All language subtitles for Adam Ruins Everything s03e01 Plate of Nachos.eng

Flaky corn tortilla chips...

a shredded three-cheese blend...

and a pound of crumbled bacon.

And that's just phase one.

[both chuckling]

Looks yummy!

I brought sparkling cider
and almond milk.

Note, they do not
go together.

Adam... what are you doing
at bros' night?

Emily invited me
on your behalf.

Great.

But, buddy, you're just here
to hang, right?

Not to ruin anything
for your TV show?

Dude has a TV show?
I watch TV!

Yeah, but just here
for funsies tonight.

[electronic warbling tones]

Ah...
Eh...

[warbling tones continue]

Mm...

[beeping]

Actually...

[buzzer]Seriously?

My nachos?

You're gonna spend
an entire episode

of your TV show
ruining a plate of nachos?

No, I was just gonna say

that nachos are
a really interesting microcosm

of all the problems with food
in America today.

No need to do
the whole episode.

Yo, I am hooked!
Do the rest!

Nope, 'cause Adam
just said that--

Okay! Hi!
I'm Adam Conover!

And this is
"Adam Ruins Everything."

♪♪

Closed Captions Provided
by truTV

I'm Blaze.Stove.

Nice to meet you guys.
It's my first boys' night.

It's "bros' night."

Whoa, Murph.
That's a little pedantic.

He's the one who's always
fact-checking me!

No. You know what?
You're right.

Adam, you are here.
It is bros' night,

so, please,
bro yourself comfortable.

'Cause you're
just in time for...

the guacdrop!

Ha ha!

♪♪

G-g-g-g-g-g-guacdrop!

Ooh, guacy-droppy!
It's so sloppy!

This is wild!

But you know
what's really far out?

Mexican drug cartels have
infiltrated the avocado trade.

[music stops]

Hold up.
Drug cartels?

Yup.
It is a crazy story.

♪♪

No, Adam, at bro night,
we watch "Game of Thro--"

What?
Are we in Mexico? Yup!

You wanted to hear
the twisted tale

of how the drug cartels
got involved

in the avocado trade,
right?

No!

Oh, we're here anyway.

Americans can't get
enough avocados.

In 2017, we imported
$2.6 billion worth of 'em.

Nearly all of that
from Mexico.

But we weren't always goo-goo
for the guac glop.

In fact, Mexican avocados
used to be banned in the U.S.

until the lifting of a trade ban
with Mexico in 1994.

Okay, I've got
your avocado toast,

avocado smoothie,

and avocado mimosa.

Sorry that took
a couple decades.

America was eager to import
cheap Mexican vegetables

and export American
staple crops.

And Mexico was deep in debt,

so the U.S. government offered
to bail them out.

But they demanded
some big compromises.

Okay, Mexico,
if we're gonna trade,

you gotta be
more like us.

More business,
less taxes.

But if I can't
collect taxes,

how am I supposed to run
my country?

Oh, relax,
Tío Manuel.

It'll be fine.

But it wasn't fine.

Since the Mexican government
wasn't investing as much

in local institutions,
the cartels were able

to strong-arm
small-town police forces,

pay off politicians,
and just take over entire towns.

I am the one who knocks... over
your town's infrastructure.

Who's the bad guy?

The cartel dude
or Uncle Sam?

They both are,
just in different ways.

Okay?
Keep up.

But when the U.S.
and Mexican governments

started cracking down
on the drug trade,

the cartels needed
to diversify their interests,

which brings us to avocados.

They want to crack down
on my drugs?

Fine!

I'll prey on a legal trade,
like avocados.

No!
[grunts]

Wait!
I didn't say no!

[growling]

[laughing]

Oh, my God.
He bit through the pit.

The cartels have gained
so much power over avocado farming

that, at one point,
they were taking 30%

of Mexico's avocado profits,
often using violence to do it.

This is the scariest shit
I've ever seen!

Isn't there anything
the farmers can do?

[man]
Unfortunately, these farmers have very few options.

Who said that?

This is Rodrigo Canales,
a professor at Yale

who studied
the business strategies of drug cartels.

I'm wearing an underwire.

Adam, for the last time,
it's just a wire.

An underwire is
a completely different thing.

In some places, the cartels
have such a stranglehold

over the Mexican avocado trade

that farmers have
very few options to opt out.

