The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1784 - Diana Rodgers & Robb Wolf

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

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00:00:12.000 Hello, folks.

00:00:14.000 Good to see you.

00:00:15.000 Good to see you.

00:00:16.000 Thanks for coming.

00:00:17.000 I'm glad we didn't make it snow again in Texas.

00:00:20.000 You almost did.

00:00:20.000 I mean, it can snow.

00:00:22.000 It might snow today.

00:00:23.000 It's very possible, because it was drizzling when I left the house, and it was 30 degrees, which is not supposed to happen.

00:00:28.000 It's supposed to be snow.

00:00:29.000 Hopefully it won't be the snowpocalypse part two.

00:00:31.000 Yeah, last time you were supposed to come, it became a complete disaster.

00:00:37.000 But it was fun.

00:00:38.000 It was fun to watch people slide around and know that this city has zero infrastructure in terms of, like, dealing with snow.

00:00:46.000 It's kind of...

00:00:46.000 Because I grew up in Massachusetts where it's, you know, they know how to handle snow.

00:00:50.000 Out here, they're baffled.

00:00:52.000 Do you want to...

00:00:54.000 Tell them what happened with you.

00:00:56.000 Well, so my flight from...

00:00:58.000 I'm from Boston.

00:01:00.000 And my flight from Houston to Austin was canceled.

00:01:04.000 So I got the last SUV. You don't know how much I wanted to be on your show.

00:01:07.000 I got the last SUV, drove through the ice storm to Austin where there was like just dead cars.

00:01:14.000 You know, it was like zombie apocalypse.

00:01:16.000 Yeah.

00:01:17.000 Got to a Marriott around the corner from here and thought, well, at least I'll be able to walk, if nothing else.

00:01:23.000 And my room overlooked this on-ramp, and I just, every day for a week, with no running water and no bottled water, watched the cars just slide up and down.

00:01:37.000 And then I finally went out to Rob's house, where he at least had a pool for running toilets.

00:01:42.000 Flushing the toilets.

00:01:43.000 But I was living on basically like White Claw and canned tuna.

00:01:46.000 Oh my god.

00:01:47.000 This was when you were supposed to be here?

00:01:49.000 Yeah.

00:01:49.000 Last year.

00:01:50.000 Oh my god.

00:01:51.000 I still have a can of wolf chili that she bought here, but she didn't have a can opener and she was just like, I don't know how to get into this thing. 1.00

00:01:58.000 The thing is, if you grew up in a place that has winter, like Massachusetts, you're like, this is nothing.

00:02:04.000 Like, guys, this is a normal winter day. 1.00

00:02:07.000 Like, what the fuck? 0.99

00:02:07.000 And it killed this place for a solid week. 0.99

00:02:10.000 Well, that's why I still came, because I was like, they're overreacting.

00:02:13.000 It's just one or two inches of snow, but I didn't realize it was going to be like misting ice.

00:02:17.000 Yeah.

00:02:19.000 Yeah, but, you know, I mean, come on.

00:02:21.000 How much are trucks?

00:02:23.000 Like, take care of this, guys.

00:02:24.000 Get some sand.

00:02:25.000 Like, is that that hard?

00:02:26.000 I mean, it happens.

00:02:28.000 It does happen.

00:02:29.000 I mean, the idea that you just like shut everything down for a year, how much does that cost?

00:02:33.000 Seems like trucks are less expensive than whatever that costs.

00:02:36.000 Yeah, and all the poor people that didn't know you can't heat your house with a stove.

00:02:41.000 Well, worse.

00:02:42.000 People used grills.

00:02:44.000 Yeah.

00:02:44.000 Yeah, they used barbecue grills in their house and they burnt wood and they died.

00:02:49.000 People got sick.

00:02:50.000 Yeah, that was bad news.

00:02:52.000 And we were in the process of packing our house to move because we moved March 3rd up to Kalispell.

00:02:58.000 So all of this chaos is going on and we didn't know if the moving truck was getting in and then Diana... 0.93

00:03:04.000 We made it to our place and then we weren't sure if she was making it out of there. 0.91

00:03:08.000 Like it was, I mean, first world problems but kind of sketchy first world problems as far as they go.

00:03:13.000 It lets you know that there's a thin veneer of civilization that keeps all the food on the shelves and all the cars moving and it's not much.

00:03:23.000 Not much to throw it off.

00:03:25.000 Right, right, you know?

00:03:26.000 Yeah, definitely.

00:03:27.000 I'm glad this is a good time to talk about your book.

00:03:30.000 The book is Sacred Cow, Diana Rogers and Rob Wolf.

00:03:34.000 It's available right now, The Case for Better Meat.

00:03:36.000 All I've been eating since January is meat.

