Grappling With GMOs: Daryl Wein & Zoe Lister-Jones On ‘Consumed’ — Making A Thriller Out of The Politics of Food

Most people don’t know that 80% of all processed foods currently contain genetically modified organisms. In fact, 54% Americans know virtually nothing whatsoever about the subject of GMOs. Filmmakers Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister Jones hope to change all that. Enter Consumed– the very first narrative feature film to tackle the quite controversial and incendiary subject of genetically engineered food. In the vein of Silkwood, Erin Brockovich and Traffic, Consumed is a taught political thriller of intersecting storylines that pivot around a mother’s investigation into her son’s illness and a series of archetypal characters that ultimately collide in the tangled world of genetically modified foods. Based on a co-written script directed by Daryl that stars Zoe as the mother, I first met the hyper-kinetic Daryl and his glowing and dynamic wife Zoe at a dinner party just before they commenced production on the film. I was impressed by how informed and passionate they were about the subject of GMO. Even more impressive was their ambition and courage to tackle such a hot button issue on film. That night I made them promise to come on the podcast when the film was complete to tell us all about it. That day is today. Zoe and Daryl launched their relationship at NYU in 2002. Then they launched their careers, combining talents on two low budget relationship comedies, Breaking Upwards (SXSW, 2009) and Lola Versus (Fox Searchlight, 2012). The films were so well received, the New York Times dubbed them, “Brooklyn’s answer to the Hollywood power couple,” establishing the pair as fresh new talents on New York’s independent film landscape alongside generational peers like Girls’ Lena Dunham. The prudent career move for Daryl and Zoe would have been to stay in Brooklyn. Further cultivate their very New York sensibility. Continue making relationship comedies. And carve out fine careers in the vein of Woody Allen or Noah Baumbach. Instead, they moved to Los Angeles and quickly set up a variety of film projects currently in development. Zoe started consistently showing up in movies and on television (she currently stars in Life In Pieces on CBS with Colin Hanks and Diane Weist). But most of all, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work crafting a complex, intricate independently financed drama about the world of GMOs. Ballsy! Last Spring, Consumed premiered to positive acclaim at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Starring Zoe alongside a stellar cast that includes Danny Glover, Victor Garber, Griffin Dunne, Anthony Edwards and Taylor Kinney, it's just a really well done movie — I've watched it twice – topical, socially impactful and entertaining. But let's be clear — it’s not a documentary. It doesn’t presuppose to answer questions, only ask them. Today I sit down with today’s guests to ask a few questions of my own. This is a very fun but at times heavy conversation that confronts the complex issues raised by GMOs and addresses the multi-faceted debate that swirls around it. Topics include: * what interested Daryl and Zoe in the subject matter * what they learned about GMO researching and making the movie * the health & the environmental implications of GMO * issue obfuscation in the GMO debate * the socio-economic impact of GMO on farmers and consumers * legislative & regulatory landscape & oversight of GMO Enjoy! Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  You know, a big part of this movie not being a documentary is to reach that broader audience so that, in the public discourse, this can be something that is at the front of people's minds when we're talking about, you know, health and wellness.

• 1:21Rich Roll?

  That's Zoe Lister Jones, along with Darryl Ween, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:40Rich Roll?

  What's up, Podcastlandia? What is the news, people? Welcome to the show. I am your host on today's fantastic voyage. My name is Rich Roll. I am an ultra-endurance athlete. I write books. I husband my wife. I raise kids, four of them in fact, plus two dogs, but mostly, at least these days it seems, I podcast. That's right. Thanks for stopping by. I mean that, I really, really do. This is the show where I deep dive with the paradigm shifting outliers, the big forward thinkers across all categories of positive seismic culture change. Fitness, nutrition, academia, tech, consciousness

• 2:20Rich Roll?

  and spirituality. Don't be afraid, people. And in the case of today's episode, filmmaking. The goal is simple, to help all of us unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves. Good for you, good for me, good for humanity, right? Today on the show, I am thrilled to have the divine Zoe Lister Jones and her quite charismatic husband, Daryl Wein. They are the married filmmaking dynamic duo behind a new narrative feature film coming soon to a theater near you called Consumed, which is a really interesting drama that boldly tackles the quite controversial and quite incendiary subject of genetically modified

• 3:04Rich Roll?

  foods, GMOs. I got a whole bunch more I want to say on all this before we get into the interview itself. But first.

• 3:19Rich Roll?

  All right, today's show. So I met Zoe and Daryl, hmm, must have been about two years ago, a year and a half ago, perhaps. It was at a dinner party and it was just before they began shooting the film Consumed. That is the subject of today's show. And I vividly recall that night, making them promise to come on the podcast when the film was complete to tell us all about it. And well, today is that day. They're a lovely and quite dynamic and hyper creative married filmmaking couple who are definitely on the rise with, they've got a variety of very cool projects in development all over town. It's worth mentioning that you very well may know Zoe from numerous roles in movies like Salt and State of Play

• 3:59Rich Roll?

  and TV shows like New Girl, Whitney and the Good Wife. She currently has a starring role in Life in Pieces. It's the new CBS sitcom where she plays Colin Hank's wife alongside Diane Weist. But taking it Back, Daryl and Zoe met in 2002 when they were both students at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. That's NYU's Film, Theater and Acting Department. And at South by Southwest in 2009, they launched their careers with their award-winning, low-budget debut feature, which was called Breaking Upwards. It was this comedic look at their own personal experiment with an open relationship. It's a film that they wrote, produced and starred in together that Daryl directed. And then in 2012, they followed that up with their second feature,

• 4:44Rich Roll?

  Lola Versus. It was a film they did for Fox Searchlight, which was also a relationship comedy, also directed by Daryl. And that film starred Greta Gerwig, who's kind of, if you're not familiar with her, she's sort of a New York indie film darling. You might have seen her in movies like Frances Ha, Greenberg. She was also in Joe Swanberg's LOL. That film, Lola Versus, also starred Joel Kinnaman, you know him from Robocop and The Killing, and of course, Zoe. And that film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. And these two projects together made a bit of a splash and kind of established Daryl and Zoe with quite a bit of New York indie film cred. The New York Times actually dubbed

• 5:26Rich Roll?

  them Brooklyn's answer to the classic Hollywood power couple. Essentially, they became this fresh new voice on the New York filmmaking landscape alongside generational peers, people like Lena Dunham. And the logical career move for them would have been to stay in New York City, further cultivate their very New York sensibility, and continue to make relationship comedies, carving out careers in the vein of Woody Allen and Noah Baumbach. But that's not what they did. Instead, they up and moved to LA and decided to make this complex, intricate, independently financed drama about the world of GMOs.

• 6:08Rich Roll?

  Bam. How about that, right? That's pretty ballsy. So there are plenty of documentaries on the subject of GMOs. Genetic Roulette, GMO OMG, and The World of Monsanto are just a few that spring to mind, and they're all worth checking out. But Consumed is the first treatment of this subject matter in dramatic narrative form, which is a very cool thing. The film is in the vein of films like Silkwood and Aaron Brockovich and the political thrillers of the 70s, movies like Three Days at the Condor and All the President's Men. It's a very taut drama that involves a series of intermingled storylines, kind of like if you've seen Traffic or Siriana, the movies that Steven Gaggen has written.

• 6:52Rich Roll?

  Movies in which archetypal characters are ultimately on a crash course with each other. And in the case of Consumed, it all pivots around this one mother's investigation into her son's illness, and that's a journey that ultimately leads her into this tangled world of genetically modified foods. Zoe and Daryl wrote the script together, Daryl directs it, and Zoe stars as the mom alongside this great cast that includes Danny Glover, who plays this beleaguered organic farmer, Griffin Dunn, who plays a discredited research scientist, Victor Garber, he plays the CEO of this big ag company, Anthony Edwards, Taylor Kinney, just a really great cast. And the film's really well done. It's, what can I say?

• 7:34Rich Roll?

  It's socially conscious, it's impactful, it's earnest, it's thoughtful, it's entertaining, and it's certainly topical, but it's not a documentary. It doesn't presuppose to answer questions, it really just asks them. And that's because Daryl and Zoe are not scientists, nor do they play ones on film or on the internet, neither do I, but they are very passionate and incredibly informed on the subject of GMO. I appreciate their perspective and I applaud their mission to introduce this subject matter to mainstream audiences. Why is this important? Well, let's look at

• 8:12Rich Roll?

  the statistics. Right now, 54% of all Americans polled know little to nothing about GMOs, despite the fact that 80% of all processed foods currently contain GMOs. 64 countries across the globe mandate labeling, yet the USA still does not. And to date, there exists no long-term studies on the impact of GMO on human health. So this is an intriguing and I believe important conversation that canvases pretty much every facet of the controversial GMO debate. What prompted Daryl and Zoe to make the movie, what they learned researching it and making it, the potential implications for human health and the environment, the

• 8:55Rich Roll?

  socioeconomic impact on farmers and consumers, regulatory oversight or lack thereof, the legislative considerations around labeling initiatives, state and consumer rights to know. And we talk a lot about the DARK Act, which is a bill that recently passed Congress and is currently pending before the Senate. It's this federal bill that would essentially make it illegal for states to pass mandatory labeling regulations and would actually prohibit states from banning or even regulating GMOs in any way whatsoever. So I'm a staunch supporter of mandatory labeling laws. But much like the movie, I don't support to have all that

• 9:36Rich Roll?

  many answers when it comes to GMOs. But I do have questions. I've got a lot of them. So let's just get to the asking. Without further ado, it's my privilege, it's my honor to bring you Daryl Wiener and Zoe Lister Jones. Enjoy.

• 9:59Rich Roll?

  All right, we're done taking selfies. Are you ready to actually do the podcast?

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's go in, let's go in, Star.

• 10:04Rich Roll?

  Hey, you guys.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Hey.

• 10:06Rich Roll?

  Thanks for making the trip up to the house.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  It's always a pleasure to come to this beautiful house.

• 10:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so good to see you guys. It's the day after Halloween and I'm very anxious to hear about your Halloween, because I have a feeling you guys like do it up like you do it right, right?

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, they do.

• 10:21Rich Roll?

  Classic actors.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  We went to a few good costume parties.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, we went to a few good costume parties.

• 10:26Rich Roll?

  Tell me about it.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Well, this one was kind of like a Mad Max, kind of futuristic sci-fi type of themed party at the Sportsman's Lodge in Studio City. There were lots of great costumes there. I saw someone dress as a shower.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Oh, the shower was good, but it was very like lonely, you know, because he was like inside the shower curtain.

• 10:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, there were a few moments where I just...

• 10:50Speaker 01

  So I couldn't like speak to anybody.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  He had the shower curtain closed in the middle of the party.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  That's actually a great way to go to a party.

• 10:55Rich Roll?

  A depressive shower.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  The antisocial partygoer. Yeah, the party we went to had amazing costumes. There was a couple who was yin and yang, which was pretty great. There was a twister board.

• 11:10Rich Roll?

  That's a twister. That's pretty cool.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Which was great.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  There's always a few fifth elements in the mix.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  There was some Blade Runner.

• 11:18Rich Roll?

  Because why not, right?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's like for women, it's like, how, how can I look hot?

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  And also...

• 11:26Speaker 02

  French maids.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Playboy bunnies.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, there were some Playboy bunnies.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Why is it like that?

• 11:31Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Like, girls that are with guys that have boyfriends and they're still just in their underwear.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  I'm gonna dress up for Halloween and be an aerobics instructor.

• 11:37Rich Roll?

