and taste is such that you don't want it, then we have a different kind of problem that we need to solve. and we have all three of those issuings, currently. >>. >> i would just say one of my great frustrations having worked in the government, is how much we, as a country, and it's very understandableble would give people the information and they'll act on it.

but people who smoke know more about the ill health effects than you do about smoking. right? they've gotten that information in their ear. they've actually absorbed it more than most people. we have a lot of data about that. so going from information to the right behavior is a very big step. it's typically information is, of course, necessary, but it's almost never su efficient. and we over and over again, when we think about government doing things, over and over again, passed regulations and laws, if that were easy. you're just giving the information. they'll be free to act. we don't think about how hard it is.

and i think you've made an excellent point. if they've grown up with excessively sweet, excessively salty, very hard to change that behavior just with information. so i think we need to look a lot more creatively about what we do and information, i think, is never sufficient. we're not biassing and saying these foods are bad. we're leaving it up to the individual. that's obviously a deep effective solution. >> to what extent cost is also an issue. okay.

so two things. one is the last tud sdi i saw. says it cost about $1.50 more a day. per person. they actually prefwer the less

healthy foods for any number of reasons. and i think part of them probably are palettes. so when we think about the government diets, i think it's worth about thinking about the government palette. in terms of young people, let's talk about school lunches. that's an opportunity when children, like that, make choices. and they may make it on the basis of imperfect information. but, also, the food that's available to them in school lunches are not particularly nutritious. so the the problem with nutritional value? >> under the obama administration, i'm no longer showing for them. but we did change the formula on school lunches. and made them more nutritious,

actually were more obese. it's a little hard to control all of the variables because they come from different economic households and the rest of it. but in the past, remember, in the past, a lot of what went into a school lunch was determined by what farmers wanted. this was run by the department of agriculture.

that was viewed as not acceptable. i thought it was perfectly acceptable. it was a very important task of whether in fact, or how much soda can contribute to obesity. so we do we have a lot of play in the government. at the school lunch program, with what we permit people to buy with wic and food stamps. it's an influence on what people do consume. and i think, again, we all pay for it. we pay for it coming in, in

terms of the food. we also pay for it going out as people get obese on those diets. so i think being more or shaping them much more and not just chloric intake is pretty important. >> so with the school lunch program, do we agree that there's some other way to perhaps fix that? >> i think they have gotten belter than they were. i think that's relatively uncon tro verse sal. some were attributed to different products or different food groups. there's been some controversy there. but i think overall, it's to notice that it's just a remarkable captive audience. it's an amazing captive audience. yeah. they're there eight hours a day, six hours a day, they're eating there and i think it's about 30 million meals.

30 million kids each day. that's a massive force in u.s. population that we just get to decide what they eat. we just get to decide what they eat. we could decide they should eat a little bit less. we should decide that they only eat vegetables. that's a really, really big tool that the federal government has. now, in the past couple of decades, it's what they call competitive food in schools. which weren't really around. where are they competing? they're competing with the school lunch that's provided. and those competitive foods have been soda, sugar, candy, increasingly branded foods many years in schools. low and behold, if you put pizza, burgers and fries or soda next to the health departmentier ongs, the cafeteria will say the kids don't seem to want the healthier option. shocking.

>> it is shocking. i think that, too, is getting better. the new rules try to sigh that competitive rules have to also meet the federal stand alls. but that's pretty late in this process. we ought to think seriously about how that enviernt is structured. >> i think what's really important, again, i can see from the age of the audience, many of you have raised your own. and one of the things you know is that what you feed them as kids is what they -- kids don't go from lots of real radical changes. in their food preferences. so, you know, all of those people who sell cereal sell soda know this. so they are worried about if they don't inculcate kids in drinking their soda, they probably lost them for a lifetime. so a very formative moment in setting the food palate and food preferences.