00:03:39.000 All I've been eating is meat and fruit.

00:03:42.000 That's my diet.

00:03:43.000 Meat, fruit, and eggs.

00:03:45.000 I've never felt better.

00:03:46.000 I've done this before in the past, but I never stuck with it.

00:03:49.000 I would do like that carnivore month of January.

00:03:52.000 I did it like two years ago.

00:03:53.000 I lost 12 pounds.

00:03:54.000 I looked great.

00:03:55.000 I felt great.

00:03:55.000 Then I started eating spaghetti again.

00:03:57.000 Shocker.

00:03:59.000 I get fat.

00:04:00.000 I get fat and then my joints hurt again.

00:04:03.000 And that's the thing that drives me...

00:04:06.000 It's the most wild, rather, is my joints feel so good.

00:04:10.000 Like, everything feels better when I'm not eating foods that cause inflammation.

00:04:15.000 And for me...

00:04:17.000 There's something, I mean, I'm not advocating this for everybody, but a meat-based diet for me is 100%, at least in a short term.

00:04:26.000 I've never done it for like years.

00:04:27.000 I know like Sean Baker and a few of those guys have done it for years and years, Paul Saladino.

00:04:32.000 But for me, short term, there's nothing that's made me feel better. 0.59

00:04:34.000 And I can't imagine it would fuck me up long term.

00:04:37.000 I mean, I take a lot of vitamins.

00:04:39.000 I do eat a lot of fruit.

00:04:41.000 My exercise is great.

00:04:43.000 I feel healthy.

00:04:44.000 I have plenty of energy.

00:04:45.000 I avoided all the diarrhea, because when I just did only meat, I had ridiculous diarrhea.

00:04:53.000 Like, astounding, as my friend Tom Segura put it.

00:04:56.000 When he tried it, he goes, this diarrhea is astounding.

00:04:59.000 I'm like, yes, that's a good way to put it.

00:05:02.000 I was following that, and I was like, at some point there may need to be an intervention.

00:05:06.000 Somebody dropping you some Imodium or something.

00:05:09.000 Yeah, that sounded rough.

00:05:10.000 Well, there's something about eating a lot of fatty meat only.

00:05:14.000 Your body's like, what is all this?

00:05:17.000 Where's the veggies?

00:05:18.000 You always eat veggies.

00:05:20.000 How come there's no spaghetti here?

00:05:22.000 Where's the bread?

00:05:23.000 Yeah, so as a dietician, to be talking about things like this is definitely blasphemy.

00:05:29.000 Blasphemy?

00:05:29.000 Yeah.

00:05:30.000 Yeah?

00:05:31.000 I mean, I get pushed back like crazy from fellow dietitians.

00:05:37.000 It's, you know...

00:05:38.000 But what do they say...

00:05:40.000 What's the goal, right?

00:05:41.000 Isn't the goal to feel better, to look better, and to perform better?

00:05:47.000 So if you're eating food that makes you feel better, look better, and perform better...

00:05:51.000 I mean, I was at 205 when I started this diet.

00:05:55.000 Now I weigh 195. And it's only been two months.

00:05:59.000 And I feel great.

00:06:01.000 I'm not starving.

00:06:03.000 I just lost weight.

00:06:04.000 It just went away.

00:06:05.000 I got my six-pack back.

00:06:07.000 I feel better.

00:06:08.000 My joints feel better.

00:06:09.000 I just feel better.

00:06:11.000 Isn't that the goal?

00:06:12.000 The whole goal of your diet is supposed to be the vitality of your body, right?

00:06:17.000 Right, and the whole goal of science should be to question your bias and seek the truth.

00:06:22.000 Well, I know Sean Baker was telling me that there's a large study that's going on that Harvard's putting on for the carnivore diet.

00:06:28.000 Do you know about that?

00:06:29.000 They have some preliminary data on it.

00:06:31.000 And I mean, it's not a randomized control trial.

00:06:34.000 There's not a control group.

00:06:37.000 It's a survey.

00:06:38.000 And so, you know, it can be very critical of surveys.

00:06:41.000 But it's interesting.

00:06:42.000 Like, 94% of the people that did it got off of the medications that they were on, like, entirely.

00:06:48.000 Yeah.

00:06:49.000 It went through and detailed, like, some blood sugar changes.

00:06:52.000 Blood sugars improved dramatically for the vast majority of people.

00:06:56.000 They saw lipids improve.

00:06:57.000 Not everybody.

00:06:58.000 Some people on kind of a higher-fat, carnivore-type diet, they see their lipids go up.

00:07:03.000 We're still not sure what the total, you know, net risk is with that.

00:07:07.000 But it's pretty impressive.

00:07:08.000 And again, you know, people will poke holes in that.

