Challenging what we're eating, or like our sense of disgust through what we eat and how we eat,

is a way to open up our perspective about why we find the things disgusting that we do

and why we find the things palatable that we do.

I think it's important for us to really confront those barriers in ways that unsettle our disgust.

You're listening to Green Dreamer, and I'm your host, Kamea Shane.

In this episode, we are excited to be joined by Matthew Wolfmeyer,

whose work focuses on medicine, science, and media in the United States

and draws on history, contemporary experiences, and popular representations of health and

illness. He is the author of The Slumbering Masses, as well as the one which we'll be focusing

mostly on today, which is American disgust, racism, microbial medicine, and the colony within.

It's quite an interesting discussion, especially to compliment our other recent episode

with Thomas Parker on Taste, being bio-cultural, which touched on some overlapping themes.

But yeah, if you're ready, I would invite you to take a few deep breaths

if that feels supportive to you in this particular moment. And then I hope you enjoy this

fascinating conversation. You say that our lives are too devoid of disgust in a weird way and that we're disgusted by all the wrong things and we need to be more disgusted about the right things.

So I'd love to start here and ask you what you mean by the statement that our lives are too devoid of disgust.

Like who does we refer to and what are these wrong or right things to feel discussed for?

When I write about we, I'm really talking about like Americans.

And really kind of like upper middle class Americans probably.

But Americans generally, and what I have been thinking about, and in the book, I talk a lot about what's referred to as the

standard American diet which is abbreviated to sad often that like when you think

about the standard American diet and its portrayal it's kind of bland and safe. You know, that like the images that often get

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