July 19, 2024 • 31 mins
In this episode we speak with Matthew Evans, the Australian chef and restaurant critic turned Tassie farmer and food writer. Evans, who has written a new book called Milk, talks about the science behind dairy products, the truth and lies around them - and answers the curly question of whether cheese dreams are real.
Hosting the conversation, in which Evans also discusses the big issues facing food producers, is the national editor of Good Food, Ardyn Bernoth.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:03):
Hi, I'm Conrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:25):
stories of the day. In this episode, we speak with
Matthew Evans, the Australian chef and farmer turned food advocate
has written a new book, Milk the Truth, The lies,
and the Unbelievable Story of the Original Superfood. Evans argues
that how we view milk is driven by everything from
(00:46):
gender to politics, geography, culture and fashion. And hosting this conversation,
in which Evans more broadly talks about how farmers at
the moment feel like punching bags for environmentalists and the
need to make their practices more sustainable, is the editor
of Good Food, Arden Bernath.
S2 (01:10):
Thank you, Conrad, and welcome, Matthew. It is so good
to be chatting with you again. You and I go
way back. I want to say 20 years, I think.
S3 (01:19):
Yeah, I know, it's crazy.
S2 (01:21):
Crazy. I was editor of Good Living Now, Good Food,
and you were the fearless restaurant critic for the Sydney
Morning Herald. I remember very well your sign off article
when you left the paper in 2005. I think you
ate it roughly 2000 restaurants. Grueling.
S3 (01:38):
Yeah. Look, it doesn't sound grueling until you do it
like 500 a year was my average when I first started.
Over 500 for the first year. And so that's ten
times a week eating out for for for work. And
it sounds fun. Uh, and I loved it. I just
loved it. But a lot of people who would eat
out with me got worn out by the process.
S2 (01:56):
I just love that you wrote when you left. You
wrote a story for me in good living, and it
was your parting observations. And your first observation was that
the amount of truffle oil a chef uses is inversely
proportional to his talent. Yes. Which is less relevant these days,
I suppose. But I also love this. You said that
(02:17):
bad customers get bad service. That's pretty pertinent today. Yeah, I.
S3 (02:21):
Think that's always been the case, you know, and I
watch it happen still where where people are rude to
waiters and then wonder why they don't get as well
looked after as they could. It's like, well, this is
a human being. These are normal people who are just
trying to earn a living, and you treat them with respect.
They'll treat you really well. And it's I don't know
why people would forget that.
S2 (02:39):
It's good advice for diners, I reckon. Yeah. One thing
I want to pick you up on back in 2005
and still today, we take great pride in the fact
that Australian produce is amongst the best in the world.
But you said in that article you thought a great
Australian produce is often a furphy. Do you still think
that Matthew Evans.
S3 (02:58):
No, I don't think it now, but I think looking back,
what had happened, I was lucky enough to travel to China,
to Thailand, to France, to Spain, to Italy, and go
to incredible markets and see the quality of the produce
and then come back and we'd say Australian produce is
really great. And I was like, well, it kind of isn't.
It kind of isn't. And a lot of the restaurants
were saying, we've got the best produce. And so what
(03:20):
I was interested in was, well, do do the restaurants
always get the best produce? And now I live in
southern Tasmania, and actually even today, the best produce is
not going to be usually in the best restaurants. It's
going to be grown by someone you know who has
a very small garden, possibly a domestic garden, who takes
it into their kitchen and cooks it at home. And
that's what I love about home cooking and home gardening
(03:40):
is that actually you have access to stuff that is
better than anyone can buy. Partly because of freshness, partly
because of of of location. Mhm.
S2 (03:48):
One thing also, you've been pretty busy since putting away
your secret reviewer's notebook as well as running. What I
can attest to is a little piece of Paradise, your
fat pig farm in the Huon Valley in Tasmania, and
shooting the long running TV series The Gourmet Farmer and
other documentaries. You have penned 15 books. The latest, milk
is just out. How would you describe milk, Matthew? The book,
(04:12):
Not the liquid. And why did you write it?
S3 (04:15):
The book is trying to look at this substance that
is everywhere, all the time and say, well, why does
it hold so much attention like it was revered for
a long time? It's it has deep roots, gastronomically, historically,
culturally and biologically. And we revered it for a long time,
and now we tend to revile it. It's suddenly become this, like,
(04:37):
almost political flashpoint where people self-identify through how they, the
dairy they choose or not choose. And I was like, wow,
how did that happen? What is this stuff? What's it
done for us? What did it do for us in
the past, you know, and what is it potentially going
to do for us in the future if we choose to,
to keep using it?
S2 (04:55):
Um, one of the most expected points I took from
the book is that a much larger number of people
than I realized are lactose intolerant. You say 65% of
the world's adult population can't break down lactose, which is
the sugar in milk, easily. So how do you know
if you're one of those people and what do you
do about that?
S3 (05:15):
So generally, those people are um, uh, people who come from,
you know, Aboriginal Australians, for instance, they, they that gene
didn't exist in, in Aboriginal Australia. So it might you
might be a descendant of those people. You might be
a descendant of people who are from parts of Africa
or South East Asia. So they're generally more lactose intolerant. Um,
people from, you know, uh, the subcontinent, like India, Pakistan
(05:37):
through to Europe and some parts of Africa are lactose tolerant.
The way you would know is if you drink a
lot of milk, fresh milk. Um, um, uh, and you,
you get tummy problems. That's a, that's a sign you
can get tested for it. And it's ideal. Most people self-diagnose,
as you know, whether they're lactose intolerant or intolerant. And
most people get it wrong, um, because people will say
(05:58):
they're lactose intolerant and say they can't have cheese. Well,
cheese has, you know, like a cheddar has no lactose
left in it. It's been fermented out. So you may
not be able to eat cheese, but you may have
a reaction to the protein, not the sugar. You know,
there may be some other thing going on. You may
be a little bit intolerant or even slightly allergic to
some of the protein. So the easiest way is to
get yourself tested, and only if you're getting gut issues
(06:20):
from eating dairy.
S2 (06:21):
So you can get tested.
S3 (06:22):
For it. Yeah. Oh yeah. Easily get tested for it.
S2 (06:24):
Yeah. And if you are lactose intolerant, what do you do.
S3 (06:27):
If you're lactose intolerant and you still want to drink
a glass of milk? There are milks now that have, uh,
no lactose in them. So they they've used an enzyme,
lactase to that, which is the same enzyme as our
body creates, uh, those of us who can digest lactose
or you can take a pill, um, to do that,
or things like you can already. The thing is, even
if you're lactose intolerant, this is what a lot of
(06:48):
people don't realize. If you're lactose intolerant, all of the
science says you can still have a cup of milk
a day, and you will still be able to absorb
all of the amazing fats and all of the proteins
and all of the bioactive nutrients in the milk, with
no repercussions. You won't have any problems with your digestive system.
So if you're finding you have a problem and it's not,
then it's not the lactose. The science Hill says this
(07:09):
so so you can have a cup a day, but
things like yogurt only have half the lactose of milk.
So you can have two cups of yogurt a day.
Hard cheese has no lactose, as I was saying. So
there are ways that you can consume dairy without necessarily
getting the lactose.
S2 (07:21):
One thing we've seen a huge rise in in recent years,
I mean, I think it would be at every single
cafe we go to. We see so many plant based milks.
You are clearly not a fan. Why not?
S3 (07:35):
I'm not a fan. Gastronomically. So? So when I do
a taste of milks, I don't like most of them.
