump fertilizer on them. Not good. The same holds true with our local ecosystem. So when we think about the, when, when people are like, yeah, but like, there can be carbon neutral beef and to the, the I'm like, well, like, even if we would assume that that's the case, that the storage of CO2 in the soil is unlimited and it just exponentially grows tall for, for, for eternity, even then, you cannot do that with at the rate of consumption

01:42:03:09 - 01:42:29:13

Marina Schmidt

that we have right now, it's not possible. And that's why I would say, of course, people can have their meat, but I it's and it's fine. And I'm not really not, a proponent of shaming people for their choices. I think that's that's unproductive. And we also don't need to be perfectionistic. People don't have to be hardcore vegans.

01:42:29:13 - 01:42:58:20

Marina Schmidt

And in a competition who can last longer for years and years. But the thing that we need to focus on is to sort of go back to appreciating eating meat, making it something special, like, you know, a Sunday roast used to be a special thing. Nowadays we just think that eating meat on a daily basis or even like sometimes people are like, oh, oh yeah, I'm going to try to have a meal without meat.

01:42:58:22 - 01:43:39:24

Marina Schmidt

That's is, highly, highly untypical, consumption pattern. And that's not necessary. We need to find a bit of a balance and what helps us to have alternatives, which is why there are plant based products and development, which is why we have, approaches like precision fermentation or, sell cultivated meat in the pipeline to give us the pleasure of eating dairy products or meat products with.

01:43:40:01 - 01:43:55:01

Marina Schmidt

And while also offering us the possibility of doing it without ruining our planet or ruining it less. Like not even that. Again, like working from shitty solution to less shitty solution, right? But, following that theme.

01:43:55:04 - 01:44:19:13

Christian Soschner

We have to improve the food system. There's a lot, there are a lot important. There are many important parts in what you just said. One was, that having this Sunday roast or this, special, special treatment on, on on the special day of the week, it was quite the norm before the 90s. The availability of food was not so good like it is now.

01:44:19:13 - 01:44:41:00

Christian Soschner

We are now living in a world of abundance. And whenever I think back or when I buy meat at the grocery store, I have this picture of the 70s. In the 80s in my mind of happy chickens, happy pigs, happy cows, and then I learned in the last years that it's not the case anymore. And this is what drives me away from, eating meat.

01:44:41:02 - 01:45:03:09

Christian Soschner

Is just thinking about the conditions. This animals have, to endure in their short life. It's just, it disgusts me. So it's, on one hand, ethically. Morally, I think it's, it's wrong. It's just wrong to do that to a living creature. The second thing is, it's not healthy. I mean, you mentioned soy. That's, they it's not really.

01:45:03:11 - 01:45:24:07

Christian Soschner

What I would call healthy nutrition for animals. And, I mean, what's the quality of the meat, then when people eat that? What, is the effect in their metabolism? I think there is much more research that needs to be done in this area to analyze the health effects, the downstream effects of, eating industrialized meat.

01:45:24:09 - 01:45:49:22

Christian Soschner

And, also, from an ethical standpoint, I think there's enough, work, the work that needs to be done. But what's the solution, in your opinion? I mean, on one hand, and the standard is it needs to feed the people. On the other hand, it should be high quality. Do you think that we will ever reach this balance of high quality food for everybody on this planet at an affordable price?

01:45:49:24 - 01:46:10:08

Marina Schmidt

I mean, it's a high, high mark. It's the high attempt in the food industry. The classic thesis, the classic worry that's slapped on loads of presentation is how do we feed 10 billion people by 2050?

01:46:10:10 - 01:46:13:11

Marina Schmidt

You come across it all the time.

01:46:13:11 - 01:46:50:07

Marina Schmidt

Being being in the food industry. So in this case we worry first and foremost about quantity two. Can this approach can criticize from various standpoints. You could look at it from an egalitarian standpoint and say, well actually we have enough food. We just aren't sharing it. No. Or from what I call a modern Malthusian standpoint, that, we have enough food, but we are distributing it inefficiently, like we are wasting too much of it.

01:46:50:09 - 01:47:26:01

Marina Schmidt

We are not producing, in an integrated manner. We're not tracing it properly to the. Will we get to a point that. Globally, we will have good nutrition? I think at this very moment, the priority in the food system is actually how do we make a climate resilient, and how do so you work on two levels that you need to think about.