we need too be more health conscious. and, by the way, again, we can all moan in the fact that the glass is half empty. but we have made some important strides. you know, largely-gotten sodas, not with the competitive food things. they actually have more nutriti nutrition, i think everyone is aware. philadelphia has been a major national leader in demonstrating. you can make a big difference both in getting that soda and that can make a big difference in kids' obesity rates. this is a city that's probably gone down. but, you know, we have turned a corner in this city because of maj major leadership in the city.

so we know that, you know, politically, you can take it on and actually make a difference of what's in the school. we don't have to wait a whole set of generations. >> so where does it come into play? isn't it again, perception, which may be wrong. it may be given to factory farms, given to producers of food who are not healthy. is that also a problem that has to be wrestled with. >> so we've had a farm bill, you know, in various forms since the 1930s chblgs it started with prices too low, then it's exacerbate. what they did is pay people not to grow which reduce supply. if there's too much, the

government bought it and that reduced supply. so that worked for a while. there was a great coalition. between food stamps and the farm between food

prices are people who use commodities for inputs. that's a lot of the process food industry. it's a lot of biofuels and a lot of corn syrup. so a new coalition that wants those to continue to be subsidized in one way or another. to keep prices down. but, again, there's this program that gets renewed every five years. there's an opportunity to decide how the crops are going to be planted. if you want different crops, obviously, the farmers won't like it. that's clear. but lots of other people might. so fruits and vegetables are a specialty clause in the form legislation. those are specialty crops. they 140u8dn't be specialty crops if we want them produced do mesically, then we should favor those.

>> so actually the study and the experience with the common perception which is the meat and chicken industries, essentially, with the food and drug administration. to an extent, are they in the driver's seat and you've got to ma noour around the obastacles. >> i don't know captive. that's a little stronger than. people talk about regulatory capture all of the time. it's a very contentious thing. you have to understand the mind set of a federal bureaucrat. >> that koumd be a horror story here. >> i don't mean that in a negative way. most of these are incredibly smart, working incredibly hard. often as we are about to enter, again, another period of the government is going to shut down, you're going to be forced to not get a paycheck.

it's a little stressful. one of the things that ends up happening, i think, for many people on the federal government looking to do the right thing is they have a motivation of minimized incoming criticism. it's never pleasant. congressional hearings, newspapers, et cetera. one of the things you end up doing is you try to tread these fine lines. you know, the meat industry is a lot more interested in what happens in the regulatory standpoint than, you know, consumers. someone is taking care of it, i know it. they're worried about mad cow disease over there. and they're worried that my chicken is going to be clean. those inkus ris have a lot at stake. so they can really push their agenda.

you want to do the right thing by consumers. you want to do the right thing by the producers, you end up biassing yourself. producers are very good at making criticism. they have a lot of money. and so i think that's what ernds up being very powerful. it's hard for someone in the federal government, nonetheless, again, i view with a little more helpful. we've had a major conversation about obesity in the last five years, thanks to the first lady and the recognition about obesity. we had talked about the problem of sugar-sweetened beverages but drinking has gone down, not guilty just in the past five year, but the last 20 years.

they're shifting to buying tea companies, buying water companies and things like that. in my mind, that's good news. the american public has heard the message. sugar-sweetened beverages, more healthy items. these are not habits we got to over a year. we got to it over a generation. it's going to take time to break the habits. similar to that, moving off junk food, cereals are another thing. sales of cereals have gone way down. you're hoping that that's substituted by more high protein intake. but these are positive trends. meat is one of these funny things. on the one hand, you do want people to eat protein. protein is really good. and we probably should have more

in substitute for carbohydrate. but it also had some bad effects, too. but it's the same thing that's true. in moderation, most things are okay. >> so we're also trying to figure out, at this point, jacob, what we're not talking about. so you talked about the things that we are talking about. is that something you should be talking about? >> i think that we're not talking about it isn't quite right. i think there are loud voices out there who are talking about it and who are very concerned about it. there's litigation over whether it's constitutional or will be upheld. but there is that initiative. >> very good at that.