  It's an excuse to like, to like, channel your inner, you know, what, I don't want to use the S-word.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  No, no, we don't S-chain. Yeah, no, I think that more, like, we should get like more, like scandalous male Halloween attire and like women should be going the other direction.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  I could've gone as Magic Wein.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Magic Wein.

• 11:59Rich Roll?

  Magic Wein.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  There was no Magic Mike reference anywhere to be found. Yeah, it was, it was pretty wild. There was a lot of like underwear, but you know.

• 12:07Rich Roll?

  Well, most guys can't live up to that.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  I know.

• 12:09Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 12:10Speaker 01

  I know.

• 12:11Rich Roll?

  Not everybody's changing.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  But you guys could.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Rich could. You guys could.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:17Rich Roll?

  We went to this, uh, we went trick or treating in the Malibu Colony, which is this sort of gated, exclusive beach community down in Malibu.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  My friend went there.

• 12:26Rich Roll?

  It's pretty crazy. Like you have to be like on a list and there's like gar, it's like only in, another like only in Los Angeles thing. They have like valet parking.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 12:35Rich Roll?

  To go trick or treating, which is insane, but we have a friend who has a friend, so we could, we got in there. But the coolest part, it is actually really cool. Once you get in there, everybody opens up their house and they outdo each other by making these haunted houses. And it's all about the kids. And it actually was really fun and really cool. But the highlight was, um, at one house at the very end of the beach, they were, they set up, they set up an outdoor theater that you could, with movie theater seats and they were screening The Shining.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  No.

• 13:03Rich Roll?

  So you could sit there and watch the movie. And then you could walk this red carpet up into like a little outdoor, um,

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Art studio.

• 13:11Rich Roll?

  foyer. And there was a, uh, this guy who was carving pumpkins, who I have to believe is the world's greatest pumpkin carver.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Oh, I saw that on your Instagram.

• 13:19Rich Roll?

  So yeah, I posted it on Instagram.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  That was amazing.

• 13:21Rich Roll?

  It looked like it was light projecting onto the pumpkin of, of Yoda.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  But it was amazing.

• 13:26Rich Roll?

  He actually carved that. He had like a Darth Vader one and he had a Chucky one. And he was working there doing another one. And you could watch him carve like this amazing artist. Like I've never seen anything like that. It was pretty cool.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. And the kids asked him, the kids asked him what he did. And he said that, um, he's an embalmer. So he actually does a lot, he does a lot of reconstructive, um, you know, processes on faces. But then he goes, but that's only my part-time job because what I really do is I'm a paleontologist. And my kids were freaking out. They were like, what? Like it's the coolest thing in the whole world. So, but he was quite extraordinary. I mean, it was really, it was really something to see. Yeah. I wish I knew his name. It's sort of tragic that I don't know his name.

• 14:07Speaker 03

  We didn't get a pumpkin this year, but, uh, I think it was two years ago, right when we moved to LA, I really wanted to have a pumpkin. And we found, I found like this perfect round pumpkin. And, uh, we put it out and then I didn't want to throw it out It looked so perfect. And so it just like sat in the sun for the next six months and just like rotted away. It started to sag. I just like refused to throw it away.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Well, because in New York, you know, like apartment living, like you don't put a pumpkin out. Like there's not, that's just not part of. So once we had like a house here, we were like, oh my God, we can put like a pumpkin out. And then we just refused to let the pumpkin go.

• 14:39Speaker 03

  It's like sunny and beautiful and like 75 degrees every day.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, the pumpkin rotted. It was sad. You know, I have to just say on the topic of Halloween, I feel like, what do you guys do being health conscious? Parents with the candy element. We don't have children, but like, I kind of feel like this is like a really intense holiday for people who are concerned with.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, for sure.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, in the past, the past two years, not this year, I had the, um, I had a lot of inspiration.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  I had an overwhelming amount of inspiration to, um, create a plant-based Halloween.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  And so I hosted two events here, two, two years in a row. And I had so much resistance and so much, so even anger projected at me for trying to create this. And, uh, so it, it wasn't a big hit. I mean, we did one time, we had like 70 people come, which was pretty cool. Uh, but it took so much effort and I couldn't get anybody to join me. I tried to get other mothers to join me or a dietitian to join me. And no one would do it. And I think it's because the tradition of going out in the night in the neighborhood is so strong and it, and it is really fun. And because we've been traveling with our book and I, I just don't have the bandwidth to like, you know, shepherd that whole thing. But I was kind of laughing at myself yesterday.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Because being out in the neighborhoods, you know, with all the kids, I realized that I was, I was really sort of out of the box. I was quite out of the box trying to do that. So what we do is, um, you know, we, we let the kids go. Obviously they have a big bag of candy, but, um, there is an exchange. So, uh, we are, we've turned it into commerce. Um, we've sort, we're sort of bribing them actually. So, uh, they get like 25 cents for each piece of candy. And then, you know, we buy it back from them.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  But then what I'm do- what I am doing, though, this this year is we are going to go online this week and we're researching all of the big companies that make this candy. And we're seeing the environmental impact of what the companies are doing. So that is another step that I'm taking with the with the younger ones. And, you know, last night, they they had a blast. It was beautiful and, you know, I'm glad we went, but it is an issue. I mean, it'd be great if we if we had organic candy or healthy things.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  I mean, there is organic candy. It's just it's it's so rare.

• 17:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, a lot of people are handing it out.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's having we'll just bridge seamlessly into the topic of GMOs. But, you know, I mean, all of that candy is is is chock full of GMOs because it's it's all corn syrup.

• 17:15Rich Roll?

  Right, everything that has high-fuctose corn syrup in it is basically GMO-created.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:21Rich Roll?

  Which is a great bridge.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  It is.

• 17:23Rich Roll?

  Talking about the main reason that you guys are here.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  It's perfect.

• 17:25Rich Roll?

  Which is your new movie, Consumed, which I enjoyed tremendously. Congratulations.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, congratulations, you guys.

• 17:32Rich Roll?

  On making this movie. I watched it for a second time today again, and I just I really like it. I mean, for people that are listening, I don't want to give away too much of it, but it's it's this beautiful kind of it's it's sort of in the mo- in the in the vein of traffic where you have these intersecting stories where these archetype characters, you know, are kind of headed on a crash course with each other. So you want to just sort of what's your how do you describe the movie?

• 17:56Speaker 03

  It's a dramatic thriller set in the complex world of GMOs. It's anchored by a mother played by Zoe, whose son gets a mysterious allergic reaction. And so she kind of is propelled on this journey to figure out what may be causing it. At the same time, we're following the CEO of a fictional biotech company who is making food that Ostensibly as saving the world and two scientists who are on the verge of a major discovery.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  And an organic farmer, played by the one and only Danny Glover. He was amazing.

• 18:31Rich Roll?

  Great cast.

• 18:33Speaker 03

  Who's being bullied by the

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Biotech industry.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Over patent infringement over genetically modified seeds.

• 18:41Rich Roll?

  Right, so his, his character is really, he, he walks a mile in the shoes of the, the, the farmer who's trying to be organic, but seeds from the genetically modified, you know, sort of not in your movie, but in real life, Monsanto seeds are blowing over into his field. So his fields are contaminated and then he gets embroiled in this controversy that ultimately destroys his ability to make a living.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah, which is a very real issue with farmers in this country that they are constantly being faced with these patent infringement lawsuits, which is something that was unheard of up until, you know, quite recently, that, that life could be patented and that these seeds could be patented. And, and the, the tradition of farmers for centuries has been to replant seeds. And the thing about GMO seeds is that you can't replant them, that you have to rebuy them every year from, from the corporations.

• 19:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you become kind of an indentured servant to the corporation. So you have to rebuy and rebuy and rebuy. You can't really ever break out of that.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:42Rich Roll?

  Well, before we completely unpack the movie GMOs, I mean, let's take a, a step back. You know, I'm interested in what inspired and motivated you guys to make this film because at least on a surface level, it seems like an unlikely kind of career maneuver for you guys, because you kind of came up as the sort of New York, Brooklyn indie darling, you know, young, enterprising filmmaking couple who were making kind of relationship-oriented comedies in the sort of vein of Lena Dunham and, you know, people like that.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  You don't think GMOs are comedy?

• 20:17Rich Roll?

  I know, it's just like, oh, there's a lot of comedy out there.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Lot of comedy.

• 20:22Rich Roll?

  So it, it does seem, you know, interesting because I, I see you guys as very, even though you live here now, and I know you embrace the LA lifestyle, we were talking about that a little bit before the podcast, you have a very New York sensibility to your work and, and your kind of aesthetic.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was raised in Brooklyn and Daryl was raised in Connecticut. So we're east coasters through and through. You met at NYU. We met at NYU, yeah, in acting school. And, yeah, our foray into the filmmaking world, our first two narrative features were that sort of twenty something relationship comedy in the vein of Woody Allen. And we did come up with people like Lena and that sort of crew. So it definitely is a departure for us. I think we both felt, I think, well, actually, we wrote a version of this script after our first film, Breaking Upwards.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  And so we then gave it to our agent and she was like, what are you doing?

• 21:28Speaker 01

  She was like, don't do this.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  Put this on the shelf and never look back.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  You're the next Noah Baumbach. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think, like, you know, just being, like, we were so excited about the possibility of being able to make any genre that we wanted and we felt capable of exploring so many different genres that we didn't really realize that the way you're supposed to brand yourself when you've made any sort of splash in the industry is to take advantage of that brand. So we then made another relationship comedy. And once we did that, we then took a step back and thought, what's the story that we're dying to tell right now? And we felt that we had lived in that space sufficiently and that we didn't want to tell that story anymore and that this was a really important story to us that just kept gaining

• 22:15Speaker 01

  relevance and that we just felt like couldn't not be told at this moment.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  And I think that food has always been something that's been a big part of our lives, as part of everybody's life. You have to eat food in order to survive.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  We have been eating food our whole life.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Zoe and I, the way we were raised, we were raised completely differently when it comes to what we were fed. And I had a lot of junk food around me growing up, a lot of sugar and snack food. And Zoe, I think, cut out sugar when she was like seven.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  I wasn't allowed sugar.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  She wasn't allowed sugar. And she was, she was a much more natural, you know, foods that were much more organic at that time. And And so when I met Zoe, it was like a collision of different ideologies. And she quickly rerouted.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  My ideology won.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  She quickly subverted.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Good job.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  The track that I was on.

• 23:19Rich Roll?

  What was the strategy employed there?

• 23:21Speaker 01

  It's mostly fear based. Shaming, yeah, emotional shame.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, but so, you know, we went to a lot of restaurants in the beginning of our relationship that I did not want to eat at. And I was like, why are we here? We have to explore other restaurants.

• 23:37Rich Roll?

  Angelica's Kitchen.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  If I eat another macrobiotic meal, Sue Wen, I'm going to kill myself. But the more and more I was eating that, the more I ate that food, I felt good about myself and I felt more healthy, I just did. And anyway, so that was a journey that we have been going on now for almost 12 years together. And we, you know, we, around the time that we were, began writing the first draft of this movie over seven years ago, God, it's been so long now, you know, we were talking about, you know, why this was so important to us because we all are eating this food and people don't even realize they're eating genetically modified food because in this country, it's not labeled as it is in 64 countries around the world.

• 24:23Speaker 03

  So that prompted us to start asking questions, you know, why is it not labeled in America? And why are all these other countries labeling it? Why haven't there been long-term studies done on it? And so we started reading articles and books about it and that kind of is what ignited the passion for this subject.

• 24:43Rich Roll?

  Was there any particular article or book that stood out as being kind of inciting to light a spark?