When I when I try them without coffee and people
have said, oh, you should have it in coffee. Well,
if the original ingredient isn't good, it doesn't make coffee better, right? So,
so so I don't see by diluting it that I'm
going to enjoy it more. But but more to the point,
that's me. I just don't like the flavor of most
(07:56):
of them. Like, I don't like margarine, right? I just
don't like the taste. Right? So when you try these milks,
sometimes they're sweet, sometimes they're nutty. But do I love
them or not really, am I? You know, but I
don't actually usually want to drink a glass of milk either.
It's not something I necessarily would drink on its own,
but I guess what I with plant milks. Why? When
I started writing the book, I didn't think I would.
(08:17):
I thought I would write a lot more about plant milks.
I thought I would focus on them a lot more,
but when I researched them, there's not much to say.
So almond milk is generally about 2% almonds, right? So
it's so you can't research almonds and say the nutrition
of almonds is in the milk because not all of
it is Plant milks, by definition, are ultra processed foods.
(08:38):
So they're they've been altered in ways that the way
it works with ultra processed food is food that our
body doesn't recognize as food. Right. So so you can
consume it. But there's things in there that your body's
like going, I don't really know what that is. And
so all of all of the plant milks are ultra processed.
That's a definition. And milk isn't. And so so the
(08:58):
difference between milk Milk has potential benefits if you drink
it nutritionally. And and plant milks either have very little
impact or are doing you harm. So if there's emulsifiers
in there, they're bad for your microbiome, your gut microbes
and that which is bad for brain health. We know
this from from the research. But more to the point,
(09:18):
they're not replacing the nutrition that's actually in milk. So
so when I researched the plant milks I went, oh yeah,
it's going to be really interesting. And you know, oats
have nutritional qualities, but oat milk doesn't have the nutritional
qualities of oats. Rice has nutritional qualities, but rice milk
is not the same as having as as rice. So.
So if you want the nutrients from those, don't don't
think of as plant milks as a replacement nutritionally, you
(09:41):
might like the taste. And you know that's great. I
don't you know, everyone has their own opinions on stuff.
You might think they make your coffee whiter and creamier
and more palatable. Great, but you can't look at them
as a nutritional replacement.
S2 (09:53):
If you had to choose one, what would you choose?
One of the plant based milks.
S3 (09:58):
It would depend what I was using it for. I.
I think oat milk is the least offensive in coffee
in that I can't. It doesn't generally, um, take away
from my coffee experience. It doesn't embellish it much compared
to a nice whole milk, I don't think. Um, but
that would be where I'd go. Whereas I find, you know,
the almonds and the and the rice and the coconuts, like,
(10:20):
you can taste the soy, you can taste them in
the coffee. And that's not a flavor that I particularly like.
S2 (10:27):
Soy does have some nutritional benefits though.
S3 (10:30):
Yeah. So soy soy has so all the all all
the milk. So I think um, I think like oat milk,
I only have like a sixth of the protein, something
like that of, of of dairy milk. Milk from a cow. Um,
but soy milk has close to the same amount of protein.
It's not complete protein as, as dairy and it's not
as complex protein, but it does have similar amounts. But
but then it doesn't have other things. So. So calcium
(10:53):
is a good example of what's in milk. So what's in,
you know, a glass of of traditional dairy from a cow. Um,
the amount of calcium that's bioavailable available to your body
to use in a single glass of milk, you have
to drink 22 glasses of soy milk to get the
same amount of bioavailable calcium. They might say calcium on
the on the ingredients and whatever, but your body can't
(11:15):
necessarily access all that calcium. So 22 glasses versus one.
So is soy milk a nutritional replacement for dairy? No.
If your body can't. You know, for whatever reason, allergy
intolerance can't cope with dairy. Um, then you can't look
at a single source, a plant milk as as a replacement.
It just isn't. And and I know people might struggle
(11:38):
with that, but the evidence out of the UK is
the most compelling. So earlier this year, research came out
that showed that hospitalisations people put in hospital for vitamin
deficiency tripled in a decade in the UK, and the
researchers lay the blame squarely at the feet of plant
based milks because in the UK, veganism and plant based
milks are much higher intake than they are in Australia.
(12:00):
And so we've already seen real world repercussions of people
thinking that stuff that's white and maybe makes your tea
slightly creamier is is a nutritional replacement for for dairy.
So get rid of dairy out of your life if
you want. If you think it's bad for you, bad
for the environment, you've got animal welfare concerns, whatever. But
don't look at it as food. Look at it as
(12:23):
something you have in your diet, but you need to
replace the nutrition that you might have got from dairy
with something else.
S2 (12:28):
Wow. For some unknown reason, I think because years ago
my kids said they liked the taste. We've had a2
milk in our fridge, but I don't actually know what
a2 milk is. Can you tell me what it is
and is it better for us?
S3 (12:43):
Yeah, and this is a really interesting one. So A2
for years and years people have been trying to market
a2 milk. So what. A2 means is major proteins. There's thousands,
literally thousands of proteins that can be in milk. But
one of the major groups is casein and casein. There's
a form of casein that can come in in two versions,
A2 and and the original A1. So so all they
(13:05):
are are variations. So there was a, there was a
mutation in cows a few thousand years ago. And some
cows produce milk that is really strong in, in the
A1 version. Some are really, you know, different breeds have
A2 version milk and some cows produce a mix of
the two and we. So a researcher a years ago
I think at New Zealand researcher said, oh you know
it seems like a2 milk is is causing less, you know,
(13:27):
people who have that have less diabetes, right. It's been debunked.
That's not the case. But what has happened over the years,
people have said, well, some people anecdotally have said I
drink A2 and it doesn't cause gut issues or I
can digest it better. I feel better having that. And
scientists were puzzled. And it's only the last two years
where they've actually worked out that, yes, it does seem
to be the case that a lot of people digest
(13:49):
A2 protein easier. And so for some people, if dairy
is giving you an issue, changing to a2 milk could
well be the solution to that problem for you. But
it's not going to work. It doesn't work for everybody.
Like all of this stuff to do with nutrition, you know,
like like, you know, I used to be vegetarian and
I couldn't eat very many lentils, right. You know, and
I still can't eat much chili. My body is different
(14:10):
to everyone else's body. So I, you know, I have
to juggle my diet to suit what happens within my
gut and my body. And it's the same with dairy,
you know, if you might find a form of dairy
works or it doesn't work, then go with that. And
if you, you know, you know, that's that's, I guess,
how we all have to navigate this.
S2 (14:27):
I love a line in chapter 12 of your book,
eat a variety of things and eat the thing that
is the least highly processed. So you clearly believe milk
is the least processed, healthiest choice yet in Australia and
around the developed world, milk sales are dropping and quite
dramatically in some countries. Why?
S3 (14:48):
Yeah, and that's a really interesting one. So it is
dropping and it's dropping, you know, 15 to 25% in
Western countries. It's actually milk consumption globally is skyrocketing because,
you know, people in China and places who didn't traditionally
drink milk are drinking a lot more. But yeah, in
Western nations it's dropping. It's partly dropping because of our demographics.
So we're getting more people who may have come from
lactose intolerant areas or areas that where dairy wasn't a
(15:10):
big part of their culture are using less milk. So
they might have a physical reason or a cultural gastronomic
historical reason why they're using less milk. We're drinking less
actual glasses of milk, though. That idea of the, you know,
milk and cookies when you got home from school, people
aren't drinking that as much. But what's what was really
interesting for me when I looked into this because I thought, oh, well, that's,
(15:30):
you know, all the oat milks and the rice milks
and the soy milks and the almond milks, they're obviously,
you know, taking up that, that slack. Well, they're they're
not generally only about a quarter of, of the drop
in consumption of milk has been taken up by plant milks.
