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Brief Summary
Andrew Zimmern is more than the guy who eats bugs on TV—he’s a culinary philosopher, global citizen, and unapologetically curious soul. In this powerful conversation with Jeff Dudan, the Bizarre Foods host opens up about his early addiction and homelessness, his path to recovery, and the values that have shaped his career in food, media, and impact. From kitchen jobs at 14 to cultural commentary on the world stage, Zimmern shares timeless truths on leadership, legacy, and why food is the frontline of solving the world’s biggest problems.
Key Takeaways
- Work is healing: Andrew’s first job at 14 gave him self-esteem and direction that his personal life couldn’t provide.
- Addiction thrives in isolation, recovery thrives in service: Getting sober and living for others transformed his life and career.
- Be the only, not the best: Focus on what makes you unique, not what makes you comparable.
- Food systems are broken—but fixable: He believes we can end child hunger in America for $17B annually, a rounding error in the federal budget.
- Processed food is a national security issue: The health crisis it causes costs $1.5T a year—and feeds into Big Pharma, Big Ag, and systemic inertia.
- Create your own luck: The viral Witch Doctor episode that saved his TV show was filmed on instinct, not a script.
Featured Quote
“Ask for help. It’s the most human, powerful thing you can do. Grace lives between those words.”
— Andrew Zimmern
TRANSCRIPT
The First Paycheck: How a 14-Year-Old Zimmern Fell in Love with Restaurants
Jeff Dudan (00:02.263)
Welcome Andrew Zimmern. How are you?
zimmern (00:06.053)
I'm good today. How are you Jeff?
Jeff Dudan (00:07.863)
Oh, I'm so good. I really appreciate you being on. Look forward to a great conversation. Can we start back in the beginning? I'm fascinated to know how you got your first job at 13 or 14 years old. How did that happen for you?
zimmern (00:26.442)
Selfishness and self-centeredness is the greatest motivator of all time. I was a typical 14-year-old alcoholic in waiting. I hadn't really... I had tried pot and I tried drinks a couple of times by the time I turned 14 in the summer of 1975.
Um, so I was already like exhibiting that, that slingshot behavior of hyper responsibility and hyper irresponsibility, sometimes within the same day. Um, and I remember making a comment to my father, you know, in, in May or early June of that year, uh, talking about how excited I was, uh, to spend time at our summer place. Um, and I must've said something about my, I just remember his response was.
there is no more allowance. You're turning 14. Yeah, I turned 14 that July. And he said, you need to get a job and make sure that you save enough money so that you have money during the winter. So what you earn during the summer, you don't need to spend. You know, food and room and board is paid for. You live in this house, but my recommendation is you save money. Obviously I saved none of it.
And, you know, he suggested that I do the, take the job that all of my friends were taking. Everyone I knew went to work for the same three or four landscaping companies. And that meant you woke up at 430 in the morning at 515, a truck came by your house, picked you up, you hopped in the back and sat on the edge of the truck and you went to the job where you, being the teenager, you hold wheelbarrows of dirt.
either out during an excavation or in if they were building berms. And you basically just you were the low man on the totem pole doing a really interesting physical labor job. I was interested in none of that because you got home at 3 in the afternoon. Your day was done. You're tired. Not a lot left to do. I wanted to sleep in each day, go to the beach. There were girls. I was getting...
zimmern (02:49.294)
I wanted to hang out with girls, I wanted to do drugs, I wanted to do all these kinds of things. And I wanted to cook. And so I immediately got, I said to my father, fine. And the next weekend when I was out at our place, I got on my bike and I rode to my godmother's seafood restaurant and I applied for a job. And of course she hired me and I was basically peeling vegetables and shucking clams and oysters.
And that was the first time at age 14, I collected a paycheck in a restaurant. And I don't think I've lapsed a year since in collecting a paycheck from a restaurant. So I think it's been like 48 years in a row. Nowhere near a record, but for me, it's something that I've done for just about the, well, I've done it the longest of anything that I've ever done. I love food people. I love that job.
I loved hanging out with older folks. I loved learning. I loved plating six oysters with a couple of little cups of garnish and a few lemons and some parsley sprigs and watching it along with a clinking gin and tonic cross the dining room to a waiting customer who would always take that first oyster and slurp it down and then...
kind of give that nod like, that tastes good. And I felt an immense sense of immediate gratification and pride in what I was doing. And I was off to the races, I was hooked.
Jeff Dudan (04:30.455)
How did you get to work at that age? Were you in New York at the time? OK.
zimmern (04:34.146)
No, no, this was out in Long Island. I quickly, the first day I hitched, which was easy. I mean, this is 1975. I left the house an hour early. First car that came by was someone who lived down the street and knew who I was by sight. You know, you kind of know the kids in the neighborhood. Where are you going? I'm going to the quiet clam. Are you headed in that direction? Well, of course, you know, it's right.
I mean literally like three miles down the road and they just dropped me off and then when I got to the restaurant and I met up the other people who were working there on my first day I just said hey I live on this road and here's my you know whatever Tuesday through Sundays anyone want to give me a lift home or but and there were always people driving back I mean you have to remember this is out at a part of Long Island where there's
basically in those days, one road that went up and down sort of parallel to the beach and it was pretty easy. Pretty easy, yeah. And then I found out there was a server that lived on my block that had a car, lived on my street. And so then it became super easy just to bike down to their place and then every night take the bike home. But I very quickly learned that it was more fun to go out with everybody afterwards than to go home.
Jeff Dudan (05:35.991)
Yeah, they had to be going your way. They had to be going your way. Yeah.
Jeff Dudan (06:00.887)
Similarly, I worked, I grew up in Chicago, and there was a great Mexican restaurant called El Matador out in Bartlett, and it was where my parents hung out, and they thought it would be a great idea if my brother and I, and I was in seventh grade, so I'm 12 years old, would get a job there. And so we would show up at three in the afternoon, we would fold 400 napkins into triangles.
then we would eat a family's, everyone would get a plate of enchiladas and then the restaurant would open and we were bus boys to start with and we would bus until midnight or 12.30. We'd get a percentage of the tips from the waiter. But my second year, I actually moved behind the bar. So now I'm 13 years old. I'm lighting people's cigarettes and sliding drinks and all that. And then I moved into the kitchen and I was a chef's assistant. So I would play the appetizers.
and get those out. And what a formative experience in both good and bad ways.
Teen Jobs Build Real Self-Esteem (Even if You’re Doing Dishes)
zimmern (07:04.99)
You just, I mean, just getting out and working, be a part of life. I mean, I tell my own child, it's not what you do, it's doing something. It's, I just think it's vitally important. And what I loved about working a quote unquote, real job summers, and then I was so in love with it, I wound up working one day a week. I convinced my parents to let me work in restaurants in New York one day a week during the school year. But being around other people lets you see
and learn from their experience. You don't have to make every mistake yourself to learn from it, right? That's number one. Because in working with other people and you see them make mistakes or tell you about situations in their life that didn't work out, you then are able to garner some wisdom from that. And you are able to gain something that I think young people need a lot of at a very formative place in their life. Regardless of how my 20s turned out, I...
I developed a sense of self-esteem at work because I was out in the world doing something that I wouldn't have found any other way.
Jeff Dudan (08:11.791)
No, no. And what I like about what your father said. So I have three children, and I took the position early that the age of accountability is 14. And I've taught you everything that I can teach you about what's right and what's wrong, work ethic by the time you're 14. So when they're going into high school, man, I really gave them a loose bit. And I feel like it was reverse psychology, maybe.
zimmern (08:26.775)
That's right.
Jeff Dudan (08:39.391)
because then they're accountable for their mistakes and they had to do the consequences, none of them gave us any problems. So I think me taking that approach, I'm glad it didn't backfire, at least maybe it hasn't yet, maybe it will, but I've got 22, 25 and 19 now. How about you? How old's your son?
zimmern (09:01.236)
Uh, he's 18 and a half.
Jeff Dudan (09:03.087)
Okay, awesome, awesome. At some point, you ended up going to Vassar, and that's another similarity. My daughter's at NYU right now. And oh, by the way, we went there and stayed with her, and I thought I knew what good food was until you get into the city and you go to these restaurants. And we went to a place called Lartusi, and I know there's thousands of places. You probably.
zimmern (09:32.15)
Yep. I know what it is.
Jeff Dudan (09:32.647)
Never heard of, are you familiar with that? Yeah, unbelievable. I'd never had Italian food that tasted like that. So you get spoiled there. It can make you broke going there. So you're in that environment and then you get to be a chef. And at some point, that environment didn't sit well with you from an addiction perspective. And I know you talk a lot about it.
The Pirate Ship Years: Why Addiction Thrives in Restaurant Culture
zimmern (10:01.07)
I think it's actually the flip side. I think I was extremely at home in restaurants because you can have that kind of life there. It doesn't mean that you can't be working at an ad agency or a shoe store or on Wall Street or as an actor and have it, but there is something about, especially in the 80s, this pirate ship of a restaurant.
Jeff Dudan (10:10.121)
Yes.
zimmern (10:27.05)
where you're done working late at night and everyone, it's sort of like letting off steam is the thing you do. And so it's an easy place for an addict or an alcoholic to hide a little bit. And I also found a lot of like-minded people there. There were folks who, you know, nobody says I'm an active addict and alcoholic. I need to fund my addiction because that's what I'm really focused on is using.