>> a similar initiative failed in california two years ago. but it wouldn't just be back on the ballot there. or something came out of oregon. >> and to rooir it. it's fairly big, fairly vocal push. and social media efforts are really expensive. now, should the sba be joining anything? definitely. are we there yet? what do we know? >> it's a little bit less clear. so my reading of the lit ra clur is i'm not aware of any study, or i would like to see one if there is, what has happened with some of the gmo product,

produces or will produce environmental harm. that could be scary. what this is can be modified that's resis tent to round-up. and that means you can put as much of that on as you want. an that makes farnling very, very efficient. all is fine and good. and the concern is that over a couple of years, ralter than a couple of hundred years, the weeds that survive that round-up are going to be really very strong. so we'll have to wrach et up the next batch. and that process of kind of ramp etting up is concerned earn viernt tally.

we're not sure it produces revolutionary effects. but people are anxious about it. there's fear and concern but we can't quite articulate exactly why. so we're showing a study that's going to talk about it a lot more. >> at first, i would agree with what you said. >> there's no reason to think that there should be a problem healthwise from a gmo. and i think we need to be up front and honest about that. the environmental factors are a little more unknown. i would say, second, it has always perplexed me that we've got to give the consumers all

the information about let them choose. this is one area where the producers don't want to give them the information and don't want them to make choices. and have really tried to obstruct providing this basic information on the idea. most of us feel queasy about it. and we probably avoid it if we could. some things said gmo. some said non-gmo. we would probably make a choice on that basis even though it would make no difference to us because who knows why. i've always found this idea that they object suddenly for releasing that information on first amendment grounds. it's kind of crazy. all the other time, you'd want to regulate it. the last point i would make is i actually do think in this case, personally, the american public is a lot more rational than the european public. gmos are like you would think

they were the black plague with the way the europeans talk about it. they are much more into excludeing gmos, et cetera. now, that has not affected which most people don't appreciate in the developing world. if they have gmo seeds, they can't sell to europe. and it creates a real problem because the europeans are very, very stringent about any contamination. so it has an impact on farmers. but you wouldn't think about it in terms of restricting their access to markets in europe. and i think the europeans have gone overboard, my own personal view, given that they have gone overboard on this issue. and i think we are a little more sober about it, but i do think this issue of if we have enough space, i don't know what enough means, but if we have enough space, it's upheld then you will

see a big push for national legislation. one of the things industry hates is, you know, different laws and different states. and then they prefer one national law which states they're hoping that they'll be able to get to a lowest common denominator. >>. >> let me get your reaction and turn this into questions from the audience. but, jacob, i think the president's conversation, that's possibly negative environmental impact. there's thought with factory funds produce but would you agree that? and secondly, to what extent should that be part of the legislation? >> i 5:00 suptly agree with that. it's the biggest environmental issue there will be in the next 20 years. there's just no question that

the consequences and the food production distribution, all of those consequences are massive environment tally. and farming is a very quirky area in u.s. environmental regulations. we regulate some stuff, we don't regulate other stuff. i think the next frontier of u.s. environmental law and rightly so. >> in that regard, the whole use in meat production of antibiotics. and the worry that you get to the cows and the chickens in the water supply. and it's not just antibiotics. it's hormones and all the rest of it. again, part of the problem is the data aren't overwhelmingly great. but other countries have restricted use or eliminated use of antibiotics in food and meat.

again, i think this is one of the big issues. consumers have driven a lot of change. i think it was purdue who said they're getting rid of antibiotics just used for growth in their chickens. you see a lot of companies talking about how their foods, you know, no antibiotic production, no gmos, et cetera, that i think that is going to drive a much bigger selgment of the food industry to try to do respond to what consumers want or think they want. and i think that's actually, you know, finally we're having a pretty positive impact. again, the connection between your diet, your help and avoiding disease, i think, has gotten much, much stronger in most people. and they can see that even if