00:07:11.000 But there was a time in the 1940s, 1950s, when there wasn't this thing called the Mediterranean diet.

00:07:17.000 Then this guy wrote a review paper about it.

00:07:20.000 And nothing really happened for, I don't know, eight, ten years.

00:07:23.000 But then more people started writing about it.

00:07:25.000 More people started talking about it.

00:07:27.000 Now we have randomized control trials and we have all kinds of different interventions.

00:07:31.000 And we have some proof that something like a Mediterranean-type diet is probably pretty helpful for a lot of people.

00:07:37.000 So when people criticize this stuff and they just dismiss it out of hand, they're like, well, there's no research on it.

00:07:42.000 Okay, that's fine.

00:07:42.000 But this is where things begin.

00:07:44.000 And it's usually observational.

00:07:47.000 Okay, there's this group of people that seem to be getting these really remarkable results.

00:07:52.000 And the thing that was so interesting to me, my background was in autoimmunity and cancer research.

00:07:57.000 And I got into this because of gut and autoimmune issues.

00:08:01.000 I'm the person that came up with the autoimmune paleo diet.

00:08:04.000 I'm the person that kind of formalized that initially.

00:08:07.000 And it works pretty well, but when I saw what people were doing on a carnivore diet, it just blew me away.

00:08:13.000 People who had done Every other thing and they were so sick, they were crippled from gut and autoimmune issues.

00:08:20.000 They would go on this modified carnivore type diet and put their problems into remission and then have really remarkable health at the end of that.

00:08:30.000 And it was a few people initially, but as it has grown, it's become this like really watershed moment.

00:08:35.000 And I don't think that a carnivore diet is like the first whistle stop somebody should do in dietary change. 0.91

00:08:40.000 There's a lot of other shit you could do before that.

00:08:43.000 But if you're really sick, you know, I think to both of y'all's points, if you're really sick and you're trying to improve things, like it seems like a reasonable thing to use as an intervention. 0.90

00:08:53.000 Just it's like playing darts and you're just trying to get closer to the bullseye and you can use that as a beginning point.

00:08:58.000 Some people add in fruit, like Paul Saladino has added in more fruit and honey and stuff like that.

00:09:03.000 Sean Baker is an absolute beast and he wouldn't be caught dead eating fruit, you know, and it just seems to work for him.

00:09:09.000 But I think that it's a reasonable place to at least start and begin tinkering with things and maybe you stick with it long term or maybe you modify it down the road.

00:09:17.000 Well, it's got to be a function of different requirements for different people's bodies, right?

00:09:24.000 Different people ask more of their body.

00:09:27.000 Like a guy like you who does a lot of jujitsu that's very physical.

00:09:30.000 Some people don't.

00:09:31.000 Some people, they just hike and maybe they could have a different diet.

00:09:35.000 There's a lot of different things that a person needs depending upon their lifestyle.

00:09:40.000 But when you talk about like a Mediterranean diet, specifically, what is a Mediterranean diet?

00:09:46.000 Like what's in there?

00:09:47.000 That's the kind of funny thing.

00:09:48.000 I mean, you've got what the literature kind of says, and then you have what people actually eat.

00:09:52.000 And what folks actually eat is a lot of fatty fish, a lot of, like, lamb and goat.

00:09:57.000 And they definitely eat some legumes.

00:09:59.000 They eat local fruits and vegetables, a lot of olive oil.

00:10:01.000 But it looks very—it's not this so, like, grain-centric, you know, thing that is typically portrayed in— Modern dietetics.

00:10:11.000 But is there a protocol for the Mediterranean diet?

00:10:16.000 Like if someone says, I'm going on the Mediterranean diet, what do they mean?

00:10:18.000 Are they eating lettuce?

00:10:20.000 Do they have vegetables?

00:10:22.000 Usually Mediterranean diet means emphasis on seafood, lean meat, low-fat dairy to some degree.

00:10:29.000 Legumes.

00:10:30.000 Legumes as kind of a preponderance for the carbs, like usually in preference to grains, although they'll have some grains in the mix too.

00:10:37.000 But that's kind of the funny thing.

00:10:38.000 Vegetables?

00:10:39.000 Good amount of vegetables, yeah.

00:10:41.000 Olives, olive oil.

00:10:42.000 So it's essentially like a primal diet.

00:10:45.000 Yeah.

00:10:45.000 The idea is just to cut out processed foods.

00:10:48.000 Yeah.

00:10:48.000 Which is always a good step one, right?

00:10:50.000 Absolutely.

00:10:50.000 Yeah, but then when you look at what people in the Mediterranean actually eat, it's a made-up diet.

00:10:57.000 It's not really a diet.

00:10:59.000 I mean, I've been to Spain.