01:47:26:01 - 01:48:00:24

Marina Schmidt

How can we contribute less to, the, the global warming? And then how do we prepare the system to deal with, the climate change and the extreme weather? So in the past, especially in the past two years, food system resilience became a trend topic. It shifted a little bit from food system sustainability to food system resilience, which is the the hot topic right now.

01:48:01:01 - 01:48:05:16

Christian Soschner

What is, food system resilience?

01:48:05:19 - 01:48:20:23

Marina Schmidt

Food system resilience refers to if there is a drought, if there's a flooding, will it destroy the farm? Will it destroy the years harvest?

01:48:20:23 - 01:48:40:13

Marina Schmidt

So you can look at it on several levels, right. You can look at it on the farm level and say, how resilient are farms to extreme weather events? Then you can look at it on a more on a supply chain level and say, how resistant are our supply chains, in terms of disruptions?

01:48:40:15 - 01:49:04:00

Marina Schmidt

And these could be geopolitical disruptions like wink, wink, any kind of important transport passages being blocked due to various reasons. Or it could be, extreme black swan events, how you call them, like corona, or war, right.

01:49:04:00 - 01:49:22:16

Marina Schmidt

Food system resilience asks in case of disruption, how easily can we adjust the food system, reroute and still make sure that we have enough food to feed people?

01:49:23:08 - 01:49:59:08

Marina Schmidt

So, in the West, as I mentioned before, right. We tend to be at the longer end of the stick. So we are not experiencing these effects as much. But in the developing world, you can experience the increasing issues of which are related to food system resilience, much stronger. So the reports on lack of harvests due to bad weather events are coming in left and right.

01:49:59:10 - 01:50:25:04

Marina Schmidt

But we just are not yet noticing it as much in the Western world, even though we are starting to. But if you look at the at the summer droughts in Italy and Spain, right, the, the water scarcity that's already leading to certain regions in Spain having to restrict private pools, topics like that, it's getting there.

01:50:25:07 - 01:50:48:07

Christian Soschner

And it's fascinating. A lot of work that needs to be done. I have listeners, in the realm of startups and investment, what advice would you give them when they are interested to starting something or investing in the food industry? What are the pressing problems they should focus on?

01:50:48:10 - 01:51:12:07

Marina Schmidt

Well, if you're that's a thing, like if you're starting something, right, it's all about the timing. And whether you want to make, built a VC backed business or not, the area of alternative proteins has been super popular for the past couple of years, and it has lost a bit of steam in the past year or so.

01:51:12:07 - 01:51:53:12

Marina Schmidt

Two years, especially alternative proteins, refers to various ways to produce animal replacement products. Dairy free cheeses or also, as I mentioned, meat grown from cells. It's still trendy. It's still an area you can look into, I think as somebody who wants to do something about it, you can either look at it, it's, volunteering in your local food bank, or getting in engaged with, your farmers.

01:51:53:12 - 01:52:18:03

Marina Schmidt

Connecting with your farmers. More like just building your personal relation to your local food system. Or you can actually look at it, in terms of getting involved, for example, with policy, like joining, non-profits in the area that tries to support positive policies related to food. That's something that you can do as a citizen, of course, your own consumption you can look at.

01:52:18:03 - 01:52:44:22

Marina Schmidt

But because you are specifically asked in terms professionals, there's so much this the food system is truly intriguing. And it's I think for a lot of people, once they get into it, they find a lot of enough to do. There's enough to do. Like first of all, think we'll not run out of things to do that you do in the food system.

01:52:44:24 - 01:52:56:04

Marina Schmidt

I think the in my podcast, I've covered many, many different angles that you can take, from food waste to plastics to biotech. And there are many more. I don't know how helpful that answer was.

01:52:56:06 - 01:53:07:19

Christian Soschner

I it's absolutely it's it's it's super fascinating talking to you. And it looks like there is a lot of work that needs to be done. And we just covered the, the of the is not even the tip of the iceberg.

01:53:07:19 - 01:53:12:07

Marina Schmidt

Just a little scratched it with a little toothbrush.

01:53:12:10 - 01:53:45:00

Christian Soschner

But maybe not even that. This is such a huge topic and such an important topic, I think, of feeding everybody, making sure it's, it's nutrition tense, nutrient dense, and it's also healthy and available and but also, embraces the human nature. So not having any kind of food every time and also restricting eating to certain time windows to not have downstream problems with health like diabetes, obesity that we see nowadays.