So, every time
I buy an avocado,

I'm supporting
a brutal crime ring?

[whimpers]

You could buy
California avocados,

but those are not available
year-round.

Most importantly,
not buying Mexican avocados

only further victimizes
these communities.

Some towns' entire economies are
dependent on American imports.

And the avocado trade
is only one small way

in which these cartels benefit
from Americans.

Weak gun laws in the U.S.
allow them to purchase

military-grade American weapons that they then use

to intimidate communities

and overpower
local police forcers.

Byzantine immigration policies

allow cartels to charge
very steep fees

for smuggling people
across the border,

even if those migrants have a legitimate reason to be here.

And it's important to remember
that it's still the case

that cartels make
the vast majority of their profits

from selling illegal drugs
to American consumers.

So, Murph, the real problem

isn't that Americans
are eating too many avocados.

It's that we need to fix
our broken gun, drug, and immigration policies.

Is this guy wearing
an underwire?

Told you so, Rodrigo!

All right, muchachos!

That was terrifying!

No more!

Wait, what are
you guys doing?

We've learned a lot
from Adam's show.

It left us conflicted
about the predicament

of the main character
and our own moral choices.

That's the mark
of true prestige television.

You got snubbed
at the Emmys.

So we're just gonna eat
around the guac.

Okay, thank you, Adam.

Uh, luckily, there's still
plenty of goodness

all over these 'chos,
like this big ol' bacon bite.

Bacon makes
everything better.

Hate to be that guy,

but bacon actually makes
everything worse.

You love to be that guy!

Adam, you cannot ruin bacon.

Bacon is not just
the key ingredient to my nachos.

It's my thing.

Oh, yeah, dude!
Same shirt!

Everything's better
with bacon.

I too love
the flavor combination of animal fat and salt.

But the only reason bacon became
a pop culture meme factory

is that the pork industry waged
a massive marketing campaign

to pump our bellies full
of pig parts

and to cover up
the health risks.

Oh, sure,
it's a big pig conspiracy.

Give it up, Adam.

Nobody cares if bacon's
a little fatty or whatever.

Oh, lots of people cared
30 years ago.

[all screaming]

In the fat-phobic '80s,
the Pork Board was able

to market the heck out
of the leaner cuts of the pig,

such as the tenderloin.[pig squeals]

Okay, which fit person got
the other white meat?

Oh, me.
Me!

Aww, a meat queue.

If you ask me,
the '80s were the height of low fat

and the golden age
of rom-com.

But the Pork Board couldn't
figure out how to sell

the largest part of the pig,
the fat-filled pork belly,

which is where cuts
like bacon come from.

Anybody want this?

Hmm? Hello?!
Eww!

So, to solve their big,
fat problem,

they teamed up
with the fast-food industry

to create
a bacon bonanza.

Like so many American mistakes,

the plan was conceived poolside
in Orlando.

In the early 1990s,

the Pork Board's
national marketing manager

was schmoozing with Hardee's
president Bob Autry.

Now, what the hell
am I gonna do

with all this pork belly?

Nobody wants to eat it!

Oh, I'll make them want it.

I'm gonna come up
with a sandwich

with the grease dropping down
their chin,

and we'll see what they say.

Gross.

But also delicious maybe.

After this meeting,
Hardee's debuted

the game-changing
Frisco Burger.

[announcer on TV]
Introducing Hardee's Frisco Burger.

Melted Swiss, sizzling bacon,
and sliced tomatoes.

It wasn't long before
other fast-food joints

got in on the greasy
animal-fat action.

It's a bacon club Chalupa.
Guys love bacon.

[announcer on TV]
With bacon strips, bacon jam, and bacon crumbles.

The smell
of fresh-cooked bacon.

It just moves you.

Come try a Wendy's Baconator.

And finally,
after years

of being told
how epic bacon is,

we turned it into
a pop culture phenomenon.

There's bacon cupcakes,
bacon bars,

bacon lip balm,
Baconnaise,

bacon soda, bacon bandages,
bacon lube,

bacon wrapping paper,
bacon air freshener,

and even bacon film festivals.

The fad was so huge
that, in 2008,

seven out of every million
baby boys were named...

[both]
Bacon![baby cries]

Oh, I just love love.

