416 Sherry Hess – Hijacked Flavour: reclaiming taste from the food industry

Your tongue might be the most underused tool we have for understanding food quality — and for moving consumer buying power toward regenerative farming. Sherry Hess, culinary professional, nutritionist, and founder of The Flavor Remedy, makes the case that taste is not a nice-to-have. It is a powerful biological signal, and the food processing industry has understood this far longer than we have.

We go deep on the five tastes — salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami — and on why ultra-processed food has been so effective at training us toward intense sweetness while stripping out complexity. Sherry argues that bitterness isn't a flaw to engineer out; it's the missing piece tied to polyphenols, antioxidants, detoxification, glucose metabolism, and satiety. The good news: chefs already know how to balance bitter with umami, fat, protein, and spice. We don't all need to go to culinary school — we just need to borrow a few of their moves.

We also take apart the "chocolate steak syndrome": the fitness industry has built an entire pipeline of protein products with steak-level nutrition engineered to taste like chocolate and in doing so, trained a generation to completely ignore what flavour is actually telling them. For investors and brand builders, Sherry has a practical provocation: if a product claiming to be regenerative needs five or six flavourings on the label, it's almost certainly masking the low quality of what's underneath

More topics covered: the five tastes framework and what each signals biologically; why bitter links to immune function, glucose metabolism, and detoxification; how non-nutritive sweeteners disrupt the microbiome.

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Transcript

Why Taste Matters In Regeneration

Koen van Seijen 0:00

I want you to think about your favorite meal and then think about the different elements and different flavors. Taste such a powerful concept, and yet we rarely talk about it in regenerative food and agriculture. Yes, of course we say it has to taste good, but it often stops there. Our guest of today argues that we should elevate the reference of taste because it connects nutrient density and quality and can lead, when done well, move a lot of consumer buying power. Of course, our taste has been hijacked by the whole department of food science in the ultra-processed food companies. But we can fight back, we can retrain our taste buds, and we need chefs for that. And some, but not too many, don't worry, culinary skills. Very simply using the right spices and reintroducing bitter flavors. And I can hear you squint, but no worries. Bitter combined with protein and fat is super tasty and healthy. Join us for a rabbit hole deep dive into the world of five flavors, non-caloric sweeteners, how we're dumbing down our taste buds, the chocolate steak syndrome, and tasting beyond the label. This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food Podcast, where we learn more on how to put money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities, and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Welcome to another episode. Today we're gonna focus on how to elevate the reference of our taste as it connects to nutrient density and quality. Welcome, Sherry.

Sherry Hess 1:29

Ah, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Koen van Seijen 1:32

I think it's one of the first no, not the first, but very few times I mentioned taste in the intro, which is which is not good, though we need to change that. And it's something that all foodies I think can relate to how important it is. And if we make that connection stronger through one of the best sensors we have, which is our tongue and our nose, to to quality of agriculture, it just becomes a very interesting, almost interesting feedback look. So I'm so happy to have you here with us for an hour or so to unpack, of course, after an intro from Lauren Tucker that said, absolutely have Sherry on. So here we are. And to start with, a personal question we always love to ask at the beginning is how come you spend most of your waking hours thinking and acting, in this case around taste and at intersection with the food system?

Sherry Hess 2:16

Oh, it's such a great question. And you know, just in your intro alone, when you talked about, well, I've never had taste, is like the forefront of or the title of a podcast. And yet I guarantee you that 99% of your guests are talking about taste and talking about flavor in the background in some form or fashion, right? So, you know, there's a couple reasons why I really focus on taste and really see the potential and how it can shift and change the food system. And part of it is because the conversation's already happening, right? People are talking about taste. Oh, well, what I grow and raise tastes better. It tastes better, it tastes better, right? And that is absolutely true. But it's in the field of flavor and taste right now, it's it's a big challenge because of what we're up against with all the manufactured flavors and all of the science. And, you know, in the world of food processing, there's so much science around how to manipulate taste and how to make it appealing and palatable, right? And so, you know, the reason I focus on it, the short answer is I see so much potential in how we can shift consumer buying power, right? How many things do you buy that don't taste good? Right. So every time we're making a purchase, you know, we might buy something based on label or ingredients or a certification or something from the get-go in a package in a packaged food, right? Oh, this has, you know, X amount of nutrients or this much protein or this certification, right? That can be the initial buy, but if it doesn't taste good, we don't buy it again, right? And so the power of taste is huge. And up to this point, it the the awards go to food processing, right? Because they understand it and they know it and they're manipulating it. And, you know, in in the intro for me, you talked about, you know, the reverence of taste. And so that's that's what I'm trying to elevate is that, you know, as a society, we're not really recognizing the full potential of what taste A is leading us into, right? Which is is kind of having us purchase, and B, the effects it's biologically having in our body. And it's just, it's my belief that if we can shift that and help to understand that and to see the the value in that, that we can actually generate a much different demand for quality of food, the way it's grown and raised, and not how it's just flavored afterwards.

Koen van Seijen 4:52

And absolutely there with you. And I'm really looking forward to unpack like how what we're up against, and because we've understood the power of taste, but mostly through manufactured taste. But what led you into the space of taste? Are you a chef? Do you grow up on a farm or not? Or what's your journey into spending most of your waking hours around taste, talking about it, acting and advocating strongly for yeah, a sort of a missing element we haven't really we've been neglecting?

Sherry Hess 5:22

Yeah. Do you have 57 years?

Koen van Seijen 5:25

We have an hour plus of podcasting, potentially two or three. We can do long for them.

Sherry Hess 5:30

It's literally a lifelong journey. And my answer to all those questions is yes. So I have a culinary background, I've been gardening my whole life, I have nutrition certification. All of those intersections, right, of food have been part of my journey. And so I would say, you know, when it first came up for me when I was actually working in the restaurant business, and I was working at a high-end restaurant, and you talked about how, you know, taste and smell are connected. But the reality is when we're eating, it's actually the only one of two times that we are engaging all five of our senses at one time, right? So we're getting the texture, we're hearing the sounds, we're tasting, we're smelling. And and one day when I was working in the restaurant, I was like, oh my goodness, like that was like this aha to me. It's the simplest thing, but it was a big aha for me. It was like, when we eat, I'm like, I think that's the only time we have all five senses engaged. And then ultimately a couple years down the road, someone reminded me that like procreation may also involve all five senses at one time, right? But but still two very powerful survivor survival mechanisms, right?

Koen van Seijen 6:38

So were you eating at that time? Was that a trigger? Were you standing in the were you cooking something? What triggered it? The very strong surprise.

