Is our food system making us sick—or are we just finally diagnosing what was always there?
In this episode, we use history as a diagnostic tool and put famous rulers under the lens to test a modern claim: “Those diseases didn’t exist back then.”

I’m Casey, your host—environmental conservationist and sustainable food systems scientist—and around here, we don’t do hype. We do cause and effect: scientist, detective, historian style.

In this episode, we unpack:

• Why we can’t time-travel with definitive diagnoses—only weigh evidence from imperfect records

• What the “case files” of royalty suggest about chronic illness long before modern labels

  • King Alfred the Great and the long-running gut illness debate

  • Henry VIII and how stacked stressors can drive systemic decline

  • Queen Anne and disease clusters that look very modern

  • Emperor Charles V and the “disease of abundance” pattern

• The big pivot: the palace pantry went global
  “Rich food” used to be rare. Now industrial versions of it are everywhere—constant access, engineered convenience, and ultra-processing.

• Why two things can be true at once: better diagnosis and a changed environment (including chemical exposures like PFAS, chronic stress, and modern dietary patterns)

Takeaway: The diseases weren’t new. The environment is. And now we finally have the tools to diagnose what we used to misname—or miss entirely.

Next up:
Mini episode: Dicamba Drift: The Herbicide Problem Most People Don’t See Until It’s Too Late
Full episode: Soil 101 for Beginners