they don't cook well, they can see that they'll do a better job. >>. >> anyone who wants more information about that should watch out for the great content. second, finally. finally we're achieving. that's been a very, very long process. the fda started talkbling about this issue in the late 1970s. that got halted about a decade in the political process. what happened now is the fda has issued voluntary guidelines. and industry has responded. it's been driven by the public, as you said, and has also been

driven by the industry itself. all of that is to the good, but it's been a very, very long process to get there. it's not clear if that's a great success or a failure. so people i've talked to in the restaurant and food industry have said, we go to our producers and say we want to do this. can you do it? they say yeah, in five years. we can get there, but immediately. i think the question of transition, wl it's no antibiotics for growth or therapeutic, is it going to be a lot of detail in the next coming years. >> absolutely. >> continuing with a discussion with a method of food. and the question is here, a serious health issue in the united states. the federal government is a sers issue in the united states.

why does the federal government allow it to be labeled natural or artificial flavor? >> he's the regulator. >> and you're the one that worked at the white house. >> so i'll come across as radical, but i don't have a problem with not allowing that. even if the ingredient is really harmful and bad, just keeping it out of the food. if it's an ingredient in food, we have to allow it to be in the food. we generally recognize that safe. if it's not safe because it's causing harm, then it's not safe and we shouldn't pretend that it is. this is an example of a general class of problems that we see in the federal government which is the nonspecification of terms that are used on labels which consumers think rightly mean a whole bunch of different things. if you can describe a can of tomatoes as fresh, what does that mean exactly?

organic means something very, very clear and that's set by the federal government. but these other terms are not. sometimes there's guidance. sometimes there's a third-party industry group that tells us. there's a gap between what people think it means and what the term actually means. i think it's part of what we really need to work hard to solve. >> marketers have taken over every word that the federal government hasn't said they can control and use it to sell. that's what their job is. it's no surprise -- organic finally got a very definitive label. if it's not very clearly specified what natural means, they will use that to sell us what, you know, that's what they're paid for. i think it's no surprise when we don't have very clear definitions that all sorts of things get put under that. one of the questions is, if you

took it off and you said all right, you can't use natural for corn syrup, but you can use it for sugar, would we be any better off? i'm not sure i would find that a big positive change. they use high fructose corn syrup because it's cheaper and it appears to have adverse effects in terms of obesity. frankly, a lot of stuff that has that in it, we should probably be trying to minimize it anyway. >> we should say, if it's fraudulent, deceptive or misleading, that's unlawful. if the use of that term as applied to that product is deemed to be fraudulent, misleading or deceptive, that's illegal. and the ftc has authority to deal with that, go to court and deal with that. oftentimes that's going to be hard, but that is the case.

whether or not it is fraudulent, that's a different sort of question. >> let me raise another question from an audience member. the question is, what's really behind conservative attacks on healthy eating and anti-obesity efforts? >> i don't know. and i'm being honest. it makes no sense other than they're for it, we're against it. we have a lot of that in politics today. you would have thought obesity is one of the things which is nonpartisan in this country. we do have facts on this. they're not really -- there's not a lot of disagreement about the facts. you can look at the evolution over time of every state but colorado having a serious obesity problem. one of the interesting things i'll just mention, i was out in wisconsin -- in madison, wisconsin, looking at a health system. they built these new facilities

and they decorated them with pictures from the historic society. these are pictures from the '60s and '7s. every kid is scrawny. kids were just much, much skinnier back then. the caloric intake was lower and they were playing constantly outside. almost all of these pictures are of them doing baseball, basketball, or running around. it's undeniable that it's a huge burden to medicare, medicaid, private insurance. all -- lots of other items in the country. it would seem to me that unless we're being ideological, there's really no reason to oppose it. it's one of those things we

should be all able to get together. so i'm not 100% sure i understand other than, you know, liberals are for it, we got to be against it kind of mentality. >> good argument here? >> i think the only thing i might add is there -- the regulation of food can code as ideological and a kind of anti-state government out of my kitchen sense. i think that's wrong. because i think the table and plate and the food that's produced is already so heavily regulated and structured by the law and the government, to say the very end, the government's going to stay out of it. that's ridiculous. the whole choice -- everything that's been produced has been affected by law and government. i think for some reason there's confusion. you start the process then, that choice, between these two healthy and unhealthy things,