The rest is bottled water and soft drink. So so
what we're actually seeing is, you know, are people are taking,
(15:50):
I guess, something potentially nutritious and putting something either like
water that's not nutritious, um, in any great sense and
or stuff that's actually, you know, relatively harmful in terms
of soft drinks and replacing the milk with them.
S2 (16:02):
Mhm. Is it also the fact that livestock production, mainly cows,
produce 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions? This is, I think,
in the form of methane from cow burps and farts.
What do you say when that is used as a
reason to steer away from milk?
S3 (16:20):
Yeah. Look. And so all agriculture, all agriculture has an impact.
And so dairy in Australia is like less than 1%
of the of our greenhouse gas emissions. I guess you've
got to look at it. Well okay, so what do
we get for our emissions. So so we always we
typically have emissions from growing food. So say your oat
milk is a really good example. So say your oat
milk is is um I think it's about it's less
(16:44):
than a kilo. It's about 800g of, uh carbon dioxide
is emitted for a litre of oat milk. These are
sort of global numbers. And in Australia it's about three
kilos of carbon dioxide is emitted for milk. Right. So
it's much higher but well okay. So so what are
we getting from oat milk. Oat milk provides pretty much
zero nutritionally. It's bad for your teeth. Like it's great
(17:04):
for your dentist. The maltose in there is terribly, you know,
is really not good for you. It spikes your blood sugar.
There's virtually no protein. So if you take protein, you
need six times more. Uh, oat milk to get the
same amount of protein. So, so, okay. Times your, you know, your,
your 800g of carbon dioxide by six and you end up,
(17:25):
you know, much closer to what cow's milk is producing.
So so so the emissions have to be based not on, oh,
I've produced a liter of milk, but what is in
that milk like, does it have good fats like dairy?
Does it have complex protein like dairy? Or is it,
you know, if it's just producing something which is essentially
like a Tim Tam, you know, like an ultra processed food,
(17:45):
which is fine, but, you know, an emission to produce
that is an unnecessary emission, whereas emissions for to gain nutrition,
then they're more valid. So you know you can look
at this all sorts of different ways. And look I
think the dairy industry, the the animal industry needs to
take responsibility for their emissions. There's no doubt about that.
But you need you need to compare like with like.
(18:06):
And just saying a liter of white fluid is not
comparing the complexity of milk, you know, with the complexity
or the lack of complexity in a plant milk.
S2 (18:14):
Matthew, in the book you deal substantially with breastfeeding and
how amazing human breast milk is. Colostrum. The fact that
we're still discovering quite a lot about what breast milk
does for you. Do you want to enlighten us a bit?
S3 (18:26):
Yeah. So I wanted to I guess I focus, I
look at all sorts of milks. I look at wolf
milk and Tasmanian devil milk and you know, how it
kills superbugs and all sorts of stuff. Lessons we could
learn from that. But the milks I focus on are
human breast milk and cow's milk, because that's what matters
most to people in Australia and people around the world.
That's what we consume. So human breast milk. That was
where my mind got blown, you know, like because we
(18:49):
think we we used to think we knew what was
in it. We used to think it was sterile when
it came from a woman. But now we know it's
full of all these millions of beneficial bacteria that that
help to inoculate the baby's immune system. But the more
you look into it, and we're still learning more about
this every day, the more we realize how utterly remarkable
that system is. There's a there's a system where, you know,
(19:09):
we researchers were watching humans, you know, always loving to
kiss a baby's head, mothers kissing the baby's head and watching,
you know, other primates do that. And sheep and cows
and goats, they're always licking their baby's head. And researchers wondered, well,
that's beautiful sociologically, but, you know, is it is it socially?
Is that is that a is that important biologically? And
it turns out it is. So what happens is when
you if you're a nursing mother and you kiss your
(19:31):
baby's head, if that baby has a virus or a
disease or some kind of bacterial disease or whatever that
gets into your mouth and, and the mother's immune system,
it's like a library of immune responses. So the mother's
immune system recognizes that bacteria or virus creates an immune
response and then targets that immune response to her breast milk.
So in real time, the very next feed is tailored
(19:53):
to the immune system of the baby. And it's this
beautiful thing where you've got this, um, adult with a,
with a, with a mature immune system, you've got a
newborn with, with a very undeveloped immune system. Like, how
is the best way to get immunity into that newborn?
And we have this system where it's actually designed to,
to be done through breast milk. They went even further.
They now know that it can happen even faster than that.
(20:16):
So when when the baby is is is feeding off
the mother and it's sucking, it's sucking at the breast.
When it stops feeding, there's a vacuum. And when it
stops feeding, a little bit of the baby's saliva goes
back into the woman's breast. Now, this sounds really scary
and weird and creepy, but we now know that that
has a biological function. Because if the baby has an illness, say,
(20:37):
a rotavirus, rotavirus, you know, common, um, digestive digestive problem with,
with infants. That virus goes back into the woman's breast,
and then her body immediately creates an immune response and
targets it again to her breast milk. So very, very quickly,
in a very short period of time, you've got essentially
a vaccine for rotavirus being delivered at the next feed
(21:00):
to that bait tailored to that baby. These are just
some of the things we understand about breast milk. It's utterly,
utterly remarkable. And and yet rates are plummeting around the
world like we, you know, certain parts of the world
are like, you know, 10%, 15%, uh, children breastfed at
six months old. And really, you know, we know that
some breastfeeding up to two years would be ideal and
(21:21):
only breast milk up to six months old is the ideal.
And yet we're failing on all these levels. I mean,
it's not always easy for for women to breastfeed. There's
reasons why it's hard, you know, and, um, uh, for
a lot of people. But if it's possible, you know,
the benefits to the child are and to the and
to the to the mother we know are enormous.
S2 (21:55):
You have a literal grassroots view of farming in Australia
from your own farm. So how long have you been
on the farm now, Matthew?
S3 (22:04):
16 years. Been farming now? Yeah, yeah.
S2 (22:06):
Wow. So in that time, you've obviously developed a very
unique perspective on our food industry, good and bad. Can
you share a bit of what you think with us? Yeah.
S3 (22:17):
Look, I think what's one of the things that that
I guess as a grower is what I find really
interesting is there's lots of people have opinions about food.
Milk is one of the great ones. Like, people have
so many strong opinions about milk, but they're often not
founded on anything that relates to our place in the world.
Maybe they've got global numbers, maybe they've got it from Facebook.
Lots of people have opinions on growing food who grow nothing.
(22:39):
And and and farming does have an impact. It it
can destroy soil. It can it can ruin ecosystems. It
can decrease biodiversity. But farming well actually has the capacity to,
to to do the reverse, to store carbon out of
the atmosphere, to, to, to restore ecosystems, to, to build biodiversity.
And so I see good farming as the potential to
(23:00):
fix a lot of the world's ills. And I don't
see growing food as inherently something evil, which I think
sometimes when you read stuff about, oh, this has happened
or that's happened historically, it's easy to point the finger
of blame at farmers, but what they're trying to do
is feed the planet and do it at a price
that consumers are willing to pay. And and sometimes that
has meant that mistakes have been made and we've damaged
(23:21):
the earth that feeds us. But but I also see
the potential for farming to repair the damage. Like on
our farm, our little 70 acres of Tasmania, we produce
10,000 meals a year. Like it's pretty good. 40% is
reserved for wildlife, so So we're not even using 70 acres.
And each year we store between 100 and 150 tonnes
of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere more than we emit.
So you take all our cars and cows and everything else.
