
What Doesn't Kill You
Food production is a curious business; it's nuanced, layered, complex, and political. In What Doesn’t Kill You, host Katy Keiffer endeavors to identify and explain some of the key issues in our food system through interviews with journalists, authors, scientists, activists, and industry experts. Water rights, meat and agricultural production, food waste, labor issues, and new technologies are just some of the topics explored so we can better understand how to feed the future.
Latest episodes

May 31, 2024 • 40min
Cage Free Laying Goes Mainstream! Only 10% in 2014, Now Edging Over 40%
The Humane League, an advocacy organization seminal to both encouraging the egg industry to improve its conditions for laying hens, but also to hold restaurants accountable when they don't keep their promises to use only cage free eggs. Kelly Myers, Director of Corporate Engagement joins to discuss this sea change, and the new Humane League Eggspose, that busts the bad actors who promise one thing, and do another.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.

May 23, 2024 • 46min
Just How Much Money Are We Actually Wasting in Our Efforts to Remediate Our Polluted Waterways Like the Gulf of Mexico or the Chesapeake?
According to journalist Keith Schneider whose prize winning series Toxic Terrain has explored many of the ills associated with our style of agriculture, "the voluntary conservation practices promoted by federal and state governments, and Big Ag, are the costliest and least effective pollution prevention strategy ever devised. In the Mississippi Basin $30 billion spent since 1997 by the federal and state governments."Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.

May 15, 2024 • 39min
Just How Much DOES Industry Influence Science at the University Level? Turns Out, Quite a Bit.
Professors Viveca Morris and Jennifer Jacquet dug into how the livestock industry has co-opted certain university experts to minimize the impact of findings on climate change related to industrialized animal agriculture. Their findings have been published in a new paper detailing just how successful meat companies have been in skewing perceptions of climage change, altering emission targets, and making sure the industry remains the unregulated monster it is. Prepare to be outraged.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.

Apr 5, 2024 • 44min
Lets Review the Farm Bill With Tom Philpott
Veteran agricultural journalist Tom Philpott joins to talk about what is and isn't in the newest iteration of the Farm Bill. Despite all the extra funds from the Investment Recovery Act, and all the information we now have about climate disruption, and other impacts on agriculture, we seem to be marching toward the same old same old...Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.

Mar 29, 2024 • 43min
Who Is Minding Our Groundwater?
Professor Upmanu Lall, director of the Water Institute at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University gives us the details on how we map, model, and distribute our dwindling groundwater supplies.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.

Mar 14, 2024 • 47min
Barons! You Thought the Age of the Robber Baron Was Over? Guess Again!
Author Austin Frerick discusses monopolies in the food industry, from grains to grocery chains. The podcast explores the impact of corporate giants like Cargill and Tyson, unethical practices in berry production, and the link between economic power and extremist politics. It also delves into the evolution of antitrust laws, NAFTA's effect on farming and immigration, and solutions for a sustainable food future.

Mar 1, 2024 • 45min
Pushing Back on the Poultry Industry Is Not for the Faint of Heart.
For at least 20 years, the burgeoning poultry industry has been spreading the waste litter from their barns across one particular watershed in Oklahoma. Journalist Ben Felder dug into the origins of the lawsuit brought by a long gone state attorney general seeking to bring some accountability to the industry over damage to the local waterways. 20 years later, negotiations on how to manage this by product have broken down, and now new legislation threatens to give industry even wider latitude to pollute at will. Why is industry more important than clean water?Photo Courtesy of Investigate Midwest. Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.

Feb 23, 2024 • 44min
Farm Belt States Are Getting Serious About Agro-Chem and Cancer
Accross the farm belt, cancer cases are spiking, and states are getting serious about tracking and providing guidelines for exposure to agro-chem. Journalist Keith Schneider has been digging into this for months and reports.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.

Feb 3, 2024 • 38min
How the American Diet is Feeding The Groundwater Crisis, redux!
Straight outta the NY Times, a groundbreaking article by journalists Christopher Flavelle and Somini Sengupta shows the highway between mcNuggets and our diminishing supply of fresh clean water for human consumption. Flavelle joins the show to describe what he and his colleague uncovered as part of an ongoing and important series in the NYT.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.

Jan 27, 2024 • 45min
The EPA Finally Re-Considers Its Regulations on Effluent From Meat Processing.
John Rumpler, Clean Water DIrector and lead attorney for Environment America, joins to talk about the long overdue revision of regulations governing wastewater from slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. Decades overdue, public hearings on the subject are being held January 24th and 31st 2024. Learn more about how much toxic waste could be captured if these revised regulations are allowed to pass. Aside from reducing contamination of our drinking water, these revisions would also have an impact on wildlife, recreation, human health, and the ecology of rivers and streams currently unprotected.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.