So I built
my entire personality

around liking bacon

because the Pork Board
told me to?

Pretty much.

But while they were
shoving bacon down our throats,

they neglected to mention
that bacon can cause cancer.

There is overwhelming evidence

that consuming processed meats,
like bacon,

increases your risk of cancer.

Health groups even rank them
a group-1 known carcinogen.

Even if you eat just one
club sandwich or hot dog a day,

estimates show
it increases your risk

of colorectal cancer by 20%.

[bell dings]

Aww, but I'm so good
at eating hot dogs.

Someone must warn Kobayashi.

Processed meats have also
been linked to obesity,

diabetes, and heart disease.

But Big Meat
is fighting like hell

to make sure
you don't hear about it.

[doorbell rings]

Hey! Stop that,
you little punk!

Let me talk to you
for a second, huh?

[metallic scraping]

The pork and beef industries
have known since the '70s

that their food poses
serious health concerns.

But they've bullied the USDA

and Department of Health
and Human Services

into downplaying the risks.

In 1977, these guys were
basically allowed

to make their own line edits
to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

See that word?

[Adam]
The chairman of the National Cattlemen's Association

even pressured them
into removing

any reference to decreasing
meat consumption.

We don't like that word.

[metallic scraping]

Is he gonna chop
his finger off?Worse.

He's gonna hit him
with the lobbying money.

[cash register bell dings]

♪♪

Here.
Buy yourself something nice.

When the U.S.
was gearing up

to write its 2015
Dietary Guidelines,

the meat industry spent
approximately $10.8 million

in contributions
to political campaigns,

and another $6.9 million
in lobbying.

Oh, hi.
Sorry.

It's, uh, cold in here,
and I'm... really scared.

[all screaming]

[all gasp]

Wow!

I can't believe
my love of bacon

was manufactured
by a capitalist conspiracy.

And to think,
we've been wearing these silly shirts

that normalize
a known carcinogen.

I mean, maybe instead
of Murph's nachos,

we should eat,
I don't know... vegetables.

Over my bacon-clogged body.

At the very least,
we'll eat good, old-fashioned,

boring ol' cheese on chips.

Does that work, Adam?Of course.

Unless anyone here
is lactose intolerant.

Mm-mm.

Great.
Just checking, though.

There isn't, like,
a dark truth about corn chips?

Actually, yeah,
there is.

Corn is destroying
the American diet

and the environment.

[screams]

How can you have that strong
of an opinion about corn chips?

I, for one,
think corn chips are fine!

Murph, you're screaming
right now, dude.

Sorry, Murph,
but the horrible truth

is that corn
is the twisted root

of everything that's wrong
with America's food system.

The average American consumes
1 ton of corn per year.

[whistling]

Hi, I'd like to file a claim.

Oh, geez.
Stove's bike.

How could we possibly
be eating so much corn?

Well, we didn't always.

Corn used to be just one crop
of many on small family farms,

and the government actually paid
farmers to grow less of it.

That's a mighty fine crop
of corn you got there.

Since you got
such a big harvest,

what do you say
I pay you

to take it easy
next season?

Yeah, I reckon
that makes a ton of sense

if we want to keep corn prices
stable in this economy.

I'm getting teary-eyed
at how much I respect that simple life.

Well, all that changed

when a bunch
of agribusiness bigwigs

decided they could use
government corn subsidies

to turn a profit.

[sinister laughter echoing]

[gasps]Hello, American corn farmer.

In 1971, Richard Nixon
made agribusiness crony

Early "Rusty" Butz
his Secretary of Agriculture.

And Butz believed that,
no matter what,

more corn meant
better business.

Wait, I'm sorry.
I can't get past the fact

that his name
was "Rusty" Butz.

Murph, focus.

Butz was big...
into corn!

He started paying farmers
to plant corn

over their entire farms,
from fencerow to fencerow.

My, what a big harvest
you have.

What do you say
I pay you

to grow way more
next season?

Gee, does forcing a surplus
really make much sense

if we want to keep
corn prices stable in this economy?

Oh, don't worry.

I have a plan!

[thunder crack][laughing]

Before Butz, in 1970,

we produced just 4.1 billion
bushels of corn.

[bell dings]

But by 2017, that number
had nearly quadrupled.