01:53:45:02 - 01:54:05:19

Christian Soschner

It's just you. It's just you and you're really well informed everyday. Enjoy this conversation. I just checked the time, and we are close to two hours, and, you went back like. Like nothing. My question to you is, so is there any topic open at the end of the of this podcast that we should address, in your opinion?

01:54:05:21 - 01:54:06:16

Marina Schmidt

Well, I'm

01:54:06:16 - 01:54:50:23

Marina Schmidt

currently starting to work on an on a grant that supports film directors to, look at the topic or feature the topic of food sustainability and yeah, I think one of my current passion topics is, that I think you can support policy, at the right time with the right kind of awareness raised in and the general consumer market, but also, actually by educating people in the Parliament or the Commission with like interesting short films that cover why these topics are important.

01:54:51:00 - 01:55:18:14

Marina Schmidt

And if we look at a lot so, so pretty much I was connected with a, film director to create a film festival on food sustainability. And we looked at the field and we realized the issue is there are a lot of films which are, very negative. And it's very easy to point out the problems and, but it's very hard to suggest solutions.

01:55:18:16 - 01:55:56:10

Marina Schmidt

So that's a big white space that I see, which I'm trying to fill with, the most likely will be a profit, that we are starting, to connect from traffic money from foundations, to film directors, who can cover relevant topics. So if anybody is working in the nonprofit space, and wants to have a chat about that and talk about the how film can help support sustainable policy, I'm very happy to have a talk.

01:55:56:12 - 01:55:56:20

Christian Soschner

Super.

01:55:56:20 - 01:56:12:08

Christian Soschner

No, absolutely. Do we have a link to this project when somebody is interested, in that area with more information? And, also how, giving information, how to best reach you.

01:56:12:10 - 01:56:28:01

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. So, we will be working on the website soon. Right now we are in the launch phase, starting to talk to foundations about the topic. Depending on when the podcast comes published. We may have a website by then.

01:56:28:03 - 01:56:41:10

Christian Soschner

So we are we are live right now. I could, also see the comments, and description of the live stream. I just like to keep the live stream online, and I think the podcast are 3 or 4 weeks. I would say, okay.

01:56:41:12 - 01:56:47:22

Marina Schmidt

Well, oh I will, I will give you the link for the podcast episode.

01:56:47:24 - 01:57:03:04

Christian Soschner

This would this would be great. Would be great. Final question from from my side. We are at the end of 2023 and we are at the beginning of 2024. Which goals do we have for 2024?

01:57:03:06 - 01:57:04:08

Marina Schmidt

Personally.

01:57:04:10 - 01:57:08:16

Christian Soschner

Personally. Business. Whatever you choose.

01:57:08:18 - 01:57:42:24

Marina Schmidt

Well, I'm I'm also starting to produce a podcast in collaboration with the, an institution and from the German government, so funded by, the German government, also in the same area of food sustainability and how our food system needs to change. So, red, green, has become an agency, and, I'm planning to use that kind of approach to produce more deep content.

01:57:43:01 - 01:58:11:22

Marina Schmidt

I like the term deep tech. So trendy. Right. And but the specialty that I have is deep content. So I love to dig and dig and dig deeper into rabbit holes. So that podcast agency, which is focused on impact driven, deep content, that's one, building keep building the team, keep building, a network, media relations there to make sure the content is spread.

01:58:11:22 - 01:58:43:04

Marina Schmidt

Well, and the non-profits so the film grant that I just described, that's a big passion of mine. And it's, where I see a huge white space in the area and the opportunity to have a huge impact. My, co-founder there, she, as a film director, she has worked with Greta Thunberg. And she also works with George Monbiot, which is who's the author of Regenesis, the book that I recommended to

01:58:43:06 - 01:59:13:01

Marina Schmidt

And her last short film with great stone work reached 85 million impressions over loads of different channels. There I love the concept of passive impact, which is something I came up with years ago. Tim Ferriss is a very popular figure in like, the startup world, and he talks about passive income, which is a few create systems and companies that make money while you can be asleep.

01:59:13:01 - 01:59:26:09

Marina Schmidt

Right. And I like that idea, but I somehow felt it was a little self selfish. I got a self-centered at times, the way that it's presented or the way that it's used. So I thought about this idea.

01:59:26:09 - 01:59:42:03

Marina Schmidt

What about passive impact? What if you create if you if you focus on creating assets or creating systems that can make a positive contribution to the world without you having to do the action.