Sherry Hess 6:44

I was sitting eating one of our meals that one of our chefs had prepared. Oh gosh, I don't think I could name the exact meal. I can name other meals that he's pre-he made this birthday meal for me one time. And I asked him, I said, make me a meal that represents me as a person. And he made it salty and sweet and spicy. And yeah, so it was like this surf and turf meal, and it had all these different combinations of flavors. And this is way before I was on this journey, right? This is this is a couple decades ago, and I was working in this restaurant and just trying to find my way. And yeah, that was that was an amazing meal. It was like lobster and steak, and it sounds so simple like surf and turf, but the way he spiced it and flavored it, you know, he's like, it has to be sweet because you're sweet, and it has to be spicy because you have a, you know, a spice to you. And so, you know, that was that was probably like the first seed to be really planted in this, right? It's this big aha. But then ultimately, you know, my own health journey. So, like a lot of people in this space, you know, had a a healing with food journey, got really lucky about 15 years ago when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition and was really fortunate to work with it. A functional doctor that, you know, gave me all the right tests to take and put me on diets to help me understand. And so, you know, going gluten-free was part of the journey in an autoimmune. But but the part that really hit me was they started giving me all these supplements, right? To support. And I'm looking at these. I just gotten out of culinary school and I'm looking at these ingredients and the supplement, and I'm like, turmeric, ginger, like Ayurvedic herbs, ashwagandha, you know, green tea. And I'm like, okay, so we live in this world where no one knows how to cook or make things taste any good, and we're putting all these beautiful, healing things into a capsule and swallowing them. And pay a lot of money for it.

Speaker 8:34

Way more than for the tea.

unknown 8:36

Yeah.

Sherry Hess 8:37

So that led me my first step into so the base LLC of my business is called Legendary Spice because I started making spice blends. So I, you know, took my culinary degree and I was like, I'm gonna take these spices and put them into blends that are really easy to use and also have these benefits. So I put spice blends together in a way that would be easy for people to use, but would also have the benefits. And so that was the start of like my venture. And I'd always been organic, or not always, I can't say always, but you know, I'd already been on that journey of you know, wanting to eat organic and understanding the food system, Michael Pollan, you know, changed my life, that kind of stuff.

Koen van Seijen 9:18

Interesting how the right book at the right time. Like that one. Powerful. I think Dan Barber's third plate. Many people mentioned there's some of these that just for a 20 euro, 20 dollar, whatever, 15. Like it can be a life-changing experience, a proper book at the right time.

Sherry Hess 9:34

There's there's a lot of them out there now. I mean, the other one for me is um the Dorito effect, Mark Shasker.

Koen van Seijen 9:40

I haven't read it yet. That's very good because we were talking with Mark to come on, and I need to that. I started it actually. He has several.

Sherry Hess 9:47

He has he has a couple different really his second his his first one was steak and then Dorito effect and then the end of craving. I had yeah.

From Garden Tomatoes To Nutrients

Koen van Seijen 9:55

Yeah, I think I started with the Dorito effect, and I need to do I need to do both for as prep, let's say. So maybe when you're listening to this, it already came out. And then when did the sort of click came that it's not just taste flavor, or it's getting more ginger or getting more turmeric or getting more green tea, but it's also how that has been grown. Is that more prevalent or more easy to see in spices if may if they've been grown properly? Are they spicier or spicy? Or like what's what where did that connection then with the land management and land practices came?

Sherry Hess 10:28

Yeah. Well, it's funny because I I it wasn't a straight line. It was, you know, I did the spices, and then ultimately, you know, as an individual entrepreneur, the challenge to get spices on shelves and things like that is like I don't want to go down the road in food manufacturing. Like I already knew that that was too challenging and and not something I wanted to put all of my efforts and energies into. So gardening, honestly, gardening my whole life, right? And knowing, and and almost everybody you talk to, you can talk about the tomato the tomato difference, right? The backyard tomato, the farm tomato versus the grocery store tomato. Like it's the easiest way to get my point across, right?

Koen van Seijen 11:06

Straight from the straight from the to the tree, sorry, the branch where it still has little hairs on it that disappear after, what is it, 10 minutes or something? Like you the freshness is just is another level when you get it off the tree. They're still warm, of course. That also helps. But yeah.

The Five Tastes Framework

Sherry Hess 11:19

Right. Right. And not only that, it's it's you know what we're growing, we're growing and raising tomatoes to ship them across the the world, right? To ship them across the country so that they're hard and firm and don't bruise and don't, you know, they lose all of that flavor when they're when they're being grown and raised for these reasons, right? And they're being ripened in the truck with gases, all these types of things that we know are happening to our food. But, you know, what what the common person doesn't think about is oh, of course you love that taste, but have you ever considered that that's actually a different level of nutrients in the food, right? So I think once that started rising, I mean, I started filing the Bionutrient Association, you know, I during COVID, I was doing podcasts and had Dan Kittredge on. You know, we talked about this and we talked about, you know, this. I think everyone in the regenerative food space recognizes that our tongue is powerful and pointing towards it, right? Everyone inherently knows. I think humans inherently know that this is a thing, but we're just not mentally conscious of it. And we're not making our decisions based upon anything more than palatability. And so the gardening was part of it, and then starting to follow, you know, these these laboratories like the Bionutry Association, Adacious, right, that are doing it and proving this nutrient difference. And then they're also they're showing it, right? Now we're seeing this technology that is proving when they call it nutrient density or just different nutrient levels, right, across the board and trying to draw these conclusions of correlation. As I started to see that and see that technology kind of rise, I was just like, this is it. Like we can start to the the way I approach this is through the five tastes that we have, right? So the taste that we experience on our tongue and that we have taste receptors and cells in our bodies that listen to these things is salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. So umami is the one that most people they think of it as Asian food, which you know, soy sauce is very umami. So that's why it kind of has this. Yeah, tomato has umami too, and it's this the flavor, it's protein, it's it's glutamate. And so I take these five categories of flavor, and then and this is really like kind of super dumbing it down, but we have to start with this concept of how do we value these things, right? And so, you know, talking about sweet and what do what does sweet represent in nature versus what does sweet represent in processed foods, right? And so it's almost like a combination of two categorizations. So one is the these five tastes, and then the other side of it is kind of dividing that into you know, flavors that are coming from whole food sources versus flavors that are, you know, being manufactured and added. And it kind of makes you go, oh, well, one is good and one is bad, right? This is what we do as humans. Well, this is good and this is bad. But the truth is, and I had to go down this, I had to explore this and travel this journey myself, is that you know, right now we have so many health conditions that require things like calorie-free sweeteners, right? So we have to create something that does have palatability. Palatability absolutely matters. And if someone's going through type 2 diabetes, you know, really struggling, then you know, the blood sugar content matters. So you want something that's palatable, you're not gonna eat something that's palatable. So we need these types of sweeteners, but the the challenge and the things that I keep researching is I I look at those flavors like allopathic. So kind of like kind of like what pharmaceutical does, right? You have a problem, you need a fix, you can't do things the way you used to. So this is what you do. You know, you take a pill to fix your problem. I look at some flavorings in that way. Like if you have issues and you can't be consuming, you know, natural sugars and and things that are, you know, coming from fruit, even, right? If you have that level of health concern.

Koen van Seijen 15:45

But that's a small percent, that's fair for a small percent, not so small anymore, but it's percentage of that population. And then you would say, okay, if we make sure they they can eat the nutrients and the food they need, and a bit of sweetness helps with that. Okay, let's come up with low calorie one. The problem is we put it everywhere, or almost everywhere. And but I want to go back to a point you mentioned Audacious, of course, Eric Smith, friend of the show, then Kittrich, etc. They also hardly ever talk about taste, which is interesting. We're just realizing that. I keep knocking on their doors, like which is such a subjective thing, but it would be amazing to see the milk um tests they're doing, the dairy ones, carrot ones, the steak, the beef study, just also I'm not saying take away super scientific work that seven from fleet, etc., has done, etc., but also say, okay, which one of all the meats tasted better, the animal protein, or which one of like how do we do a test around that? Because interestingly enough, and we see that often it's in animal studies, it's much clearer. Of course, we don't talk about flavor and taste, but self-medication from ruminants is very well described by Fred Provenza, etc.