I'm gonna go get a job teaching or I'm gonna go get a job on Wall Street. Said no one ever. Some people find themselves in that position, you know, by accident, but no one says, oh, I'm gonna take this job with a lot of responsibility. However, a lot of people say, yeah, I'll wait tables three days a week and the rest of the time I'll just be getting high.
Jeff Dudan (11:02.909)
Right.
zimmern (11:20.514)
I wanted to work in restaurants. I wanted to keep cooking. I wanted to learn everything about the business. I was a voracious learner. I was insanely curious about everything. And at the same time, I found a place that was easy to do, number one, while I was using, and number two, to keep going afterwards with the other crazies that you could identify out of the group of...
75, 80 people in the restaurant, the three or four that liked to party the way I did, it was easy to find them and keep it going into the next morning and just go back in to work. I think my addiction and my experience with working with a lot of addicts, alcoholics, and getting sober is that it would have flourished anywhere. And it quickly during the 80s went from something that I would deem somewhat manageable.
Rock Bottom: Homelessness, Moral Collapse, and Getting Sober
Jeff Dudan (12:10.851)
Mm.
zimmern (12:15.394)
to completely owning me. I mean, in every sense of the word, where everything went through the filter of, does it allow me to continue to drink and drug my way through life? Eventually losing my moral compass completely and being 100% a user of people and taker of things, engaging in lots of illegal activity.
homeless for 13 months, squatting a building in lower Manhattan that was deserted, living with street people on a... I was a street person. I mean, you know, it's living on a pile of dirty clothes and it was a miserable existence and none of that was enough to convince me that maybe I had a problem with drinking and drugging. Just wasn't. That's how bad the disease is.
Jeff Dudan (13:11.639)
What do you think it is about addiction early in life? You see so many business celebrities and I mean, it's almost like anyone who's popular and who's done something great had this experience early in their life. Is it a shift where they become fearless? And I know for myself.
I started with nothing, $2,500 in a briefcase. I mean, absolutely from zero. And if I lost it all today, I think I could start over and do well. I think I could do it again. So, you know, but when you're in that position and you're struggling with addiction and you've got some really bad habits and you're working completely without a net, because anyone that might've helped you will no longer help you. When you, you know, people become homeless when...
zimmern (13:43.991)
Me too.
Jeff Dudan (14:00.319)
the last person that would have helped them will no longer let you stay on the couch. And when you lose, I've worked with the homeless shelter here in Charlotte quite a bit, and it's, what we have to do is we have to reconstruct that network for people. And you've gotta rekindle connections with family, and you've gotta, because once you lose that social network, like you have nowhere to turn, well the only place to turn to is the streets, right? So, but then you see this early life experience, and then,
zimmern (14:04.248)
That's right.
The Hero’s Journey: Tragedy, Recovery, and a Life of Purpose
Jeff Dudan (14:29.203)
all of a sudden people have an incredible career and make a massive impact in other people's lives like you have. Why do you think that is? Or why was that for you?
zimmern (14:36.842)
Well, I think if you get sober, well, it's actually something I've done a lot of work considering. I've heard a lot of people speak about it over the last 30 plus years. And I always go back to Joseph Campbell's, the hero's journey. It's an essential human truth that if you go through an immense amount of tragedy and you survive,
Jeff Dudan (14:52.992)
Mm-hmm.
zimmern (15:05.862)
you have a wealth of experience that if turned around and focused for good can be an extremely valuable sort of education resource, right? But you also are transformed and predicate your life on a much different basis. So,
you know, yes, I got sober. Yes, I was a talented person and a smart kid before the drugs and alcohol sort of masked everything up, sprinkled me with the little love and respect and dignity from other people and I started to flourish. I think the difference with people who become, I'll just say hyper successful in their field is that they've taken that tragic set of circumstances and completely
redesigned their life so that in my case, I led a life that was entirely based on self, fueled by a thousand forms of fear and self that always created behaviors in me that later put me in a position to be hurt. And when I got sober, I predicated my life on developing a relationship with a power greater than myself.
admitting that there was one in the first place was a big, big deal for me. And then predicating my life on helping other people, doing things for others. And as I experimented with that and I realized it was making me happy.
It was also making me happy with whatever I had. So if all I had was the local success in a restaurant, and if I was still a chef in a restaurant here, my first one that I opened in Minneapolis in 92, if that had been it, I'd be...
zimmern (17:10.73)
just extremely happy and joyous and free because you're accepting and at peace with what you have. Now, there was a thing inside of me that is very competitive and wants to grow everything. And I remember being in a family counseling session, kind of like an exit interview for your divorce.
The, yeah, they do. The idea is, or was, that my ex-wife and I felt very strongly that we should learn to at least get along and speak with each other so that we have the ability to co-parent our child more effectively. And so I said, sure, I'll give a couple sessions with this family therapist that had helped us the year beforehand and helped me decide 100% I wanted to be divorced.
Jeff Dudan (17:40.427)
They have those?
The Shoe Salesman Story: Why He Was Always Going to Build Something Big
zimmern (18:09.11)
But there was a really interesting thing. I found it absolutely fascinating and I don't think a month has gone by I haven't told this story. I'm in there and my ex-wife at the time was, one of the big issues was my television career was growing and growing and growing. And she said, that's not good for the family and me and all the rest of this. I had my reasons why it was. And the...
The therapist turned to her and said, what job do you want Andrew to have? And she's like, I don't know, you know, something normal. And he's like, this is just an exercise. Name a normal job that you want Andrew to have that you'd be okay with. And she just sat there, she went shoe salesman. And the therapist turns to me and says, Andrew, are you okay with being a shoe salesman? I'm like, 100%. And I meant it.
And he then followed up with me. He says, OK, what does your first year look like? And I said, I'm the best sales. I sell more shoes than anyone else in the store statewide or in my region. I find out whatever that number is, and I beat it. I become the number one guy in the region because that's my fastest track out of.
you know, putting shoes on people's feet and getting into management or supervising other shoe salesmen. He's like, great. And he turns to my ex-wife says, you okay with that? And she's like, yep. And then he says, what does your second year look like? And I say, I leave the company and I go build 400 of these stores in China. And he looked at me and nodded his head. And he looked at
my ex-wife and said, do you see who you've married? It doesn't matter what he does. Doesn't matter. He's gonna do the exact same thing. He's gonna grow it and figure out a way to make it more interesting because that's the joy that I have in life is taking things that I've created and if there's an opportunity to grow them to do that.
Jeff Dudan (20:22.447)
I sold a significant business in 2019 that I built over almost 25 years. And my wife's comment was, I'm looking forward to spending more time with you. I waited three days and I've launched 31 businesses in five years. We can't help it. It's, it's who we are.
zimmern (20:42.826)
It is who we are. And I will say this, the pursuit of work, while at the same time trying to grow in life as a human being, spiritually, mentally, physically, has meant recognizing that for myself, time at home with family, time where I'm just
out on the disc golf course, playing disc golf with my buddies, just giving each other a ton of crap, taking the afternoon off from work just to go fish or something is really, really valuable. That's been the big difference maker, I think, for me. At least now, I do some things that are not work related. The problem for some of us is that...
Jeff Dudan (21:23.413)
Yeah.
zimmern (21:38.026)
What we do is actually the thing that I would wanna do for fun. I wanna cook, I wanna make television, I want to do those things constantly. I came home from a, I was six cities in seven days. It was just one of those brutal weeks that you just can't wait to get home. I was really exhausted. And just too much on the calendar over the course of a week, which happens sometimes.
And I got home Saturday and I kind of, you know, cleaned the house and helped do some chores and, you know, do all that kind of stuff that we do and that needed to be done. And some friends were in town for dinner, which was Sunday. And so
I invited 12 of them over for dinner and I got up at like 8 in the morning and I cooked from 8 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon for these 12 people and just put out a big spread and enjoyed my time with my friends. Now I did it because I wanted to enjoy some time with my friends. I wanted the end result. Most people would say, you just got home, why do you want to cook all day? It's kind of my yoga.
I mean, in the middle of everything, I wasn't thinking yesterday at all about my little problems and the other things, my wants and desires or whatever tapes were going on in my head about problems with this kid or a problem at work or whatever. I was I was just centered and in the zone and it was fun. You know, I guess loving what you do has its benefits and has its challenges.
Cooking as Therapy: Why He Hosts 12 People After 6 Cities in 7 Days
Jeff Dudan (23:18.263)
Well, it's therapy. It's an act of service. It's an expression of love and care for people. It's sharing your talents with those who you care the most about. And it's good. It checks every box. I do want to ask you something you said was really interesting to me, because I think that this is an impediment to a lot of people trying to build a career.
zimmern (23:20.716)
Mm-hmm.
zimmern (23:33.331)
It is what it is.