01:59:42:05 - 02:00:09:07

Marina Schmidt

So an example, instead of I'm going to the beach and I'm going to pick up trash, which is absolutely valuable, you know, and like create like that's better than nothing. What if you can look in your company, say, or in your community and spot a situation where there's unnecessary plastic used and it's just like, oh, it's like double, triple wrapped in plastic absolutely doesn't make sense, you know?

02:00:09:07 - 02:00:34:23

Marina Schmidt

And that's necessary. And you make the one time effort to change that. And then every single time this otherwise would have been produced with double triple wrapping you have passive impact. You change the system and you change the trajectory. And it's like ding ding ding, like you're sleeping. And that was prevented. Right. And again it was prevented and again it was prevented.

02:00:34:23 - 02:00:58:09

Marina Schmidt

So I see that my way of doing it is with content. So the way that I do podcasts is pretty evergreen, like people are still listening to the first episodes from four years ago. And that's also the reason why I want to get into film. Because people still watch films which are ten years old, 20 years old, 30 years old.

02:00:58:11 - 02:01:11:21

Marina Schmidt

Because in the end, I think we can have a positive influence, especially if we embrace the power that we can have in either creating long lasting content or changing a system.

02:01:11:23 - 02:01:35:11

Christian Soschner

I totally agree, I think we come to solutions. You mentioned problems. People like to talk about problems, but I think, solutions evolve out of conversations about problems and having more people on podcasts like yours talking about problems, suggesting solutions, bringing it to more people and making more people think about the problem in the solution, makes more people going at the end of the day and then actually change the world.

02:01:35:11 - 02:01:38:13

Christian Soschner

I think, I totally agree to what you say.

02:01:38:15 - 02:01:50:07

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. And, same same for you. Your content is also reaching people while you sleep. While you're at the page that's still, impacting lives.

02:01:50:09 - 02:02:16:22

Christian Soschner

I think this is the big benefit out of the last four years that the entire business to business industries were pushed to about social media to launch search engines and now actively consume content. This is why I think it's so much fun and so helpful to produce content, to have conversation with people like you who do a lot of ground work in their areas of expertise, and help people understand the world better.

02:02:16:24 - 02:02:25:02

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. And, thank you so much. I was, super, super enjoyable conversation at the time. Flew by two hours like whoosh.

02:02:25:04 - 02:02:38:22

Christian Soschner

I totally agree. I would love to keep going, but maybe we can meet in, one year or a couple of months and revisit the topics we've been talking about. I would recommend your podcast. Thank you very much for your time and sharing your insights into the food industry.

02:02:38:24 - 02:02:41:00

Marina Schmidt

Thank you. So, Christian.

02:02:41:02 - 02:02:44:14

Christian Soschner

Have a great end of the year and a great 2030 for.

02:02:44:16 - 02:02:46:01

Marina Schmidt

You to.

02:02:46:03 - 02:02:46:16

Christian Soschner

See you.

02:02:46:16 - 02:02:49:15

Marina Schmidt

Bye you. Bye bye.

02:02:49:24 - 02:03:14:19

Christian Soschner

This conversation has shown that's the future of food isn't just about feeding people. It's about feeding the planet itself sustainably and resiliently. We explored how systems like agroforestry can mimic nature to rebuild ecosystems. Why Europe's strict pesticide regulations set a global benchmark,

02:03:14:19 - 02:03:22:02

Christian Soschner

And how creating passive impact can ripple through communities to spark lasting change.

02:03:22:02 - 02:03:37:23

Christian Soschner

That challenge of building food systems that are both efficient and resilient has never been greater. But as we have seen today, disruption brings opportunity. Opportunity to rethink, innovate and lead

02:03:37:23 - 02:03:49:12

Christian Soschner

from the power of systemic change to inspiring ideas like passive impact. Marina Schmidt has shown us the tools we need to make meaningful progress.

02:03:49:12 - 02:03:57:08

Christian Soschner

If you believe in these ideas and wants to spread the message, there is one simple step you can take.

02:03:57:10 - 02:04:27:24

Christian Soschner

Like comment and share this episode. Together, we can grow this show to attract even more visionary speakers. Let's make food not just about sustenance, but about creating a healthier, more sustainable world. Thank you for listening. And remember, every small change we make today is shaping the future. We all want to live in. Until next time, keep thinking big.

02:04:28:00 - 02:04:31:20

Christian Soschner

Stay curious and let's move forward together.