Repast

In this episode, Diana and Michael are joined by Baylen Linnekin, the Deputy Director of the Food Integrity Campaign at the Government Accountability Project. Here, Baylen discusses his background in food policy, the history and work of the Government Accountability Project, and the role of strategic litigation in our food system. You can find Baylen’s biography here . Michael T. Roberts is the Ex...

This month Diana is in discussion with UCLA Law student Melissa Deng and Robyn Huey Lao, an allergy mom advocate and pediatric nurse practitioner, about Robyn’s journey to shepherd California Senate Bill 68, the Allergen Disclosure for Dining Experiences, to passage.  She explains how she was inspired by her nine-year-old daughter, Addie, and how their love of food inspired this bill. The three ta...

In this episode, Diana and Michael are joined by Professor Lingxi Chenyang to discuss her article, “Food Antidemocracy,” forthcoming in the Southern California Law Review. In this article, Professor Chenyang looks at the Farm Bill’s hidden history, delving into the antidemocratic techniques that were used to initially pass this law and tracing some of the major problems in our modern food system t...

In this month’s episode, Michael and Diana talk with Amanda Mrad and Juliet Cushing, two UCLA students who are involved with the World Food Forum and who participated in its annual flagship event at FAO headquarters in Rome this October. Juliet Cushing is a clinical researcher with the UCLA Department of General Internal Medicine, working on diabetes prevention and chronic disease management. Juli...

Today, Repast welcomes Mary Eichenberger, the new Editor-in-Chief of the University of Arkansas School of Law’s Journal of Food Law & Policy (JFLP). Here, Michael, Diana, and Mary discuss the background of this seminal journal, its history of publishing crucial food law and policy scholarship, and her plans for its future.  Mary Eichenberger is from Clarksville, Arkansas where she grew up on h...

In this episode of Repast, Michael and Diana host Emily Broad Leib , Clinical Professor of Law, Director of Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, and Founding Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC), and Akif Khan , Clinical Fellow at the FLPC. They discuss the FLPC’s long history of working on food waste and food date labeling, and a comment...

This month on Repast, Diana talks with Maria Trubetskaya and Justine Kim, UCLA Law’s inaugural Future of Food Fellows. The Future of Food Initiative was created as an interdisciplinary collaboration between graduate students working in different fields to address issues and obstacles in the creation and path to market of cultivated meat. Here, Diana, Maria, and Justine discuss cultivated meat, its...

Today, Repast welcomes Kim Kessler, the Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Tobacco Control at the New York City Department of Health, Dipa Shah Patel, the Director of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department's Nutrition and Physical Activity Program, and Paula Daniels, the Director of the L.A. County Office of Food Systems. Kim, Dipa, and Paula join...

In this episode of Repast, Diana is joined as co-host by Lavanya Sathyamurthy, UCLA Law student and co-founder of the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative. Diana and Lavanya talk with Professor Denisse Córdova Montes from the University of Central Florida.  Here, the three discuss Professor Córdova Montes’ career as a human rights advocate and educator, her work as the Acting Associate Director of th...

Today on Repast, Michael, Diana, and Professors Amy Cohen and Susan Schneider look at the new Trump administration and food policy, discussing background policies, underlying trends, and state initiatives. The four discuss the complex political and cultural dynamics in food policy, agricultural policy and the USDA, nutrition initiatives and the FDA, and trade policy and international food law. The...

In this episode, recorded in late December 2024, Michael and Diana talk with Dr. Darin Detweiler, a prominent food safety academic, advisor, advocate, and author. Dr. Detwiler has significantly influenced food safety policies through roles with the USDA, FDA, and others. He is a Professor at Northeastern University, an adjunct professor of food law at Michigan State University, and Founder and CEO...

In this episode, Michael and Diana talk with Nicola Twilley, the author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves (Penguin Press, June 2024), and co-host of the award-winning Gastropod podcast, which looks at food through the lens of history and science. They discuss supply chains, how refrigerated beef changed America, and the trade-offs of refrigeration, among o...