Jeff Dudan (23:45.151)
You said the being happy with where you were in the present, not having an expectation that it was gonna, if it stopped there, that you'd be okay with that, which meant that you had a focus on what you were doing right there. You weren't looking at a hundred different things and losing focus. Jerry Seinfeld, I'm trying to be a stoic, but I look at Jerry, I'm watching comedians in cars getting coffee and he says,
Our lack of focus leads to our lack of greatness. And for me, when you said that, I tell our young people in our organization, you win the next opportunity by succeeding in the one that you're in. And if you overlook what you're doing right now, you lose, you're not gonna get the next opportunity because you didn't maximize it. And people know whether you maximize it or not. Were you...
an accidental celebrity or was that something that you did intentionally back when you were in, well you're still in Minneapolis and then you started writing and then you got on the radio and you got some radio shows and then that turned into some celebrity.
zimmern (24:46.914)
Well, very accidental.
zimmern (24:55.03)
Well, that was intentional, that there was some strategic work in there, but the celebrity part was accidental. So I'm in this restaurant, I create this great restaurant. A lot of people that, not my opinion, but local food scribes or whatever, it was, here's the deal.
Jeff Dudan (25:02.771)
Okay.
zimmern (25:18.61)
I came from New York, I was extremely accomplished culinary and I get out of the halfway house and I realized there's no good French restaurant in town and a French bistro every town should have a casual French bistro onion soup steak frites I mean it is a concept that is track record proven and here we were in a big city Minneapolis that didn't have a French bistro so it was to me looking at what was missing.
And yeah, in the rearview mirror, it's an act of entrepreneurship. Identify a problem and you have a business. Identify a lack of something successful somewhere, which is a different type of problem. You can create a business. And so we created this French bistro. It became very successful. I thought the food was really great. Was it the best restaurant in town? I don't know. There's always two, three, four that, you know, vie for that. But was it, you know, was it up for discussion? Hell, yeah.
I was very proud of what I built. Over the course of those six or seven years that I built the successful restaurant, my partner didn't wanna grow it. He just wanted to stay and take what he was taking out of that business. I was looking to see how we could, when are we doing the second restaurant? When are we gonna do the to-go food shop with pates and tureens and sliced meats and stuff? And you have to remember, this is 25 years ago.
So, you know, looking back in the rear view mirror, was I right? Could we have done that? Absolutely. Am I thrilled that my partner said no? You bet, because what it did was is it made me leave the restaurant. I realized I had the wrong partner. And I also had to do a lot of inventory work. You know, I really had to do some writing and figure out what I wanted. And I realized...
An Accidental Celebrity: From French Bistro to Food Philosopher
Jeff Dudan (27:02.4)
Yes.
zimmern (27:14.814)
It wasn't that I just wanted to expand that concept. I just wanted a bigger audience for what I had to say. And I mean that in the broadest sense. So it could have been just food. I could have grown that food thing. And I, with each store, with each business within this mother company, I would have been telling food stories, my story to other people, right? But.
Jeff Dudan (27:40.191)
Yes.
zimmern (27:41.638)
I realized that I wanted to tell stories about society and culture and that I had this feeling in my gut that we were starting more and more in America to define ourselves by the things that divide us. We were growing in impatience with each other. We were growing in intolerance with each other. And I identified this thing. And then I looked at food. And I saw this.
company that Food Network was growing. And it was just people cooking behind a counter. Every show on Food Network, they weren't into game yet. And they've never really done travel. They've dabbled, but they never really did. Mostly because they were owned by the same company always that had Travel Channel and other networks that did that kind of thing. And I realized I needed a bigger audience. So I quit the partnership.
and I immediately went out and got a job working for the local glossy magazine, but they only had like a third of a job available for me. And then I went to the radio station and that was a one day a week food show is how it started. Ultimately I was doing drive time radio in on this talk 107 station. That was my favorite job.
Jeff Dudan (29:01.031)
Were these new platforms for these people? They didn't have a food segment and you pitched it or?
zimmern (29:05.61)
No, no, well, yes and no, yes and no. With the food radio thing, it was another radio station was experimenting with it. They thought I'd be better at doing a two hour food show on Saturdays. Eventually I got moved to drive time because it got really, really good. The local magazine, I started out writing one column. I wound up then being given a senior editorship position and doing six or seven pieces in our food section.
and winning a lot of awards and realizing with, well, I had a great editor who helped me become a good writer from a decent writer. And then I was doing this TV thing over on a independent TV station that got sold to Fox and became a Fox O&O. And I wound up doing one segment a week, then three, then I was a fixture on the morning show.
there and it was when you put it all together, I learned in those three jobs how to write, how to communicate, how to communicate consistently. I mean, you do three hour drive time radio, people are not listening for three hours. One person, the same person may listen at 1 30 one day and 2 30 the next and you better be the same person. You better be the same at
you know, hour one is hour two is hour three and deliver the same amount of enthusiasm and interest in what it is that you're talking about. And obviously I learned a lot in the TV station because as a local TV reporter, you pitch your segments, you write your segments, you shoot your segments with a videographer, then you and the videographer typically edit them together.
and I learned how to do all the aspects of my craft. I sort of created a syllabus for myself to learn the things I needed to do so I could become expert. I spent my 10,000 hours or whatever across three jobs pretty quickly, knowing intentionally that I wanted to have a television. I was telling people when I left the restaurant that my ultimate goal was to have a show on television. Now,
zimmern (31:24.734)
Again, this is 25 years ago. So today I get asked every day, oh, I want my own TV. Everyone wants their own TV show. It's great, go ahead and make it, put it on YouTube. You can do your own website, create your own thing. I mean, it's very democratic. And I mean, look, there are people on TikTok who are getting 25 million views a day, right? Doing food stuff and telling stories. So, and making a lot of money. So it does work, this democratization of...
Jeff Dudan (31:45.387)
Yes.
zimmern (31:53.646)
of the internet and social media has been a boon for food creators. But at the time, there were limited avenues. I pursued all of them all the while putting together tape of myself and pitching show ideas and eventually Discovery Networks, which own travel channel, said, well, this sounds interesting. Come talk to us about it. And I did. And we made a sizzle. We then made a paid for.
piece of a develop sizzle. Then we did a pilot and then ultimately that became the series. And then, you know, the show was not doing, it was doing well, but not great. And I didn't know, but the series was probably gonna be canceled. You either hit your number or you don't. And if you are losing viewers over the first three or four episodes, that's not a good thing. And...
We were up and down and up and down, which typically means eventually you're just gonna go down. And my fear was we were trying our hardest. I thought we were making a great product. I later was proven to be right. Just that the show was new. It had no marketing budget assigned to it, right? And we were the lead in hour to a very, a strong show.
And I did the third episode, which was our...
zimmern (33:30.282)
the episode in Odovalo, Ecuador, where a medicine man made me undress and then he beat me with branches until I broke out in hives everywhere and he spat on me and he poured 151 on me, homemade hooch lit me on fire and he took guinea pigs and beat them against, beat, oh, it's a great one, beat them against my chest until the animal died. The idea was it was an exorcism. It was a witch doctor.
Jeff Dudan (33:50.577)
I missed this one.
Jeff Dudan (33:59.34)
Mmm.
The Witch Doctor Episode That Saved Bizarre Foods (and Launched a Career)
zimmern (34:00.002)
captured all the evil spirits and all of these things, then burnt them and took the ashes and threw them in the river. That was the third episode that aired of Bizarre Foods season one. And it aired on a Monday night. Wednesday night I got a call from a booker on the Jay Leno show, the Tonight Show, and said, we saw the clip of the witch doctor and showed it to Jay, he loved it, can you be in LA tomorrow night? And I said,
I don't think so, but I can be there on Friday." And they said, okay. And I showed up Friday night, I did the Tonight Show, and suffice to say the ratings the following Monday were really, really good. And I wound up doing the Tonight Show with Jay three or four times, and it kind of set the show. Without that Booker seeing that episode, I don't think I'm sitting here today.
Jeff Dudan (34:53.611)
Yeah.
zimmern (34:56.758)
with you. I think my career goes in a different direction. But sometimes we need those seconds and inches thing. Now, if I'm sitting there with my kid, I tell him I create my own luck. We worked hard. We made a good program. I was proud of all of it. And the reason why I was in the Witch Doctor scene was never in the show. We were stuck in this town and had nothing to do from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. And
I have a cameraman and I have a producer and me. There's three of us. Today I travel with 18 people, right? There were three of us. And I told, you know, and this is probably really instructive for our listeners because I didn't wanna waste any time. And I saw a story I really want. There was a sign that said, brujera, witch doctor. And so I had my translator there. I said, what is that? You know, what is that? He says, it's a witch doctor. I said, yes, I know the Spanish word,
what do they do? And he said, well, this one is actually an exorcist. And I said, can I get exorcised? And he said, sure, it's 25 bucks. And I'm like, okay. And I then went to my videographer and he's like, dude, I'm tired. I'm like, dude, I'm getting an exorcism. Let's shoot this thing. And I had to convince my photographer and my producer. And eventually they said, okay. And when it started,
you could just see the three of us were like, this is magic television. It may have been the best five, seven minutes of TV. It was certainly the best five, seven minutes of TV I've ever spontaneously made. And the whole thing was created instantly and it's a really, really fun moment exploring culture in another part of the world, but it put me on a path that I would not have been on otherwise.