00:11:01.000 They eat a lot of pork.

00:11:02.000 And pork is like not okay on a Mediterranean diet.

00:11:04.000 It's not?

00:11:05.000 Why is it not okay?

00:11:06.000 Isn't it a fatty meat?

00:11:08.000 Well, fatty fish is okay, but not fatty meat.

00:11:11.000 So you have what people are actually doing versus kind of what's been...

00:11:16.000 Yeah.

00:11:22.000 Yeah.

00:11:37.000 Really?

00:11:37.000 Yeah.

00:11:38.000 It's literally the only food that, you know, from Costa Rica to, I guess the only one that it's not part of would be like the Seventh Day Adventist, but yeah.

00:11:46.000 Yeah, that's a weird one, right?

00:11:48.000 That one is, when people want to lump in all the blue zones, like they always like to use Seventh Day Adventist because they're vegetable-based.

00:11:56.000 Right, right.

00:11:56.000 But they also, no alcohol, no cigarettes, and daily exercise.

00:12:00.000 Right.

00:12:00.000 Yeah, and when you compare them to Mormons, who have an almost identical lifestyle, but they eat meat, it's the same lifespan, but the Mormons are left out of the Blue Zones.

00:12:10.000 Why?

00:12:11.000 Because it doesn't fit.

00:12:12.000 It doesn't fit the narrative.

00:12:13.000 Really?

00:12:13.000 Plus, they're problematic, because their whole thing is a little wacky, and they get to have a lot of wives, or they used to.

00:12:22.000 And then when you look at Hong Kong, they have the highest meat consumption per capita and the longest lifespans.

00:12:31.000 Yeah, people don't like that one.

00:12:33.000 They like to ignore that one.

00:12:34.000 So socioeconomics by far beats diet when you're looking at populations for longevity.

00:12:43.000 Socioeconomics do.

00:12:44.000 So even someone with a poor diet but has a lot of money So they're gonna have- Like Trump?

00:12:50.000 Better access to healthcare.

00:12:52.000 Trump's a good example, right?

00:12:54.000 He's probably a good example, yeah.

00:12:55.000 I mean, he was 74. He got COVID and he kicked in a few days.

00:12:58.000 And he's really kind of chubby.

00:13:00.000 He's super chubby.

00:13:01.000 Yeah.

00:13:02.000 So people with more money generally have less stress.

00:13:06.000 They don't work two jobs.

00:13:09.000 So there's all these confounding factors when you're looking at these- Social connections.

00:13:13.000 Social connections helps?

00:13:15.000 In what way?

00:13:15.000 How do you define- This stuff gets a little bit sketchy, but there's some research that suggests that people with inadequate social connectivity, like friends, family...

00:13:27.000 Oh, like loners?

00:13:28.000 Kind of loners, but, you know, they're just socially isolated, that that is as negative on health as a pack-a-day smoking habit.

00:13:35.000 Now, that pack-a-day smoking habit gets thrown around a lot because people will say eating an egg is equivalent to smoking six cigarettes or something like that.

00:13:45.000 But I think when you think about human evolution and small group environments and stuff like that, there's something really powerful there.

00:13:55.000 You had Sebastian Junger on and they talk about, you know, poor communities tend to have more social connectivity and you don't see suicides within these groups and whatnot.

00:14:04.000 And there's a lot going on there.

00:14:06.000 But I think that that social connectivity in my mind is on par with sleep and food with regards to overall health.

00:14:14.000 Like if you're really negatively impacted there, it's going to be a major piece of your overall health.

00:14:20.000 And if you tick that box, you can get away with a lot of other stuff.

00:14:24.000 Right.

00:14:25.000 Yeah, so I was listening to a book, Heartbreak.

00:14:28.000 It's amazing.

00:14:29.000 It's this new book out about a woman that got divorced and she gets really sick.

00:14:34.000 And she's trying to figure out why her health declines.

00:14:38.000 And she's kind of going through all the numbers and trying to seek it out and talking to all these neuroscientists and everything.

00:14:44.000 But loneliness, your chance of dying early for loneliness is by far beats out cancer or autoimmune diseases, heart disease.

00:14:53.000 It's loneliness.

00:14:55.000 Wow.

00:14:57.000 That makes sense.

00:14:58.000 I mean, people make you feel good.

00:14:59.000 Like, if you have good friends and you're around them and you're laughing, how's that not good for you?

00:15:05.000 Right.

00:15:05.000 You know, it really should be prescribed.

00:15:07.000 Right.

00:15:08.000 Yeah.

00:15:09.000 So, exercise is critical, but not the primary factor.

00:15:16.000 I think it provides the quality of life.