tell me which one to eat. if you walk the clock back a few stages, i think that doesn't make a lot of sense. >> i think that goes to the point that jacob opened the whole session on which is there's no society ever that hasn't had regulation of food. it's so central to being a human being. no society has never regulated food. it's just like it's not a libertarian thing in that sense that there will be no state regulation. even libertarians want to know that it's pure, want information about what's in it. there's just no way of getting to some neutral standpoint that the government will have no impact on food. that is not possible. it's not even conceptually possible and certainly not desirable. >> speaking of the need and inevitability of regulation, one question here, should we put warning labels on hyper

palatable foods like oreos as unhealthy, because presumably they're addictive. >> you asked it, here's the answer. >> 70% chocolate is hyper addictive and it's really good for you. so i don't think that would be a fair thing. >> but in general, i think that -- i'm in favor of lanling. i like disclosure. i think disclosure's really good. the problem ask to figure out what sorts of things should be disclosed. each individual person has a different thing they care about in each different product. you can't just have a laundry list of 6,000 relevant characteristics or features of the food. where was it produced, how was it produced, last year or this year, how it was distributed, how did it get here. all those things we might care about, somehow we have to choose amongst those things otherwise

the information is completely overwhelming and completely useless. there's a real challenge there i think sglt let me ask this to jacob real fast and i have a question specifically from you from the audience. isn't it also likely that people aren't going to be reading that wonderful data on the label but what they might rely on a great deal is the brand? the brand substitutes for quality in their view. i'm going to vawager if i saw another company's water, it probably has the same ingredients. why would i end up with this water as opposed to another water? how does that work itself into the calculation that people decide what to buy? >> i think it does a lot. we're running surveys to show people different labels, some branded, some unbranded, some

that have a personcentage of da recommended sugar allowance and trying to understand the infr s inferences they draw. ultimately what you care about is what they think about the product. is this healthy? does it taste good? does it cost a lot, and would i buy it? it turns out, they're pretty good actually at making those inferences. what they say they care about is taste and cost. that's relevant i think as we structure policy. >> look, i spent a large part of my time working on trying to get food labeling done, front of the pack food labeling. there's a lot of reasons to think it's important. we know that people don't read the new transition facts -- people, a small fraction of shoppers -- >> everyone in this room reads

the nutrition facts. >> they're not the most intuitive. you don't add up everything you eat across a day. so we had worked for a very long time with the grocery manufacturers association to try to negotiate a voluntary front of the pack with the hope that the fda would be willing to step in. very contentious negotiations. they made a big announcement, short of short circuit our negotiations that they would do it voluntarily. you've seen how much they've done voluntarily. it is contentious. do you put on calories, do you put on sugar, saturated fats, do you put salt on? as jacob was saying, there's a lot of information. it depends what your main objective is and what you think would be most important. in my view, calories -- it's a very important goal and the

question of some of the other factors, you know, whether sugars or saturated fats ought to be included is some of the contention. most manufacturers are very fearful about having red, yellow, green or some other summary measure. as you know, no single metric for front of the pack is taken off in the united states. and i think partially it's contentious, partially they don't want to do it. but it also -- very hard to figure out exactly what the best message is. that will depend upon what we think we need to be aiming for. certainly, i think, obesity is so high on the national agenda, that's got to be a major factor. >> here's a question directed to zeke. it's about labeling, about what's on the label, because that's our theme here.