Jeff Dudan (36:50.463)
Yeah, The Tonight Show makes a lot of people. I mean, it's that they know. I mean, I listen to a lot of comedians, and it's just like, I got the call, I got the shot, and it all changed from there. Were you immediately comfortable on television? Was there a time where you were like, ah, you're looking at it and you're uncomfortable with it, or were you just, I don't care. This is what we're going to do, and I'm comfortable with it.
zimmern (36:53.31)
It was insane.
zimmern (37:15.874)
both. I think anyone who says they're instantly comfortable with it is lying. You actually have to learn the blocking and tackling part and then you're comfortable. And that's why I'm glad I came out of Live Local News. That was the best learning ever. When I talked before about finding the story, editing the story, I remember they sent me out with my
Jeff Dudan (37:20.935)
Yes.
zimmern (37:45.334)
two-hour morning show, local morning show. And we all have watched local morning television, right? It's very low budget, some of it's really goofy. They sent me, it was like the week before Halloween, they sent me to a corn maze. And they're just like, you have five four-minute segments, figure it out. And by the way, you get that assignment at noon when you're leaving the day beforehand.
So you have to come up with some cool things to do, get some people that, you know, we had a school band, there was a maze. One of the, someone didn't show up and I did the Blair Witch thing where I took a flashlight and just ran through the thing, holding the camera. I mean like, stupid, stupid stuff. But you learn, you learn the craft that way. You learn how to talk to the audience. You learn how to sort of be yourself on camera and either people are gonna accept you or not accept you. There are a lot of people
you know, funnier, smarter, better looking, more interesting, all of that stuff. And the audience doesn't want to follow them week to week to week to week. Network to network, show to show. It's a really honorable position to have. Is there something inside of me that I just naturally have that makes me appealing to people? Yes, I believe there is a piece of that.
But I also believe that there's a lot of people who have that and blow it because they're lazy and they don't wanna learn how to actually do the job. And there is some blocking and tackling to all that. When I got to do the first season of Bizarre Foods, everything in television was about what we refer to lovingly in old TV as the standup. I'm like, I look at the camera.
right down the barrel and as I'm walking down the street I say, here in Tokyo, Japan there are thousands of asadachi, small little humble restaurants with single cooks preparing for it and you describe what you're going to do and then you literally have to walk in the door because the producers feel if they don't see you walk in the door then how do you get there, right? It's a very old way of doing television. Today we just start out in scene with the guy handing me food
Jeff Dudan (39:58.999)
Right.
The Art of TV Storytelling: Fearlessness, Repetition, and the 10,000-Hour Rule
zimmern (40:07.578)
And through a series of exchanges with him, we bring out language that we can then cut and put ahead of it that describes where I am and what I'm doing. So we no longer have to do standups, right?
To learn how to do that so that then you can figure out new and different ways to introduce material. How to talk, when to talk, write down the barrel to the audience, when to not, when to ask a question, when to not. Those are learned things and it's a very vital important part of doing the job.
Jeff Dudan (40:48.279)
getting behind the camera, getting in the editing room, writing, drafting in advance. Also, I'm fascinated by the three hour radio show because you wouldn't think about it, but you've gotta assume there's new listeners coming on all the time. So writing a show where people can jump on, but yet for people that are on, you're not duplicating what you're doing. Or a four minutes in a corn maze. Like it's highly creative.
And it, what's that?
zimmern (41:18.366)
with no lights, with no lights. The dawn hadn't come up yet. And we were having, we didn't have enough lights in the van. And so I mean, it's just like first hit, I just Blair witched it. And it didn't matter whether it was good or not. What mattered is the network, the director just needed me to do something.
Jeff Dudan (41:23.575)
Right, oh, with no lights.
Oh.
zimmern (41:47.39)
If it's good, great. If it's not good, people will forget it by the next morning. There's a lot of stuff in live local news that's not very good, but you have a chance the next day to reach every day a new beginning, right? And I guess what it taught me is a little bit of fearlessness, a little bit of just do your best, it's gonna be okay, and patience. And quite frankly, patience is faith.
Jeff Dudan (41:53.079)
Yeah.
Jeff Dudan (41:57.559)
Yes.
zimmern (42:15.578)
You have to have a belief that it is going to work if you try it, right? I think, you know, a show that some people view as fat white guy goes around world and eats bugs, would that be the thing that launched all of the other stuff that I do? Turns out, yes.
Jeff Dudan (42:39.735)
Ugh.
Do you subscribe to any life philosophy, or have you developed a kind of a view that you share with other people?
zimmern (42:54.014)
lots of them. Don't be the best, be the only. It's really hard to qualify or quantify what's best. There are many bests, just depends on who the consumer is.
Jeff Dudan (43:04.759)
Yeah.
Jeff Dudan (43:08.311)
But unique is describable.
zimmern (43:12.354)
If you're the only, it really is easier, you know? And I look at different people in different worlds and they are an only. And I think that is, it's an easier way to try to interpret things. I've learned to shut up, you know? I've learned that...
Jeff Dudan (43:15.735)
Yeah.
zimmern (43:39.346)
I have to evaluate everything through, I ask myself three questions. Is it true? Does it need to be said? And if it's true and needs to be said, is it up to me to say it? And the third question is the one that always gets me. It might be true. It might need to be said. It's not my job to say it. It's someone else's. And that's how I decide when it's my turn to speak or not. Right?
If I'm the only person that can communicate it, I communicate it. If it's not, then don't be a selfish son of a bitch and let other people communicate the idea. And that's very important as a business owner because I want everyone to feel like they're contributing. So unless I'm the only person that can say something, I like to keep my mouth shut. I've learned that, you know, over the years of owning several different businesses.
And I really think that being curious, staying teachable, trying to be patient tolerant and understanding with other folks, all of those and the other examples I gave you are guiding principles and ideas. But if I had to pick one, it's the idea that
Don’t Be the Best—Be the Only: Andrew’s Life Philosophy
zimmern (45:06.69)
doing things for other people is what we're here on planet Earth for, and that is not...
zimmern (45:17.374)
or I should say that is 100% compatible with being a capitalist and a business owner. 100% compatible. I'm always striving to do things for other people. And it doesn't mean that everything you do, you need to give 5% of it to a child. That's not what I'm talking about. But in the creative businesses that solve problems that make the world a better place,
in the attitude of always lifting up other people here in the workplace, trying to at least, and making them feel heard and known. There are so many different ways in which we can be always giving and certainly in my private life it's what I predicated all on. And I think with without that I'm really lost. It doesn't give me, it doesn't give me, it takes my compass away, takes my compass away.
Jeff Dudan (46:15.287)
I was listening to Elon Musk on, I think, Lex Friedman, and he said, you know, depending on what people's beliefs are, but we've occupied this planet for about one one millionth of its existence, and we have a very short time here, and we have conspicuous consumption, and we accumulate things, and then people that accumulate things, like the billionaires, 75% of them have, so they're going to give 90% of it away.
So we chase things throughout our life and we want these things because it's what we do. And then when you have enough, what I came back to in this whole train of thought was, you know, our whole goal is just to make life a little bit better for some people for the time that we're here. Like that's this, I had this kind of like an hour and a half conversation with my mother about, you know, and it was really, you know, it comes back to the fact that like if we are making
making it just a little bit better for the people that are closest to us and anybody else that we can impact that's inside of our audience and helping people along the way. And you've done that, you can feel pretty good about it.
zimmern (47:25.422)
Do you, you've seen the movie Caddyshack?
Jeff Dudan (47:28.983)
Yes, I have.
zimmern (47:31.774)
And when Bill Murray has the opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama, he asks him what's the meaning of life. And when I was filming Bizarre Foods, I had the opportunity to live with, live with about 20 different tribes, protected tribes, that have very intense spiritual systems all around the world.
And these kinds of shows take years to pre-produce and years of petitioning to the governments and because they regard these tribes as sacred cultural institutions and try to prevent their interaction with modern people. And whenever I found someone who I believed to be, and it was usually the shaman or religious leader, spiritual leader of that family group or tribal people,
I would always ask them what the meaning of life is, always, because I was just, I mean, these people had something on the board. I watched them do too many miraculous things. I mean, suffice to say, and we documented a lot of them, others we didn't, and it would just take too much time, but I mean, I saw some things that are just inexplicable to me other than these people have some sort of connection that we don't.
And I remember in Botswana going through a trance dance and being taken out of my body. We documented the whole thing in our Botswana episode with the Jeune Troisi. And the shaman who performed this act of out-of-body experience on me, I needed to ask him what he did because
if anyone else had spoken to him in between the time it ended and he kind of passed out and was carried and put inside his little hut. I sat outside his hut for like 10 hours because I needed to be the first person to talk to him because either I was crazy or I had just experienced something that was inexplicable. And I believed it to be the latter. And he comes out of his tent.
zimmern (49:45.314)
and I had the translator there with me and he asked me what I was doing and I told him and I said, did you pull me out of my body? He said, yes. And I said, I had this image of you looking through pages of a book in my life. And he said, yes, you know a lot about us. We don't know a lot about you. And you showed us some pictures, but I wanted to know more. And I was...
I was blown away that we both had this image and I asked, he's walking away from me like I'm a moron for asking these questions. Like, of course I did that, right? And I said to him in my own broken way as he's leaving me, why are we here? Right? I mean, human beings have asked that of themselves and of other people.
