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Build For Tomorrow

Margarine: A Cautionary Tale of Stupid Laws

Build For Tomorrow

Jason Feifer

Business, History, Technology, Entrepreneurship

4.7573 Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2018

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is a story about when a big industry stops competing, and starts trying to pass laws to protect itself instead. Whatever you think you know of margarine, put that aside. When the spread was first invented in the mid-1800s, it was made very differently — and solved very real problems for the nutrient-starved people of the time. That sent the dairy industry into a full-blown panic, leading to margarine’s demonization (and then taxation and strange discoloration). In this episode, we explore how the dairy industry got politicians all riled up, what it says about industries’ ability to halt innovation, and why it took more than a century for butter and margarine to finally square off in the most fair fight of them all: a true food fight. Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:00.1

This is pessimists archive. I'm Jason Pfeiffer. After John Munson's father passed away, his mother told him a dark family secret,

1:12.9

something she'd kept from her husband for decades, something only she knew. And to really

1:19.1

appreciate the power of this secret, I first need to tell you a little bit about the Munson family.

1:24.4

So first, you should know that they live in Wisconsin, and their Wisconsin bona fides

1:28.2

are strong. John is actually a retired broadcaster who spent 27 years working for Wisconsin Public

1:34.5

Radio, and John's dad grew up on a dairy farm participating in one of the great industries of the state,

1:40.6

and that means, like most Wisconsinites, John's dad had a passionate love of

1:46.4

butter. He would have never even considered eating that cheap knockoff called margarine.

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