(23:43):
And so we are actually a net, you know, we're
we're carbon negative, which is climate positive. So that's what
farming is capable of. And we're only small. You know,
we're one example. But that doesn't mean it can't be
done in lots of places in lots of ways.
S2 (23:55):
But are we doing it in lots of places? How
are we going with our farming in Australia?
S3 (23:59):
We're actually doing reasonably well. Historically, we did pretty badly.
We we lost about half our topsoil in, you know,
since white colonization, the way we, we overgrazed and over
plowed and over, you know, and cut down trees. But
we I had something like 15, 20% of farmers now are,
are actively restoring soils or restoring landscapes. And yes, we
(24:22):
need to scale that up, but we have the we
have the ancient wisdom, we have the modern technology. Um,
we just need to, I guess, uh, um, get it
to happen a bit quicker, you know, to get more
people on board. And there are systems, you know, there's
there's farmer groups who are involved with this. There's people
involved in Landcare. There's there's so many people who are
who are trying to do the right thing. Um, but sometimes,
(24:43):
you know, it's a big boat to turn. It's like
turning the Titanic, you know? And there's no there's very
few farmers out there who are actively trying to destroy
the planet. It's just that what they've inherited, the systems,
what their knowledge is, maybe it needs to be turned
in a slightly different direction to be able to actually
heal some of the damage we've done.
S2 (25:01):
Um, so I wanted to ask you, what's the biggest
issue facing the food industry is sort of changing, turning
the ship around. One of the biggest issues.
S3 (25:10):
Yeah, for me that's the the biggest issue. So, you know,
people are very quick to point the finger at farming
and it's really easy to find some big numbers about
the damage that's been caused. But you know, like we
still need to produce food. We need to produce food.
You know, something like the next 30 years, we have
to produce the same amount of protein for humanity as
we have in the last 2000 years. So put that
(25:30):
in your head. Like, this is weird. We're in a
really weird place in in history, so we have to
be able to grow food in a relatively intense manner
while not buggering up the soil and the and the
planet that feeds us. And the good news is that
there are people who've worked on this for a long time,
and done this for a long time who know how
to do it. But how do we get that to
everybody who's growing food? How do we scale it up?
(25:52):
You know, a lot of people say to me, oh,
you know, the best thing I can do for the,
you know, for the planet is stop eating meat. You know,
the best thing most people can do? We we had
a full audit of our farm, our solar panels, our
soil health, our tree growing, our animals, our cars, everything.
And they said the one thing that we could do,
and it's the one thing everybody should be doing. If
you want to actually cut greenhouse emissions, change your super fund. Right.
(26:13):
Because you by by the lack of of of looking
at what your super fund invests in, you are promoting
fossil fuel emissions. And no matter what anyone says, the
biggest thing the biggest emitters are transport and energy. By far,
by far, by far. And they can be changed. It's
harder for farming to change because we still have to
(26:34):
grow food. But everywhere farmers are trying to reduce emissions
as well. But the big things are fossil fuel emissions.
And how do you change that? You take your money
out of the super funds that support those companies.
S4 (26:45):
Hmm.
S2 (26:46):
That's so interesting. And also in your book, you say
food waste is such a huge issue. And so that's
something we can do as well, is I know we
sort of hear a lot about it, but just try
and cut down on food waste. Yeah.
S3 (26:57):
Food waste. Crazy. Something like 40% of the world's food
is wasted, you know, and I think if it was
a country, it'd be the third biggest country in the
world or something. Food waste, you know, in terms of emissions,
you know, so, so, so this is the stupid thing.
We grow enough food for 12 billion people. Something like that.
11 billion people. Um, and there's only 8 billion people
on the planet. So? So. And the the bit, you know,
enough food for 3 billion people a year, 4 billion
(27:18):
people a year is thrown away. Like how? What an
insult to Mother Nature. Like there's someone's grown that there's
been a cost environmentally. Maybe there's been a cost to,
you know, to livestock or to fishing industries or whatever,
you know, to to the oceans. And, and then we
would like, waste that, like, it just doesn't make any sense. So. yeah,
these are the these are the low hanging fruit. You know,
(27:39):
they're the things we should be doing. You know. Yes.
There's all sorts of stuff we can be doing, whether
it's putting solar panels on our roofs or buying electric
car or whatever, you know, and having a smaller footprint.
But the big issue. Yeah. Food waste.
S2 (27:52):
Do you have really practical advice for people on how
not to waste food? I mean, it's really hard to
not to crack this nut.
S3 (28:00):
Yeah. Look, it is really hard. And look, I think
the the the the the trick is being able to
look in your fridge and pantry and work with what's there,
because it's so easy for us to go out and
just buy more stuff and put it. We have a
drawer in our, in our, um, fridge. We call it
the compost drawer. You know, it's the bottom drawer, right?
Anything that goes into the bottom drawer of the fridge
(28:21):
is in danger of becoming compost. Right? And so it's
the crisper drawer it's supposed to be for nice, beautiful,
fresh veggies. And even us who live on a farm,
who can walk outside and gather, you know, some fresh
broccoli or some herbs, we run the risk of stuff
going bad in there. So our aim is always to
go into the fridge first before I harvest anything else.
You would go to a shop and say, how do
(28:42):
I use this? And there are people working on this.
There's apps you can get for your phone, which you
just plug in what you've got and it tells you
what you can cook. You know, how wonderful is that.
So that's how we use technology to count, you know,
because technology isn't always, you know, making life better. But
in that sense, wow. Imagine that. You just plug in
the ingredients that are sitting in your fridge and it
tells you all the dishes you can cook and you
just pick one.
S2 (29:02):
Yeah, that's that's a good use of AI, I reckon. Yeah.
Isn't it. Yeah. I think the last word should probably
go to milk. And I'm going to ask the question
on a lot of people's lips, I reckon skim or
full fat milk. Which is better?
S3 (29:16):
Yeah, this one's really for me. It's really easy. Have
you got any self-respect? Um. Uh, you know, uh, look, biologically,
I'm going to. I'll frame it from the science point
of view. I did a degree in human biology a
long time ago, and I'm kind of nerd out on
the science. Biologically, full fat milk does more better for you. Full,
full fat dairy does not cause heart disease, right? This
(29:39):
is I just read an article in the European Journal
of Cardiology yesterday, yet again saying the same thing that
these people have been saying for a long time. But
for some reason, people seem to think you can still
get a heart attack from full fat dairy. No biologic
gets better for you. Gastronomically it tastes better. Um, so
for me, uh, we have skim milk. Historically was known
as hog slop. It's what you fed to the pigs, right?
(30:01):
It's the bit that's not fit for human consumption. Uh, yeah.
When you'd skim all the cream off to make your
butter and your clotted cream and, you know, all of
those kind of stuff. So, uh, so for me, if
you're going to get the benefits of milk, you're going to,
you know, bother to, to use it. I would go
the full fat version and it's interestingly massive uptick. You know,
we've gone through the low fat and gone back to
full fat as a society.
S2 (30:21):
No more hog.
S3 (30:22):
Slop. No more hog slop I would hope. Yeah.
S4 (30:25):
Yeah.
S2 (30:26):
Thank you, Matthew, so much for joining us today and
sharing your wisdom.
S3 (30:29):
Pleasure, Arden. Thanks for having me.
S1 (30:33):
Good weekend. Talks is brought to you by the Sydney
Morning Herald. And The Age. Subscriptions power our newsrooms to
support independent journalism. Search, subscribe Sydney Morning Herald or The Age?
