Cheese, Chickens, and a Jackpot

Your cheese might be hiding more than flavor. We dig into new research showing widespread microplastics in dairy—why aged cheeses often carry higher particle counts than fresh, how packaging and processing contribute, and a few low-effort habits (like switching to glass for hot foods) that meaningfully shrink daily exposure without forcing you to give up the foods you love. This isn’t alarmism; it’s practical steps to reduce a dose we’re all already getting.

Then we pivot to a branding shocker: Long John Silver’s leaning into chicken and reworking its logo. We unpack what a seafood chain’s clucking signal means for fast-food identity, how market gravity pulls legacy brands off course, and why a logo only works if the menu and experience back it up. If nostalgia made you love the golden fish, can a spicy chicken plank earn the same loyalty—or does the switch dilute the promise? We talk product quality, rollout timing, and the tightrope between evolution and confusion.

Finally, we head to the foothills of Altadena, where Powerball winner Edwin Castro is buying wildfire-scorched lots with plans to rebuild single-family homes. We explore what responsible redevelopment looks like: fire-resistant materials, defensible space, modern codes, and design choices that foster real community rather than speculation. Money can speed permits and framing, but trust depends on transparency, fair deals with sellers, and homes that add safety and belonging.

Along the way, we share a quick weekend recap, shout out a favorite performer, and leave you with a seasonal prompt to join the conversation. If you enjoyed the ride from kitchen to curb to community, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review—then tell us: which story changed how you’ll eat, shop, or build next?

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Thanks for listening! 

Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

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Chapters

• 0:29 Welcome Back & Quick Shoutouts
• 1:10 Microplastics Hiding in Dairy
• 4:02 Long John Silver’s Chicken Pivot
• 4:08 Fresh vs Ripened Cheese Risk
• 6:34 Rebrand Rollout & Fast-Food Stakes
• 8:34 Powerball Winner Buys Burned Lots
• 10:39 Rebuilding Plans & Community Impact