00:15:19.000 And, you know, when we think about longevity and kind of healthspan versus lifespan, we want to live as well as we can, as long as we can, and then very short, you know, decline and then, you know, fade out.

00:15:32.000 And I think that smart exercise, a base level of cardio, some resistance training, and then just doing a variety of activity Good mobility that I think that that feeds into the ability to do all the stuff that we want to do and also like you get sick you get injured you get in a car accident or something like people you know if you're you're better shape you're just harder to kill and I think that that is such a major factor but I my opinion you could you know maybe agree but um I think when people tackle

00:16:02.000 exercise as a calorie burning endeavor like you're much better Time spent focusing on good quality food, very protein-centric because it tends to be satiating so you don't overeat.

00:16:14.000 So you exercise so you have a kick-ass life, but if you want to lose weight, good body composition, it's really the nutrition part that addresses the bulk of that.

00:16:23.000 So the people that do exercise just for calorie burnout, the problem I usually have with that is that I don't think they enjoy it.

00:16:31.000 I think they think of it as this task that one must do in order to look better or to justify a sundae, you know, justify an ice cream sundae or a bowl of spaghetti, you know?

00:16:40.000 Whereas, like, you should enjoy the results.

00:16:44.000 Like, you feel good.

00:16:45.000 Like, it's great for the body.

00:16:47.000 It's a stress reliever.

00:16:49.000 It relieves anxiety.

00:16:50.000 It's like...

00:16:51.000 It's so critical.

00:16:52.000 If you're going through any stressful period of your life, that is the time where you've got to be disciplined with your workouts.

00:16:58.000 You've got to hit them hard.

00:16:59.000 It's a medicine. 0.97

00:17:00.000 That's how I feel.

00:17:01.000 Yeah, and sarcopenia is something—so that's age-related muscle loss.

00:17:06.000 And we know everyone over 40 starts to lose their ability to digest protein.

00:17:12.000 And so your need for protein and your requirement to even just maintain muscle mass goes way up as you get older.

00:17:21.000 And the RDA for protein is like so far below— It's set at the minimum to avoid disease.

00:17:30.000 It's not the optimal amount.

00:17:31.000 But even that RDA is way, way, way too low for protein.

00:17:35.000 Really?

00:17:35.000 Yeah.

00:17:36.000 Well, what is the RDA for protein?

00:17:38.000 So the RDA is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.

00:17:41.000 But then because Americans don't like kilograms and they don't want to do the calculations, you'll see these numbers floating around.

00:17:48.000 So for women, they'll say women need 45 grams of protein and men need 55 grams of protein or something.

00:17:54.000 But that's based on this ideal body weight of 125 for women and 155 for men.

00:18:01.000 What do we live in the 30s?

00:18:03.000 And so, yeah.

00:18:04.000 So the average weight, according to the CDC, for women is 165 and for men it's like 195. Is that real?

00:18:12.000 The average weight for women is 165? 1.00

00:18:15.000 For American women.

00:18:16.000 Wow.

00:18:17.000 Yeah.

00:18:18.000 And so then when you go 0.8 grams per kilogram, you're way above what these RDA – you're at about double what the RDA is.

00:18:28.000 But then when you look at optimal amounts – so we went through this in the book and I looked at all the research and how they came up with the RDA. And, you know, we really need at least double the RDA of protein.

00:18:41.000 And we need it from animal source foods.

00:18:43.000 There's a huge difference between animal and plant source proteins.

00:18:47.000 Now that's something that vegans, their hackles, get up immediately.

00:18:51.000 How much real data is there that shows, like actual real-world data that shows that plant-based protein is not as bioavailable as animal-based protein?

00:19:01.000 I mean, that's just basic biochemistry.

00:19:03.000 It's just a fact.

00:19:05.000 So what is it?

00:19:06.000 So if you have like 30 grams of broccoli protein versus 30 grams of beef protein, like what is the difference?

00:19:12.000 What's happening?

00:19:13.000 Oh, that's a good question.

00:19:14.000 I don't know exactly how broccoli would compare to beef.

00:19:18.000 Probably a lot.

00:19:19.000 A lot of mass for broccoli.

00:19:21.000 If you wanted to get 30 grams of broccoli protein, how much broccoli would that be?

00:19:25.000 A big-ass bowl of broccoli?

00:19:26.000 Right.

00:19:27.000 You have the beans?

00:19:30.000 I do have it for...

00:19:32.000 For legumes?

00:19:34.000 Yeah, I have it.

00:19:36.000 I don't know if the Dropbox link that I sent came through.

00:19:41.000 So I've got one comparing beans to beef, and I have it for protein, for vitamins, and for minerals.

00:19:47.000 And for farts.

00:19:49.000 There's really no comparison.

00:19:54.000 And the other thing is that it's limiting.