And if you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe,
rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts. This episode
of Good Weekend Talks is produced by Chai Wong. Technical
(30:56):
assistance from Cormac Lally. Editing from Conrad Marshall. Tom McKendrick
is head of audio and Katrina Strickland is the editor
of Good Weekend.
Hi, I'm Conrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:25):
stories of the day. In this episode, we speak with
Matthew Evans, the Australian chef and farmer turned food advocate
has written a new book, Milk the Truth, The lies,
and the Unbelievable Story of the Original Superfood. Evans argues
that how we view milk is driven by everything from
(00:46):
gender to politics, geography, culture and fashion. And hosting this conversation,
in which Evans more broadly talks about how farmers at
the moment feel like punching bags for environmentalists and the
need to make their practices more sustainable, is the editor
of Good Food, Arden Bernath.
S2 (01:10):
Thank you, Conrad, and welcome, Matthew. It is so good
to be chatting with you again. You and I go
way back. I want to say 20 years, I think.
S3 (01:19):
Yeah, I know, it's crazy.
S2 (01:21):
Crazy. I was editor of Good Living Now, Good Food,
and you were the fearless restaurant critic for the Sydney
Morning Herald. I remember very well your sign off article
when you left the paper in 2005. I think you
ate it roughly 2000 restaurants. Grueling.
S3 (01:38):
Yeah. Look, it doesn't sound grueling until you do it
like 500 a year was my average when I first started.
Over 500 for the first year. And so that's ten
times a week eating out for for for work. And
it sounds fun. Uh, and I loved it. I just
loved it. But a lot of people who would eat
out with me got worn out by the process.
S2 (01:56):
I just love that you wrote when you left. You
wrote a story for me in good living, and it
was your parting observations. And your first observation was that
the amount of truffle oil a chef uses is inversely
proportional to his talent. Yes. Which is less relevant these days,
I suppose. But I also love this. You said that
(02:17):
bad customers get bad service. That's pretty pertinent today. Yeah, I.
S3 (02:21):
Think that's always been the case, you know, and I
watch it happen still where where people are rude to
waiters and then wonder why they don't get as well
looked after as they could. It's like, well, this is
a human being. These are normal people who are just
trying to earn a living, and you treat them with respect.
They'll treat you really well. And it's I don't know
why people would forget that.
S2 (02:39):
It's good advice for diners, I reckon. Yeah. One thing
I want to pick you up on back in 2005
and still today, we take great pride in the fact
that Australian produce is amongst the best in the world.
But you said in that article you thought a great
Australian produce is often a furphy. Do you still think
that Matthew Evans.
S3 (02:58):
No, I don't think it now, but I think looking back,
what had happened, I was lucky enough to travel to China,
to Thailand, to France, to Spain, to Italy, and go
to incredible markets and see the quality of the produce
and then come back and we'd say Australian produce is
really great. And I was like, well, it kind of isn't.
It kind of isn't. And a lot of the restaurants
were saying, we've got the best produce. And so what
(03:20):
I was interested in was, well, do do the restaurants
always get the best produce? And now I live in
southern Tasmania, and actually even today, the best produce is
not going to be usually in the best restaurants. It's
going to be grown by someone you know who has
a very small garden, possibly a domestic garden, who takes
it into their kitchen and cooks it at home. And
that's what I love about home cooking and home gardening
(03:40):
is that actually you have access to stuff that is
better than anyone can buy. Partly because of freshness, partly
because of of of location. Mhm.
S2 (03:48):
One thing also, you've been pretty busy since putting away
your secret reviewer's notebook as well as running. What I
can attest to is a little piece of Paradise, your
fat pig farm in the Huon Valley in Tasmania, and
shooting the long running TV series The Gourmet Farmer and
other documentaries. You have penned 15 books. The latest, milk
is just out. How would you describe milk, Matthew? The book,
(04:12):
Not the liquid. And why did you write it?
S3 (04:15):
The book is trying to look at this substance that
is everywhere, all the time and say, well, why does
it hold so much attention like it was revered for
a long time? It's it has deep roots, gastronomically, historically,
culturally and biologically. And we revered it for a long time,
and now we tend to revile it. It's suddenly become this, like,
(04:37):
almost political flashpoint where people self-identify through how they, the
dairy they choose or not choose. And I was like, wow,
how did that happen? What is this stuff? What's it
done for us? What did it do for us in
the past, you know, and what is it potentially going
to do for us in the future if we choose to,
to keep using it?
S2 (04:55):
Um, one of the most expected points I took from
the book is that a much larger number of people
than I realized are lactose intolerant. You say 65% of
the world's adult population can't break down lactose, which is
the sugar in milk, easily. So how do you know
if you're one of those people and what do you
do about that?
S3 (05:15):
So generally, those people are um, uh, people who come from,
you know, Aboriginal Australians, for instance, they, they that gene
didn't exist in, in Aboriginal Australia. So it might you
might be a descendant of those people. You might be
a descendant of people who are from parts of Africa
or South East Asia. So they're generally more lactose intolerant. Um,
people from, you know, uh, the subcontinent, like India, Pakistan
(05:37):
through to Europe and some parts of Africa are lactose tolerant.
The way you would know is if you drink a
lot of milk, fresh milk. Um, um, uh, and you,
you get tummy problems. That's a, that's a sign you
can get tested for it. And it's ideal. Most people self-diagnose,
as you know, whether they're lactose intolerant or intolerant. And
most people get it wrong, um, because people will say
(05:58):
they're lactose intolerant and say they can't have cheese. Well,
cheese has, you know, like a cheddar has no lactose
left in it. It's been fermented out. So you may
not be able to eat cheese, but you may have
a reaction to the protein, not the sugar. You know,
there may be some other thing going on. You may
be a little bit intolerant or even slightly allergic to
some of the protein. So the easiest way is to
get yourself tested, and only if you're getting gut issues
(06:20):
from eating dairy.
S2 (06:21):
So you can get tested.
S3 (06:22):
For it. Yeah. Oh yeah. Easily get tested for it.
S2 (06:24):
Yeah. And if you are lactose intolerant, what do you do.
S3 (06:27):
If you're lactose intolerant and you still want to drink
a glass of milk? There are milks now that have, uh,
no lactose in them. So they they've used an enzyme,
lactase to that, which is the same enzyme as our
body creates, uh, those of us who can digest lactose
or you can take a pill, um, to do that,
or things like you can already. The thing is, even
if you're lactose intolerant, this is what a lot of
(06:48):
people don't realize. If you're lactose intolerant, all of the
science says you can still have a cup of milk
a day, and you will still be able to absorb
all of the amazing fats and all of the proteins
and all of the bioactive nutrients in the milk, with
no repercussions. You won't have any problems with your digestive system.
So if you're finding you have a problem and it's not,
then it's not the lactose. The science Hill says this
(07:09):
so so you can have a cup a day, but
things like yogurt only have half the lactose of milk.
So you can have two cups of yogurt a day.
Hard cheese has no lactose, as I was saying. So
there are ways that you can consume dairy without necessarily
getting the lactose.
S2 (07:21):
One thing we've seen a huge rise in in recent years,
I mean, I think it would be at every single
cafe we go to. We see so many plant based milks.
You are clearly not a fan. Why not?
S3 (07:35):
I'm not a fan. Gastronomically. So? So when I do
a taste of milks, I don't like most of them.
When I when I try them without coffee and people
have said, oh, you should have it in coffee. Well,
if the original ingredient isn't good, it doesn't make coffee better, right? So,
so so I don't see by diluting it that I'm
going to enjoy it more. But but more to the point,
that's me. I just don't like the flavor of most
(07:56):
of them. Like, I don't like margarine, right? I just
don't like the taste. Right? So when you try these milks,
sometimes they're sweet, sometimes they're nutty. But do I love
them or not really, am I? You know, but I
don't actually usually want to drink a glass of milk either.