Sherry Hess 16:50

Like it's Fred Provenza is a big fan of my work.

Koen van Seijen 16:54

For sure, they taste better, these plants, and even if they don't, we know they know we have to eat them at well. Like bitter is different if you know it's good. There's a an interesting resetting mechanism in there. So, why are we in this whole nutrient density and quality world at the moment, which is starting to explode? I absolutely agree, and I'm very happy by that. Why are we not talking about flavor and taste so much?

Sherry Hess 17:48

Yeah, well, you you you touched on it, it's the subjectivity. People are afraid to approach it through the lens of personal preference, because absolutely personal preference is built upon what you're feeding your body, right? So you can't define taste better in across the board, right? It's nothing that you can do in a laboratory. And even if you bring humans into a taste experience to, you know, try to determine or try to prove, right, that something tastes better, it's subjective. So I think that's the biggest barrier in my work. It's so funny. Last year at Expo West, when I went, I walked up to Eric Smith and I was talking to him, he's like, Sherry, you have taken on a beast. I'm like, yeah. Um, because of that reason, right? Because it's so it's complex. And so what I've part of my journey in this whole thing is that, you know, we have to kind of go beyond the the term preference and the term better. And so that's why this has been hugely beneficial for me to go down the road of, you know, in my nutrition counseling and and what I'm learning through that is the biological effects of taste. And I think this is a really, really powerful scientific stance that we can start to bring in to start to introduce the value in this and to help these labs and nutrient density and regenerative farmers, you know, to speak to this in a in a scientific way, because the truth is food science to this point has focused primarily exclusively on palatability. And so I would love to see the science counterbalance that. And actually, there is science out there, but everybody's also afraid to talk about bitter. You brought bitter up, right? And bitter is absolutely it is the magic that we are missing in our pal on our palates and purposely, right? I mean, now we have pills, we have GLP1 shots and pills and things that are gonna create satiation, but nobody wants to eat bitter food. And that's exactly what that does, right? Like, that is literally like I did a whole paper on the effects of bitter taste receptors on glucose metabolism.

Koen van Seijen 20:14

Like, and is that something because we've been now we're getting into the weeds, we've been trained not to like bitter because of potential risk. And as children, like children, you don't like this and spin it. It's been really we've seen it with our kids. If you don't do that necessarily, we didn't force them, obviously, but we expose them to a lot of flavors, and there's no real non-interest in bitter. There's a strong interest in tasting everything and trying. And like what has been our beef with bitter, let's say.

Sherry Hess 20:42

Yeah, well, you know, inherently, and this is what the food industry always talks about, too, is like bitter indicates toxins.

Koen van Seijen 20:48

Yeah, I was I was gonna say that then I thought probably that's nonsense. I'm not gonna mention it, but I did think that's a good thing.

Sherry Hess 20:52

No, it's not nonsense. I mean, if you're gonna taste hemlock or you're gonna taste some actual, you know, bitter thing, but I always I always suggest people think of it like a bitter pill to swallow. Like literally literally think of it like medication in the right levels, it's going to it's going to actually generate detoxification in your body, which you want if you're taking in a toxic. Yeah, if you're taking in a toxin and think about those animals, the Fred Provenza's work, right? The animals self-medicate, they find those bitter, tannic plants to eat because they're if they have accessibility to them, right? Because that's part of his whole study, is like you move an animal to another field and all of a sudden they can't find the plants that they knew that they're where they were before. But like, yeah, so the the whole idea of the bitter taste receptors is they generate everything in your body that helps to detoxify yourself, right? And so a lot of times I'll talk to people because they're like, Well, I don't like bitter food. And I'm like, Well, do you drink coffee? Do you drink tea?

Koen van Seijen 21:51

Did you learn not to drink? Do you like bitter beer?

Sweeteners And The Hijacked Palate

Sherry Hess 21:53

You know? And so there's a there's a mental shift that has to happen. And I always say too, it's like, you don't need to eat an entire bowl of bitter grains to get the benefits. And this is where the regenerative farmers can really highlight this concept is, you know, because when you're when you're growing and raising food that has more antioxidants, that has more polyphenols, more terpenes, these are all the things that have those bitter components, right? You're not just improving those things. And of course, those are the things we want to list and check off because they they, you know, are proven to be health beneficial. But when they talk about taste, you're like, oh, but it's bitter and nobody likes bitter, so I can't talk about that. But when you're growing and raising this food with this healthy nutrient complexity, and literally the bitter components are the plants or the animals' defense system, right? It's their immune system, which ultimately supports our immune system. It's not just the bitter that's improving, it's everything that's improving in it, right? So it's the whole that makes it work. You know, you don't eat a piece of grass-fed beef and say, oh, this is bitter, but it's full of, you know, antioxidants and all the things that you want, but the reason it doesn't taste bitter forward is because of all the protein in it. So this is where the culinary comes into play because chefs understand how to balance flavors, right? So the umami in that steak is creating the buffer to the bitter that exists, you know, from the antioxidants in that steak. And so it's delicious and it's complex and it's way better than, you know, some conventional meat off the grocery store shelf. But but so this is where it's like I have these pathways and these channels that can help everybody in the regenerative space to speak to this at a whole different level than what they're doing now. And I do think that the big barrier for most people is is the whole idea of palatability and preference. But we can go beyond that.

Koen van Seijen 24:01

Yeah, no, absolutely. And then you mentioned, and but I want to go back to something you mentioned as well, is then with the right quantity. So not over there's always you can kill yourself with drinking water, obviously, and don't try. But what we've been hijacked to a certain extent by the really good chemists in the food industry, like they did your job amazingly, is that we can't stop. And that's not the case with Whole Foods in the sense it's like bitter makes you stop at some point. Like, how important is that? Are we still able to put down the steak at some point? Or like what's the challenge and opportunity with not overeating certain things or all things actually that in large quantities could actually be harmful and toxic, like bitter is if you do that way too much.

Sherry Hess 24:41

Yeah, and that's what we do, right? We're like, oh, this is good for us, so I'm gonna eat a whole bunch of it, right? Like it's it's so classic human. Like, oh, this is good for me, so I'm gonna just do that, you know. And it's so fascinating. I uh Eric Smith just did a post on LinkedIn, I think a day or two ago, about this idea of satiety, right? And people now bringing this up mostly because of the GLP one craze, you know, of everything that's happening. Oh, it me, you know, it makes you feel full, it makes you feel satiated. And, you know, he brought up this idea that you know, satiation is is and I see this too. Like it's not necessarily all about are you full or not? Because people think of satiation as, well, I didn't like it, so I want what I like now, right? There's almost like this emotional content to it. So to answer your question about how do we how do we not go overboard, again, I think we can go back to like what do we first of all, you when you're talking about changing your palate and you're talking about, you know, how do I, how do I learn to like these things? It's really about flavor complexity and not eating all bitter, but eating bitter with a little bit of sweet, a little bit of umami, a little bit of salt, right? Like these are all things that are having a biological effect in our body. And it's why we like complex food. When I did my, I did my TED Talk, the first thing I said was invited the audience to think of their favorite food, right? And then to like imagine, do you taste anything salty, sweet? You know, went through the five tastes with them. And I think when most people think about their favorite food, and if they really sit down and think about it, you'll be able to pick up on complexity. It's not all one thing, right? And nature does not provide flavor all at once. You know, you have your sweet apple that has sour in it, that has the, you know, the bitter skin, and it has a little saltiness to it if you really look for it. It's so to keep from going down this, you know, all one flavor concept, I think it's important to just remember the balance and to be aware also of what are you feeding your palate now? Because your palate is going to adapt. One of the classic examples, you know, I I already spoke to non-nutritive sweeteners and how it can be beneficial in this society of, you know, type 2 diabetes, but the reality is that non-nutritive sweeteners are completely hijacking our taste buds. And some have even been shown to be contributing to the same problem they're trying to so non-nutritive sweeteners have been shown to disrupt the microbiome. And disrupting the microbiome has effects on sugar blood sugar metabolism.