Jeff Dudan (50:22.903)
Right.
zimmern (50:43.426)
usually in a position of power for as long as there have been human beings, right? I mean, we've recorded it on cave walls and, you know, canvas and art and sculpture and everywhere that you could imagine and books and music, all trying to explain what our relationship is to the outside world, to each other, to a power greater than ourselves. And I'm just fascinated in finding out what different people think about this. And this one...
uh witch doctor shaman bom in who's a jean toasty uh tribal member in uh the aha hills outside of maun in batzuana was the person that i had have met in the history of my life that i truly believe and by the way i should also mention there are dozens of the most famous
Anthony Bourdain, Brotherhood, and the Founding Fathers of Food TV
zimmern (51:40.246)
this other shaman with this one tribe are the only two people in the world that astrally can project themselves. They've put numbers and drawings and letters and shapes inside caves 100 miles away. And then these men have done their trance dances and then woken up and described what's in those caves. Right? So, and I'm talking about like not.
not a Capella University on, I'm talking about like University of Indiana, which has one of the best teaching universities for anthropology in the world and a lot of other very big global international organizations. And Bohm turned to me and shook his head like I'm an idiot, which I was, and he just looked at me and he grabbed me by the shoulders and he said, we're here to make other people happy and love them.
and walked away from me. Like, of course that's our only reason for being you idiot. I supplied the parenthetical comment, but it stuck with me forever.
Jeff Dudan (52:40.119)
Hmm
Jeff Dudan (52:47.639)
Yes.
Yeah.
Jeff Dudan (52:55.543)
Can I ask you a question about Anthony Bourdain? Where did you find common ground with him? I know that you did work together on your shows, and it appeared as if you had a friendship. Where was common ground with him? His lifestyle and your lifestyle diverged, particularly around alcohol.
zimmern (52:58.03)
Sure.
zimmern (53:10.007)
Oh yeah.
zimmern (53:23.118)
We came from the same place. We understood the same language. We believed the same things. We were interested in the same stuff. When I was at Travel Channel, my first season was his second season. We were back to back for my first three years and built an incredible evening on Monday nights that essentially launched that network. Because when you have your two highest rated shows back to back, you can put
Jeff Dudan (53:24.823)
Mm.
Jeff Dudan (53:37.271)
Yeah.
zimmern (53:52.154)
ones before or after. It's a programmer's wet dream, right? I mean you can just build shows and then ultimately split us apart where he had Monday, I had Tuesday, and then we were able to support two shows underneath us and it launched, you know, Dohani Jones' show, Adam Richman's show, on and on and on during the sort of the heyday of Travel Channel. And
You know, quite frankly, we basically did the same thing. We just had two different ways of storytelling and two different points of view. And, you know, some of my closest friends and people I admire beyond words like Alton Brown had a great...
travel show for a year or two. There are other people who have, I think, attempted to do what we do on lots of other networks. I can think of a whole bunch of people on PBS, a whole bunch of people on YouTube, but no one has really managed to capture that. I think a lot of it was timing. This was the beginning of that. And so you can only have sort of...
Jeff Dudan (54:48.119)
Right.
Jeff Dudan (54:58.263)
Yes.
zimmern (55:01.266)
a few, it's the way we look at our country's founders, right? I mean, I hate to say right place, right time for Ben Franklin, but you know, right place, right time, Ben and John Adams and all those guys. I mean, they did the work with their, yeah. But lots of great leaders after them, lots of global, you know, important people and foundationally creating our country. But you know, there's only one group of.
Jeff Dudan (55:09.591)
Yeah. Yeah. Hey, look, they put in the work. They put in the work, but right. Yeah.
zimmern (55:29.59)
founding fathers, right? And so in this world of food, travel, TV, you know, I think that, you know, there's us. And so we had that in common. We also enjoyed each other's company immensely. We were both married, both had children the same age. We talked a lot about kids. And I think there was no more interesting human being I've ever met.
Jeff Dudan (55:38.551)
Yes.
zimmern (56:00.162)
uh then we could sit here and talk about you know 1950s and 60s French new wave cinema one night and the next night be in a grunge bar listening to some new punk rock band and the next night be in the back ass end of you know of queens eating Thai food at a place that no one had discovered yet and just never run out of stuff to talk about. He was
an extremely, extremely kind, loving, beautiful human being who was incredibly bright and wickedly funny and I loved him and continue to love him very much.
Jeff Dudan (56:46.199)
Yeah, he was a poet, one of one. And I don't know if you can see over my wall, but like he's up on my wall back there. He's got the top right on my wall of people back there along with Chappelle and Norm MacDonald, and Serena and a couple other people out there.
Food is the Frontline: Scarcity, Processed Crisis, and Feeding America’s Kids
zimmern (57:04.01)
Yeah, there's, yeah, I've got them up on my wall too. I was lucky enough. You can see it, you can see it there. That's from a theater show. It's the poster from a theater show that we did together where we were in conversation that was one of the funniest nights of my life. It was a blast.
Jeff Dudan (57:09.367)
Yeah.
Hehehe
Yes, right there.
Jeff Dudan (57:33.751)
I would love to get your thoughts oddly enough on food. And because we hadn't talked about food much, but we have food scarcity in this country. We have obesity in this country. We have processed foods. And I had a guy named Pashif Khan who...
owns the DNA company out of Toronto, Canada. And we had an hour and a half, incredibly interesting discussion. And since they mapped the human genome, and then he took that information and he did a study with 7,000 people and he mapped out, oh, you know, and I don't wanna butcher it, but basically if you have these three different genes, this one will cause you to accumulate certain things, this one won't clear those things. And if you know that,
then you can eat foods or take supplements that are going to address that. And he would contend that you can, chronic diseases, if you would just know what to do that you could push them off 10 or 12 years, or maybe even indefinitely. And so we have that, apparently we're starting to have that. Now, what's interesting is, right, we grow up in a family, I grew up in a family of five, everybody is diabetic but me.
but we all ate the same. So clearly we have different genetic makeups, but based on, and I grew up in Chicago, so it was cheesy fries, Italian beefs, deep dish pizza, and those things, and then I moved to the South. Now I live in North Carolina, and I've got a, you know, I married into a Southern family, so you've got that. But we don't customize the way that we eat based on who we are.
Now we can say, well, we need to eat whole foods and we need to eat healthier. But what do you see? And you've traveled, obviously, what is 173 or 179 countries and the perspective that you must have on how we eat in this country. And I'd be interested in that. And then what you think we need to do to make us healthier.
zimmern (59:53.03)
How many hours you got? I mean I spend 20 hours a week, I spend 20 hours a week working on food issues. I believe we need to change laws to change outcomes for people in this country. I've come to that belief because I've been a part of every nonprofit and every from
Jeff Dudan (59:54.967)
Well...
Jeff Dudan (01:00:05.751)
Okay.
zimmern (01:00:17.83)
No Kid Hungry to Gen Youth. I mean, I'm on more boards and I mean, I've been headass and overcoat in this issue for 20 years. And the only thing that works is giving these issues the teeth that laws provide to actually solve the problems. We can solve the problems. You brought up one of them, genetics. If we were able to test people and give them recommended diets and incentivize them to eat that, our healthcare costs would go down.
Jeff Dudan (01:00:37.687)
Yes.
zimmern (01:00:47.798)
be a massive success economically for this country where healthcare costs are skyrocketing and medicine, everything costs too much. So by example, I do not ignore science. I think science is very, very important. We need to acknowledge it. I will tell you that we need to distinguish between dollar, financial poverty,
time poverty, food poverty, opportunity poverty, right, and navigate those differently. I've been in countries where people are financially poor, don't have opportunity for growth, don't want to. I'm talking about small tribal fishing communities in coastal Africa on the island of Madagascar, okay?
You know, Yama the fisherman who I spent a week with and his kids are going to be fishermen and their kids are going to be fishermen as long as there's a world that's extant and Madagascar stays the way it stays.
But they never worry about food. They have an unlimited supply. The island is tropical. They grow things. They fish for things. I mean, it's like literally, he's never had a problem. I've talked to him about this. Never had a problem feeding his family. Doesn't make any money. Doesn't need it. He trades fish for clothes and things in the local market. They live in a small village, right? So when modern...
Jeff Dudan (01:02:05.943)
Right.
zimmern (01:02:28.342)
When the modern world reaches Yama the fisherman's village, he's screwed. That's the problem, okay? But I only illustrate that to mean that we have to distinguish between those that they're not all the same, they need to be dealt with differently. When it comes to hunger in America, we have, and this is not red or blue or left or right.
Jeff Dudan (01:02:32.983)
Yes.
zimmern (01:02:53.858)
This is simply a civic issue about moving our country forward. We do not have a, well, we have several food problems, one of which is we spend a trillion and a half dollars treating the results of most people over consuming processed foods. We have a processed foods issue that
Jeff Dudan (01:03:13.751)
Hmm.
zimmern (01:03:14.326)
has created an untenable situation in my opinion when it comes to healthcare costs. We spend a trillion and a half dollars a year on it. That's equal to our annual federal budget. I mean, that is the scariest number out there.
my opinion. We don't spend that much on criminal justice system or other systems that would be helped by feeding. Kids who eat have better outcomes. They just do. They cost less. They're lower drag on the system in terms of health care costs. Criminal justice system by and large only would be treated about half.
as many if we actually fed people better. The problem in our country with food, by the way, we waste 40% of our food in America that's pre-consumer contact, which is why immigration reform is so important. We actually, I mean, speak to anyone big agribus, I mean, you know.