It's not something I necessarily would drink on its own,
but I guess what I with plant milks. Why? When
I started writing the book, I didn't think I would.
(08:17):
I thought I would write a lot more about plant milks.
I thought I would focus on them a lot more,
but when I researched them, there's not much to say.
So almond milk is generally about 2% almonds, right? So
it's so you can't research almonds and say the nutrition
of almonds is in the milk because not all of
it is Plant milks, by definition, are ultra processed foods.
(08:38):
So they're they've been altered in ways that the way
it works with ultra processed food is food that our
body doesn't recognize as food. Right. So so you can
consume it. But there's things in there that your body's
like going, I don't really know what that is. And
so all of all of the plant milks are ultra processed.
That's a definition. And milk isn't. And so so the
(08:58):
difference between milk Milk has potential benefits if you drink
it nutritionally. And and plant milks either have very little
impact or are doing you harm. So if there's emulsifiers
in there, they're bad for your microbiome, your gut microbes
and that which is bad for brain health. We know
this from from the research. But more to the point,
(09:18):
they're not replacing the nutrition that's actually in milk. So
so when I researched the plant milks I went, oh yeah,
it's going to be really interesting. And you know, oats
have nutritional qualities, but oat milk doesn't have the nutritional
qualities of oats. Rice has nutritional qualities, but rice milk
is not the same as having as as rice. So.
So if you want the nutrients from those, don't don't
think of as plant milks as a replacement nutritionally, you
(09:41):
might like the taste. And you know that's great. I
don't you know, everyone has their own opinions on stuff.
You might think they make your coffee whiter and creamier
and more palatable. Great, but you can't look at them
as a nutritional replacement.
S2 (09:53):
If you had to choose one, what would you choose?
One of the plant based milks.
S3 (09:58):
It would depend what I was using it for. I.
I think oat milk is the least offensive in coffee
in that I can't. It doesn't generally, um, take away
from my coffee experience. It doesn't embellish it much compared
to a nice whole milk, I don't think. Um, but
that would be where I'd go. Whereas I find, you know,
the almonds and the and the rice and the coconuts, like,
(10:20):
you can taste the soy, you can taste them in
the coffee. And that's not a flavor that I particularly like.
S2 (10:27):
Soy does have some nutritional benefits though.
S3 (10:30):
Yeah. So soy soy has so all the all all
the milk. So I think um, I think like oat milk,
I only have like a sixth of the protein, something
like that of, of of dairy milk. Milk from a cow. Um,
but soy milk has close to the same amount of protein.
It's not complete protein as, as dairy and it's not
as complex protein, but it does have similar amounts. But
but then it doesn't have other things. So. So calcium
(10:53):
is a good example of what's in milk. So what's in,
you know, a glass of of traditional dairy from a cow. Um,
the amount of calcium that's bioavailable available to your body
to use in a single glass of milk, you have
to drink 22 glasses of soy milk to get the
same amount of bioavailable calcium. They might say calcium on
the on the ingredients and whatever, but your body can't
(11:15):
necessarily access all that calcium. So 22 glasses versus one.
So is soy milk a nutritional replacement for dairy? No.
If your body can't. You know, for whatever reason, allergy
intolerance can't cope with dairy. Um, then you can't look
at a single source, a plant milk as as a replacement.
It just isn't. And and I know people might struggle
(11:38):
with that, but the evidence out of the UK is
the most compelling. So earlier this year, research came out
that showed that hospitalisations people put in hospital for vitamin
deficiency tripled in a decade in the UK, and the
researchers lay the blame squarely at the feet of plant
based milks because in the UK, veganism and plant based
milks are much higher intake than they are in Australia.
(12:00):
And so we've already seen real world repercussions of people
thinking that stuff that's white and maybe makes your tea
slightly creamier is is a nutritional replacement for for dairy.
So get rid of dairy out of your life if
you want. If you think it's bad for you, bad
for the environment, you've got animal welfare concerns, whatever. But
don't look at it as food. Look at it as
(12:23):
something you have in your diet, but you need to
replace the nutrition that you might have got from dairy
with something else.
S2 (12:28):
Wow. For some unknown reason, I think because years ago
my kids said they liked the taste. We've had a2
milk in our fridge, but I don't actually know what
a2 milk is. Can you tell me what it is
and is it better for us?
S3 (12:43):
Yeah, and this is a really interesting one. So A2
for years and years people have been trying to market
a2 milk. So what. A2 means is major proteins. There's thousands,
literally thousands of proteins that can be in milk. But
one of the major groups is casein and casein. There's
a form of casein that can come in in two versions,
A2 and and the original A1. So so all they
(13:05):
are are variations. So there was a, there was a
mutation in cows a few thousand years ago. And some
cows produce milk that is really strong in, in the
A1 version. Some are really, you know, different breeds have
A2 version milk and some cows produce a mix of
the two and we. So a researcher a years ago
I think at New Zealand researcher said, oh you know
it seems like a2 milk is is causing less, you know,
(13:27):
people who have that have less diabetes, right. It's been debunked.
That's not the case. But what has happened over the years,
people have said, well, some people anecdotally have said I
drink A2 and it doesn't cause gut issues or I
can digest it better. I feel better having that. And
scientists were puzzled. And it's only the last two years
where they've actually worked out that, yes, it does seem
to be the case that a lot of people digest
(13:49):
A2 protein easier. And so for some people, if dairy
is giving you an issue, changing to a2 milk could
well be the solution to that problem for you. But
it's not going to work. It doesn't work for everybody.
Like all of this stuff to do with nutrition, you know,
like like, you know, I used to be vegetarian and
I couldn't eat very many lentils, right. You know, and
I still can't eat much chili. My body is different
(14:10):
to everyone else's body. So I, you know, I have
to juggle my diet to suit what happens within my
gut and my body. And it's the same with dairy,
you know, if you might find a form of dairy
works or it doesn't work, then go with that. And
if you, you know, you know, that's that's, I guess,
how we all have to navigate this.
S2 (14:27):
I love a line in chapter 12 of your book,
eat a variety of things and eat the thing that
is the least highly processed. So you clearly believe milk
is the least processed, healthiest choice yet in Australia and
around the developed world, milk sales are dropping and quite
dramatically in some countries. Why?
S3 (14:48):
Yeah, and that's a really interesting one. So it is
dropping and it's dropping, you know, 15 to 25% in
Western countries. It's actually milk consumption globally is skyrocketing because,
you know, people in China and places who didn't traditionally
drink milk are drinking a lot more. But yeah, in
Western nations it's dropping. It's partly dropping because of our demographics.
So we're getting more people who may have come from
lactose intolerant areas or areas that where dairy wasn't a
(15:10):
big part of their culture are using less milk. So
they might have a physical reason or a cultural gastronomic
historical reason why they're using less milk. We're drinking less
actual glasses of milk, though. That idea of the, you know,
milk and cookies when you got home from school, people
aren't drinking that as much. But what's what was really
interesting for me when I looked into this because I thought, oh, well, that's,
(15:30):
you know, all the oat milks and the rice milks
and the soy milks and the almond milks, they're obviously,
you know, taking up that, that slack. Well, they're they're
not generally only about a quarter of, of the drop
in consumption of milk has been taken up by plant milks.
