Honoring Outdoors Women & Potatoes Are Vegetables
Here's the latest dispatch.
Good evening,
To those who celebrate: Happy (early) Easter!
For you newbies out there, welcome to Outsider on the Inside. I hope this dispatch from in and around the nation’s capital on underreported topics finds you well.
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Quick Thoughts
Support and follow the work of IWF’s Center for Energy and Conservation today if you haven’t already.
The Virginia Aquarium, operated by the City of Virginia Beach, could soon be managed by Dollywood or Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
The devastating collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, has been top of mind here in the DC Metro Area. Efforts to recover unaccounted people, remove debris, and start rebuilding are underway.
Guyana’s president wasn’t having it with a BBC reporter who lectured him about fossil fuel usage.
Friday marked one year of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich’s imprisonment in Russian jail.
Coyotes are out of control in Maryland and West Virginia’s Gold Rush runs from April 1-13th, 2024.
That’s it for the week. Stay tuned for next Friday’s update!
Outdoorsy Women Are Not Gender Confused
Femininity isn’t confined to narrow, misguided stereotypes that downplay how multidimensional women are. In my near-decade of working in the outdoor industry, I’ve met and befriended countless women who are mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters. Some are accomplished fishing guides or TV hosts, others are influencers who homestead and raise big families. They lead outdoor lifestyles but are very secure in their womanhood. They also wear dresses, put on makeup, and have hobbies outside of fishing, hunting, and shooting sports.
My father instilled a love of the outdoors in me from an early age, not due to insecurity or a desire to make a man out of me. On the contrary. He wanted me to be empowered, confident, resourceful, and self-reliant. As I’ve gotten older, time in the Great Outdoors has bolstered my feminine side — not tempered it. Being one with Mother Nature allows me to channel femininity and return to some semblance of our hunter-gatherer roots.
Femininity is what we, as women, make it. Women have the freedom to spend time outdoors, play sports, work, preside over home life, or do a combination of these. Who is to tell us we can’t?
Dear White House: Potatoes Aren’t Grains
You don’t need to be a nutritionist to know potatoes are vegetables. But the White House, through their 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, wants to reclassify them as grains. This came ahead of April Fools Day (happening Monday). No joke.
14 Republican and Democrat U.S. Senators caught a whiff of the proposal and slammed it in a letter addressed to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
“Since the inception of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), it has classified potatoes correctly as a vegetable,” the group of Senators wrote. “There is no debate about the physical characteristics of the potato and its horticultural scientific classification. Unlike grains, white potatoes are strong contributors of potassium, calcium, vitamin C, vitamin B6, and fiber.”
“Any change to potatoes’ current classification under the DGAs would immediately confuse consumers, retailers, restaurant operators, growers, and the entire supply chain,” the Senators continued. “We strongly urge you to avoid reclassifying potatoes as a grain or suggest grains and potatoes are interchangeable. Given the rapid timeline that the DGAs are on, we ask that you provide us an update on this issue as soon as possible.”
What is the goal of the DGA Committee? To promote “health equity.”
The 2025 Committee will examine the relationship between diet and health across all life stages, and will use a health equity lens across its evidence review to ensure factors such as socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and culture are described and considered to the greatest extent possible based on the information provided in the scientific literature and data. This will help HHS and USDA ensure that the resulting guidance in the Dietary Guidelines is relevant to people with diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds.
The Biden administration doesn’t know what a woman is or how to define one. Why should we expect them to protect the sanctity of potatoes?
Next Week: Sam Houston State U Speech
Scenes From the Week
I ventured to Nashville for a work-related trip, saw some friends, sights, and neat murals.
ICYMI
Articles/commentary/media appearances from the past week.
MEDIA MENTIONS
I got a shoutout on both Hannah Cox’s YouTube Channel and WMAL News’ O’Connor and Company this week.
I appeared on the syndicated radio program, America at Night, hosted by Rich Valdes, to discuss ESG and EV mandates.
And I had a last-minute appearance on The Vince Coglianese Show on WMAL News to discuss a bizarre story about potatoes potentially being reclassified as grains.
ARTICLES/BLOGS
Washington Examiner: Outdoorsy women are not gender confused
Townhall: Biden Administration Locking Up Public Lands from West to East
District of Conservation
Catch up on District of Conservation episodes below.
And check out my new podcast, The Sportswoman Show, too!
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—Gabriella