Koen van Seijen 27:44

And so, you know, in the long-term, light, like all the lights, basically.

unknown 27:50

Yeah.

Koen van Seijen 27:50

Like whatever tastes sweet but has no sugar or sugar form, natural sugar form in it.

Retraining Taste With Simple Cooking

Sherry Hess 27:56

Yeah. And, you know, over the last couple years, walking through, you know, the big food conference here is Expo West and Natural Products Expo West, and everybody's talking about carb levels, sugar levels, you know, and they're putting some kind of sweetener in it. And I remember I went, I I don't remember who it was, and even if I did, I wouldn't say it, but I I walked past this brand and it was gluten-free and you know, low sugar, whatever. And I grabbed it and I took a bite, and I literally was like, oh my gosh, like spit it right out because it was so intensely, intensely sweet. So, you know, when we're talking about how do we how do we adjust our palates and how do we change this idea of preference, we really have to start with being aware of how much sweet are we consuming, how intense, not sugar levels, not carb levels, but intensity of sweetness, because our sweet taste receptors, when they taste sweet, they think, they think, right? I'm like characterizing our taste buds, but it it responds in a way as if you are taking in calories and and as if your body is going to be receiving the glucose that our cells need. So there's a lot to it, you know. I can go down the rabbit hole of sweet taste receptors and the effect on insulin and then the taste receptors and like what's happening in our bodies.

Koen van Seijen 29:16

The fact that we're taking these non-caloretic sweeteners, thinking doing a good thing because we're not taking the calories messes up the reaction of our body completely because the body is expecting, is getting something super sweet, but not getting the calories and all the other effects with it, so it goes into whatever overdrive, trying to balance that, which obviously has effects on hormones, microbiome, as you mentioned, all of those. And and you said something very interesting, with many interesting things, but about recalibrating or resetting or training our taste buds, which I think is a question many people have. Okay, we're we've been manipulated. We all know we cannot put away the chocolate chip cookie or the Pringles, not the name and brand, but definitely good at that, or any of the other processed food, ultra-processed food, because they're engineered by a whole department that is way outsmarting any of us to be too palatable, exactly the right crack. If you haven't read Ultra Processed People Do It, there's a fascinating, some fascinating passages in there. And and so then is a question, okay, like they've understood taste and flavor and palatability very well. We would like to step out of the treadmill somehow. Like, what is what are training, except going cold turkey probably is tricky. What are people you work with, etc., what are ways to start training the bitterness? Okay, I can accept a bit of bitter. Of course, everybody going to culinary school learn how to cook and mix the five flavors would be amazing, but I don't see that happening tomorrow. You should all cook, by the way, people. But what are ways to okay, how do we retrain and enjoy the whole food side of things or enjoy the complexity, as you mentioned?

Sherry Hess 31:05

Yeah. This is where the culinary tricks come into play again, right? Kind of back to like in the steak, it's all kind of built in there, having those things that counterbalance the bitter. But you know, again, I think it's you gotta start with awareness of what are what are those, what are those flavors, right? And can you detect them? And then as you're eating the way you're eating now, how what is the percentage that you're actually experiencing? And and you're not always going to pick up on the bitter, right? So, like if you're gonna take some fresh thyme and you're gonna put it in your sauce, you know, your gravy sauce, whatever it is that you're creating, your tomato sauce, right? You're not gonna necessarily taste that and be like, oh, that's bitter. So, like having awareness of what foods have this bitter and then slowly incorporating them, you know, maybe improving. This is where I think spices are beautiful for this. And I think there's an amazing spice company here in the States that you asked about, you know, do spices actually taste better? Oh, hell yeah. Like off the charts, these people single sourced, they're a socially, sorry. Like burlap and barrel.

Koen van Seijen 32:11

Burlap and barrel, okay. We'll put it in the show notes.

Sherry Hess 32:13

Yeah, and if you want to get them on, you know, they're not necessarily like intersecting with the regenerative space because that's not necessarily what they're pushing, but it's what they're doing. Like they're they're appealing to home cooks, and so they're all about taste. Like everybody's gone back to them because of taste, but the reality is they are working with very, very high quality farms, spice farms across the world, which is single sourcing correctly.

Koen van Seijen 32:37

It comes to another argument we had or a conversation with grounded. We don't have to call it regenerative, etc. If we focus on the quality piece, and that leads to better practice, in this case because it's better quality, better taste. There are markets out there, like probably the spices and the coffee and the tea that and olive oil that have graded like markets in them. You get higher quality, you get higher, higher prices if you have access to the market. It's not that easy. But we don't have to actually discuss quality or nutrient density or nutrient complexity too much because the whole market is built around different categories of quality and thus different prices, which makes those markets probably the most interesting ones we have for the agriculture space. Because those are the ones that reward quality tomorrow if you have it.

Sherry Hess 33:20

Absolutely. You know, if I were to make like a bold, ridiculous statement, it would be we don't need any of these certifications, all we need to do is taste stuff. Because I feel like it cuts through everything, right? You can't put a bunch of herbicides and and you know, on on your food and expect it to be the most nutrient-dense quality food, right? Like it's I don't know, and again, this is my obsession, and so this is absolutely just my personal opinion. But if we could taste the food and compare it to what we're eating now, we would be appalled, right? Kids these days don't even have the ability to recognize the difference between the spinach that's being hydroponically grown and thrown into plastic compared to real spinach, unless they have a you know a family with a garden or farm and things like that. So we're we're dumbing down our taste buds and it's it's really kind of scary. But like I said, you know, uh my obsession is that we can totally taste the difference. And when we're picking up on that complexity of flavor and we're recognizing how to bring in these other flavors just to go back to like how do we change our palate?

Koen van Seijen 34:41

And how long as well? When you when we paired with children, is not okay, how do we trade? How do we go if we don't taste the difference between one spinach and the other? Is that a thing of weeks, months, days? Like, how do you is it integrating a few spices and slow, is it pro a slow process over time? Like, what is the transition?