[slide whistle ascending note,
bird screeches]

And agribusiness came up
with places to stuff that corn

you wouldn't even dream of.

A major food processing company
called Archer Daniels Midland

had a vested interest
in Butz's corn surplus scheme.

ADM wanted to use corn

to make more processed food
for less money,

and they did it with the help
of a new invention

called high-fructose corn syrup.

Aha!
[bell dings]

Oh, yes!

Oh, we'll put it
in soda and ketchup

and bread and deli meat!

And that's only
the beginning.

Wait, there's corn
in our meat? Oh, yes.

And that's where this corn story
gets truly horrifying.

The corn surplus
let farmers switch

from grazing animals
in pastures

to a much cheaper
feeding method.

Concentrated animal
feeding operations, or CAFOs.

Most livestock in this country
are now packed into cages

and fed corn all day long,
filling our diets

with unhealthy corny meat,
and worse, our land and water

with massive amounts
of corn-filled poop.

Just one CAFO facility

can produce more waste
than an entire city.

Each year,
North Carolina's pigs produce

almost 10 billion gallons
of feces and urine.

That's enough to fill 15,000
Olympic-sized swimming pools.

And all of it
has to go somewhere.

Billions of gallons
of corn-fed poop

is sprayed over fields
as fertilizer,

held in lagoons
that seep disease

and heavy metals
into our groundwater,

or just trucked away
and dumped into rivers.

All of that poop,

along with corn fertilizer
runoff,

causes algae blooms
that kill fish and plants.

Agricultural runoff traveling
from the Corn Belt

down the Mississippi River
has actually created a dead zone

in the Gulf of Mexico
the size of New Jersey.

Corn poop pollution
has gotten so bad,

it's actually
a massive contributor to climate change.

Over 1/3 of methane emissions

and more than half
of nitrous oxide emissions

come from farm animals'
digestive tracts.

And our government is doing
virtually nothing about it.

The EPA knew for 11 years
that CAFO emissions

are most likely in violation
of the Clean Air Act,

but they've never held these big
corporate farms accountable.

All that corn going
into our processed food and meat

has turned what was once
a small part of American farming

into our main
agricultural product.

In 2017, the average American
consumed 41 pounds

of high-fructose corn syrup.

[coughing]

Guys!
We gotta do something!

The corn!
It's coming for us!

[screaming]

In the average grocery store,
more than 11,000 products

contain some form of corn.

Vitamins, trash bags,
toothpaste,

charcoal, matches, batteries.

Even the shine
on the cover of magazines

and the outside of cucumbers
is made from corn.

There's corn on my cukes?
[screams]

And on your mags!

Americans are
so full of corn,

it can actually be seen
in our cells...

on a molecular level.

[gasps]
I'm corn?

Nooo!

[thunder rumbling]

That's it.
I'm never making nachos again!

Bros' night is over!Actually--

No!
Just stop talking!

You're not even
a real bro, Adam!

Whoa, Murph.

I'm sure Adam has some kind
of act-four takeaway coming up

that's gonna make us all
feel better and less powerless.

Actually, I do.

You really know
your TV, Blaze.

Thanks.
[coughs]

[sobbing]
All I wanted was to eat 'chos with my bros,

and Adam made me feel like

all of these problems
with our food

are all my fault!

[chips crunching]

Are you kidding me?

You're eating the nachos?!

Well, you gotta eat something,
and the truth is,

we don't have as much control
as we think we do

over what foods
hit our plates.

Our global food economy
is a mess, but, Murph,

that's "nacho" fault.

Nice.

Trade policies,
health regulations,

subsidies, all of these things
affect whether or not

fresh and healthy foods
are available or affordable.

[sniffling]
Yeah, eating healthy is expensive.

When I go to Whole Foods,
it's more like whole paycheck.

[laughter]

Murph, you're hilarious.

Yeah, did you
just think of that?

Yeah, for a lot of people,
cheap, unhealthy,

processed foods
made of subsidized corn

are the only
affordable option.

A recent study found

that $1 buys 1,200 calories
of chips and cookies,

but only 250 calories
of whole foods like carrots.

That's shocking.

Murph, I'm so glad
you brought this up.