This month on Repast Michael and Diana talk with Amanda Howell, managing attorney at the Animal Legal Defense Fund. They discuss a recent petition by the ALDF to the FDA urging the FDA require the disclosure of animal-derived ingredients on package labels, along with other work the ALDF is doing right now.    Amanda Howell is a managing attorney at ALDF.   Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Direc...

In this episode, Michael and Diana talk with Catherine Sweetser, Deputy Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights and the Director of the Human Rights Litigation Clinic at UCLA Law. Here, Professor Sweetser discusses her work against slavery and human trafficking in the global food supply chain, particularly in the context of chocolate production, the U.S. Supreme Court case Nestle USA In...

This month, Repast welcomes Southwestern Law School Professor Andrea Freeman to discuss her book, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch , published by Macmillan Publishers in July 2024.  This book describes and analyzes how food is used by the U.S. as a tool of colonization and oppression and discusses some avenues to alt...

Our guest at Repast this month is Austin Frerick, author, and expert on agricultural and antitrust policy, talking with us about his new book, Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry (March 2024).  In Barons, Frerick depicts the structure of the American food system by telling the story of seven food industry tycoons, delving into the monopolization of the food system a...

This month, Repast welcomes Sarah Lohman, culinary historian, author, and speaker, about her new book, Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods.  In this book, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, a Food & Wine Best Book of 2023, and an Eater Best Food Book, Fall 2023, Lohman explores the history and present of certain ingredients from the Ark of Taste, a list put together by...

In this episode of Repast, Michael and Diana were delighted to talk with Xaq Frohlich, Professor of History at Auburn University and author of From Label to Table: Regulating Food in the Information Age , recently published by the University of California Press. From Label to Table is a fascinating dive into the historical development of the food label from a multi-faceted perspective. Michael, Di...

In this episode of Repast, Michael and Diana welcome Dr. Caree Cotwright, the Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity for the Food and Nutrition Service, USDA.  In her role at USDA, Dr. Cotwright leads a whole-of-department approach at USDA to advance food and nutrition security, which is one of USDA Secretary Vilsacks five core priorities.   Dr. Cotwright is on leave from her position as...

Today on Repast, Michael and Diana talk with Wudan Yan, an award-winning narrative journalist covering science and society, about an article she published in July of this year about lead-tainted turmeric.  In this article, Wudan looked at the Bangladesh supply chain for turmeric to discuss turmeric adulteration, the battle against this adulteration, and confronting food fraud more broadly.  Michae...

This month, Repast welcomes Adrian Miller.  Known as the Soul Food Scholar, Adrian Miller is a culinary historian, James Beard award-winning food writer, former White House staffer, and a certified BBQ judge.  He is also a recovering lawyer.  Adrian, Diana, and Amber Ward, a 2L at Columbia Law School and the Resnick Center’s summer research assistant, discuss the history of Black cuisine, how the...

This month, Michael and Diana talk with Professor Ernesto Hernández-López from the Chapman University Fowler School of Law about a recent opinion piece he wrote for Al Jazeera titled “Drop it America and Canada: A Corn Clash with Mexico helps no one.”  Professor Hernández, Michael, and Diana discuss the background for this piece, what is at stake in trade policy and politics, and implications for...

Repast welcomes University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law Professor Andrea Freeman to discuss her recent article, “Food Oppression in a Pandemic,” published in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.  Professor Freeman wrote this article while participating in the Health Justice: Engaging Critical Perspectives Initiative, and presented it at a convening at UCLA in October 2022 co...

Welcome to 2023 and Season 3 of Repast!  This month, Michael and Diana talk with UCLA Law Professor Taimie Bryant about her important new article, “Novel Food Ingredients: Food Safety Law, Animal Testing, and Consumer Perspectives,” published in the Marquette Law Review.  They discuss animal testing, science and the law, consumer trust in regulation, and the capacity of the FDA, among other things...

In this month’s very special episode of Repast, Michael and Diana talk with Peter Barton Hutt, who is one of the premier figures in the modern development of food and drug law, and who has significantly shaped the field.  Hutt is senior counsel at Covington and Burling LLP; he was Chief Counsel for the Food and Drug Administration from 1971 to 1975; he is co-author of Food and Drug Law: Cases and...