• 24:50Speaker 03

  There was a article in Vanity Fair called Harvest of Fear, I think.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  That really got into the bullying of farmers, which I think was really, that was a big inciting article for us in terms of the cinematic approach to the telling of this story because there were so many like noir elements and we couldn't, it seemed like you couldn't even write something that was that dramatic and kind of had that thriller vibe. So I think that we were like, well, this might be a movie and there hadn't yet been a documentary on it. Now, there have been a couple, but I think for us, the idea of making this into a narrative feature was really exciting because it has such a broader reach that we could entertain

• 25:37Speaker 01

  audiences and then also kind of spark this conversation.

• 25:40Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, that must have been a conversation though, because you've, Daryl, you've made a documentary before, so.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I made this documentary called Sex Positive, which explored the life of an S and M hustler, a gay S and M hustler named Richard Berkowitz in the early 1980s, who was fighting for gay rights and for, and really promoting safe sex for the first time in this country's history at a time that was extremely divisive and divided and controversial. And nobody knew what was going on. And the government had kind of, there's this profound silence from the government about, about, you know, how to protect yourself against STDs and.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  The height of the AIDS epidemic.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, even though condoms have been around since like Egyptian times, they were always used as just a form of contraception.

• 26:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  And so.

• 26:32Rich Roll?

  You see the guy who's behind ACT UP or one of the people who was behind that? Or was that?

• 26:37Speaker 01

  That was Larry Kramer.

• 26:38Speaker 03

  You know, Larry Kramer, who is also in the documentary. Yeah, there were a bunch of different groups working on it, but, but Richard was more of, he, he and his doctor, Dr. Joseph Sonnenbrenn, and this other activist named Michael Callen, the three of them are this kind of renegade triumvirate, more kind of independent minded, but based in a lot of fact and research about what was actually going on. They wrote the first arguably safe sex manual in the history of the crisis.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  And Larry Kramer, who's kind of gotten a lot of attention recently, especially with The Normal Heart, and he's had a big comeback. He, he was promoting abstinence, right? And so.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was very confusing. The different gay leaders at that time were taking different approaches, you know? Yeah, Larry Kramer was saying, let's stop having sex. And.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  At the height of the sexual revolution.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  That's the best way to protect ourselves from this disease right now is to just not even come into contact. And then, you know, there was this, the other extreme pro-sex, super pro-gay activists that were saying, no, we will continue to have sex and we don't need to wear condoms. And so Richard Berkowitz, who's the subject of the documentary, he was fighting for the middle ground, which is, we can keep having sex, let's just do it safely. But so that was the first documentary that

• 27:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  It was my first film that just kind of fell in my lap because Zoe's mom happened to have known Richard for decades and, and we met at a Passover Seder and he started talking to me about his S and M work in relation to the AIDS epidemic.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Classic Seder discourse.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Discussion. And I was like, oh my God, that's fascinating and sounds really important. And I, I didn't learn anything about that. When I was in school, they didn't teach that side of history about the AIDS epidemic or what gay men and women were going through at that time, you know, as fully as it sounds like you, you know, have written about it and talked about it. And so I was like, this sounds really interesting. So that was my first kind of political, you know, piece of filmmaking and

• 28:38Rich Roll?

  And it was a, it was a celebrated doc, right? Like you won best documentary at Outfest. And then a lot of people saw that movie.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was great. It came out in theaters and played at the BFI in London and film festivals around the world. We premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2008 and it was exciting and we made it on our own, totally independently. And Zoe was an associate producer on, on it. And that was kind of the beginning of our

• 29:00Speaker 01

  That was, yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 03

  professional collaboration. We had only been dating for a year and a half or something. And, and that was just about the time that we started to enter into an open relationship of sorts, which was then the impetus to make our second

• 29:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  my, my narrative debut film, Breaking Upwards.

• 29:19Rich Roll?

  Right. Which made for a very interesting profile in the New York Times. And that's almost like a whole other podcast.

• 29:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:26Rich Roll?

  I don't want to get too far in the weeds on that, but, uh, but yeah, it's cool. And so ever since then, you guys have really collaborated on, on all your projects. I mean, you have your acting stuff, Zoe, of course, but, um, but, you know, that's another aspect of, of your lives that I want to get into as well, like what it's like to work together and You know, this Mr. Lister banner.

• 29:47Rich Roll?

  But back to the movie for now, I mean, so given that, given your experience in having made a documentary, I mean, was there ever a moment where you thought maybe the GMO world would be a fitting subject for a documentary, or was it always going to be a narrative approach?

• 30:01Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I mean, there needs to be even more documentaries. And now there's been a few. GMO MG came out about it, and there's the world.

• 30:08Rich Roll?

  Genetic Roulette.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, Genetic Roulette by Jeffrey Smith, and The World According to Monsanto. There's, there's a few documentaries out there, and I think there can be even more. I mean, there's so many layers to this topic.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  The research that we've been doing now for, you know, seven years, but we continue to do, like, today, just in anticipation of this podcast, we were just like, you know, reviewing articles that we had read, and they just, each article you read sparks some question that you're like, wait, I gotta read this other article, because there's so many facets to this world of GMOs, each one sort of more complex and interesting than the, than the next. So it's, it's, I think the research is, is kind of unending, which is overwhelming, but also exciting.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  And why people, I think, don't get it, like.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  I think it's why people shut down around it, yeah.

• 31:00Rich Roll?

  It's hard to get, you know, it's incredibly Byzantine, and just today, like, in preparation for this podcast, I was like, all right, well, let me just see what the current conversations are right now. I mean, the subject of GMOs is something I've wanted to bring to the podcast for a very long time, but it's a very incendiary subject, obviously. And, and I've been reluctant to address it or confront it directly, because I want to make sure that the person sitting across from me knows what they're talking about, is vetted, you know, is substantial, you know, completely, you know, sort of embedded in the subject matter. And that person is very difficult to find, right? I'm not sure that I've found that person yet.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:35Rich Roll?

  And in just poking around today, I'm like, let's just see, like, when I just, when I just Google search, like, latest research on GMOs, like, just see what comes up, and, like, look at it with an objective eye, and it's incredibly bifurcated, you know, for every subject, for every article that says GMOs are safe, I don't know why everyone's getting so crazy about it, there's another article on the other side that says directly the opposite. And then, for example, one article that popped up today. Was one on for that was on Forbes.com and it was by this guy, what's his name? John Entree, I think. And I'm like, oh, he's saying, oh, it's completely. And I'm like, well, all right, well, who is this guy? Right? So then I Google him.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  Right. You got to find.

• 32:16Rich Roll?

  And that's a whole tree of, you know, yeah, right. Like, and then, and then I realized, oh, this guy's completely embedded by Syngenta and Monsanto and like, and you have to like, really have your wits about you to kind of read between the lines on all of this. But at the end of the day, I'm still left wondering, you know, it's like,

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 32:34Rich Roll?

  Just as a, as a concerned consumer who has some, perhaps a little bit more than the average person's knowledge about what's going on, I'm still left wondering and unsure.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  And we, so are we. We are wondering every day and we've been working on this film for seven years on and off. And we've reached out to a number of, you know, scientists and researchers and activists. I mean,

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  Our film has been vetted by Aaron Brockovich and has the support of Aaron Brockovich, by Michael Hansen, who's the, one of the senior scientists at Consumers Union. We are working with Gary Hirschberg at Just Label It, which is the organization that is really working to petition the FDA and Congress to get GMOs labeled in America. And there's, I think, 2 million signatures strong right now. And Gary just was in front of Congress at a hearing about GMO labeling.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  The Senate, yeah.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  In front of, yeah, a Senate hearing that recently happened about the Dark Act, which is the, is the, the kind of pseudonym for what the Accurate and Safe Food Labeling Act is actually called, because it's denying America, Americans' right to know what is in our food. It's, it's this law that is being pushed through right now that they're trying to pass.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  That it passed in the House.

• 33:59Rich Roll?

  It passed in, it passed the House in July.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  But it hasn't, it's now moving to the Senate, which would basically eliminate states' rights from ever being able to, states from ever being able to label GMOs.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  It preempts a mandatory labeling federally.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  And the few states that have already passed GMO labeling laws like Connecticut and Vermont, they're embroiled in lawsuits right now. And they're trying to, basically what this act would do would overturn that. So anyway,

• 34:24Rich Roll?

  And also, just to interject for a second, I believe it also, Ban states from, it prohibits states from banning or regulating GMOs in any way.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:35Rich Roll?

  It's crazy.

• 34:36Speaker 03

  Permanently, like for kind of forever.

• 34:38Rich Roll?

  It's kind of a First Amendment right. And there was one congressman who called it the Denying Americans' Right to Know Act.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Right, which is, that's the dark act.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  That's the dark act.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  That's why it's called the Dark Act. So, you know, we have, as filmmakers, we don't have all the answers, but we have kind of been like investigative journalists, you know, learning as much as we can over, over the years. And I think at the end of the day, we just believe that we have a fundamental right to know what's in our food. I mean, every other food has ingredients on.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Yes, on the labels.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  On the label that shows you what's in it. And so for no one to really know that there are genetically modified ingredients in the food, I think, is, is really scary, you know?

• 35:22Speaker 01

  And the fact that there's precedent in 64 countries around the world. I mean, it's like we're being such a, you know, democratic superpower. The fact that there's no transparency in this arena is, is kind of shocking.

• 35:36Speaker 03

  And the same, same companies, same manufacturers that are making the food here, they're actually putting the labels on it for the countries that require it overseas.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  But just not here.

• 35:45Speaker 03

  But just not here. So it's like, so it's like.

• 35:48Rich Roll?

  I think the, the debate gets, I mean, there's certainly so much research that needs to be done. We need long-term studies on human health, et cetera. And hopefully these studies are underway right now and continuing, because there are a lot of answers that, that we need that we don't quite have yet. But I think until we have those answers, we need to proceed with caution, right? And we need to not get caught up in the sort of he said, she said game of safety versus non-safety. And if we can just, at least for now, focus the conversation on labeling, that would be a great first step.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think like the scientific community is really divided and it, as you said, it's a really divisive debate all around when it comes to safety, especially in terms of human health. You know, there's a lot of complications around independent studies because these are patented seeds. So there, you have to have access to the seeds in order to study them. And so I think there are sort of inherent roadblocks in the way that, that GMOs are structured anyway in terms of the, the corporate lockdown on them. But. Intentionally so. Intentionally so, probably. But I mean, I think, I think there's a lot of misinformation right now in terms of,

• 37:05Speaker 01

  you know, I think the safety is something that is obviously debatable because there hasn't been long-term research, so you can't claim either way that they are safe or unsafe until we have those facts. But environmentally speaking, you know, GMOs are part and parcel with a lot of chemical inputs and there's no debating how dangerous herbicides and pesticides are on human health.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Well, before we get into the chemical thing, I just want to say, because what you were saying before, Rich, which is about, you know, let's just deal with labeling first. But the reason the labeling movement can't get as much traction is because mass, you know, everyone is basically saying, well, GMOs are safe. So.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Right. They don't.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Why do we need to label them?