our theme is about what zeke was just talking about. given the perils of sugar intake, why is there no recommended daily allowance for sugar on labels. no specific limit is set for sugar in the united states. >> i'm aware of no defenseble -- >> metabolic poison which it's sometimes described as. >> i don't know of any defenseable reason not to provide that information. there's a political story of why we don't, and that is true. to expect politics to be absent from politics is stilly. on the other hand, politics is not absent from politics. so the industries and organizations and interests we are talking about are powerful, strong interests, they have been deeply involved in food policy for many, many years. i think products with a lot of sugar in them do not want to

have that information on the label. and the reason's very straightforward. it is incredible how much sugar is in most products. i know this. i teach this. yet every day i'm amazed at how much sugar is in most products. >> pick it up from there. let me throw in white bread as something else thought to be unhealthy once it gets into our system. there's no warning labels put on that. >> simple carbohydrates is a real problem. sugar is an example. and -- >> this is all we're left with by the way, at the end. so you know where we're headed. >> we're not going to get that i don't think. the question is, are there other ways of conveying that information that we might be able to offer the public that would be very helpful in that regard. one of the ones i've begun thinking about -- again, this is sort of in the realm of -- guy seem ik index has become an

important assessment of how foods effect the body and induce us to have very high glucose levels and then to crash and affect our insulin. it's a major relationship development of type two diabetes, the one that's gotten out of control in this country. this is i think -- would be a very useful label for diabetics and those of us who aren't diabetic but want to eat in a better way to avoid type two diabetes, things that have high glycemic index are not good for us. and that would be one way of getting to much of the sugar element without a frontal assault and provide information both to regular folks like us as well as people, the millions and millions of people who now have

type two diabetes or have metabolic syndrome et cetera. >> the next question, it's basically about the extent to which it's possible that all these regulations we've been talking about increase the cost of food. do we avoid increasing costs perhaps with less regulation? >> it is true that regulations can cost money. and i think we've gotten pretty good at trying to estimate at least the cost of what those regulations are. there's been a huge amount of interest, trying to figure out the cost of the regulation are, the benefit of what the regulation are. some people love that, some people hate it, some think the studies are terrific, some think they're absolute jibberish. is this going to cost us more to do than the health benefits we're going to get from it i think is a sensible question to ask. they exist, but they're not

wild. policies that fundamentally restructure the economy in some way, yeah, those are really big costs. but i don't think labeling requirements are going to drive food costs up. there's a possibility it might actually drive some down. one of the problems that many products have, you go and want to buy good eggs and you want them to be very healthy cage-free, free range, just good eggs, you want the chickens to be treated really, really well. you go and there's like 16 different labels. there is cage-free, antibiotic-free, hormone-free, natural and there is animals treated really, really weld. then the people who aren't great can price in the same way that people who really, really are. they can't recover costs that they should be able to. if you can fix that problem

somehow, the price effect might work out okay. >> for some families in america, it's millions of people because we're a huge population, price -- there is a nutrition problem because they can't afford food. but we also have to get our head around the fact that i think it's in 1930, 28% of the household budget went to food. today, it's under 10% goes to food including dining out. so the idea that we're goipng t slightly raise the cost of food to fulfill some of these regulations on purity, safety, et cetera, it's like, all right, it is going to have an adverse effect on some people, people who need food stamps and stuff, but really for the vast majority of americans, that actually might be a good thing. maybe we'll buy less. maybe we'll buy some -- you know, we'll shift our c

consumption. so i'm a little hesitant to say it's just going to raise the food prices and we've got to do everything to avoid raising food prices. one of the things you appreciate going to other countries, the united states we tend to like lots of stuff for a low price. other countries, we'll sacrifice the lots to high quality, maybe less for the same price. you know, that's a trade off i think we should be doing more of in the united states, high quality food. because we don't need 2,800 calories a day. 2,000 will do just fine. if we bought less, but higher quality would be a better deal for the long term for the country. we'd be healthier. >> that's very common.