00:19:56.000 So we don't just need protein.

00:19:59.000 We need amino acids.

00:20:01.000 And there's a popular meme out there comparing broccoli to steak and how you can get all your protein just from broccoli.

00:20:09.000 But kidney beans are a much better source.

00:20:10.000 So I went with kidney beans.

00:20:12.000 And so four ounces of steak versus four ounces of kidney beans.

00:20:16.000 And when you see these plant-based memes, they will be comparing uncooked beans and they will be doing it by calorie, not by...

00:20:27.000 Portion.

00:20:28.000 Okay.

00:20:29.000 Right?

00:20:29.000 So we need to, you know, look at, you know, portion size.

00:20:33.000 And why are they doing uncooked beans?

00:20:36.000 Because there's more beans in uncooked beans.

00:20:39.000 Oh, I see.

00:20:39.000 Because the water's not...

00:20:40.000 It's like double.

00:20:41.000 Yeah.

00:20:42.000 Okay.

00:20:42.000 But it's not realistic in terms of a portion of food because you'd cook them and they swell up and...

00:20:48.000 And the calories that you would need to eat to get...

00:20:51.000 All right.

00:20:51.000 So we have only nine grams of protein from four ounces of kidney beans.

00:20:55.000 So...

00:20:56.000 In order to get the same, even close to the amount of total protein, you would need to eat over three times the amount of kidney beans.

00:21:06.000 So, and that would be, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 and something calories of kidney beans.

00:21:13.000 And then you need to have rice with it as well to balance it out.

00:21:16.000 Versus 180 calories of protein, or 180 calories from 30 grams of protein a steak.

00:21:23.000 And you know, on that sarcopenia side, like losing muscle mass as we age, and also just for athletics, isoleucine, leucine, some of these branched-chain amino acids are the really important amino acids because they stimulate anabolic signaling, and you have a threshold with that.

00:21:39.000 If you don't hit a certain threshold, it doesn't turn on the anabolic signaling, so you're tending to lose Muscle mass is kind of some bro science, like you need to eat every two hours or you're going to lose muscle mass.

00:21:50.000 It's not to that point, but we do need some amount of anabolic signaling.

00:21:55.000 Exercise, specifically strength training, causes that anabolic signaling.

00:21:58.000 And then eating a protein-rich meal that's rich in branched-chain amino acids causes that signaling, too.

00:22:04.000 And it's not impossible to do via plant-based methods, but it's hard.

00:22:09.000 Like, it's really kind of a calculus problem.

00:22:11.000 To get that part – that box ticked, like you need to do protein powders and stuff like that to usually get in there and make that happen.

00:22:19.000 But then you also get a ton of calories comparatively.

00:22:21.000 Wouldn't the simple solution be to – if you wanted to have a plant-based diet, is to eat the plant-based protein but then substitute with exogenous amino acids?

00:22:33.000 You could.

00:22:34.000 If you did that – And stick more with legumes and try not to get your protein from like quinoa or peanut butter.

00:22:39.000 Like nuts – Are a really actually horrible way to get protein.

00:22:44.000 We'll get to that in a second.

00:22:45.000 But when you're making exogenous amino acids, is it possible to do that in a vegan way?

00:22:53.000 What are they making them out of?

00:22:54.000 Just synthetic chemistry.

00:22:56.000 I mean, then it's other chemicals, but you could make it in a completely vegan-friendly way.

00:23:01.000 It's chemicals, but not bad for you.

00:23:04.000 Chemical is a weird word, right?

00:23:05.000 People panic.

00:23:06.000 So you could, in fact, get all of your amino acids and have some sort of a plant-based protein.

00:23:13.000 What is the optimal plant-based protein?

00:23:15.000 Is it pea protein?

00:23:16.000 Is it hemp protein?

00:23:18.000 What's the best one?

00:23:19.000 I would probably say pea protein would be optimal.

00:23:22.000 But, you know, we're meant to eat things in their full form.

00:23:29.000 And so if you were to actually eat peas, that's a lot of peas.

00:23:35.000 Right.

00:23:36.000 And how are they extracting the pea protein?

00:23:39.000 A lot of kitchen chemistry.

00:23:41.000 I mean, you've got to separate out the protein, carbs, fat, and then isolate the proteins.

00:23:45.000 And whether you do a hydrosylate of the proteins, like kind of pre-digest them or leave it together, usually hydrosylates taste horrible.

00:23:54.000 But I mean, in like an idealized world, if somebody's really...

00:23:58.000 They want to be vegan, but they want to tick the boxes of...

00:24:03.000 Getting that anabolic signaling, preventing sarcopenia, improving body composition, that is a way that you could do it.