• 37:48Speaker 01

  It goes in hand and hand.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  It goes, it goes hand in hand. And what I wanted to point out was that some of the most respected scientific bodies around the world are calling for more safety assessments to be done, like Codex Alimentarius, which is run by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the American Medical Association, the British Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, they've all stated that they favor pre-market safety assessments and that more research needs to be done on GMOs before we can really determine their safety.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  And, and sorry, in 2013, actually, 300 scientists endorsed a statement that there is no scientific consensus on the safety or health risks of eating genetically engineered food. And that was reported in, by the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibilities. So you have the mass media saying, well, GMOs are safe and the science is decided. But it's just not the case. It's, the science is actually divided and they're calling for more studies to be done in the name of science.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think too, you know, when it comes to the studies being done and the safety, I mean, there's a lot of.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Nuanced scientific, you know, jargon that might be confusing about around the safety of GMOs, but basically, there's no mandatory safety testing required by the FDA, which is the biggest issue, because they adhere to this regulatory principle called substantial equivalence, which basically means, you know, if it, if it looks like corn and tastes like corn, it's corn.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  If the few basic components, like the proteins and fats are the same, then it's essentially the same.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  They don't require testing.

• 39:30Rich Roll?

  That's crazy.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  But at the same time, they're so different that they require a patent. So there's this inherent paradox where it's like, well, this seems to me like a regulatory loophole that, that totally goes against the basic principle in your patenting these life forms.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  To patent something, it has to be different.

• 39:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  Distinctly unique and different from what is normal.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 39:56Rich Roll?

  Sorry, I was gonna say, yeah, and even extending that paradox, if, if the assertion is that they're safe, then labeling shouldn't be an issue, right?

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 40:04Rich Roll?

  Because there's nothing to be afraid of. And then beyond that, you know, sort of if, if and when the Dark Act pass, passes, there's this argument that, well, it's, it's being regulated, so the public doesn't have to worry about it.

• 40:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's not being regulated.

• 40:18Rich Roll?

  But if it, but if it passes, it becomes self-regulated. The industry is regulating itself.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Well, the industry is already, is already regulating itself.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  They only do 90, 90-day trials on, on GMOs. They don't do long-term studies.

• 40:30Rich Roll?

  And who's overseeing those trials?

• 40:31Speaker 01

  Nobody.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  And this is the issue, is that you have the FDA spokesperson Theresa Isman saying, "It is the manufacturer's responsibility," and I quote, "to ensure that the GMO food, that GMO food products it offers for sale are safe." Meanwhile, you have Monsanto's spokesperson Phil Engel saying, "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job." So thus the paradox.

• 40:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  They're all just like passing the buck, basically, and, and there is no regulatory practice that, that is kind of safeguarding these foods, which are, have now become so pervasive that, I mean, I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I think it's 93% of, of corn and, and, you know, over 90% of soy. Which, you know, in processed food, it makes up, I think, 80% of the food in our supermarkets. So we're being exposed to this stuff, you know, so intensely without really any knowledge or given any choice in the matter because of the lack of labeling.

• 41:37Rich Roll?

  Right, but then we, at least in California and state by state, consumers are being given the choice. There are referendums where, you know, the consumer can vote for labeling. And consistently, these organizations have been able to convince consumers to defeat those, defeat those ballot measures.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Because the biotech lobby is so strong, they're...

• 42:00Rich Roll?

  They convince people that it's going to increase the cost of their food.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  Which is not true, which the center, you know, Just Label It has had a study done on whether or not food prices would rise for average consumers. And the answer is no, they will not rise.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  And, I mean, you look at our food labels, like every, you know, Disney movie, every Super Bowl, the labels are constantly changing to promote, you know, these corp, these, you know, other sort of pop culture sensations. So, and that's not raising our food prices. We see labels change all the time.

• 42:37Rich Roll?

  And it's not like we're afraid to regulate. I mean, just watch any pharmaceutical ad. I mean, it's crazy, the amount of regulation that goes on in every other aspect of our life.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, I mean, you know, these are foods, like when you look at the corn, for example, it's, there's something called BT corn, which is what GMO corn is. It's, there's an insecticide in the corn itself, which is being released. So, you know, these are like very novel and new foods that we're eating that are not being tested, which is a really terrifying, you know, new era of agriculture. And I think just the idea that we wouldn't label these very new and novel foods is outrageous.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  And you have a New York Times poll saying 93% of Americans favor labeling GMOs. I mean, people, I think, want to know. But I think when you get back to the safety, it's the two separate issues. The safety of the actual genetically modified organism, and then... How that relates to the actual herb, chemical herbicides that are being sprayed on GMOs, which is what Zoe was getting at before.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I was just gonna say that.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  Which is, how is that affecting our health?

• 43:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 43:53Speaker 03

  How are chemicals impacting us and the environment if they're being sprayed at such high volumes now?

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Well, because, can I just interject, since you interjected before? No, you're seeing, you're seeing the dynamic of, of working. It's okay, Rich and I have that down. This is what I was gonna say about the, the chemical inputs was just that, um, basically the way that, that GMOs work with, with this chemical called glyphosate is that they're, they're herbicide resistant crops so that you are able to spray more herbicide without killing the plants, you're just killing the weeds around the plants. So it's actually, instead of decreasing, um, chemical inputs, it's, it's increasing them and, and in this country.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  It's increased by 527 million pounds.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Since GMOs were introduced.

• 44:43Speaker 03

  Since they were introduced in 1996, between 1996, 2011, that's, and that's reported by Environmental Sciences Europe, which is a crazy amount. And, and glyphosate, which is the main chemical herbicide, is linked to potentially causing cancer.

• 44:58Rich Roll?

  Right, the World Health Organization labeled it a probable carcinogen.

• 45:01Speaker 03

  Right, so, so if you're eating genetically modified foods, in whatever form, the derivative or, you know, however they're coming into your body, or the body of animals, or the environment, they are also married to the chemical herbicide. That is on them, so.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  And the Environmental Working Group, which is a great organization, um, did this study that showed that, uh, over 3,000 elementary schools are within a thousand feet or less of GM, uh, fields, meaning, you know, like, so many kids in this country are in way direct contact with a probable carcinogen. Well, and the food that they're eating every day at school is also completely. Right. Which I think, you know, like, that's when it becomes divisive. So it's like, if you can't fight on the safety of the food itself, you can definitely look at just coming into contact with a probable carcinogen in, in, in the air, you know?

• 45:58Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  And drift is a very real thing in these rural, rural communities, so.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  And it's in, they're finding glyphosate in six, did you say this?

• 46:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  Sixty to a hundred percent of the rainwater in the Midwest now has glyphosate in it. And that is a study done by the School of Public Health by the University of Minnesota. I mean.

• 46:17Rich Roll?

  That's crazy.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  It's in the air, it's in the water.

• 46:20Rich Roll?

  It's in the soil.

• 46:21Speaker 03

  They're, yeah, it's in the soil.

• 46:22Rich Roll?

  It's in the animals. Even if you're like, okay, I'm, I'm not going to eat this corn.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:26Rich Roll?

  If you're eating a burger, you know, it, that, that animal has fed on GMO foods its entire life.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Exactly. Soy lecithin, high fructose corn syrup, those are the concentrated forms of the genetically modified corn and soy. And you read some things that were very interesting that you just told me again. And every day you find another fact that's interesting about cotton.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. And in Argentina, they just did a study that tested BT cotton. Again, it's this, it's called Basylastheringenis, which is the GMO version of cotton, which again is an insecticide that the, the plant itself produces. And, and they found that eighty-five percent of tampons, cotton and sanitary products tested contained glyphosate. A hundred percent of cotton and sterile cotton gauze contained glyphosate, which is really just insane. I mean, this is one study, right?

• 47:24Speaker 03

  So you're in a hospital and they're putting cotton, cotton on you in a supposedly sterile, clean, healthy environment, and it has traces of glyphosate.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Of a probable carcinogen.

• 47:34Speaker 03

  Possibly carcinogenic chemical.

• 47:36Rich Roll?

  That's amazing. Back to your point about schools in proximity to, to GM, GM fields. I mean, I think that's why. Hawaii is such a battleground right now because so much GM testing is going on on Hawaii. It's like this perfect Petri dish for them to perfect these, you know, new genetic modified foods and crops and herbicides, et cetera. And, and there's a lot of drift that blows over into schoolyards and, and people are really, you know, up in arms there. Like, that's the one place where I feel like activism is really kind of gotten a foothold where perhaps here it isn't because, you know, we're in California, like unless you're

• 48:18Rich Roll?

  living in the breadbasket, and if you are living in the breadbasket, then that's how you're making your living, right? So there's an inherent conflict there.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, it was really interesting because we, we filmed Consumed in rural Illinois. And so we got to talk to farmers after having spent all these years doing research from afar. We were then, you know, kind of planted in the belly of the beast, which, you know, when you're actually talking to people who this is their livelihood, I was actually expecting the farmers we were talking to, to, to

• 48:48Speaker 03

  Really defend GMOs.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Because it was their livelihood. And that's not the case at all.

• 48:53Speaker 03

  We had a bunch of farmers that were saying that, and we had, we met with, we interviewed and, and had one farmer really get into it with us who has both organic and GMO.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  He was a seed distributor.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was a farmer and a seed distributor. He was doing both. And, and he said that his organic was performing better than his GMOs were. And

• 49:14Rich Roll?

  Not in terms of sales, but in terms of actually yield. Wow.

• 49:18Speaker 03

  Over time.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Most studies will, will show you if you, if you research them that organic has the highest yields.

• 49:25Rich Roll?

  Which is so ironic because the whole purpose of GMO is to increase yields.

• 49:30Speaker 03

  It's not true. The yields are not increased. It's a false bill of goods.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Organic has the highest yields. It's just the premiums are so high. And I think, you know, it comes back to what are the motivating factors behind pushing GM foods on our country and the world? You know, I think profit is a, a big motivating factor more than yields or feeding a starving population in the face of, of, you know, world, world hunger. And, and I think, you know, when you look at

• 49:59Speaker 01

  What the government, what our government is subsidizing, they could easily be subsidizing organics, but that's not where the profit lies.

• 50:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, to be, to be, to certify as organic, as an organic farmer is so costly.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  And that's why you see so many, you go to a farmer's market and you see so many of these proprietors that are basically saying to you, our food is basically organic, but we just can't put the certified thing because we can't afford to actually go through the protocols and process to actually certify it. And so, just like Zoe's saying, I mean, why can't we give subsidies to the actual good food as opposed to subsidizing all this crap processed food that's in every grocery aisle?

• 50:36Rich Roll?

  Well, the subsidies are just such a huge problem across the board for so many reasons. I mean, it drives, you know, the socioeconomics of food in general, and it's a big reason why, you know, under, sort of underclass populations are unhealthy. Because the only food that they can afford is subsidized food, which translated is fast food and processed food. So, you know, organic and the like is just out of reach.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:02Speaker 03

  And look, you want to talk about like, one of the main tenants of the probio tech, you know, side of this equation, and what they, what they say all the time, one of the talking points is GMOs are saving the world. They're, they're going to save the world, they're going to feed the world. The, the truth of the matter is, and this is a fact, we have enough food already to feed the world.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  It's not about making more food, it is about distributing food. It's about the access roads and, and delivery systems. Those are what's flawed, those are the problems in terms of being able to feed people.

• 51:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's a line in the keynote talk that I always give, which is that we're already, we're already producing enough food to feed 10 billion people. It's just that all that, all that food is going to livestock, right? It's going to raise these animals.

• 51:49Speaker 03

  It's going to, it's going to biofuels, and it's exactly, it's going to, to, to feed the animals, which we're then eating.

• 51:56Rich Roll?