Jeff Dudan (01:04:13.335)
Oh.
zimmern (01:04:19.878)
I've spent a lot of time on farms and I did a whole series of this on MSNBC called What's Eating in America. We went to the biggest farms in America in the central coast of California and watched them just till lettuce under the ground because I don't know of people to pick it. Same thing with
Jeff Dudan (01:04:34.007)
Okay, so that's what's behind it is our ability to gather it and ship it. It's not that it's substandard and they're just throwing it out. Okay.
zimmern (01:04:41.95)
That's correct. That's correct. We're the richest, most successful, most highly developed culture in the history of the world here in America. There's never been a nation like this one as exists today while we're talking. We can. We have the ability to food to feed. Let's just take kids. It's an easier one to talk about.
Jeff Dudan (01:04:55.319)
Hmm.
zimmern (01:05:09.17)
Number one, from a moral standpoint, anyone who's out there for keeping kids hungry should raise their hand. I don't think anyone would, right? I mean, who wants to keep kids hungry? Okay, so we all agree, we need to feed kids. But 20% of kids don't know where their next day's meals are coming from. We have built a system in this country of highways, schools, community centers, churches, access points.
We've developed an economy, robust economy, with a lot of food companies and a lot of farms. We actually could statistically, and I've talked about, I was lucky enough to be one of the 300 participants chosen to be at the president's conclave on hunger, nutrition, and health the September before last in Washington, DC.
you know, I don't think I need to give my CV, but trust me when I tell you that I talk to everyone who knows what's what about this issue. And we can statistically eliminate childhood hunger in America. It will take about six weeks because you just have to reroute the trucks and reroute the food. We have to put equipment into schools and other places where we took the equipment out of during the Reagan administration.
So the people are actually cooking wholesome and nutritious food. We have the vegetables. We would have to fix the immigration reform issue. So let's just assume that we're able to increase the number. By the way, we've eliminated about 30, 40% of those specialty visas that we need people from other countries to come help us harvest all of our food and work in our meat industry, et cetera, et cetera, so we can get the product out the door, so to speak.
And we take about four and a half, five, seven weeks, depending on who you talk to for this, a very short amount of time. And the cost is 17 billion dollars the first year and goes down to about 14 billion dollars a year after that, because the first year is a lot of infrastructure that needs to be put in there. And I'm using just the top line budgetary items.
Jeff Dudan (01:07:14.743)
Hmm.
Jeff Dudan (01:07:21.079)
That's nothing. That's absolutely nothing. That's three Washington commanders football teams. That's all that is.
zimmern (01:07:23.752)
It's actually.
0.0027 percent of our annual federal budget. It's a rounding error. So as my friend Jim McGovern, a congressman from Massachusetts, is always fond of reminding me, Andrew, it's a not a, we don't have a hunger problem in America. We have a political problem in America. It is beyond my understanding.
Jeff Dudan (01:07:33.943)
Yes.
zimmern (01:07:56.482)
that there isn't bicameral and bilateral.
creation of a bill that would pass with no one against it to feed kids in America when you're talking about a rounding error. Now, the sway for economic conservatives is the amount of money that would come back into the system from this, right? One of the hallmarks of the food stamp program is for every dollar that goes out, it's $1.17, $1.19 comes back, right?
One of the benefits of a charity on whose board I sit, The Giving Kitchen, that gives money to people and the food service workers who are in crisis, is that if you actually pay their rent and they don't get kicked out of their apartment, and you feed them for a couple months while they get back on their feet, then they're not accessing public services, and they're not going to the emergency room for their doctor visits and all this kind of stuff. And it actually saves our economy dollars, right?
and they keep work days rolling so they're not missing work. Imagine if we were able to feed all those hungry children. Test scores would go up, attendance in schools would go up, that frees up parents, we'd save job days for parents that don't have to take days off from work, single parents especially, to take care of those children. The the health care costs, the criminal justice costs,
zimmern (01:09:33.962)
and a family meets the public dollar, those dollars that spend, that pressure on our economy would go down. It doesn't necessarily automatically pay for itself, but I will just point out $17 billion a year max to feed all the children in America statistically eliminate hunger versus a trillion and a half dollars a year for these big three or sorry, big four processed food related diseases.
Imagine after eight, nine, ten years, we haven't even spent a hundred, well we've spent two hundred million dollars, right, in ten years, a little less. How much money Net-Net would come back into our system? Staggering, staggering, a huge game changer for this nation. I can't think of a more important thing, and by the way, I have no desire to be a
that deprioritizes hungry children over other issues. It doesn't matter whether you are left, right, in the middle or from Mars, hungry children, it's almost a genocidal choice because it disproportionately affects people of color and women. So if we have the solution and it costs that little money, it's a rounding error, why can't we muster the political will to do it?
Now I also think, concomitant to that, we need to have a cabinet level position for food. Food represents such a large part of our GDP. Independent, just independent restaurants, that's not chains, it's just independent restaurants, I think are seven and a half percent of GDP. If you start to figure in all the other restaurants and places that food connects, farms, hotels.
I mean, you take the piece of the bowling alley and their food service thing and their pizzas and microwave hamburgers, you add up all the food systems in America and you're at almost a quarter of our nation's GDP. It literally is the driving force for tourism. Baltimore, Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay, take away crabs and watch, you know.
zimmern (01:11:51.574)
500,000 jobs disappear and whole sectors of the economy for Maryland disappear, right? You know, it is absolutely crucial that we have one office that oversees all of this instead of five government agencies that manage pieces and parts of it that don't talk to each other. So I think we need to have a cabinet-level secretary for food.
and one office that handles all of them. We do that and we feed children. We're on our way to solving a lot of the problems in America today.
Jeff Dudan (01:12:26.359)
Do you have an opinion as to why we have so much processed food out there? Is it because that's what's made available? Is it because of the way it tastes better? Is it? I mean, it's just to me, it doesn't.
zimmern (01:12:34.274)
Green.
read.
zimmern (01:12:42.314)
I don't believe it tastes better. It's, I mean, look, I believe, I believe in, in hamburger helper, okay? I wanna explain what I mean by that. If there is something to which you add meat and you make a skillet dinner that costs a few dollars a portion or less than $2 or whatever it is,
Jeff Dudan (01:13:02.199)
Yes.
zimmern (01:13:10.27)
And you can feed a family of four inexpensively with a home cooked meal, where you can sit down at the table and actually share it and talk with, you know, the mom, dad and the 1.95 kids that they have, right? I am so pro hamburger helper, it's coming out of my pores. What I'm against is the processed food that's necessary to go into the sauce, when in fact the sauce can be made.
Jeff Dudan (01:13:28.215)
Yeah.
zimmern (01:13:39.862)
with very natural ingredients. And I can do it as quickly as you can make hamburger helper. I can melt a tablespoon of butter to a tablespoon of flour and make a roux and add a cup of milk to it. And there is my sauce that's very healthy and nutritious that then can bind all those things in that creamy, delicious thing. My version is called a bechamel. It's got a fancy French word, right? And I can do that quicker than most people can pour the packet in and add boiling water, right?
Jeff Dudan (01:13:41.559)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Dudan (01:13:57.463)
Sure.
zimmern (01:14:09.27)
But I would want there to be vegetables in there. I would want it to cook for five minutes longer. It needs to be convenient. But if you cut carrots, onions, broccoli, celery, I'm just talking about the more inexpensive vegetables out there, or even just adding frozen vegetables to that, which are still nutritious, right? We've learned a way to freeze vegetables and maintain their nutritive qualities. It is, I'm very pro hamburger helper. I'm against.
using unnatural ingredients and other things because what it does is, is it allows very large food companies to profit on unhealthy foods that we know are bad for us. These companies, however, are multinational gazillion dollar companies that hold a tremendous amount of sway and power in our world. Now
It took about 30 years between the discovery that cigarette smoking was bad for us, for us to essentially ban TV commercials, do all the things to limit cigarettes. And we've seen a huge fall off in cigarette smoking. Kids no longer think it's cool. It's not in movies, it's not in commercials. The bad guy takes a puff of a cigarette, not the good guy anymore, right? The Marlboro man doesn't exist. It took the same amount of time for us to put seat belts in cars. When I was young,
when we bought the family station wagon, my father tucked the seat belts in between the area where the back of the seat and the bench of the seat met because that seat belt would never be pulled out, right? Now, anyone out there who gets into a car with my kid, every time we do put your seat belt on, put your seat belt on, put your seat belt on, I mean, like a broken record. Takes 25 years for those social justice movements to move through the system.
Jeff Dudan (01:15:40.919)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.
Right.
zimmern (01:16:02.57)
with enough velocity to actually change behavior in America. We have been at this food thing probably for about 17, 18 years in seriousness, right? I mean, really put it front and center. The last presidential election was the first one where a food topic was asked at a presidential debate. That delighted me, but also shocked me.