Protein Craze And Chocolate Steak Syndrome

Sherry Hess 35:00

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a slow approach over time, is the best way to do it because ultimately, you know, from a kid's point of view, it's like you said, you know, kids are a lot more, they're more in tune to what their bodies are doing, right? And so, and their needs, and as parents, we're always like shoving all these bitter vegetables at them, but they don't need that. Like they need the carbs, they need the you know, the things that are gonna help their brain develop. And so there's like this this craving that kids have then they're when they're exposed and given a lot of whole foods, that they're like the they're like the best possible way that we can change how we eat right now, is if you just expose your kids to that. But if you're an adult and you're already like you've been doing all the, I think of my sweet son, 23 years old, you know, you don't always listen to your parents when you're that age. You do your own thing. And he knows my work and he and he honors my work. But in his world, he's lifting weights and going to the gym. And, you know, so he's kind of doing a lot of this, you know, I call it the chocolate steak syndrome. So we've taken protein, right? We've taken all these protein shakes, protein bars, choke protein, whatever. And it's the protein levels of steak, but we're making it taste like chocolate. I'm like, this is not in coherence with like how we're supposed to understand how flavor correlates to nutrition, but it's huge, right? Because the palatability and a list of things on the nutrient, you know, I'm gonna work out and I'm gonna do all these things.

Speaker 36:22

And so I'll take my protein shake and I'm fine and it tastes like a turplified cookie.

Sherry Hess 36:28

So, you know, I think as an adult, if you have been programmed to be eating all of these sweet things, but you know that they're good for you based on the nutrition level, and then you don't really, and then every meal that you eat, you're kind of programmed to like want sweet. So it goes back to that what I was saying before, like to really be aware of you know what you're taking in. And are you getting like anything bitter? You know, are you adding spices? Are you bringing in teas? Are you eating leafy green vegetables? Are you eating the skins of your apple, right? Like we peel the skins of our apple for the kids because they don't like it, and and that's okay, but it's also like you're not expecting it.

Koen van Seijen 37:10

Actually, it's not but then it becomes a game to eat them as well. Like I noticed sometimes they like to eat it separately, like they eat first the apple and then the skin, or first the skin and then the apple. It doesn't necessarily have to be in one package, yeah. As long as it's a game, many gamify it. But then coming back to your son, not to but is the health not to pick on the him, obviously, but is the health angle and the conscious and the conscious like looking because consciously, oh, I need more protein because I'm working out and weightlifting. There's a huge movement around that in terms of protein. Is it also the angle? There's an interesting ex-bodybuilder in the UK called Eddie Abreu that is really vocal about eat real food in not necessarily the sourcing, he's working on that, but really all the shakes, all these things. Look at the ingredient list, you'll be shocked. You don't really want to put it in your body. Probably all the skin things you have and all the depression stuff that comes with it. Like he's used, he used everything, everything under the sun to to grow his muscles and got really depressed because of that. And now it's he's not the best cook, but he cooks and and really focuses on the young people that are listening to his Instagram, mainly and TikTok, and starts it needs to be real food, it needs to be single ingredient or very close to that, and you see the difference in a couple of weeks. Do you see that as well? Is there is that an angle point of not necessarily flavor and even sourcing, but just look on the ingredient list, have a look at what you're putting in your body, and that cannot be good for the health outcomes you want to see for your skin, for your brain, for your brain fogginess, etc. Probably has to do with that. Is that something that is that a message or an in like an in into this space?

GLP-1 Drugs And Undernourishment Risk

Sherry Hess 38:44

Yes, absolutely. You know, I I talk about this all the time too, because and when I, you know, that kind of made-up term that I have about the chocolate steak syndrome, you know, when I was first kind of going down this road of well, why don't we trust our taste buds? That was that was the first thing that came up, right? Well, we have all of these foods that were we believe are good for us because of the functional food space, right? It's it's just classic looking for the quick answer, right? And and I'm not even a hundred percent sure that all this protein craze is is even good for us, whether it's whole food or whether it's we miss a lot of fiber in the process as well. I feel like there's something behind this, even in the nutrition space, like the health space, everybody's talking about the levels of protein. And I'm like, I'm just not sure I buy into all that, right? And so, but because there's so much belief, right? It's a it's a belief system that these foods are good for us based upon whatever worldview we've taken on, or whoever we believe in, right? And we all know that's influenced by you know corporations and marketing and and even ultra-processed food. I mean, that those foods are ultra-processed foods, right? And yet are the health conscious people thinking of it that way? You know, or are the fitness gurus that are pushing protein shakes and pre-workout things and are they looking at that as ultra-processed food? Because unsurely they're telling their clients or or you know, purposely avoiding junk food.

Koen van Seijen 40:24

The non-the non-ultra-processed food don't have a very good marketing department and cannot pay the influencers well, and they don't have a brand, and thus, yeah, that's the end of the influence game. Unless you're being featured there and paid for, then yeah, it gets very little attention. Is that shifting now with all the weight losing or suppression, like hunger suppression drugs that are like is that creating another perfect storm within that? Of course, it's not the necessarily the sport group, but it's a group that definitely suffers. Is that creating another meaning perfect storm or big one actually because of the uptake?

Taste As Investor Due Diligence

Sherry Hess 41:01

It's such a good question. You know, I I've been working with Mary Purdy at the Nutrient Density Initiative about, you know, doing a focused webinar on flavor and taste, you know, and we're tying it into this GLP one, you know, wave that we're all experiencing. And so I don't, I have a lot of people in my circles that I know are doing it. I haven't had enough of one-on-one conversations with them to fully understand why, because some of them are not even overweight. And I'm like, what is happening? Like they think there's some big benefit to this GLP one thing. So what I would want to have is conversations around like, are they being nutritionally guided when they're doing this? And and if so, what is it that they're being told? I have a friend who did, you know, before GLP 1 became a big thing, she did bariatric surgery. And the, you know, the focus, the nutritional focus that she was given was small meals and focus on protein, right? And so That's not a lot of info. My question, uh my question around this is like, what who's telling you to get your antioxidants? Like everything that's happening in your body is inflammatory right now. You've just gone through major surgery or you're changing the hormone levels in your body. Like, there is inflammation happening there. And if if doctors and and practitioners are not talking about the importance of antioxidant levels, which is bitter, right? But not if it's a whole package and a whole food, you're getting it all together and it tastes delicious, right? But if that's not part of the conversation, I don't know the long-term effects down the road of just eating less, but eating less junk, or you know, maybe doing it so that you can still have, you know, cocktails every night. I don't know. Like it's so fascinating to me, you know, and it kind of ties into why the non-nutritive sweeteners were so successful so quickly, because we've been kind of conditioned to believe that if we lose weight, then we're healthy. And that's just not the whole picture, right?

Koen van Seijen 43:09

That's undernourished, and yeah. And so what do you think is the message for let's say the more financial focused? We often talk obviously on the investing side, investors here as well. Let's say we do this in a theater, there are people managing their money and other people's wealth, and we talk about taste. Of course, we had an amazing meal before. What should they remember from this conversation? What should they remember? What is the seed you want to plant in their mind if there's only one thing they remember from this evening?