The rest is bottled water and soft drink. So so
what we're actually seeing is, you know, are people are taking,
(15:50):
I guess, something potentially nutritious and putting something either like
water that's not nutritious, um, in any great sense and
or stuff that's actually, you know, relatively harmful in terms
of soft drinks and replacing the milk with them.
S2 (16:02):
Mhm. Is it also the fact that livestock production, mainly cows,
produce 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions? This is, I think,
in the form of methane from cow burps and farts.
What do you say when that is used as a
reason to steer away from milk?
S3 (16:20):
Yeah. Look. And so all agriculture, all agriculture has an impact.
And so dairy in Australia is like less than 1%
of the of our greenhouse gas emissions. I guess you've
got to look at it. Well okay, so what do
we get for our emissions. So so we always we
typically have emissions from growing food. So say your oat
milk is a really good example. So say your oat
milk is is um I think it's about it's less
(16:44):
than a kilo. It's about 800g of, uh carbon dioxide
is emitted for a litre of oat milk. These are
sort of global numbers. And in Australia it's about three
kilos of carbon dioxide is emitted for milk. Right. So
it's much higher but well okay. So so what are
we getting from oat milk. Oat milk provides pretty much
zero nutritionally. It's bad for your teeth. Like it's great
(17:04):
for your dentist. The maltose in there is terribly, you know,
is really not good for you. It spikes your blood sugar.
There's virtually no protein. So if you take protein, you
need six times more. Uh, oat milk to get the
same amount of protein. So, so, okay. Times your, you know, your,
your 800g of carbon dioxide by six and you end up,
(17:25):
you know, much closer to what cow's milk is producing.
So so so the emissions have to be based not on, oh,
I've produced a liter of milk, but what is in
that milk like, does it have good fats like dairy?
Does it have complex protein like dairy? Or is it,
you know, if it's just producing something which is essentially
like a Tim Tam, you know, like an ultra processed food,
(17:45):
which is fine, but, you know, an emission to produce
that is an unnecessary emission, whereas emissions for to gain nutrition,
then they're more valid. So you know you can look
at this all sorts of different ways. And look I
think the dairy industry, the the animal industry needs to
take responsibility for their emissions. There's no doubt about that.
But you need you need to compare like with like.
(18:06):
And just saying a liter of white fluid is not
comparing the complexity of milk, you know, with the complexity
or the lack of complexity in a plant milk.
S2 (18:14):
Matthew, in the book you deal substantially with breastfeeding and
how amazing human breast milk is. Colostrum. The fact that
we're still discovering quite a lot about what breast milk
does for you. Do you want to enlighten us a bit?
S3 (18:26):
Yeah. So I wanted to I guess I focus, I
look at all sorts of milks. I look at wolf
milk and Tasmanian devil milk and you know, how it
kills superbugs and all sorts of stuff. Lessons we could
learn from that. But the milks I focus on are
human breast milk and cow's milk, because that's what matters
most to people in Australia and people around the world.
That's what we consume. So human breast milk. That was
where my mind got blown, you know, like because we
(18:49):
think we we used to think we knew what was
in it. We used to think it was sterile when
it came from a woman. But now we know it's
full of all these millions of beneficial bacteria that that
help to inoculate the baby's immune system. But the more
you look into it, and we're still learning more about
this every day, the more we realize how utterly remarkable
that system is. There's a there's a system where, you know,
(19:09):
we researchers were watching humans, you know, always loving to
kiss a baby's head, mothers kissing the baby's head and watching,
you know, other primates do that. And sheep and cows
and goats, they're always licking their baby's head. And researchers wondered, well,
that's beautiful sociologically, but, you know, is it is it socially?
Is that is that a is that important biologically? And
it turns out it is. So what happens is when
you if you're a nursing mother and you kiss your
(19:31):
baby's head, if that baby has a virus or a
disease or some kind of bacterial disease or whatever that
gets into your mouth and, and the mother's immune system,
it's like a library of immune responses. So the mother's
immune system recognizes that bacteria or virus creates an immune
response and then targets that immune response to her breast milk.
So in real time, the very next feed is tailored
(19:53):
to the immune system of the baby. And it's this
beautiful thing where you've got this, um, adult with a,
with a, with a mature immune system, you've got a
newborn with, with a very undeveloped immune system. Like, how
is the best way to get immunity into that newborn?
And we have this system where it's actually designed to,
to be done through breast milk. They went even further.
They now know that it can happen even faster than that.
(20:16):
So when when the baby is is is feeding off
the mother and it's sucking, it's sucking at the breast.
When it stops feeding, there's a vacuum. And when it
stops feeding, a little bit of the baby's saliva goes
back into the woman's breast. Now, this sounds really scary
and weird and creepy, but we now know that that
has a biological function. Because if the baby has an illness, say,
(20:37):
a rotavirus, rotavirus, you know, common, um, digestive digestive problem with,
with infants. That virus goes back into the woman's breast,
and then her body immediately creates an immune response and
targets it again to her breast milk. So very, very quickly,
in a very short period of time, you've got essentially
a vaccine for rotavirus being delivered at the next feed
(21:00):
to that bait tailored to that baby. These are just
some of the things we understand about breast milk. It's utterly,
utterly remarkable. And and yet rates are plummeting around the
world like we, you know, certain parts of the world
are like, you know, 10%, 15%, uh, children breastfed at
six months old. And really, you know, we know that
some breastfeeding up to two years would be ideal and
(21:21):
only breast milk up to six months old is the ideal.
And yet we're failing on all these levels. I mean,
it's not always easy for for women to breastfeed. There's
reasons why it's hard, you know, and, um, uh, for
a lot of people. But if it's possible, you know,
the benefits to the child are and to the and
to the to the mother we know are enormous.
S2 (21:55):
You have a literal grassroots view of farming in Australia
from your own farm. So how long have you been
on the farm now, Matthew?
S3 (22:04):
16 years. Been farming now? Yeah, yeah.
S2 (22:06):
Wow. So in that time, you've obviously developed a very
unique perspective on our food industry, good and bad. Can
you share a bit of what you think with us? Yeah.
S3 (22:17):
Look, I think what's one of the things that that
I guess as a grower is what I find really
interesting is there's lots of people have opinions about food.
Milk is one of the great ones. Like, people have
so many strong opinions about milk, but they're often not
founded on anything that relates to our place in the world.
Maybe they've got global numbers, maybe they've got it from Facebook.
Lots of people have opinions on growing food who grow nothing.
(22:39):
And and and farming does have an impact. It it
can destroy soil. It can it can ruin ecosystems. It
can decrease biodiversity. But farming well actually has the capacity to,
to to do the reverse, to store carbon out of
the atmosphere, to, to, to restore ecosystems, to, to build biodiversity.
And so I see good farming as the potential to
(23:00):
fix a lot of the world's ills. And I don't
see growing food as inherently something evil, which I think
sometimes when you read stuff about, oh, this has happened
or that's happened historically, it's easy to point the finger
of blame at farmers, but what they're trying to do
is feed the planet and do it at a price
that consumers are willing to pay. And and sometimes that
has meant that mistakes have been made and we've damaged
(23:21):
the earth that feeds us. But but I also see
the potential for farming to repair the damage. Like on
our farm, our little 70 acres of Tasmania, we produce
10,000 meals a year. Like it's pretty good. 40% is
reserved for wildlife, so So we're not even using 70 acres.
And each year we store between 100 and 150 tonnes
of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere more than we emit.
So you take all our cars and cows and everything else.
(23:43):
And so we are actually a net, you know, we're
we're carbon negative, which is climate positive. So that's what
farming is capable of. And we're only small. You know,
we're one example. But that doesn't mean it can't be
done in lots of places in lots of ways.