turns out in lots and lots of countries, the serving size is smaller there than it is here. i think there's overall food calorie budget -- >> you might also link that up with the fact that there's greater opportunities to walk, get outside. for example, that's what happens in france. combine that with the patterns you are talking about, you may explain to the extent to which there's less obesity there. this question is leading to ask about is the extent to which we can introduce advertising as something else that may be should be in the mix of regulatory mechanisms. what about regulating advertising to children as an approach to obesity? >> lots of battle scars over trying to do that. as you might imagine, you know, lots and lots of big media interest with billions of dollars at stake. we have had some positive changes on that score in the

country in terms of disney and others. it is a -- it's a tough road in part because segmenting the market and targeting -- how do you not target kids, all right saturday morning cartoons, but they watch lots more than saturday morning cartoons. i think it's going to be a hard thing to say, get rid of ads to kids, there's going to be a lot of spillover effect. i don't see that -- there are things we can do and i think that's important, but i don't think that's going to be the be all and end all. i think trying to change kids' diets and parents i think responsibly on changing kids' diets is going to be lots more important. this shrek, i don't know if people know the shrek experiment. kids wanted the onion.

it's like there are creative things we could do to increase kids' desire b89 for vegetables and other things. i think again we need to be more creative about that and more directive when it comes to kids and good nutrition. once we inculcate these taste buds, it's very, very hard. ny new year's resolution this year was no added sugar. not that teaspoon of sugar that goes into the tea in the morning and no added candy. you know, i'm now ten months into it. i'm fine with it. but it took a long time to change the taste -- my taste buds so i didn't want it. candy, it requires force of will to not have, you know, in the center of my office, i walk through, there's two big jars of m&ms.

it's very hard for us to break that. i think it's that habitual thing that we have to inculcate in our kids and in ourselves. >> i think that problem only gets harder with social media and the internet. maybe would have been possible to establish in the 1970s. we continue to struggle with how to deal with kids on social media and kids on the internet. looked like we might get somewhere with that, but not really. >> this is a rather open-ended question that's been asked. i think it does lead us into talking a little bit more about something that's been explicit in what we've been talking about. what do you think of the local food movement? i'll go to zeke first. >> there are lots of important things about the local food movement that are pods -- you know, you reduce the energy consumption needed to move food.

you can create local farms and patronize them. so i think it is important on the other hand, we also have to recognize, we're not growing raspberries in winter in pennsylvania. so there's limits to how much i think that's going to effect. and similarly, you want people to eat more fish, less meat kind of thing. in the midwest, there ain't going to be local. you're going to have to import it from the coast. i'm a big advocate -- believe me. i sit on the board of a farmer's market organization in d.c. the main mission is to try to promote opportunities for local farmers. and i love what we can do here in philadelphia just because we have huge number of local farmers around. but there are going to be limits to how developed that can be if we also want to maintain a nice healthy balanced diet across the full year. >> i agree with all of that.

i'll add one thing that can be done at scale in some areas is to pair local farms or products with schools. that's something i think would actually be good. it's happening here in philadelphia or this area. that's a nice local move. it's also good for the schools and the community too. >> i will say, one of the big hitches for local is the distribution network. you've got the farmer here. you've got the demand in a city. and the distributors, right, cisco and the other ones, aramark. they can't do local. and to get that distribution system working correctly so you can actually get efficiently from the farmers to the markets and urban areas, that i think is still a big challenge for most of these eat local, grow local things. i know a lot of people are

trying to solve that problem now. >> so our time is pretty much at an end. i want to ask each of you, again somewhat of an open question, and kind of take it whatever direction you want. we talked a lot about federal regulation. there's also state and local regulations. i'm wondering to what extent you think there's room left in that realm and which would be the better policies sort of take us in the directions you've both talked about tonight in terms of state and local regulations? >> yeah, so i think there is still room and it's a space that has been heavily regulated locally at the state level and federally for a very, very long time. i think that's by and large appropriate. some of the things we've been talking about are likely to have this gmo characteristic or feature where there's a local or state push in a few states and then it gets federalized. parts of the food industry where there's national presence,