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Well, happy Tuesday, and I hope y'all had a great three-day week, a three-day weekend. Some of y'all may have had a four-day weekend, but anyway, welcome back to the podcast. Today I have three stories for you. Of course I do. Has nothing to do with what's going on in the mainstream media news. You know how I work. I give you or try to search and give you the news that no one else is talking about. But I will say this. How about that, Donald J. Trump? How about that? Good for him. Thank you, Donald J. Trump. All the hostages are home. Now let's go to work. If you know what I'm saying, and I think you do. Alright, first story up here. Uh let's see. Your cheese is teeming, and they spell teeming T-E-E-M-I-N-G with microplastics. Which kinds are worst? That's what the headline reads. Now, I'm sure you've heard about all this microplastics in everything these days. We've switched from our Tupperware. Well, I have, I switched my Tupperware to glass. We still use the Tupperware for some things, but uh when you're putting warm stuff in or heating stuff up, we're using glass. Now, I mean that's a small change. I don't know if it really helps or not. I don't know. But now we're talking about cheese. Now I like cheese. A study out of Italy found that nearly all dairy products contain microplastics. Well, there's one reason to get rid of dairy. Although I love dairy. I love me a good glass of milk. I love chocolate milk, which now I have to not give chocolate milk to the child anymore, to the uh to the grand cam. And there are way more in cheese than regular old milk. But not all cheese is created equal. Some varieties have more particles than others. Let's find out which one without having to go through this whole article, because you know how they are. They expand and repeat everything. Researchers at the University of Padua analyzed 28 dairy samples, including milk and several cheeses, and discovered microplastics in all but two of them. The most common kinds of microplastics were PET, all right, here we go, poly polyethylene and polypropylene, which are often found in food packaging. But the authors note that that's not the only way plastic might be seeping in. And then it goes on and tells you how other things, you know, other ways that it can get in. Packaging, uh, cartons and wrappers, some possible sources suggest, you know, the feed that they feed the cattle, the milking equipment, blah, blah, blah. And the type of dairy you choose can make a big difference in how microplastics you're ingesting. I love that because they just assume we're all the ingesting microplastics. Milk was found to have just 350 particles per kilogram, way less than over way less than the over 1,000 particles per kilogram found in cheese. Well, there you go. And fresh cheese is less contaminated than ripened cheese. Was just 1,280 particles per kilogram compared to ripens, 1,857, but it's still a lot. Fresh cheese is made from yeah, we know what fresh cheese is made from. Well, you can finish, you can go read that. Take it for what it's worth. Be careful with your cheeses, okay? All right, let's move on to the next article that I have for you. And it is Long John Silvers has changed their logo. Can you believe this? I don't know if this is a real story. I don't know. I'm gonna have to drive by our Long John Silvers to see if they've changed their logos to see if this is real. This is crazy because Long John Silvers is a fish restaurant. They've changed the logo from a fish to a chicken. Come on. Long John Silvers just ditched its fish logo because fried chicken has taken over fast food. What the cluck? That's what they start off with. Ordering chicken at a seafood chain may sound like a real fish out of water scenario, unless you're at Long John Silvers, apparently. As fried chicken continues to reign over the fast food world, the 56-year-old fast seafood joint has opted to update its brand from surf to turf. Famous for its old-fashioned fry baskets, Long John Silvers has dropped the golden fish emblem from its logo and swapped it with the chicken. What in the world? They also added the phrase chicken and seafood to the rebranded logo. In the c why then you're not Long John Silvers anymore. Long John Silvers is supposed to be a fish place, not chicken. What are you doing? In the coming months the new logo will roll out across properties and materials, though it has already been changed on Long John Silver's official website and social media accounts. Well then we can go find out that for ourselves if they've really done that. And I wonder if they're getting any backlash yet. The change comes as the restaurant undergoes product testing at the flagship location in Louisville, Kentucky, which has recently featured several new poultry dishes alongside their classics, chicken planks, including spicy Nashville hot chicken. Oh, so they're just changing. They're gonna be a competition for a KFC maybe? I don't know. A spokesperson for Long John Silvers told the post that the new branding and refreshed design will be used moving forward to highlight our chicken offerings. What are you doing, Long John Silvers? You're I mean, whatever. Not that I've ever I haven't eaten in a Long John Silvers in probably over a decade. I mean, really. And I'm still not gonna eat there just because they offer chicken. No, I did like their fried chick their fried fish when I did eat there. I don't know. Of course, it's totally bad for you, but anyway. Moving on to the next story. This one, the headline I found really interesting. I haven't read the article, so we're gonna read it together. But the headline itself is what got me. So let's see. No, we gotta wait for an ad. Your content will resume in 12 seconds. Okay, so sorry about the advertisement that popped up. Uh, I hope you all had a good weekend. We went to Tunica. Uh we did our regular thing left Friday afternoon. Okay, here we go. Ready? Okay, Powerball winner Edwin Castro is spending millions buying lots that were torched in the LA wildfires. Wow. Okay, I don't know how what to think about this. When Edward when Edwin Castro stepped out of the shadows as the winner of the largest Powerball jackpot in the U.S. history, he stayed mostly quiet, letting his new multimillion dollar homes and collection of vintage Porsches do the talking. But in the wildfire ravaged hills of Altadena, California, the quiet didn't last. Castro, who won a record two point billion powerball jackpot, has spent roughly 10 million buying up fifteen fire torched properties in his hometown of Altadena with plans to rebuild homes where thousands once stood before January's wildfires devastated the Foothills community. This is for a family that wants to move in, Castro told the Wall Street Journal on a recent walk through one of the neighborhoods reduced to ash. Those are the those are the people that need to be looked out for right now. So apparently he's using it for good. The 33 I thought he was gonna say he bought up all the lots just to put up, you know, cheap whatever. The 33-year-old former Boy Scout and architecture consultant who once rented a room in Altadina before his lottery win, now finds himself among the largest private landowners in town. He's planning to build mostly single family homes, which is good, including a personal residence he described as Willy Wonka-esque, complete with secret underground rooms. Oh, that doesn't sound good. I want to have kids like yesterday, he told the journal. It's about family. Family is important. Castro is one of the several investors purchasing lots from displaced residents who opted to sell rather than face the multi-year challenge of rebuilding. Well, there you have it. Alright, moving on to the question of the day. I guess I need to finish about our weekend. Uh it was just a normal weekend that we went to Tunicids like we always do. We get free room, free food. We just pay for the gas money over there and whatever the gent spends on playing cards one day uh the the that were there. We had fun playing jackpot, you know, playing uh, you know what they call them. Oh my gosh, I can't think. Slots. Oh my gosh, what is wrong with me? Um, and then we had we got to see some entertainment. There's a band over there that we like to see when we're over there. He is his name is Phil Vaught, V-A-U-G-H-T. Look him up online. He's a good good guy, good, good conservative value guy. And his voice is amazing. I don't know why he's not bigger than anybody is. Uh, he's a really good singer. All right, so uh that's it for now. We gotta go. I gotta go. So thanks for listening. Oh, I guess I need a question of the day, don't I? All right, question of the day. Alright, so Halloween is coming up. What was your favorite Halloween costume when you were a kid? I know I've probably asked this question before, but there you have it. I'm also gonna ask this question. I want to take uh the grandcam trick-or-treating this year, but I want to dress up with them and I want the gent to dress up with us too. So what could we go as? I'm thinking men in black and have the grandcam being being the alien and the gent and I could be the men in black, but that means the gent would have to go buy a suit, and we don't want to have to do all that. Uh, because he's you know, he's funny about wearing suits and his certain sizes and stuff. Um, and we don't want to have to do all that now. So what is an easier what's an easier costume that we could do? Okay, I gotta go. Thanks for listening. Bye.