  Right. Through, I mean, livestock is inherently incredibly inefficient. It's like for, it takes 26 calories to produce one calorie, the way that we raise animals for food. So, it doesn't really make sense as population continues. Needs to explode, but it's true. All that food in the breadbasket of the United States is really going to livestock feed. It's not going to feed humans. So we really, you know, global hunger could be solved by reallocation.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  That's right. And it's, but it's also, there's an interesting tie into climate change, which is you're, they're spending so much money on these factory farms and on big agriculture, agribusiness, that, that is where the environmental, where it's really impacting the environment.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  You know, and you talk about trying to cut the carbon emissions. Well, how about we start there?

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think like, the idea that GMOs are, you know, like, we don't need to worry about them because they've been vetted and they're safe. It's just one drop in the bucket of the implications that they have on just our world and, and climate change in general is like, this is, GMOs are part and parcel with an industrial agricultural model that is destroying our world.

• 53:04Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 53:05Speaker 03

  And there's this, you know, this, this horrible argument that's going around that, you know, GMO, pro, sorry, anti-GMO activists or proponents are essentially like, uh, climate change deniers. It's like, it's, it's emotional. It's not fact-based.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  Well, you know, climate change is very fact-based. And anyone who's a climate change denier at this point in time is essentially crazy. But it, this is also wanting to get into the facts of the science. And as we said before, they, they just have not come to a consensus on whether GMOs are safe.

• 53:51Rich Roll?

  There's an interesting line in the movie where Victor Garber, who, by the way, is amazing.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's awesome.

• 53:57Rich Roll?

  That guy's good in everything, right?

• 53:58Speaker 01

  I know, he's so great.

• 53:59Rich Roll?

  He's just like, the best, right? So he plays the CEO of Clinestra, which is an analog for, you know, fill in the blank.

• 54:08Rich Roll?

  And you guys made a very interesting choice. It would have been very easy, perhaps lazy, to just make him an outright villain, to like villainize him, because he's, he's playing the role of the guy who's in charge of, of basically propagating GMO foods and, and sort of GMO research to benefit this giant corporation that he's at the helm of. But instead, you decide to make him very human. And he has his own personal challenges and professional challenges. And, you know, so the audience can actually kind of empathize with his real world kind of view and walk a mile in his shoes. And there's a moment in the film where he's sort of presenting this new technology to some farmers and he, he basically says, "It's about you guys, it's about the farmers." And it's so ironic, because it's not about the farmers at all.

• 54:52Rich Roll?

  You know, which brings me back to, you know, this discussion that we're having about who stands to gain here, like who really stands to gain. And when you look at, you know, whether it's Monsanto or Syngenta or one of these other companies, they've created these completely vertically integrated models where they own the seeds, they own all the patents, they own the patents on the herbicides, and in order to use the herbicide, you gotta use the seed. And then you have to become a farmer who is then sort of indentured to...

• 55:19Speaker 03

  Right. It's total monopolization.

• 55:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and so, of course, this is the ultimate business model to control our food system, right? So it's not about anything other than that, really. And so they can hide behind this message of, you know, "We're saving the world or we're feeding the world." But like, let's take a little closer look at that and parse out a little bit.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  And look, we, you know, there's a lot of noble pursuits, there's, you know, to add vitamins to different genetically modified foods to, you know, help disease and, and...

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Drought tolerant crops for Africa.

• 55:53Speaker 03

  Grow crops in places that they can't be grown, you know, couldn't grow before. These all sound good in theory, you know, like, I, we believe wholeheartedly in science. It's just amount, it's just about taking the time to really test it.

• 56:10Rich Roll?

  Right, let's slow down.

• 56:11Speaker 03

  And slow down and go through the actual process and not be so profit driven and, and control driven and, and, and at the same time, I think there needs to be a push to educate people more about good, healthy, whole foods and organic foods.

• 56:29Rich Roll?

  Right, I think there was a quote at the end of your movie, when the credits are rolling, where it says 54% of Americans know little to nothing about GMO. And what was great, you have these, you sure have flashed these quotes at the end, and then they're footnoted. You're looking closely. I was like, where can I read those footnotes?

• 56:44Speaker 01

  They're at the end of the credits. You gotta sit all the way through. You can read the whole article. You know, it's such, it's such a hotly contested subject, as we've already touched upon, that Daryl and I went kinda crazy, where we were like, we got, yeah, you have to, because the second you make a claim, you know, there's a thousand people who are gonna say, well, where did you get that information? And like you said, for every article that you read that says GMOs are safe, there's another one that says they're not safe, or vice versa. But I wanted to just talk about, you know, feeding the world, and kind of the motivating factors behind GMOs especially. And that like, when it comes to food security, which I'm still so shocked that Bill Gates

• 57:27Speaker 01

  is like, one of the biggest proponents of GMOs. And he talks about food security in developing nations, that that's what GMOs are really, you know, going to help solve. And if you really do your research, I mean, the way to achieve food security, outside of the fact that there's enough food, as we, as we mentioned, and that it's about distribution and access, is about sustainable farming practices. Because the only way to get to food security is, is to give people food sovereignty, where they, where they are not indentured to a corporation, where they're not indentured to chemical inputs, where they can actually create a sustainable mode of farming that

• 58:08Speaker 01

  allows them to have, have that direct access to food in their own backyard. And, you know, there's this, this thing called golden rice, that, that's like a big red herring for the biotech lobby, where they say, well, we're making this, this rice that's gonna eradicate blindness in, in South Asia, because it has levels of vitamin A that, you know, can't be found in rice, in conventional rice. And, and when you look at the actual facts behind that, it's like, there are so many ways. To absorb vitamin A through vegetables and fruits that already have it.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  And that if we actually gave, if we taught these developing communities how to grow those vegetables and fruits in their own backyards, that would eradicate, you know, vitamin A deficiency so much more rapidly than the 20-plus years that they've been trying to do research and the $10 million that's gone towards this golden rice research, which to this day has still not been commercialized. So it's like, that's the biggest success story that they tout is golden rice.

• 59:17Speaker 03

  That's not on the market.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  That's never been commercialized in 20 years.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  And they started it by using the wrong rice.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, they've had so many technical difficulties in even achieving a vitamin A infused rice, when there are so many other ways, even just with food supplements and food fortifications, that would achieve the same means, but they're not about monopolizing a market and making these farmers, you know, dependent on large corporations.

• 59:45Speaker 03

  And to talk about monopolization, I mean, it's super scary to think of a future where we just have five crops. I mean, can you imagine if we just had, like, what happens if one of those crops becomes susceptible to some super weed or super bug, which are actually happening because of this?

• 1:00:01Rich Roll?

  No, no, we'll master that. We've mastered that.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:00:05Rich Roll?

  I mean, behind it all is an incredible hubris. Behind it all is this idea that as human beings, we can outsmart nature, right? And whether it's through glyphosate or whatever is going to come after glyphosate. And, you know, the history of mankind, the history of the planet speaks otherwise. It's like, nature will find a way. Just look at the way, you know, flu viruses, you know, sort of morph and change in the period of time between when they figure out what the flu vaccination's gonna be, and then when they're actually administering the shots, like... Nature finds a way and they're already seeing, like you said, these superbugs that are finding their way around glyphosate. Glyphosate is not the end game here, you know, it's gonna continue and then they're gonna have to do, find, figure out an even more powerful herbicide.

• 1:00:48Speaker 03

  And they already are. They're using, they're, they're starting to use 24D, which constitutes one half of the defoliant in Agent Orange during Vietnam. The harshest chemical

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  And that's actually really close to being put on the market.

• 1:01:01Speaker 03

  of the world. And I mean, it's a toxic soup that is contaminating food, water and soil. I mean, it just is.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  Well, because, because I think we are tampering with nature in this way, which is vastly different than, than cross breeding, which, which is another argument that you hear on the, the sort of biotech lobby side, which is that we've been doing this for centuries. It's a very different process.

• 1:01:24Rich Roll?

  Calm down, people.

• 1:01:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, we haven't, no, we, we, what we were doing for centuries was cross breeding like plants and organisms that are of the same species. What, what genetic engineering is doing is it's, it's taking the DNA, the genetic material from one species that's entirely different from another and transferring it into that. So what is that doing?

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  And you have to use a virus or a bacterium in order to do that. So.

• 1:01:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's mixing genes.

• 1:01:52Speaker 02

  It's Frankenfood. I mean, there's no, you know, there's no other way about it. So.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  So, I mean, yeah. So I, I think, I think just, just this idea that, um, you know, that this is something that, that has been a part of our, our history of agriculture is, is just

• 1:02:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a big argument that's used. Like, we've been doing this for a long time.

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  No, we weren't altering.

• 1:02:12Rich Roll?

  This isn't any different. And, you know, it is, it is qualitatively different.

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  As the World Health Organization said, that genetically, genetic engineering is altering, it's altering it in a way that does not occur naturally. I mean, there's not a more clear, simple way to put it. It's what is natural. Is natural, it's coming from mother nature, it's not being changed on a genetic level.

• 1:02:37Rich Roll?

  So when you guys decided to take this on, I mean, did you have, like if you knew then what you know now, would you have chosen differently? I mean, did you realize sort of the gravity and the kind of, you know?

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  No, in the beginning, we did, and seven years ago, when we just were like, wow, this is so interesting and could be a cool thriller. And then we realized, wow, this is really profound. I mean, it's really affecting us all. And, you know, there's so many people fighting for noble causes, like, we need to save, we need to cure cancer. That is a great, I think, perfect thing to point out, that, you know, we spend so many billions of dollars on cancer research institutes and how to, you know, solve that problem. And so many, you see at the World Series, you know, they make an announcement about cancer. And it's like, it's pretty, it's easy to get to the root

• 1:03:35Speaker 03

  of some of the issues that cause cancer. It's like, look at the food and the environment that we're making, that we're consuming. It's like, the fuel that goes into a car, it's the same analogy. The food that we're eating is the fuel of our body that is what is charging us every day and moving us. So it's like, redistribute some of the money that we're spending on some of those, on just continually trying to come up with solutions to the new problem that is created by the same problem.

• 1:04:01Rich Roll?

  Well, they're not getting to the cause, the root cause.

• 1:04:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, get to the root of the problem.

• 1:04:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they're like, let's treat cancer at the end, you know, as opposed to preventing it in the first place.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, start from the beginning.

• 1:04:09Rich Roll?

  And looking at what the actual causal factor began with.

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  Yes, but I just need to say, I mean, yes, I mean, but the problem is, is the problem is in that statement, that they are profit oriented over and above any other principle of living and being in a life. And so, you know, people need to take self-responsibility. They need to understand, I mean, all of this information, you guys are so well-informed and, you know, you're so heroic and you guys made an amazing movie. And I'm a huge fan of you. You're a beautiful couple and beautiful individually. And, you know, you're really doing something meaningful. And it's really, it really is something. So, you know, thank you. It's really amazing to be here with you. Thank you. And again, but, you know, when we bring it all down, it's like the science is overwhelming. And it's like, there's so many of this and so many of that. And you can just start to spin out. But it's like, as you

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  Demonstrated in the movie, you bring it back to the personal. And what is happening is we all have family members, we have children, we have loved ones, we have ourselves, and we are getting sick. And these undiagnosed diseases are showing up and they are affecting our lives. And we need to take responsibility and put us before this whole idea of capitalism, or, you know, or the way business works. The human being comes first. The mother and the child comes first, which is what you presented in the movie.