Sherry Hess 43:40

Yeah, you know, I again, Pie in the Sky, Dreams of Sherry. I would love for investors to use taste as a measurement of the quality of who they're investing in, whether that be a farm, whether that be a brand, whether that be, you know, from a brand standpoint, you can look at it through the lens of, you know, if they're if they're claiming to be regenerative and their ingredients list includes, you know, five or six flavorings, you have to go, what are we tasting? And why do you need all these flavorings if you're a regeneratively sourced, healthy, you know what I mean? Like there's a all of the flavorings in the world are powerful and they're also they have become a a placebo for the lack of quality in the food that we're growing and raising, right? They've been able to mask poor quality food. So as an investor, whether it's a farm, a brand, Whatever it is, you know, I it's just this powerful shift. We just have to value taste more than just palatability alone. We have to recognize that taste is this powerful biological function in our body. And it does give us an indication of what's happening at the food level. And I know that's kind of I don't know how that translates directly to investment, except for the fact that I think it proves that companies are doing what they say that they're doing.

Food Science That Blocks Bitter

Koen van Seijen 45:20

Which is such an interesting point. We're talking to uh not the name drop with Dan Barber, I think last year now, I think he has launched his vegetable processed vegetable. We're talking about processing, etc. I'm gonna do vegetables in a can, but they're gonna taste good because they were well grown, proper seeds, really nice seeds, obviously a row seven, etc. etc. And then they don't need any additives because if they you put really good vegetables in a can and you process it in a way they should be processed, in this case cooked in the can, they will be super, super tasty. I haven't had a chance to taste it yet, but it is uh the indication. And then if any investor invests in that company without properly tasting, and I think it's interesting, many people don't. You consider farms, but there comes a culinary angle because many people, even close in the food space, are probably not able anymore or not able to then prepare it in a proper way, prepare it with all the spices, with the things, not as additives, but to bring out the flavors, and there's a big piece missing there. We get need to get a lot more chefs involved working directly with farmers and say this is what it could taste like if it comes directly from the land, and it's processed, quote unquote, because it's cooked and properly done, and there's a translation there to the plate. We would love to do a series, by the way, on the farmer and his or her chef to have to walk the land with the farmer and the chef, because lots of these farms supply to restaurants, amazing restaurants, and they don't get the attention necessarily. And I don't think they have the budget to go and eat in the restaurant because usually these are quite a bit more spicy, pricey. But in have the chef go and cook for the farmer in the kitchen of the farmer, I think it would be a very interesting power dynamic as well to see okay, where does it start? It starts on the land. Yeah, and probably the farmer. I know some of there are great chefs, but some others may not never know how good it could taste in the hands of an experienced and experienced chef. So there's a translation piece there to see, and then probably yeah, you don't need the additives, you don't need the mask, like you said, you don't need to cover up the levels, you don't need to oversalt it and oversweet it just to hit that brain piece, the brain trigger we have. And so, and then it's actually to people that know and are in the know, like to realize that we are being hijacked, like we are constantly, very smartly. Let's hope we can bring some of those flavor scientists over to the other side and start working on how do we change real? Do you have conversations with the this is getting to a question, people don't worry? Do you have conversations with the food industry, like with these labs that are creating like people that work in there that they're like, I could use my skills to actually make vegetables taste better? Let's go work with Ann Barbara, let's go and work with these people and with Michael Poland and with Eric Smith. Are those people changing sides or are they talking about it at least?

Sherry Hess 47:53

You know, I can't say that I have specifically seen people want to change sides. I can't help but think that it's happening. I will say that I have spoken with food scientists, CSU, Colorado State University is a big agricultural college here in the States, and I have spoken with food scientists in their labs. They have this cool little campus right downtown called CSU Spur, and they have like a an agricultural building and a hydro building and an animal husbandry and health building. And so I have spoken with one of the food scientists there about this concept of what I'm trying to do and talked about like doing food tastings and what would it look like to do comparative tastings, you know, of different things grown different ways. And, you know, at the time, I think when I spoke with her, I was trying to prove nutrient density, and I would probably approach that a little bit differently now. But, you know, I I do think, and you talked about this younger generation, they want better quality food. And I think if we could just, like I said, instead of proving the correlation to flavor and nutrient density, I think we have to start with this baseline of bringing it back to the introduction of the show and the reverence of our sense of taste and the real power of what it's doing for us health-wise. You know, there's scary things that are happening out there, scary in my mind in the food processing world. And there's right now, there's technology. You can find it on the Monell, which is a science focus on smell and taste. It's a laboratory in in the States here. You know, they're focusing on blocking our bitter taste receptors. And they're doing it, right? If you think about this from a good in the world and why it's generating a demand, it's because they want kids to be able to take medicine, right? They want kids to be able to take the medicine that they have to take. So they create this technology that blocks our bitter taste receptors. Well, you heard me say that the bitter taste receptors are responsible for glucose metabolism, detoxification, immune system boosting, digestive support, bile producing, and now all of a sudden we're gonna block them. Now they say it's temporary and it comes back or whatever. But I'm like, that to me is a really scary thing because if that becomes something like this obscure ingredient in our foods, you know, because it again in the functional food space where people think they want to drink these, you know, really bitter green powdered green drinks, not saying they're good they're bad for you. I think there's a lot of benefit in that. But if you're gonna just eat barley juice, barley green, you know, grass powder is pretty bitter. And if you're not used to that, you need it to be sweet.

Koen van Seijen 50:42

So you drink it next to your coffee in the same place. It's like interesting. And we got used to that. So you can get used to that, people. Come on, just chew it, just chew it, don't drink it, just chew it.

Sherry Hess 50:52

And when you start to feel different, you start to go, oh, and then you recognize that your body is craving a salad and not, you know, something different. It's it that's been proven. Like you can change your palatability. You can change it.

Koen van Seijen 51:05

How have they tested that, or how long did it take? What's the like what are some interesting studies or timing of that? Stories you have there.

Sherry Hess 51:15

Yeah, I mean, I don't have I'm trying to think of personal stories.

Koen van Seijen 51:20

We can put them in the show notes as well if you have it. I remember some baby stories, like baby studies from Ultraposis people, which we don't do anymore in in the 60s, I think. Right.

Sherry Hess 51:30

Um and I wonder if he br if if they if they reference the same study that Fred Provenza talks about, the orphan the orphans. It's yeah.

Brands That Win On Real Flavor

Koen van Seijen 51:39

I mean, they weren't really orphan, I think they were coming from challenged families and slightly taken away, so there was some debate about the I may have I may have the details wrong. But the science is very interesting because they had this table full of all kinds of vegetables, just cooked or raw, and the nurses were instructed to not do anything except help if they wanted to, but not feed them any. And they tried every single thing. There were no fuzzy eaters. They tried everything, they did hands of salt, and then of course spit it out, and kept adding a bit of salt to things, tried, and it was one boy, I think, that very low bone density, and the only thing they knew at the time was codfish oil. So they put a bottle and he just kept drinking, which is not the easiest thing to drink if anybody ever tried that, and somehow managed to get his bone up to level. Of course, in the MRI scan, you could see the hand of the nurse, or there were different times, like we take the different, or the x-ray scans were, and so but the story is fascinating because he I think he talks about it in the book as well. They were absolutely able to self-medicate and select everything they needed, and there were no fuzzy eaters, and it was all bitter greens as well, and strong flavors, and nothing was processed, of course. It was just cooked, which it gives to but they were six months old, they could handle basically all of it.

Sherry Hess 52:49

And then my question also is like, I don't know the timing, I don't know the specific one that that you're referencing, but you know, of the timing of it, what was the nutrient density of the food like then? Yeah, right? Like if this is decades and decades ago, more than 50 years ago, then the the food is gonna be more flavorful, right? It's going to be more nutrient dense, and so it's going to require them to eat less even to get satiated and and fulfilled.