We should be talking about literal kitchen table issues at kitchen tables and at elections, right? How do local, and I'm talking about it at the community, city and state level, as well as the federal government. We need to be talking about these issues. These are the vital issues of our time. How do we feed and keep people healthy? I'm not sure there's anything better. If people, to your point before about processed food,
Jeff Dudan (01:16:48.791)
Mm.
Jeff Dudan (01:16:56.759)
Yeah.
zimmern (01:17:02.29)
If we're not healthy and well and feeding folks our best, then we're not taking care of our fellows, our fellow human beings, right? And let's start that at home. Let's grow where we're planted and then export that wisdom out there. I don't think there's a reason for doing it other than greed and an inability for some people to wanna do the work.
Jeff Dudan (01:17:22.199)
Yeah.
zimmern (01:17:32.234)
We know on every single level that having people eat nutritious, healthy food saves money, solves problems. I mean, you know, we could just keep going. I could repeat what I've said for the last half hour. I would also point out, and people don't think of it this way, food is an international and domestic security issue as well. If we keep people fed and happy,
Jeff Dudan (01:17:32.727)
Yeah.
Jeff Dudan (01:17:44.087)
Sure.
zimmern (01:17:59.226)
and export food jobs overseas or create companies that use overseas labor and skill to create food businesses, those are good for our national security and international security needs. We build friends by doing that. Help people help themselves. I mean, it's a Bible, give a man a fish, teach a man to fish, different.
Jeff Dudan (01:18:18.007)
Right.
Jeff Dudan (01:18:23.991)
Mm-hmm.
zimmern (01:18:28.098)
I'll give you a great example. Sweet potato vines are a gourmet treat in Japan. They pay a fortune for them. A lot of Japan looks like the, you know, New England, got the same kind of weather. They have snow in Hokkaido, great skiing, right? Okinawa in the south, more like South Carolina gets hot in the summer, right? Big long island chain of a country.
They can't grow sweet potatoes down to sandy gravels, not right. All the rest of that. You can literally like asparagus grows a foot a day in the Midwest under the right conditions in Haiti, a country desperate for businesses. You can grow sweet potatoes and just watch the vines grow. I mean, that's how rich the soil is. It's volcanic, right? It is the perfect place to grow it.
88, 90 degrees every single day, 12 months a year, start a sweet potato vine company there and ship them to Japan and watch what happens. I believe capitalism and entrepreneurship can solve these problems. And if we focus in the food space, we can solve global problems. But it is a national security interest of ours. Climate crisis.
immigration reform, domestic security, international security, hunger, waste. These things all intersect. They all sit under the same tent. I've given talks on this at South by Southwest for many, many years. Um, it's why I'm personally such a, you know, I try to pick my battles. It's why I'm such a proponent of aquaculture, uh, and how important aquaculture is to solving our problems. I believe we should eat wild fish stocks.
But if we're not farming seaweed and farming fish on land, at sea, in fresh water, in salt water, we are not going to be able to feed this planet in 50 years. It is an existential crisis that we are enduring. I could go on and on and on. I should say I have a really fun substack. If people go to andrewzimmern.com, we have tons of recipes, lots of fun stuff, lots of entertainment.
zimmern (01:20:40.026)
I occasionally address things like this in my sub stack. We have a lot of recipes and then ask me anything, conversation that would, I do a video, ask me anything segment every week. And if people want to dive into more of this with me and build that community, go to andrewzimmer.com. Subscribe to my sub stack. My website is free, thousands of recipes, lots of info, but that's the way we're gonna do this together.
Jeff Dudan (01:20:56.119)
Yeah.
Jeff Dudan (01:21:07.927)
So What's Aiding America has a lot to do with societal impacts and changes. Of the things that you are concerned about, are there any that you would say are unreversible or inevitable at this point?
zimmern (01:21:25.646)
I'm starting to feel that way about our climate crisis. I think that's the only one. What's Eat in America was the best piece of work I've ever done in my life. It was six hours on MSNBC. We did our climate crisis episode and I went to four or five places in America where food has disappeared.
Jeff Dudan (01:21:36.919)
Thank you.
zimmern (01:21:56.218)
And then one, the apple in Minnesota that's threatened. And just to give people a quick notion, the most significant and prolific oyster bed in the world was in Apalachicola, Florida. And the oyster bed that sat there, more oysters were harvested annually out of that bed than any other oyster bed in the world. And
For that reason, dozens, dozens of processing plants sprung up to can and pack and freeze oysters, seafood restaurants, tourism, home prices shot up. People were building mega mansions on the water. It was a beautiful part of America, beautiful part of Florida. Great, great people.
The rain changed and it moved a little bit, just a little bit. And over the course of the last 20 years, there are now no more oysters in Apalachicola Bay, zero. It went from being the Michael Jordan of oyster beds to the person no one heard of oyster beds. And the reason is with a little less rain,
the water became a little more saline, saltier. And so invasive species that like the water a little more so they came in, they're called oyster drillers, dead. And now you can't grow oysters. There are some people that are trying to raise oysters to revive the genetic species of oyster there because occasionally they find a couple and they're struggling. The town has essentially boarded up. It's one of the most depressing places I've ever been.
Jeff Dudan (01:23:39.959)
Yeah.
zimmern (01:23:45.962)
you know, you want to buy a big home on the water, go there. They're available for pennies on the dollar. It is a, it's a very, very sad story. And the people who used to, the oyster men, who used to work 12 months a year in that business, now do stuff like fishing, guiding, and duck hunting, and carpentry, and a mixed bag of jobs. And so you can see families starting to change, and there's not a lot of future down there for a lot of people. Now,
Every month we learn that our climate crisis is getting worse. We're not doing anything to stop it. Um, and what we are doing to stop it isn't happening in enough time. That same rain that has left 10% less in. Appalachicola has moved north to Minnesota where I live. When I moved here 30 years ago,
We had soft spring rains and never had a problem with planting crops and we had soft fall rains and never had a problem with harvesting. We now have drought in the middle of the summer, I think seven years in a row. I experienced it at my own house. We're losing trees right and left, never used to. We have to run sprinklers all the time, never used to. Now I'm trying to plant grasses that don't require sprinklers, right? Because I want to do my part.
But we have these very heavy rains in the early spring that are a bear to deal with. And then more importantly, we have these heavy rains and big storms in the fall. Those big storms call what's called apple cracks where all the apples crack where the stem goes in. And of course the USDA, because they don't understand food, remember my call for a food czar, insists that those apples not be used for juice. Even though any apple farmer will tell you
all we do is rinse them and juice them. Apple cider can be pasteurized. There's no problem going in there. It's just we can't sell a cracked apple, right, to a consumer as a fresh apple. Now we can't juice it, can't can it, can't turn it into applesauce, can't jam it, can't bake with it. We have an antique set of laws that can't keep up.
zimmern (01:26:03.466)
with this enduring climate crisis that we have, that's shifting weather all over the world, that's the one that I think is going to get us. And I hope I'm wrong, but of all the, I mean, look, five years ago, you know, everyone was still saying 2050.
Then it was 2037, then 2032, then 2025. And the latest studies just released last week, these are by global institutes with the smartest people in the world working on it, have all said that one and a half degree raise is inevitable, that we missed the opportunity over the last eight, nine, 12 months to just stop, to just put the brakes on it. And when I see companies stand up and pat themselves on the back saying,
Well, we're gonna, you know, McDonald's, we're gonna only, you know, they use organic eggs by 2030, it's too little too late. When I see countries like ours deprioritize electric car building to a very, very small number and sustain the use of fossil fuels in America.
I'm really disappointed because we know what those contributions are. Factory farms and the methane that they produce. Horrific. The chemical runoff that goes into our water just keeps making exacerbating the climate crisis, not helping the climate crisis. So that's the one that scares me a lot. And again, I say this not to be divisive. This isn't red, blue or left or right. This is this is simply, you know.
Jeff Dudan (01:27:30.135)
Yeah.
zimmern (01:27:47.978)
very, very well-documented science that we need to deal with as a country and as a planet. Otherwise, we are in really, really bad shape.
Jeff Dudan (01:28:01.975)
You see things happen like impossible foods and impossible burgers trying to use less meat which reduces the gases and that kind of stuff But it doesn't get I mean it doesn't get incredible traction. It's everybody doesn't Are they?
zimmern (01:28:13.386)
No, and those are bad products. Yeah, I mean, one of the problems that they've had, probably the biggest fall off in the food business over the last 18 months have been plant-based meats. They spiked, and I don't know if you've noticed, they kind of have gone nowhere. All the fast fooders put an impossible burger on their menu, now they're all off. People want it.
Jeff Dudan (01:28:26.391)
Hmm.
Jeff Dudan (01:28:40.087)
Well, Andrew, I may be an investor and early stage investor in one of those concepts. So, yes, I have noticed.
zimmern (01:28:46.898)
So it's a tough one. A lot of the cell-based products won't scale fast enough or they require too much energy. All the cell-based seafood products, the average American consumer isn't going to be able to buy it. And I've tasted some salmon cell-based that is mind-boggling.