00:24:10.000 And it would be vegan, and it would give the right amount of protein, not overfeeding you potentially on the calorie side, and that could be a way to kind of thread the needle.

00:24:19.000 So someone's like a vegan weightlifter, and that's the way they should do it.

00:24:23.000 They should have like pea protein and then substitute with, supplement rather, with amino acids.

00:24:28.000 Especially with the branched chain amino acids.

00:24:30.000 And these are all the ones that you need?

00:24:32.000 Cysteine, histidine...

00:24:35.000 Leucine and isoleucine are the main ones, and then valine, but the leucine is the most anabolic signaling of all of them.

00:24:44.000 And so if someone wanted to do that, what would you take?

00:24:48.000 Does there a good branch chain amino acids?

00:24:54.000 When they say branch chain amino acids, does that usually contain all of these that we're seeing on this chart?

00:24:59.000 Yes.

00:24:59.000 Not all of them.

00:25:00.000 It'll be leucine, isoleucine, and valine, typically.

00:25:04.000 And so all those other ones, should you have all those in there?

00:25:07.000 How would one supplement with a fully...

00:25:10.000 If you look at all the stuff that you're getting from meat, it's crazy.

00:25:13.000 There's so much more.

00:25:15.000 If you wanted to get those benefits, is that what's going on when someone says that meat is not as bioavailable?

00:25:22.000 Is that part of what's going on?

00:25:23.000 Is that you're just not getting the same benefit from it because it doesn't have the amino acid profile?

00:25:28.000 Oh, and this isn't even taking into account bioavailability.

00:25:31.000 That's like a whole other discussion.

00:25:32.000 This is just the label, like the USDA nutrient database numbers, but that doesn't take into account the protein digestibility score.

00:25:42.000 Let's explain it to people that are just listening.

00:25:44.000 We're looking at this chart.

00:25:45.000 And it shows the sirloin steak on the left and the kidney beans on the right.

00:25:49.000 And the amount of amino acids is in most cases four or five times more, if not more than that, from the steak than you're getting from the beans.

00:26:01.000 The beans have similar calories, but only nine grams of protein versus 30 grams of protein for the steak.

00:26:08.000 So this is what we're looking at.

00:26:10.000 And then I have this broken out also for minerals and for vitamins just to show the micronutrients that you're getting from animal source foods too, which are far superior to...

00:26:20.000 So here we have vitamins.

00:26:24.000 Right, but this is just beans, right, which are not really known as primary sources of vitamins.

00:26:29.000 Oh, they're touted as the magic food.

00:26:32.000 Beans for vitamins?

00:26:33.000 For nutrient density?

00:26:36.000 Well, not for vitamin A, since they have zero percent.

00:26:40.000 But this is kind of the cul-de-sac you get stuck into, though.

00:26:43.000 Like, how do you get enough protein?

00:26:45.000 Right.

00:26:45.000 How do you not overeat?

00:26:47.000 And then what type of nutrient deficiencies are you facing at the end of that?

00:26:52.000 Well, it's funny that they put vitamin D because you really don't get vitamin D from food on both of them of 0%.

00:26:57.000 Like, why is that on there then?

00:26:59.000 It's just part of the USDA. Oh, I see.

00:27:02.000 And vitamin A, again, it's like you only get 1% from steak.

00:27:05.000 But the big ones are vitamin B12. That's a big one.

00:27:09.000 Because if you look at the big difference in B12 in kidney beans, you have 0%.

00:27:14.000 B12 in steak, you have 95% of your USDA. And that's just for four ounces.

00:27:20.000 This is a small portion of sirloin steak, and you're getting almost a full daily requirement of vitamin B12. Which that is a big factor with people that are on a plant-based diet is getting their B12. Yeah, and iron and B12 are two of the most common nutrient deficiencies worldwide.

00:27:38.000 And both of those are common in meat and not very common in plant-based stuff.

00:27:43.000 Yeah, and whenever there is a nutrient in both plants and animals, our bodies prefer the animal source nutrient.

00:27:51.000 Why is that?

00:27:52.000 And how do we know that?

00:27:53.000 So, for example, beta-carotene, which is what makes sweet potatoes orange and carrots orange, We have to convert that to vitamin A, retinol, which is the usable form.

00:28:04.000 So when we eat an animal source of vitamin A, which is in fats of animals, we're getting it directly.

00:28:13.000 And there's about 45% of the population has a gene that makes it so they can't make that conversion efficiently.

00:28:20.000 So not only do we have to convert it, but then almost half of all humans can't do it very well.

00:28:26.000 Really?

00:28:27.000 And so to convert beta carotene to vitamin A, and that's just one, you know, heme iron in animals.

00:28:36.000 Half of the people that can't, is it because of the location of their ancestors?

00:28:40.000 Is it?