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think it was, I think, like you were saying, that was beautifully stated, Julie, and thank you for all your kind words. I think, you know, it was important that we didn't demonize corporations in our film, because I think it does, if we want to look at, at the sort of larger issue from a human standpoint, then everyone has to be humanized, right? We have to have empathy coming from all directions, say, okay, well, you've got shareholders to answer to. So we get that you're profit oriented, but let's all take a step back and really look at, at the root cause of all of the things that are plaguing us as a country and as a world. And I wanted to just say, you know, when it comes to like our country especially being,

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  you know, so wealthy and yet so sick, and, and this dichotomy of the poorest people in our country being the most obese, which around the world, you've never seen, right? The poorest people are, are starving generally. And so what, how is this paradox playing out? And that food allergies have increased by like 265% the CDC reported in the last 10 years. And this idea that like to eat healthy is, is just for the wealthy. Yeah, and people can't afford organic. That people can't afford organic and that, and that GMOs are kind of a first world problem, like that, that those of us who are fighting this fight are, are kind of,

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  it's a bourgeois cause, celeb.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  You know, it's so much deeper than that. And when we first started looking into it, we had no idea the implications or quite how pervasive this issue was and would turn out to be. But the American Medical Association said that we spend $25 billion a year on food allergies from medical care to pharmaceuticals, which is, I mean, we could be saving so much money if, again, if we got to the root cause of where these allergies were coming from and if we really looked at it from a holistic perspective. So I think the idea that, you know, well, poor people can't afford healthy food, they

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  could be way more cost effective if they were saving on medical bills after they eat all of the processed foods that are making them ill to begin with.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  Well, that's what I always say. You know, people say to me all the time when we're speaking and traveling and, you know, sharing the recipes from our book, and they say, well, isn't eating organic really expensive? Isn't it just so expensive? And my reply is, illness is quite expensive.

• 1:08:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. If you want to pay for it in the long run, I don't think you do. I mean, because you're going to be paying those doctor bills at some point if you're just eating processed food.

• 1:08:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but that's later.

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  But that's later. You don't have to think about it now.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  I think also, and this is something-

• 1:08:19Rich Roll?

  My self-driving car is going directly to McDonald's.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  And then to the hospital. No, I think, you know, oh, no, what was I just going to say?

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  I don't know. But I want to talk about the genetically modified salmon that's coming.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Oh, do they have two heads?

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  Genetically modified salmon is pending FDA approval, but FDA has come out officially supporting it. And, I mean, this could be on our dinner plates very soon. I mean, it's like-

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Not on ours.

• 1:08:48Speaker 03

  Except on yours. So if you are plant-based out there, then you're totally fine.

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  Although you're eating a lot of soy and corn, probably.

• 1:08:55Rich Roll?

  Probably, yeah.

• 1:08:56Speaker 03

  But if it is approved, it will be the first genetically modified, genetically engineered animal.

• 1:09:01Rich Roll?

  Animal. Do they, what did they take, where did the sort of extraterrestrial DNA come from in that case?

• 1:09:07Speaker 03

  A poutfish that is making salmon grow, I think, twice as fast and twice as big or something like that.

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  It just does not sound good.

• 1:09:16Speaker 03

  I know. I mean, come on. It doesn't sound good, but of course, you know, they're saying it's safe and- Look, i- if a genetically modified salmon were to get out into the wild, which they're saying there's no way it ever could, I'm sorry, it's just that you can't, you can't say that. I mean, if there's a river near a facility and somehow, I mean, who knows the distribution or the facilities have any kind of, you know, issue with there with something happening. But if it ever, if a genetically modified salmon were to ever get out in the wild and mate with a regular salmon, we will never again know if we're eating a wild, natural salmon. I mean, the, just the thought of that, how genetic engineering is impacting biology and

• 1:10:01Speaker 03

  the environment from that point of view is crazy.

• 1:10:04Rich Roll?

  It's totally irreversible.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  The seeds though, too, right?

• 1:10:06Rich Roll?

  The seeds are blowing everywhere and it's like basically, you know, even organic farms, it's like it's inevitable that it all just is gonna become a blend of some sort. Nature has its way, you know, it's like.

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's already, we're already so beyond the point of turning back. I mean, the fact that over 90% of soy and corn in this country is already genetically modified, I mean, not even, you know, accounting for all of the ways in which it's drifted to, to non-GMO fields and organic fields. I think that's what's most terrifying is it's like, we can, that labeling is kind of this, this effort to at least give us a choice, but the choice is becoming less and less realistic.

• 1:10:51Rich Roll?

  And so cavalierly, like, oh, don't worry about it, like, we figured it out, like, without really doing, how could you know that if there hasn't been long-term human testing? You know, just sort of like, oh, we did enough testing to kind of pass FDA muster and in our little self-regulating world, really doesn't, is not convincing, right? So, so wherever you fall on, on the equation, I think, you know, wouldn't every prudent person want to see long, you know, long-term tests that, that show whatever in either, in whatever way, in the most objective way possible?

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  And animal feeding studies too, which is like, it's not just field trials. I mean, we have to see long-term animal feeding studies, which, which are very rare.

• 1:11:36Speaker 03

  And you know, the hearing that just happened in relation to the Dark Act in front of the Senate, they, you know, there's there, it was completely stacked against the organic green side of the equation. I mean, it was like everyone there had some tie to biotech.

• 1:11:57Rich Roll?

  Well, broccoli farmers don't have some K Street lobbying group that they can, you know, bankroll.

• 1:12:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it was really, it was really depressing to see how, you know, at that level, it's, it's just so rigged in their, in the favor of, of big, big agribusiness. And, you know, what they were debating about was this idea of labeling and how to do it. And there's this notion that's been put forward of, well, you know, and this is an approach that I don't think is the best approach, which is, let's just put on a QR code on the, the box, which would be a barcode that people would have to get out their cellphones. They'd have to download an app to be able to read the barcode.

• 1:12:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, you need a QR reader. I mean, maybe there's like a thousand people that are doing that right now in America. And, and then, then you go to, that links you to the website to, for the actual biotech company's food. And you can read in the fine print there about what the ingredients, I mean, it's insane.

• 1:13:02Rich Roll?

  It's tantamount to labeling.

• 1:13:03Speaker 03

  Get, get some language on there, just like they do in Europe, you know, that says this food is genetically engineered.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, we flew Air France, we were just in France, we flew Air France back. And they were, they had little like chocolates that they were handing out. And I looked at the ingredients on the chocolates and it said GM soy lecithin. And I was like, I like, I had to like blink and like look at it again because I had never seen the words GM in front of soy lecithin. Yeah. And I was like, oh, bless you, Air France. You're fighting the good fight.

• 1:13:35Rich Roll?

  And a lot of these big companies that create these foods, they, they create two different products. They create a product for Europe and they create a product for the United, I mean, yeah, in Europe, they're, they're much more all about, they're much less tolerant of these kinds of things. So they'll produce the, the version of the food that does not avail itself of GM ingredients. And then the United States, it's like it's a free for all.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think the way that, I mean, you see a lot of the portrayal of Europe's aversion to GM foods, in this country at least, is that, again, it's just fear mongering, it's anti-science, and I think that's the thing that, that needs to be subverted more than anything else in terms of the discourse around GMOs, is that this is, this is actually a call to action for science. It's like, that science should not be able to be bought by, by corporations, that we need independent scientists who are willing to do this work, and we need cooperation from corporations to give access to the seeds, so that we can all at least come to a consensus. If they're safe, then they're safe, but at least we have that, that peace of mind.

• 1:14:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, transparency across the board, right? And we need to know, when scientists go on television, or write articles on Forbes, or whatever, we need to know, like, who's funding, if, if they're being funded by these interests, like, we need to know that. There's a guy, do you know this guy, Ken Folta?

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, Kevin Folta.

• 1:14:53Rich Roll?

  Kevin Folta, right, yeah, he was making the rounds a while back, as the sort of voice of reason when it comes to GMO, and sort of calming everybody down.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  As an independent researcher at the University of Florida.

• 1:15:02Rich Roll?

  Exactly. He went on Joe Rogan, and for three hours talked about how, you know, there's nothing to be concerned about, and then, like, a month later, front page of the New York Times, like, sort of pulling covers on that guy, and, and demonstrating that, no, in fact, he really was in the pocket.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  He was on Monsanto's payroll.

• 1:15:19Speaker 03

  He got money.

• 1:15:20Rich Roll?

  There was some email where he said, like, "Oh, you'll be very happy, your money's well spent," you know.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  And to the point where...

• 1:15:27Speaker 03

  Guys on Monsanto's payroll.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  I have to say, like, you know, like, in articles, he was, he was always the go-to independent scientist, who would, like, shame any anti-GMO activist, or anyone who was calling into question the safety of GMOs, and he was always kind of revered as, like, the voice of reason, and he always came out saying, "I am independent, I am not funded by any biotech corporations." And the fact that now it's come to light that that he was funded and that, like you said, like he wrote, your money was well spent. I mean, this is this was

• 1:16:04Rich Roll?

  It was something like that. Like, I don't want to get, like, sued or anything.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  No, no, no, totally.

• 1:16:07Rich Roll?

  You know, it was, I'm paraphrasing loosely. I don't know exactly what he said, but I know there was an email where there was some disclosure like that.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And when you start speaking out, I mean, this movie, you know, we tried our best to present both sides, but we really did want to spark a dialogue and to start making people ask themselves tougher questions about the food they're eating in this country. But, you know, just on my Twitter feed, I started getting followed by some really intense people who, every time I would post anything about the movie, would come out and say something like, you know, about the safety of GMOs or whatever. And I was so freaked out by it. And when you look at like, the sort of thriller and noir elements of our film, they sort of then start to

• 1:16:50Speaker 03

  The lobby is so strong. It's so pervasive. I mean, and

• 1:16:54Rich Roll?

  Well, there are people that are getting paid to just have Twitter accounts. Yeah, exactly. Like, I had Vonnie Hari on the podcast. He's the food babe. And

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  Kevin Folter really went after her.

• 1:17:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, she gets crushed. And when, but when you look at the people that are doing the crushing, it always originates back to these plants. Like, you go to these Twitter accounts, and it's just 500 tweets in a row that are anti-food babe. And whether you like the food babe or not, like, I happen to think, like, there's way too much controversy about her. She's just a consumer advocate who's, like, raising a discussion about these

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  And she's actually really effective.

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  But when she starts to threaten the interests of these big

• 1:17:30Rich Roll?

  They come after her. And then it's very convincing. The average person sees that and jumps on that bandwagon. And so that was a question that I had for you guys. Like, are you experiencing any of that? Like, has there been some reprisals?

• 1:17:41Speaker 03

  We haven't really experienced anything yet. I mean, the movie is just starting to come out. But, you know, look, our movie is fictionalized. It is inspired by the food industrial complex, everything that is actually going on out there. And, you know, we have a great law firm behind the film, Donaldson, Kaliff. Say that on the record.

• 1:18:03Rich Roll?

  Michael Donaldson.

• 1:18:04Speaker 03

  Donaldson, Kaliff, helps vet the film.

• 1:18:07Rich Roll?

  I know both of them.

• 1:18:08Speaker 03

  And Aaron Brockovich, who I don't think anyone wants to mess with her these days.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 1:18:14Speaker 03

  And so, but, you know, look, it The lobby is so strong and scary, and I think that is what is contributing to so much, so many problems. I wanted to say that in 2015 alone, the, uh, some of these major corporations like General Mills and Pepsi and Coca-Cola and Kellogg's, they spent over $10 million lobbying to block mandatory GMO labeling. I mean, the money that they're dumping in to keep people in the dark on these issues, which is why Just Label It started the Conceal or Reveal campaign and are trying to get, you know, shed light on what is going on so that people understand, you know, how in the dark we are.

• 1:19:00Rich Roll?

  An important point I want to make sure comes across is that your movie is entertaining.

• 1:19:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:06Rich Roll?