Yeah, seems like Murph
is saying that,

if we as a society
decided to subsidize

healthier fruits and veggies
and had more transparency

about what goes in
our processed food and meats,

we'd have healthier
food options,

and our environment
would be healthier too.

Ahh.Uh... yeah, exactly.

And the most important thing
isn't what you buy.

It's who you vote for.

Most food production
is regulated

by a piece of legislation
called the Farm Bill,

which gets reauthorized
twice a decade,

and the U.S. Dietary Guidelines
are rewritten every five years.

So be aware of these issues
and support elected officials

who will have your interests
at heart when the time comes.

And in the meantime,
sometimes, occasionally,

within moderation,
we can... have nachos?

Yeah, with a little
less bacon, though.

[bell dings]Oh! Yeah.

Here.
I made another batch.

Hey.

Thanks, bro.

♪♪

Mmm.
Mmm. Mmm.

These are better than mine,
aren't they?

No. No.
What? No.

Adam's nachos suck.

Hey, Rodrigo.
So I'm backstage on our set.

Thank you so much
for chatting with us from your secure location.

This is not really
a secure location.

This is actually my office,
um, in New Haven

at the Yale School
of Management.

But thank you, Adam,
for the invitation.

[laughing]
Okay, well, thanks for--

thanks for ruining
the illusion of our show.

I really appreciate it.

Why would the cartels get
into avocados to begin with?

I mean, of all the things,
why avocados?

Why not some other
illegal trade?

Well, I mean, one of the things
we have to understand

is that they already are
in other illegal trades.

If there are other things going
around that are also valuable,

then it's kind of like,
"Why not?"

Like, I'm already here.
I've already spent

a lot of energy and resources
trying to control this territory

and there's a very valuable
market for avocados

that I can get a piece of,
then I will as well.

But another reason is that it
can be a very helpful way

to diversify, um,
how they launder money.

So, in the U.S.,
most of what we know about drug cartels

comes from, you know,
prestige hour-long drama television shows.

What is the biggest
misconception

that you think people get
from that sort of television about this problem?

When you frame
the drug problem

as this rogue, you know, kingpin
who's running a business

and who's just this,
you know, crazy criminal--

Right, the guy I've seen on TV
doing meth

and screaming at everybody

and, like, stabbing people
with knives.

That guy.
Right.

Then if that's how
you conceptualize

why we have a drug--
a drug trade problem,

then the solution is, go,
please go catch that guy.

But when we understand that this
is a systematic problem,

a structural problem
where we have demand,

and therefore
there's gonna be supply,

it doesn't matter how many
of these people you eradicate.

There's always gonna be somebody
else who's gonna come up.

And so the more we fight these
organizations only through force

and we retain the structural
characteristics of the market,

the more we create
an evolutionary dynamic

where the organizations
have to become

increasingly sophisticated,
increasingly well-organized,

increasingly well-armed,
increasingly aggressive.

So, the more we fight
with force,

until we address
the structural problems,

it just makes
the problem worse.

Exactly.

Does that mean
we need to, you know,

create a legal market
for these drugs?

Is that what you advocate?

There are only two ways
in which you can resolve

the incoherence between
the regulation and behavior.

You either go
the Singapore route,

where they have
aligned enforcement

at all levels of the market,

and they have extremely strict
enforcement on consumption...

or you go the Portugal route,
which has kind of decided

to regulate every aspect
of the drug market,

which is what we did
with alcohol, for example,

when we saw the impacts
of prohibition.

A third thing
that we can do is

make Americans
much more aware

of the actual impact
of their behavioral decisions.

Every time you choose
to consume an illegal drug,

given our current policy,

you are directly contributing
to somebody's death.

There's no kind
of indirect link there.

That's a really strong
statement.You are personally contributing.

It's-- I--
And I have no--

I have no reservations
in making it.

People have to be aware that,

when you kind of decide
to consume cocaine,

you are directly contributing
to somebody's death in Mexico...

[Adam]
Wow....um, in a town somewhere,

or somewhere else
in Latin America.

If I were--
If I did cocaine, which I do not,

I would think about that
very hard before I did it

the next time,
I'll tell you that.

Well, thank you so much
for coming on

to talk to us
about this, Rodrigo.

Really appreciate it.No, this is my pleasure.

I really appreciate
your interest in this,

and hopefully this helps change
some people's minds.

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