Koen van Seijen 53:14

So which is another big one, like the situation, like you eat less when there's more in it, which of course is an argument we make, and then it's difficult to show that, but it's an interesting point of view. If you can show, I mean, we had Herb Young on eight times the nutrients in your citrus.

Sherry Hess 53:29

I was just gonna bring him. I was totally just thinking about it.

Koen van Seijen 53:31

You need one grapefruit compared to eight, not exactly, of course, the other fibers, but it's at least price-wise, suddenly it's a very cheap grapefruit. Like thinking about like in terms of affordability, of course, don't juice it, just eat it full because you get all the fibers, but it's a different story. And then for just flipping the table and putting you on the investor side, if you had a crazy amount of money, in this case, let's say a billion dollars, of course, not giving investment advice, what would you focus on if you had to put that to work? What would be big buckets of your attention if you had to put quite a lot of resources to work in the food and egg space? So you're saying if I was given a billion dollars, you woke up tomorrow morning and you check your, don't check it first thing in the morning, of course, but your bank account, and like, oh, that's some faraway relative, we don't know him or her, left you a lot of money and said, okay, do go into good, but put it to work. Like it has to come back at some point. But it could be lobbying, could be investing, could be farmland, could be setting up food brands, like whatever.

Sherry Hess 54:33

Yeah. So my big vision is something that I'm calling the taste coalition. And so the taste coalition vision is what I would build with that. And so that becomes this intersection, you know, with the shared direction of seeing taste in this way that we've been talking about the whole show, right? But to invest in the different sectors of industry, the different stakeholders that, you know, are having this conversation, but they don't know how to really expand it and take it out to shift consumer buying power. And so we can do this with chefs. Dan Barber would lead the way, right? Like he's already doing everything that we're talking about. You know, so you would have these chefs in these restaurants that are, you know, bringing in, they already know flavor, they already know how to make things taste good, but bringing in the value of how they're honoring their clients' taste, right? And then having the farmers, same thing. How do they take this message, whether they're taking it to their retailers or whether they're taking it to their, you know, the people that are purchasing from them or whether they're direct to consumer, you know, how how does this idea help to generate it in their circles? And so each sector of business around the food space, you know, can can use their own language and their own value system to generate this change, to ultimately, you know, really shift the buying power in this. This is what I've always seen is this way that if we just change the way we value taste and really recognize this as this powerful, healthy entity that is not just healthy for us, but healthy for the planet, right? So each sector then has the power and the ability to take this forward, you know, and then from the food science standpoint, yeah, give me those rebels, give me those food scientists that understand taste, that understand palatability, and want to not flip the narrative because palatability matters, but want to balance it with the things that we're not talking about in how taste affects our bodies, right? And that I think can generate this this big shift. You could almost use it to put money into the research to show that and to market that and to bring that to light would be another big part of it.

Koen van Seijen 57:05

You could almost use it as I don't know if you've been following the school of moral ambition, like how do we get the best people to work on the biggest issues, and in this case the best people in nutrients, in quality, in flavor are probably working for the companies we know and getting paid really well for that. And so, can we provide an alternative to step out of that and put their great talent and skills and lab capacity, etc., into real food or natural food or whatever we want to call it? Would be very interesting. But maybe are not able to afford that kind of skills yet because they're all small because of the reasons we know. And then if I have an idea of what you're gonna say to this to this to this question, but if you had a magic wand, you no longer have the fund, but you have a magic wand to change one thing overnight in the food and agriculture system. What would that be? But only one.

Sherry Hess 58:04

Only one, I mean I'm stumbling to think of only one. You know, like you said, the obvious answer that that flavor complexity becomes a bigger part of the conversation. And the and the importance of that becomes a bigger conversation.

Koen van Seijen 58:23

That could happen as well. Like what if it's really out there like pushing, I don't know, reset all of our tongues or forbid, or it just doesn't exist a number of these artificial sweeteners that they just are they're not available anymore from tomorrow on, just magically. Like what if you could really push in terms of things that are unfortunately not possible, but could be because you have the magic powers, what would you do?

Sherry Hess 58:46

Yeah, I I I think that I would y you just uh gave me the idea. Yeah. The magic wand would be that manufactured flavors only apply to like medicinal things and not part of our food system.

Koen van Seijen 59:02

Which is where many started, I think, as well. Just that's a guess, actually. I don't know.

Sherry Hess 59:06

Oh, totally.

Koen van Seijen 59:07

Just like Roundup started as an antibiotic or like it and it became and we found out oh it's great for other things. Let's use it everywhere.

Sherry Hess 59:13

Yeah. When I was a kid, it was bubblegum flavored penicillin, you know.

Koen van Seijen 59:19

Oh, that's a very disturbing image.

Sherry Hess 59:24

Yeah.

Koen van Seijen 59:25

That's where a lot of the food science and flavor science probably comes from, how to make sure you can eat medicine. Yeah. Or swallow it or take it in. And then within, let's say, your bubble of the nutrient side and the quality side and the density side, where do you think differently? Where do you think contrary? This is a question Job Kemp to ask, what do you believe to be true? And we ask it in about regenerative agriculture. Like, where in your bubble, where do what do you believe to be true that others don't believe to be true? Like, where are you a bit contrarian within your own bubble?

Sherry Hess 59:56

You know, I think, and this is you know highly influenced by the work that we did in Renourish with Lauren Tucker. I feel a little bit contrarian about the fact that everyone feels like they have to choose a side and that we need these strict rules and regulations around the term regenerative itself. You know, I in my mind the word regenerative just means constant change and evolution, right? You're just completely regenerating, regenerating and learning and learning and learning. And this doesn't follow you ask specifically to my to my work and my category, but I think in general, like I've seen arguments about so many arguments about what regenerative means and so many different ways we're trying to define it and hone in on. And I understand from the perspective of like greenwashing and things that have happened, but you know, we need to become more integrated with how life works and how life works across the board. And I think you know, obviously, John Kemp's work really already, you know, is doing this and helping people to understand this more, but I don't think putting a hard, fast definition on regenerative is a wise thing to do. I think we need to just consistently learn to understand that we are humans and fallible, and that we need to just constantly be aware of changes and pay attention more and create less rules. Not to say that it shouldn't be have an end game and a direction and a shared direction, but I think we keep trying to define things and there's how many different regenerative certifications are out there, and none of them are the same, and and that's that's okay, but it's also creating this contentious environment for something that we're all trying to, I think, have a shared end game for.

Koen van Seijen 1:01:54

Absolutely, and very interesting. We've shied away from certification space in terms of interviews because exactly that point. How tricky is it to do? I think I applaud the work, but it's also we were talking in the pre-interview, like it's a lot of time lost in discussions and not work, and it's a lot of delay, which might be unpurposely done by certain industries to delay the inevitable of a food system change, or hopefully inevitable. Learning from the great work in the renewable or fossil fuel industry in the renewable space, everyday delay is a lot of money for certain industries, and that buying power, and actually I want to come back to we always ask the last question, and it never is the last one. To the consumer buying power, do you see any examples now of brands, which is such a powerful Expo West, obviously is an interesting place that are starting to really focus on flavor and the connection to we've seen slow food for many years, good, clean, and fair. It's often about flavor, not often about sourcing. They're changing that by the way. Tedamandre, if you're coming to Turin in Italy in September, there will be a big stage for farmers and talk about that as well. And nutrient quality, we're really pushing to make that connection. It is better for you and the land. Do you see any brands around that? Do you see any work around that starting to like we deliberately don't hijack your taste, but actually it tastes better because it is better?