  It's not like this documentary. Yeah, it's not a documentary. And it's also, you know, it is somewhat, it's not like this super ardent like anti-GMO message that you're being blasted with. It's just, it's very human stories. You know, you have the mother and the child, Zoe, you play the mother beautifully and who has a sick child who goes on this Aaron Brockovich type journey to try to, you know, figure out what is going on. And that puts her in contact with Danny Glover, the farmer, and the scientists, and ultimately, you know, this Victor Garber character, the CEO, and all these kind of worlds collide. But at the end of the day, these are just human beings living their lives. And this is a, you know, it's a dramatic...

• 1:19:42Speaker 03

  It's an entertaining thriller. Yeah. And that's, that's first and foremost, we're filmmakers. We wanted to make a interesting movie.

• 1:19:48Rich Roll?

  None of us are, none of us are scientists, nor do we...

• 1:19:50Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:19:51Rich Roll?

  ...on a podcast.

• 1:19:53Speaker 03

  Right. And while we're here on the podcast, you know, talking about so many of the real world issues, which, you know, we do care, we really do care about, I think that people, whatever, if, whether you know nothing about GMOs, or you are pro-GMO or anti-GMO, I think you can watch this movie and just...

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  And take something from it.

• 1:20:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, take something from it, get you thinking, but it's... It's a thriller, like it's a thriller. It's just you get engaged in a kind of fun, classic cinematic way, just like that hearkens back to some of those nineteen-

• 1:20:23Rich Roll?

  Like Silkwood.

• 1:20:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Silkwood and All the President's Men, those fun nineteen seventies political thrillers that didn't shy away from the issues, but it, yeah, I want, I'm glad you brought that up. Thank you for doing that, because, you know, we could get carried away on, on, because we're so passionate about the issues and-

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  I think as P, as individuals, we've, we've come to our own conclusions, but in terms of the film's message-

• 1:20:44Rich Roll?

  The film doesn't draw any conclusions.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  We didn't draw-

• 1:20:46Speaker 03

  It really doesn't. It doesn't, we don't, we men, we're very clear about making it not have anything definitive. No, there's no definitive statement in the movie, one way or the other. It's, it's really just raising every point.

• 1:20:58Rich Roll?

  Donaldson and Caleb are probably happy.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  But, you know, we did, we did have to get it vetted because-

• 1:21:04Rich Roll?

  I'm sure.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  And, and the, not just by, by Donaldson and Caleb, but, but by, you know, leaders in the organic movement and the people who have been fighting this fight for so many years and that they've devoted, you know, their blood, sweat and tears to, that we had such a, a larger responsibility as filmmakers than we've ever had before to, to get, you know, make sure that we were never doing a disservice to the work that these people had been doing for so long and continue to do. And so, you know, we did have to make changes. We had to be really, really careful and go through every single, you know, element of the film with a fine tooth comb to make sure that we were serving, serving, you know, I think both, both sides of, of, of this debate fairly.

• 1:21:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, and it's crazy, you know, some of the people that we've talked to, they've been, they devoted their entire lives to this issue. I mean, there, there were moments throughout this process, and I've said this to Zoe, where I'm like, should I just become a GMO activist and stop making movies? I was like, should I just quit? I mean, I, this is like, we're so deep in it at this point, like, I'm, I could just see myself going and working for one of these nonprofits and just spending the rest of my life, like, getting people to know how to eat healthy food. But, you know, it's so, and then I see these amazing activists who are so tired and, and so feel like the exhaustion level-

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  They're pretty defeated.

• 1:22:25Speaker 03

  -defeated quality in their voices and frustration and anger and how hard it is to get anything accomplished is so- Sad to see and demoralizing to witness that it just makes me think, okay, I'm gonna stick to movies.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  But I do think that...

• 1:22:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, no, I was just gonna say, it's just like, you know, you don't see them being represented in the news about these issues. You know, like the Organic Consumers Association, the Environmental Working Group, Center for Food Safety, none of them were invited to the hearing on labeling GMOs. And these are some, and some of the most scientifically sound organizations in the country, you know, so it's just, it's just really shocking.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:07Rich Roll?

  Do you, uh, do you see yourself continuing this battle or are you gonna move on to the next thing?

• 1:23:13Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't know, we'll have to see what happens.

• 1:23:15Speaker 01

  I don't think you can move on.

• 1:23:17Speaker 03

  There's a TV show that could come, like this movie, I feel like could turn into a TV show that just like continues on, season after season, investigating the issues.

• 1:23:25Rich Roll?

  I mean, for better or worse, you are like, you are ambassadors of this movement now, just by making this movie. And with that comes a certain level of responsibility.

• 1:23:33Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  And I do think that, I think it's impossible to, to turn away from it at this point, you know, not just that we're so deep or have been learning about it for so long. I think, I think the gravity of the situation is, is pretty devastating. Emotionally, it's just, it's like devastating and I think how perpetually kind of humiliated anti-GMO activists are in the public discourse is like something that I feel really strongly needs to shift. And I think, you know, a big part of this movie not being a documentary is, is to reach that broader audience

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  so that in the public discourse, this can be some, be something that is at the front of people's minds when we're talking about, you know, health and wellness. And that it's not just a fear-based emotional issue, that this is something that is like so pervasive on so many levels. I, I don't look at it as black, black and white, that it's just evil versus good. I mean, I understand how complicated this is in terms of, you know, the motivating factors. But I think it is something that on a consumer level... We could take a much larger stand on as a country.

• 1:24:49Speaker 02

  Well, exactly. And then voting with your dollars. And you know, everything is labeled and as you know, parents of of children and you know, individuals, we need to know what we're eating. I mean, just for many, many reasons, for many other reasons. But if we if we turn a blind eye or we choose to not take responsibility and get involved in it, it will visit us in various forms in our own personal lives. And you know, there's no escaping it because this is our food system and it's what we're eating. And that's why, you know, we always advocate organic, non-GMO, you know, and starting to really explore growing your own food and finding heirloom seeds and getting involved with your farmers, you know, going to the farmer's market,

• 1:25:34Speaker 02

  you know, connecting with those people on a deeper level. This is very, very, very important. And, you know, the science is vast and the internet is very confusing and politics is more, they're more confusing. But I really have, you know, huge faith and hope in your film because you've presented an incredibly entertaining piece of art. It's very well done, very well written.

• 1:25:58Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 1:25:59Speaker 02

  Zoe, your performance is extraordinary. You made me cry more than once. And the actor that played your your child, what's his name?

• 1:26:09Speaker 03

  His name's Nick Bond.

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  He was amazing.

• 1:26:11Speaker 03

  And we found him in Illinois. He was sitting next to us at a farmer's, at a farmer's brunch. And I said, oh, my God, this kid looks so amazing.

• 1:26:20Speaker 02

  We had gone through like casting in Chicago and we didn't fall in love with anyone. And then we're sitting at this farmer's brunch and Daryl was like, excuse me, do you want to act?

• 1:26:29Speaker 03

  Do you want to act in a movie? I mean, he'd never acted before and, you know, his parents, you know, it was a totally new experience and but they were so great. And, and, you know, it was really exciting to to really be in like the heartland, like Zoe was saying before, with these people that are really living these, living these lives, you know, around so much farmland. And I was going to say that our catering and craft Services, this may be, I obviously don't know, can't speak for every food, I mean, film production that's ever happened, but I can proudly say that our production was entirely non-GMO sourced for all the catering and the craft services and was almost entirely

• 1:27:13Speaker 03

  organic as well from the farm. Especially since you're on a budget.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  We were on a really small budget and, and I have to say, um, organic and non-GMO companies really came out and supported the film and donated a lot of stuff.

• 1:27:27Speaker 03

  They better. Yeah.

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:27:30Speaker 03

  It was cool and it was like, the way we made the movie was totally independent, like to get to Mr. Lister, you know, our production company, Mr. Lister Films, we did it on our own. We didn't have any production company or studio behind us. We raised the money through friends and family and, uh, and have some really great executive producers that really believed in the story and the message. Yeah, I just saw Kevin Connolly tweeted.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, Kevin Connolly. Hunterage, one of your EPs. He's, he's one of the EPs and, uh, and yeah, he's, it's, it was really great to go and do it on our own because we could really just tell the story that we wanted to tell, you know, there was, it was, and it was very similar to that, the grassroots movement as a whole, you know, it was like, we were an organ, we were an organic organism that, uh, in order for us to function strongly, every department had to be working together and, uh, and.

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  And our distribution model, we, we are now, um, releasing the film through this company called Gather, which is also again, is kind of mimicking the grassroots, uh, movement of, of organics and wellness in this country, which is, it's basically a theatrical on-demand release, which is a pretty new model, um, in terms of film distribution and we're really excited to be a part of it. But basically it means that, um, In, in, right now, it's available in 123 cities across the country, which means if, if enough people in each city reserve a ticket in advance, the screening happens. So it's, it's basically a, a crowdfunded theatrical release,

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  but I think, you know, a big part of it is, is relying on, on our community of, of people who are invested in, in health and in wellness to show up and to support the film and to get this conversation started.

• 1:29:19Speaker 03

  And, and yeah, the way people can see it is by, if you go to the website, consumethemovie.com, you can go to see the film and you can type in, it's easy, you type in your zip code and you can see where the film is playing. So right now, like Zoe was saying, we have over 100 screenings in the first couple of weeks of December of 2015, but they can continue all the way throughout 2016. I mean, anyone-

• 1:29:41Rich Roll?

  As long as there's demand.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:42Speaker 03

  As long as there's demand, exactly. Anyone can just say, I want to request a screening, or you can host a screening. I mean, you can host one right here in the Malibu area. And, and then you, it's just up to you to promote it to your friends and your, and family, any organizations in the area. And then it can become this kind of fun community event where everyone goes and you can talk about these issues.

• 1:30:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I love it. It's so cool. I love to see these new distribution models and platforms creeping up. We experienced that with Conspiracy, this documentary that we were involved in. They, they went with a similar, they used Tug, which is kind of analogous. There's probably some slight, slight differences. But, but yeah, they were just crowdfunded screenings and they had, I think they had like 200, something, a lot, like they went on. And, and, and the, the filmmakers were just in a van driving around. As many of them as they could. And it's just amazing that there was that much of a, you know, when there's that many people interested in that subject matter, what can be accomplished? It was really, I would have never thought like that many screenings would have occurred. And I, I can see the same thing happening here. And I think it's great. It's very, it, you know, it stays very true to your kind of DIY indie roots.

• 1:30:46Rich Roll?

  And, and it is, it, it does make it a grassroots thing. And I think that, you know, if people are listening who are intrigued and interested, I, I can't encourage you enough to go, the movie, I mean, it's fabulous. So go to the, go to the website, request a screening, get your friends together and like make an evening of it. Because I really think that, especially with, you know, movies like yours or like Conspiracy that are so kind of- You know, have this socially conscious message. It's a great way to spark a dialogue, you know, and it's really, you know, gather, right? It's called gather. It's like gather around not just this movie, but this idea. And it's groups and gatherings like that, you know, one by one, even if they're small,

• 1:31:27Rich Roll?

  that really are going to be the thing that can potentially change, you know, the conversation, the dialogue, and hopefully, you know, get these people that deserve to be on, you know, covered by the mainstream media to get covered, you know? So let's shift that discussion.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and get involved in, you know, host screenings and become part of the team.

• 1:31:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you can do that at consumethemovie.com. And also, if you follow our social media, which is @consumemovie on Twitter and Instagram, we're constantly posting about what's going on and that kind of thing.