Jeff Dudan (01:28:51.703)
Yeah.
zimmern (01:29:15.006)
And if they can get it the last 10% and scale it up fast enough and reduce the water usage on it, so that the offset is more reasonable, I think we're really onto something, but that's a really, really big challenge. I would rather see us, and from an investor standpoint, I would rather see us take some of that money that billionaires are putting into cell-based product and did put into plant-based product.
and put it into food systems that we know work already to solve our shorter term problem, not look for much longer term gain. And I'm not saying, Jeff, that you're part of the problem or your investment is, I just think we've learned now since we all said, yes, let's put money in. And believe me, I did the same thing with the plant-based chicken product called Tindle. So, I mean, I'm right there with you.
I thought that was going to be the answer. We learned it's not the answer. So again, let's not repeat and not learn from history. If we can get more workers harvesting plants and get people eating more plants, we don't need plant-based foods, per se.
We do have some really interesting scientific discoveries going on in the world of protein fermentation that's absolutely mind-boggling that I see it's some very sort of high-end.
Conclave's that I attend where the science that's coming out over the next couple years has now sort of jumped this Cellular and this plant-based and gone into actually capturing proteins and in the air and fermenting them and then juicing the process with Amino acids that are found in other proteins That I think may actually be The the savior companies will see there's one on the market now
zimmern (01:31:16.654)
called Nature's Find, F-Y-N-D. That's really, really fascinating.
Jeff Dudan (01:31:18.903)
Hmm.
Jeff Dudan (01:31:23.095)
Is that an additive or is it the product itself?
zimmern (01:31:26.298)
No, it's the problem. Well, these are products that are made from a protein that they found in Yellowstone Park. Some NASA scientists researching something over here, found something over here, and they were smart enough to recognize, wow, that's a different amino acid structure, but it's a protein. Wonder what would happen if, and then these guys left NASA and created Nature's
Jeff Dudan (01:31:28.887)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Dudan (01:31:51.031)
Yeah, well, leave it to the rocket scientists.
zimmern (01:31:53.482)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's pretty fascinating, which is why I believe in business. I believe in... I mean, look, General Mills and Cargill are two companies out here that get pilloried all the time. General Mills, because everyone says, oh, they make sugary cereals that kill our kids. And Cargill, because people are like, oh, they ammoniate meat and all the rest of that. Big business is lousy at telling their own story.
There's no company in the world or government that spends more money researching drought resistant grain than General Mills. Number one. And the reason is, is that Big G, their cereals division, is their most profitable. So as they see problems globally getting wheat and rice and other grains, they have to be looking at things like kernza and trying to figure out how to get more kernza per stock. Right. So they're doing that.
Cargill, for all of the things you read about on the front page that people feel they're doing poorly, and by the way, I don't have a business relationship with either one, I just know them intimately because they're Minnesota based. Cargill are the ones who looked at the aquaculture problem and said, we have a solution, we'll create a one-to-one product instead of one-to-eight for feed for aquaculture, especially for salmon. So,
We were feeding eight pounds of salmon chow to fish to yield one pound of meat at the end. That's not sustainable. Now we're one to one. In fact, we're almost negative on it in terms of how much feed it takes to raise them because of they're now finding ways to use fish bones and fish skin and other species around the world.
Jeff Dudan (01:33:22.871)
Mm-hmm.
zimmern (01:33:42.834)
and safely transport it and turn it into fish pellets. They also developed the machinery that times the food. So none of it's falling to the ground. They're feeding the salmon less food, but more frequently putting less per square meter in these giant tents in the middle of the ocean. And so salmon aquaculture went from being a little sketchy to being one of the most dependable and reliable of all the...
uh, aquaculture systems that we have. And, and a lot of the reason that aquaculture has exploded is because of the work that companies like Cargill have done to address the feed issues, which was the biggest barrier to success there. So, you know, I believe the answers are out there. I believe financially, I mean, I'm stunned from an energy standpoint that the, the batteries in cars are still reliant on so many, uh, high end.
metals that we need. I'm holding out hope against hope about the hydrogen batteries. You know, I mean, the problem there, of course, is that hydrogen is essentially free. So there's not as much money to be made on it. So, you know, that sadly, while capitalism, I believe, will save us, I also believe that capitalism is a root cause of some of our problems. When you asked me about processed food,
Jeff Dudan (01:34:49.207)
Right.
Jeff Dudan (01:34:57.463)
Haha
zimmern (01:35:08.922)
It's simply greed. I mean, you know, you can't, you go to a business and say, hey, stop selling pop tarts. They're not good for kids. We need to feed them whole grains and eggs and juice and other things to start their day that are more natural. And vegetables, we need to eat. Our breakfasts in America need to look more like the ones in Japan, but go ahead and try to change food culture that quickly, not gonna happen. So it's a very difficult challenge.
Jeff Dudan (01:35:32.215)
Right.
Well, so you have lobbies and you had mentioned that laws and legislation is going to be what it takes. So you've got let's see. Well, you've got right. You get the food industry lobby right off the bat that's doing very well with all of the things that are in our pantry. And then you have Big Pharma, who is doing very well treating the things that.
those foods cause for us and doing very well inside of that. So without legislation and a hard stop and just saying, look, this is the way that we need to eat and here's the way that we're going to do it, that's trillions of dollars of business change. And there's, and politically, the way that it works is it's gonna be small steps to nibble away
excuse the pun, at this problem.
zimmern (01:36:30.402)
You mentioned diabetes being in your family before. Between pills like metformin, dozens of different types of short and long-term acting drugs like Xemgline, Ozempic, and Novalog, all the things that people inject themselves with, some insulin-based, some non-insulin-based.
Jeff Dudan (01:36:33.079)
Yes.
zimmern (01:36:57.01)
as well as medical procedures for everything from amputations to eyesight to all kinds of stuff. You know with cardiopulmonary issues and diabetes you add those in to those other two groups that you talked about and is it statistically try to get those companies off the gravy train when they know they can give away hundreds and hundreds of outspend everyone.
Jeff Dudan (01:37:14.647)
Yes.
Jeff Dudan (01:37:25.495)
That's right.
zimmern (01:37:26.37)
to make sure that we sort of stay sick, it's a problem. And it's why we are in desperate need of legislation to get ahead of this. And by the way, and I'm very concerned about divisiveness in our country from a cultural standpoint, which is why I remind people, this is not left or right or red or blue, this is forward.
diabetes and the other processed food diseases, all the other things we talked about, affect everyone in this country equally. It does not select liberals or conservatives or reds or blue states. Well, I should say it does disproportionately or certain food issues and hunger and other issues that do disproportionately affect
Jeff Dudan (01:38:08.631)
Yes.
zimmern (01:38:22.846)
what were all red states in the South. I mean, Georgia is now kind of a purple state, and I don't wanna get into a political thing, but there are a lot of facts and figures around those issues. A lot of our poor states tend to lean right, but this is an equal opportunity issue. I mean, grandpa still gets the heart attacks too early, kids are getting juvenile diabetes too early. It's...
Jeff Dudan (01:38:50.871)
Yes.
zimmern (01:38:54.647)
it's kind of a mess. I will end on this note. I am still very optimistic. And the reason is that I do believe in what we talked about at the beginning of this conversation, which is the indomitable nature of the human spirit to want to collect information and do good things in this world. I believe in that. I believe that's bigger.
than the challenges that are in front of us. I just think we need to get more juice in that system. And here's what I mean by that. When you ask me about things I believe in and I talk about with my teams, we all have the power and wisdom inside of us. It's like we're lamps with arms and we're carrying around our own electrical cord. And we're just looking to plug in somewhere to get some more juice.
You know, I believe we come built with everything that we need to overcome these challenges. I think what's important is that we find that energy resource, which is why, you know, I was another reason why I was eager to come on and talk with you. I think the more we have these conversations, the more people that are like us who are talking about actual real world issues, I don't want Cargill or General Mills to go away.
because I actually need their distribution systems, their global factories, their standards and practices groups that understand how to feed a hungry planet. We need big food. We just have to eliminate their bad practices and accentuate the good ones with other people and start to level that playing field. And I think we can do it.
Jeff Dudan (01:40:39.863)
Andrew, you have been incredibly generous with your time today, and this has been just a joy and a pleasure for me. I want to thank you for spending this time with us.
zimmern (01:40:49.23)
Oh, I appreciate it so much. Thank you for supplying some great conversation and take care, enjoy North Carolina. What a beautiful place to be in the fall.
Jeff Dudan (01:41:00.023)
Yeah, last question. If you had, you have one go-to sentence to make an impact in someone's life, what would that be?
zimmern (01:41:08.999)
Ask for help.
Jeff Dudan (01:41:10.647)
Yes.
zimmern (01:41:12.838)
I think I spent a lifetime, half a lifetime, and never, and I mean never said the words I don't know how to do that, can you help me?
Now I've never conversely had anybody ask me that and say no I won't help you. As human beings we yearn for that. Sometimes it's ego. Oh I'll help you. You know I mean yeah thank you for recognizing I'm so smart. I'll help. At the end of the day the humility and the grace that exists between one person asking another person for help will move mountains.
Jeff Dudan (01:41:34.039)
Exactly.
Jeff Dudan (01:41:40.087)
Yes.
Jeff Dudan (01:41:57.719)
Andrew Zimmern, thank you for being with us on the home front.
Jeff Dudan (01:42:05.879)
If you don't mind.
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