S2 (23:55):
But are we doing it in lots of places? How
are we going with our farming in Australia?
S3 (23:59):
We're actually doing reasonably well. Historically, we did pretty badly.
We we lost about half our topsoil in, you know,
since white colonization, the way we, we overgrazed and over
plowed and over, you know, and cut down trees. But
we I had something like 15, 20% of farmers now are,
are actively restoring soils or restoring landscapes. And yes, we
(24:22):
need to scale that up, but we have the we
have the ancient wisdom, we have the modern technology. Um,
we just need to, I guess, uh, um, get it
to happen a bit quicker, you know, to get more
people on board. And there are systems, you know, there's
there's farmer groups who are involved with this. There's people
involved in Landcare. There's there's so many people who are
who are trying to do the right thing. Um, but sometimes,
(24:43):
you know, it's a big boat to turn. It's like
turning the Titanic, you know? And there's no there's very
few farmers out there who are actively trying to destroy
the planet. It's just that what they've inherited, the systems,
what their knowledge is, maybe it needs to be turned
in a slightly different direction to be able to actually
heal some of the damage we've done.
S2 (25:01):
Um, so I wanted to ask you, what's the biggest
issue facing the food industry is sort of changing, turning
the ship around. One of the biggest issues.
S3 (25:10):
Yeah, for me that's the the biggest issue. So, you know,
people are very quick to point the finger at farming
and it's really easy to find some big numbers about
the damage that's been caused. But you know, like we
still need to produce food. We need to produce food.
You know, something like the next 30 years, we have
to produce the same amount of protein for humanity as
we have in the last 2000 years. So put that
(25:30):
in your head. Like, this is weird. We're in a
really weird place in in history, so we have to
be able to grow food in a relatively intense manner
while not buggering up the soil and the and the
planet that feeds us. And the good news is that
there are people who've worked on this for a long time,
and done this for a long time who know how
to do it. But how do we get that to
everybody who's growing food? How do we scale it up?
(25:52):
You know, a lot of people say to me, oh,
you know, the best thing I can do for the,
you know, for the planet is stop eating meat. You know,
the best thing most people can do? We we had
a full audit of our farm, our solar panels, our
soil health, our tree growing, our animals, our cars, everything.
And they said the one thing that we could do,
and it's the one thing everybody should be doing. If
you want to actually cut greenhouse emissions, change your super fund. Right.
(26:13):
Because you by by the lack of of of looking
at what your super fund invests in, you are promoting
fossil fuel emissions. And no matter what anyone says, the
biggest thing the biggest emitters are transport and energy. By far,
by far, by far. And they can be changed. It's
harder for farming to change because we still have to
(26:34):
grow food. But everywhere farmers are trying to reduce emissions
as well. But the big things are fossil fuel emissions.
And how do you change that? You take your money
out of the super funds that support those companies.
S4 (26:45):
Hmm.
S2 (26:46):
That's so interesting. And also in your book, you say
food waste is such a huge issue. And so that's
something we can do as well, is I know we
sort of hear a lot about it, but just try
and cut down on food waste. Yeah.
S3 (26:57):
Food waste. Crazy. Something like 40% of the world's food
is wasted, you know, and I think if it was
a country, it'd be the third biggest country in the
world or something. Food waste, you know, in terms of emissions,
you know, so, so, so this is the stupid thing.
We grow enough food for 12 billion people. Something like that.
11 billion people. Um, and there's only 8 billion people
on the planet. So? So. And the the bit, you know,
enough food for 3 billion people a year, 4 billion
(27:18):
people a year is thrown away. Like how? What an
insult to Mother Nature. Like there's someone's grown that there's
been a cost environmentally. Maybe there's been a cost to,
you know, to livestock or to fishing industries or whatever,
you know, to to the oceans. And, and then we
would like, waste that, like, it just doesn't make any sense. So. yeah,
these are the these are the low hanging fruit. You know,
(27:39):
they're the things we should be doing. You know. Yes.
There's all sorts of stuff we can be doing, whether
it's putting solar panels on our roofs or buying electric
car or whatever, you know, and having a smaller footprint.
But the big issue. Yeah. Food waste.
S2 (27:52):
Do you have really practical advice for people on how
not to waste food? I mean, it's really hard to
not to crack this nut.
S3 (28:00):
Yeah. Look, it is really hard. And look, I think
the the the the the trick is being able to
look in your fridge and pantry and work with what's there,
because it's so easy for us to go out and
just buy more stuff and put it. We have a
drawer in our, in our, um, fridge. We call it
the compost drawer. You know, it's the bottom drawer, right?
Anything that goes into the bottom drawer of the fridge
(28:21):
is in danger of becoming compost. Right? And so it's
the crisper drawer it's supposed to be for nice, beautiful,
fresh veggies. And even us who live on a farm,
who can walk outside and gather, you know, some fresh
broccoli or some herbs, we run the risk of stuff
going bad in there. So our aim is always to
go into the fridge first before I harvest anything else.
You would go to a shop and say, how do
(28:42):
I use this? And there are people working on this.
There's apps you can get for your phone, which you
just plug in what you've got and it tells you
what you can cook. You know, how wonderful is that.
So that's how we use technology to count, you know,
because technology isn't always, you know, making life better. But
in that sense, wow. Imagine that. You just plug in
the ingredients that are sitting in your fridge and it
tells you all the dishes you can cook and you
just pick one.
S2 (29:02):
Yeah, that's that's a good use of AI, I reckon. Yeah.
Isn't it. Yeah. I think the last word should probably
go to milk. And I'm going to ask the question
on a lot of people's lips, I reckon skim or
full fat milk. Which is better?
S3 (29:16):
Yeah, this one's really for me. It's really easy. Have
you got any self-respect? Um. Uh, you know, uh, look, biologically,
I'm going to. I'll frame it from the science point
of view. I did a degree in human biology a
long time ago, and I'm kind of nerd out on
the science. Biologically, full fat milk does more better for you. Full,
full fat dairy does not cause heart disease, right? This
(29:39):
is I just read an article in the European Journal
of Cardiology yesterday, yet again saying the same thing that
these people have been saying for a long time. But
for some reason, people seem to think you can still
get a heart attack from full fat dairy. No biologic
gets better for you. Gastronomically it tastes better. Um, so
for me, uh, we have skim milk. Historically was known
as hog slop. It's what you fed to the pigs, right?
(30:01):
It's the bit that's not fit for human consumption. Uh, yeah.
When you'd skim all the cream off to make your
butter and your clotted cream and, you know, all of
those kind of stuff. So, uh, so for me, if
you're going to get the benefits of milk, you're going to,
you know, bother to, to use it. I would go
the full fat version and it's interestingly massive uptick. You know,
we've gone through the low fat and gone back to
full fat as a society.
S2 (30:21):
No more hog.
S3 (30:22):
Slop. No more hog slop I would hope. Yeah.
S4 (30:25):
Yeah.
S2 (30:26):
Thank you, Matthew, so much for joining us today and
sharing your wisdom.
S3 (30:29):
Pleasure, Arden. Thanks for having me.
S1 (30:33):
Good weekend. Talks is brought to you by the Sydney
Morning Herald. And The Age. Subscriptions power our newsrooms to
support independent journalism. Search, subscribe Sydney Morning Herald or The Age?
And if you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe,
rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts. This episode
of Good Weekend Talks is produced by Chai Wong. Technical
(30:56):
assistance from Cormac Lally. Editing from Conrad Marshall. Tom McKendrick
is head of audio and Katrina Strickland is the editor
of Good Weekend.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.