Sherry Hess 1:03:12

Yeah. Yeah. You want me to name brands?

Koen van Seijen 1:03:15

A few favorites, if you want you like like people to look for, people like to inspire, because a lot of things I think people in the food space as well. Is it even possible to if a steak doesn't have a marketing budget? How do we sell this stuff?

Sherry Hess 1:03:25

Yeah. And when I walk around Expo West is funny because like I'll look at ingredients and look at brands.

Koen van Seijen 1:03:29

I don't want to one that you throw up on. That's not the one I want to know. But yeah, the other ones.

Listener Reflection And How To Respond

Sherry Hess 1:03:33

No, no, no, no. I won't do that. But all right. So one brand that I have to highlight is Artisan Tropic, and they're actually just now rebranding to really love the brand, love the family. And I met Juan through through Renourish. And so I Lauren had me do a little presentation to the Renourish crew, and he came up to me afterwards and he's like, Sherry, he's like, I'm gonna talk to you because I know our brand tastes better, but nobody cares. And so I was like, Wow, what do you mean? And so he sent me his product. I hadn't tasted it up to this point. He sent me his product and three, I think, of his competitors. And I tasted.

Koen van Seijen 1:04:09

So he sent all of oh, that's smart.

Sherry Hess 1:04:11

Yeah, and he's like, I want you to taste these side by side. And I did, and it literally inspired something that I want to ultimately create called tasting beyond the label because every single ingredient label was the same. But to taste his it was the plantain chips that blew me away. To taste their plantain chips next to everyone else's, everyone else was just salt and fat. And they're just marketing themselves to be a different chip. So, you know, they're making it taste like a potato chip. Theirs tasted like it had the complexity, it had the nuances. You could taste the actual plantain in it. So, and and their flavor, like when they now they have, you know, they've kind of expanded their line to include crackers and they're doing just spices on their crackers.

Koen van Seijen 1:04:55

And yeah, we are holding that value. And and haven't done it yet. I still need to check in where they are with their round, but very interesting company, but it's very confident and interesting. You they said the four, like the package of four, like three cup betters in themselves. Okay, we know it's better, but you taste it for yourself. Here you go. Yeah, very interesting.

Sherry Hess 1:05:16

That's yeah, and it's and it's again, you know, like and and so I actually took their I took their plantain chips and then I went and got like a generic Walmart plantain chip and took it to I spoke at a nutrition conference last last May, and I had people taste them side by side. And it's so interesting because this is when the whole preference thing came into play. Because if people were used to the wall, the you know, the Walmart plantain chip, they'd be like, oh well, that's what I know. That's that's the better one. Like, interesting, but don't just look for your preference. What do you which one do you taste more of? Which one has a longer finish? It's like I keep saying we need to be food somiers, like we are with wine, right? Like, which one has a longer finish? Which one tastes longer? Which one has more complexity? Which do you taste more nuances of different things, right? Because it might not be their preference, but it's definitely more complex and you know, showing that that variation.

Koen van Seijen 1:06:05

Which is a very that's a good point as well, because of course when we taste food professionally, like cupping of tea or coffee, etc., you're trained to do that. You're trained to ignore certain things, you're trained to look at certain things, and you do this over and over again. And of course, if you like, I like the Walmart plantain chip, even though and then but then with a few guidelines, like we're one hour in and we're getting to this, with a few guidelines, are able that people then able to quickly at least taste the complexity, even though they might prefer the other one, but with a few sentences of you and they retaste, do they do people then basically reset their tongue a bit?

Sherry Hess 1:06:41

Yeah, and then I'll also say I kind of threw that out there as an example, but for the most part, people chose the you know, the artisan traffic chip. But the ones that didn't, I would just ask them more questions to get to the bottom of why, right? But so yes, to answer your question, yes, I do think once people have this awareness and once people start tuning into it, they're like, oh, now I see. And and then I think that can be, you know, a big potential shift again from the aspect of bitters. Like I think about like creating a bitter challenge, right? Like, how can we bring more bitter in without it being like this offensive bit of flavor? You know, whether it's adding little greens, like the smoothies are a classic example, right? Like if you're trying to get your kids to eat more vegetables, people hide them in something sweet, whether it's a smoothie or a cookie or a whatever, right?

Koen van Seijen 1:07:27

Sweet and umami and see the rolling eyes of Sherry at the moment.

Sherry Hess 1:07:35

The trick to it's just like kids, right? If you're going to introduce more bitter, the two flavors that will help to balance that the quicker are umami and sweetness that will help to balance that out. And so, and that's why everything in the food processing world is sweet and salty, right? Salt is sort of especially together.

Koen van Seijen 1:07:56

It's like the best, not the best, but the strongest. Perfect. We can spend so much more time on this, but we're I'm gonna wrap up as well to be conscious of your time. And I want to thank you so much for coming on here and putting a very strong spotlight on taste and how important it is, and how interestingly enough, in the food and eggs space, somehow we don't talk about taste a whole lot, although we expose to it hopefully three plus more times a day if you're lucky in this world. And so thank you so much for the work you do and from for coming on here to talk about it.

Sherry Hess 1:08:24

Thank you. Yes, I appreciate it. I always obviously love to talk about this. So thanks for having me, and thanks to Lauren for for the recommendation. It's uh it's been great chatting with you.

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Koen van Seijen 1:08:37

First of all, thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. And what do you think? How did you maybe you listen to this while cooking, which would be very interesting? Did you add some extra spices? Did you look at the quality of the spices? The origin? Did you think about plantain chips and all of that? Has flavor and taste been a thing in your day-to-day conversations with people in your work, maybe as a farmer, maybe as an investor? And if not, why not? Uh, I'm very curious to hear. Please get in touch through the usual channels, of course, through the website, etc. And I'm really interested, like, why is this important? I think it's a piece that we've neglected. It has to taste good. Martin Reiter was saying that in in his piece on why we need to build functional companies that taste really well or shampoos that work really well, like it not be tasty, otherwise it's never gonna fly. And often, yeah, but it's good. So it's uh it's good, right? Yeah, but it needs a lot of work to also be tasty and stay tasty, especially when you come to processing. So I'm very happy we had Sherry on and we talk about something, yeah, the cooking experience, the culinary experience. Doesn't mean we all have to become a professional amateur cook, but definitely important to combine the bitterness. Like, how do you get over bitterness and how do you include that in your daily life? Let me know if you have done any of that, if this is something that is of interest, and if you have been able to integrate more leafy greens and bitter flavors throughout your day, and let me know how long it took to reset your taste buds. Thanks as always for listening and hope that you listen to the next one as well. Bye bye. Thank you for listening all the way to the end. For show notes and links discussed, check out our website, investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/slash posts. If you like this episode, why not share it with a friend? And get in touch with us on social media, our website, or via the Spotify app, and tell us what you liked most. And give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your podcast player. That really, really helps us. Thanks again and see you next time.