that's just going to repeat over and over and over. a hunch is to push for more federal regulation and less state regulation in a lot of the food space. i think that's okay. but we give up some things we would otherwise get. and we give up the local character of food rules and regs that we've got. >> i think that's right. you know, in the end, we are now an interconnected country. i don't think we're going to have a situation where we're going to have a checkerboard of very serious regulations for very long. it's very hard for industry to work under those conditions and they end up pushing for national regulation. what you hope is that in that process we don't go to the lowest common denominator because that disempowers places like vermont, oregon or california that want to do more. that i think is unfortunate. >> unfortunately, our time is

up. but i hope you'll allow me a minor two to say it's a rare opportunity for a moderator to be able to say and be completely truthful when he says we have been so lucky tonight to have the two best experts in the country to talk about an incredibly important issue. and i want to thank you both for sharing your time and expertise with us. [ applause ] we need to know how many people are reading us. we need to know how they're coming to us. so for example, if they are not coming directly to our website and coming through facebook or google or twitter or snapchat or through any of these other venues, we should know that. >> sunday night on q&a, marty barron talks about the changes

at the post since he took over in 2013. he also discusses thedy pics of his work in the movie "spotlight yts. >> i think the movie is quite faithful to the broad outline of how the investigation unfolded. it's important to keep in mind it's a movie, it's not a documentary. you had to compress within two hours a seven-month plus investigation including things that happened afterwards. and you had to introduce a lot of characters and the important themes that emerged over the course of that investigation. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on q&a. >> joining us to talk about the president's executive action on guns, paul singer, d.c. correspondent for usa today. what's been the reaction from congress, especially house speaker paul ryan and other republicans in the house and senate? >> well, the reaction from congress is pretty much as you would anticipate. neatly divided by party. democrats of course are saying this is common sense effort to

fight gun violence. republicans are saying it is a continued assault by the president both on the second amendment rights of americans and on congress's prerogative to actually regulate this stuff. their argument is obama is overstepping his authority. >> what were the plans in the house or the senate as far as republicans are concerned with legislation? what do they have planned for this year? >> not much. the bill that has been sort of the primary talking point for republicans is a bill on mental health issues. every time one of these shootings comes up, they have talked about this bill that would basically expand resources for people in mental health crisis. which allow democrats think is a good idea. there is debates on the margins about exactly what it should do. there's a provision that would require basically or expand the opportunity for court-required treatment of people with severe

mental health. kind of outside of mental institutions. there's some dispute over whether that's a good idea or not. that's really the only sort of gun control measure that has any kind of traction in the republican congress. there's a question whether that can get the support to pass. >> what about some of the past legislation, the mansion, both lawmakers, gun owners, they came together to work on legislation. whatever happened to it? >> let's go back a couple years ago as the president was saying in his presentation that after one of these shootings, there was a big human cry for legislation and a major effort to broker a deal with a whole bunch of gun provisions in it. as i recall, there was stuff on straw buyers of guns, of transiting guns across state lines. all of it was hung on this major compromise of expanded

background checks. that fell apart because there was not enough republican support to pass it. so the bill died. that's been the last move for any kind of broad gun legislation. >> what about democrats? are they in line with the president on his executive actions? >> i think you'll notice there was not a great deal of brooetd breadth to the president's executive actions. that's why he turned the conversation to appealing to congress to do more. there's a whole lot of do more things that the democrats are urging. bang people listed on the terrorist no-fly list from owning a gun, expanding background checks more broadly, pelosi last year was trying to allow the centers for disease control to do more research on the health effects of guns, all

that is stuff congress would ultimately have to do. they're still going to have to act on the $500 million he wants for medical health care assistance. that stuff he can't do by himself. ultimately congress will have to take up some of this stuff. >> what about on the campaign trail? how's this issue working into the candidates, what they're saying? >> it's fairly i think easy to anticipate. we've already seen a lot of comment from the republican candidates that president obama doesn't respect your second amendment rights, that he's trying to undermine the rights of law abiding americans. part of the topic today has been essentially what obama is now doing is bullying law abiding citizens with these additional sort of provisions that just pester those that are following the laws instead of going after actual criminals. >> is that issue