Hey smarties! We’re on a break for the holidays and revisiting some of our top episodes from 2024. We can’t do this show without you and we still need your support. If you can, donate today to keep independent journalism going strong into 2025 and beyond. Give now to support “Make Me Smart.” Thank you so much for your generosity, happy holidays and we’ll see you in the new year.

Today we’re talking about food. Specifically, Big Food. In his book, “Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry,” Austin Frerick, agricultural and antitrust policy fellow at Yale, argues the food system is the most consolidated sector in the United States. On the show today, Frerick explains how the American food system became so concentrated, how that’s inflated prices and eroded quality, and what we should do about it. Plus, Walmart’s role as king of grocery kings.

Then, we’ll get into why Boeing can’t keep up with SpaceX. And, an expert on youth mental health (and former guest on “Make Me Smart”) was wrong about how teens curate their social media feeds.

Here’s everything else we talked about today:

“Lax Antitrust Enforcement Imperils The Nation’s Supply Chains” from Forbes
“What Is “Big Ag,” and Why Should You Be Worried About Them?” from Union of Concerned Scientists
“The problem with growing corporate concentration and power in the global food system” from Nature Food
“Major retailers are offering summer deals to entice inflation-weary shoppers” from AP News
“US Consumer Confidence Rises for First Time in Four Months” from Bloomberg
“Inflation now means high prices, not just rising costs” from Axios
“What do Americans think about inflation?” from The Brookings Institution
“Boeing Prepared to Fly Crewed Space Taxi With Helium Leak” from Bloomberg

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How Big Food changed the way we eat (rer...