• 1:31:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool. So you guys premiered it at LA at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

• 1:32:04Speaker 03

  LA Film Festival in June.

• 1:32:05Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And what was that experience like?

• 1:32:07Speaker 03

  It was great, you know? We had some of the cast there.

• 1:32:09Rich Roll?

  So you have Anthony Edwards. We didn't even say who's.

• 1:32:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's talk about who's in this movie. We got an amazing cast. We got Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon. We got Anthony Edwards from Top Gun. We got Victor Garber from Argo. Kunal Nayar from Big Bang Theory, for all those Big Bang Theory fans out there, which I know there are millions. We have Griffin Dunn from After Hours and...

• 1:32:27Rich Roll?

  One of my favorite movies of all time.

• 1:32:29Speaker 03

  He's amazing. We have the amazing, amazing Beth Grant, who is currently on The Mindy Project and has been in lots of amazing...

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  There's a fun fact. She's been in five Academy Award Best Pictures.

• 1:32:39Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and she's so transformative. Yeah, she's like, you might not know her by name, but she's such an amazing character actor that in every movie, she's playing someone so drastically different that she's hard to recognize.

• 1:32:50Speaker 03

  And we also have the beautiful to look at, Taylor Kinney, and also excellent actor, who is on the TV show Chicago Fire. But most importantly, we have Zoe Lister Jones, my wife, my writing partner, my producing partner, my partner in all things.

• 1:33:08Rich Roll?

  How is that working, Jonah?

• 1:33:09Speaker 03

  She anchors this story.

• 1:33:11Rich Roll?

  When it's so, when it's super intense and you're directing her and, you know, and you guys are kind of collaborative partners, it's not just director, actor.

• 1:33:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think that we work the best when we're actually on set. And directing Zoe is like a piece of cake. You know, we're very, and we almost, there's moments where we almost don't even need to like say it out loud. It's like mind bullets, like being like telepathically sent.

• 1:33:37Speaker 03

  From mind to mind and she's, I like, look at her a certain way and she just like knows what I mean. But I think we, we struggle more with, because we're both very type A, strong minded, have all our own ideas, debating how it's written and like, what idea should we push more here, there. That's always difficult, you know, as we're both writers on it. And as artists, I think it's so subjective and there's so many gray areas there with how to shape it and what tonally, you know, cinematically, visually.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  And it's such a personal experience that it's easy to, to, you know, have hurt feelings or to feel attacked or any of those. The writing process, I mean, and yeah, I think, I think we're both like warriors when it comes to being on set.

• 1:34:25Speaker 03

  It's really like a war.

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  And, and, and so I think, and also this was our third narrative feature to doing, doing it together. So I think, you know, we also have a sort of shorthand that, that allows it to, to be.

• 1:34:38Speaker 03

  But it's really confusing at times. Like, we'll like be arguing about an idea and a script, but it, we're really arguing over wide into the dishes.

• 1:34:50Speaker 03

  You know, like it's, you can't determine where the line is.

• 1:34:55Speaker 01

  And we've had to, over the years, like, set a lot of boundaries in terms of where the professional ends and where the personal begins and vice versa, like.

• 1:35:03Rich Roll?

  How does that work? I mean, it's not like you could go home and then like, okay, we're not talking about the movie that we're in the middle of making.

• 1:35:08Speaker 03

  I know. Well, we try to not, we, we really have been vigilant about not bringing work into our bedroom before sleep. Like, we don't email or go on devices in the bedroom anymore and we don't talk, and we don't talk about work.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  So we don't speak at all.

• 1:35:22Speaker 03

  We don't look at each other. No, we don't, we don't talk about the movie and business like in the hour before bed.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  We try not to. I mean, we still, we still struggle and especially making independent films, you know, it's like, the workload is so beyond.

• 1:35:37Speaker 03

  Like there's moments when we're like, we say that and then I look over and so he's like furiously scribbling down notes and I'm like doing the same thing and we're like, wait, we weren't supposed to work.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  You know, or like one of us will be like. Uh, are you like doing research right now about like GMOs for rituals podcast? And then like, and then the next person will be like, uh, yeah, are you? And then, and then we'll like, you know, have to talk about it, but we, we'll have each other's permission. So then we get to break a rule, but it is, I mean, it's, it's confusing. It's really confusing and um.

• 1:36:05Speaker 03

  And we work from home too, you know? It's like, we can't afford to have an office. So it's like that whole idea of space, like personal, professional has completely blended together. So like, I'm constantly like moving around the house into different office areas. To just feel like I'm like, you know, I have some semblance of, you know, sanity.

• 1:36:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right, right. Yeah, I get it. I mean, you know, I have an office now, but you know, it's similar in that.

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you guys work together.

• 1:36:33Rich Roll?

  Things that we work on together. So very cool. Well, what uh, what's next and what else is going on? We should talk about Life and Peace.

• 1:36:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:40Rich Roll?

  Zoe's starring in a major broadcast television program right now.

• 1:36:45Speaker 01

  Yep, um, it's called Life and Pieces on CBS.

• 1:36:47Rich Roll?

  It's so funny, I think I emailed you or texted you. I was like, you're everywhere. I'm inside of all these buses. Are you where I look?

• 1:36:53Speaker 01

  I know, well, yeah, CBS has been amazing in terms of promoting the film and how much they've supported it.

• 1:36:59Speaker 03

  You mean the TV show?

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  I meant the TV show.

• 1:37:03Speaker 03

  See, this is where, see how it all blends together?

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  CBS is not promoting Consumed. No, but yeah, it's, it's like such an amazing cast and we're having such a blast. And we just got a full season pickup.

• 1:37:13Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow, great.

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  Which has been. Congrats. Yeah, thanks. So yeah, it's, it's, it's a dream job. I love, I love going and just getting to act and not having to worry about producing or writing.

• 1:37:23Rich Roll?

  That's so nice.

• 1:37:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:24Rich Roll?

  Super nice. Doing these other jobs.

• 1:37:26Speaker 03

  I'm like, why am I doing what I'm doing? I should, I want to just act like Zoe and go have fun on a TV show. But you only get there when you're as talented and funny as her.

• 1:37:36Rich Roll?

  And your co-star, also a filmmaker, Colin Hanks, just made his documentary about Tower Records, right?

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, All Things Must Pass.

• 1:37:42Rich Roll?

  I haven't seen it yet, but I've heard good things.

• 1:37:43Speaker 01

  It's an amazing documentary. It has a hundred percent positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, which is like unheard of. And it's, it is, it's really an amazing piece of filmmaking. Yeah.

• 1:37:55Rich Roll?

  And what else are you working on? Daryl, what are you working on?

• 1:37:57Speaker 03

  I got a, I'm writing a pilot for Amazon right now, which is cool. And so we'll see if, if that gets picked up to be able to shoot the pilot. There's so many steps along the way. So that's exciting.

• 1:38:09Rich Roll?

  And is that one of those things where they, they do the pilot and then they sort of crowdsourced the reaction to see whether they go forward?

• 1:38:15Speaker 03

  I don't know if Amazon's still crowdsourcing the, the pilots in the way that they were in the beginning and basically.

• 1:38:22Rich Roll?

  Like Bosch and Hand of God.

• 1:38:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:25Rich Roll?

  Was Mozart in the Jungle like that also, which you directed an episode or two?

• 1:38:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, Mozart in the Jungle, I think, yeah, you know, to be honest, I can't speak on it officially if, if, if, if they were doing that at that time. But I know, yeah, well, at some point, Amazon was basically green lighting their pilots based on consumer feedback and whatever was getting voted the highest. I'm not sure if they're still doing that.

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  I think it's still happening.

• 1:38:46Speaker 03

  You do? Yeah. I mean, maybe, but um, so yeah, I, I think to get to that step, you have to first, they have to love the pilot that you wrote. So I'm just, I'm, I'm writing now and if that happens and then we shoot it, uh, then it gets to be put in front of the public.

• 1:39:02Rich Roll?

  First things first.

• 1:39:03Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:39:04Rich Roll?

  Can you talk about what it's about or?

• 1:39:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can say in a kind of just limited sense, uh, that it is about a woman who is literally and figuratively disappearing. So it's meant to be an exploration as you, we are aging and you feel, you know, the ways in which people judge you differently. And kind of a commentary on ageism in this country or just in general. And, you know, how as you get older, uh, you know, the way you feel, you know, people value you and, uh, and look at you is, is, is different. Yeah, yeah. So stay tuned on that. We'll see, we'll see what goes on.

• 1:39:50Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 1:39:50Speaker 03

  But, uh, until then, everything is, we're consumed by consumers. It's all, all consuming.

• 1:39:57Rich Roll?

  And as should everybody listening. So, uh, that's a good place to put a pin in it, I think. You know, we'll have you guys back on and we can talk about the relationship.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. For sure.

• 1:40:07Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 1:40:08Rich Roll?

  Cool, thanks, man. Yeah, that was really great. You guys are delightful.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  You guys are delightful.

• 1:40:14Speaker 02

  We have like a couple crush on you guys.

• 1:40:15Speaker 03

  No, we have a couple crush on you guys.

• 1:40:20Rich Roll?

  So, go to consumedthemovie.com and either attend a screening or set up your own. And if you're digging on these guys, they're easy to find on the interwebs, right?

• 1:40:32Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 1:40:33Rich Roll?

  @ZoeListerJones on Instagram. Is it the same on Twitter? And @DarrellWeen with one R.

• 1:40:41Speaker 03

  D A R R L W E I N.

• 1:40:43Rich Roll?

  In both places as well, and you're on Facebook and anywhere else. You should want to direct people other than to watch Life in Pieces as well?

• 1:40:50Speaker 03

  We don't do Snapchat or any of that stuff, but I started beaming because of you for a moment. I think I just, I just watch your beams, basically.

• 1:40:59Rich Roll?

  I haven't done it. I've been slacking off. Although I did go as Casey Neistat for Halloween.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  You did? That's amazing. You got some beat up Ray-Bans?

• 1:41:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I did. I made my own with a pen.

• 1:41:10Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 1:41:11Speaker 02

  A la Casey.

• 1:41:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I gotta get back on the beam.

• 1:41:17Rich Roll?

  All right, you guys, well, please come back and talk to us some more.

• 1:41:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, and actually, I'm gonna, we were just, you guys were in Paris just some days before we arrived. And you recommended that we check out this amazing restaurant I just want to give a shout out to. It's Mison, right?

• 1:41:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, Mison.

• 1:41:33Speaker 02

  M I Z N O N.

• 1:41:35Speaker 03

  In the Marais.

• 1:41:36Speaker 02

  In La Maree. So it's fantastic. So check it out if you're there for some whole plant foods. And also, they have other stuff, but they had a lot of that. So I'm trying to, tonight, I'm gonna recreate a couple things from Mison. But anyway, we're very excited.

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  Our mouths are watering.

• 1:41:54Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 1:41:55Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:41:56Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having us.

• 1:41:58Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:42:00Speaker 02

  Namaste.

• 1:42:06Rich Roll?

  All right, you guys, we did it. I found that conversation really quite amazing and illuminating. I hope you did too. I hope it leaves you with some things to ponder further for yourself. If you like a good political thriller and you were at all moved by today's conversation, please go to consumedthemovie.com, find a screening near you, or better yet, organize your own. And please, do yourself a favor. Check out this week's comprehensive show notes at richroll.com on the episode page. I've created quite a laundry list of additional articles, books, films, background, and other materials and resources related to Daryl and Zoe and GMOs and today's conversation in general to help you learn more about today's guests and the divisive subject matter, and of course,

• 1:42:51Rich Roll?

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• 1:45:41Rich Roll?

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