00:28:41.000 That's my guess, because what we see with omega-3s is people that lived along the coast where they were getting their omega-3s from fish lack the ability to efficiently convert plant-source essential fatty acids to the ones that we actually need for our bodies to use.

00:29:00.000 Very interesting.

00:29:01.000 And so how would one know?

00:29:03.000 How would one find out if maybe some people could digest sweet potatoes really easily, some people can't?

00:29:09.000 How would one know?

00:29:10.000 Some genetic testing can ferret some of that out, but now that we have people that come from so many different backgrounds, it can be challenging, and the genetic testing isn't perfect on that.

00:29:22.000 You can find that maybe you have a high likelihood of converting the carotenoids into retinol, but then some of these nutrient issues are gut-related.

00:29:35.000 So if your gut microbiome is deficient in Some type of bacteria, you may not even get the conversion to be able to get the beta carotene into your body.

00:29:46.000 So that's another layer to it.

00:29:48.000 It just gets really complex.

00:29:50.000 I think you almost go the simpler way of, instead of trying to get in and get super detailed on the genetics, How do you look?

00:29:59.000 How do you feel?

00:29:59.000 How do you perform?

00:30:00.000 Keep kind of an inventory of what you're eating.

00:30:03.000 And then if there are some pretty classic nutrient deficiency syndromes, you know, like dry skin and split nails and things like that for zinc deficiency as an example.

00:30:12.000 And so it's almost easier to go that way versus trying to get in and then from like first principles figure out what's your genetics and what's the perfect diet that's going to work for you.

00:30:23.000 So, the bioavailability.

00:30:27.000 What do we know in terms of the bioavailability of the plant-based proteins versus animal-based proteins?

00:30:36.000 How do we know that the body is absorbing the protein more efficiently from an animal source?

00:30:46.000 I'm trying to pull up the The protein bioavailability chart, because there is a chart that sets and its animal source proteins are always above plant source proteins.

00:31:01.000 Mechanistically, what they do is they'll figure out a given amount of protein and then they've fed that to people and then they will look at serum amino acid levels after that.

00:31:12.000 Kind of track them over time.

00:31:14.000 So animal-based proteins, let's say you give them 30 grams of protein, and then you track over a two-hour period all the amino acids that we see go up and then down during that.

00:31:26.000 And you can compare that to beans or broccoli.

00:31:29.000 And so that is a piece of how you figure out the I like eating some steak tartare here and there and stuff like that,

00:31:46.000 but there's just kind of a reality that meat that is cooked is much more bioavailable for the proteins and also the nutrients that are in it versus raw meat.

00:31:55.000 That's interesting.

00:31:56.000 What about rare?

00:31:59.000 I'm not sure on that because it's still cooked some.

00:32:02.000 It's cooked on the outside.

00:32:03.000 Yeah, it's cooked on the outside.

00:32:04.000 But the inside's pretty...

00:32:05.000 Yeah, I suspect that if you were to sous vide something and slow cook it and it's cooked thoroughly, I think that would probably optimize the bioavailability of the whole protein.

00:32:20.000 What about the difference between a medium rare and a well done?

00:32:24.000 Is well done less bioavailable or more?

00:32:27.000 I think that Well Done is probably more bioavailable, but it tastes so bad that what's...

00:32:32.000 I've thought about that.

00:32:34.000 It's a really good question.

00:32:35.000 I don't know for sure, but if you only eat a tiny piece of it because it tastes horrible, then I don't know if it's really okay.

00:32:44.000 I'm always wondered, particularly because of game meat, because wild game meat has always been touted as being much more protein-rich than domestic cattle.

00:32:54.000 And I eat a lot of that stuff, so I'm always wondering, what is going on?

00:32:58.000 How do they know?

00:32:59.000 It's definitely lean.

00:33:00.000 So I mean, you're getting a lot of protein per serving because the game meat is so incredibly lean.

00:33:05.000 So when you compare it per calorie, or even if you've just got, you know, four or five ounces on a scale, if you have like a ribeye, what is a ribeye, like 20% fat by weight?

00:33:16.000 I think it's more like 45%.

00:33:18.000 It's 45 by calories, or is it 45% by weight?

00:33:24.000 Well, so there's no carbs in meat.

00:33:26.000 So all you have is protein and fat.

00:33:27.000 So if you're looking for like what has more protein, like a boneless skinless chicken breast is going to have more protein than a burger only because it has less fat.

00:33:35.000 But it also has less nutrients overall because a lot of the fat-soluble vitamins, the E, A, not really D, K, is all in the fat.

00:33:47.000 So that's one of the benefits of eating at least some amount of animal fat because those fat-soluble vitamins kind of associate with that.

00:33:54.000 What about the difference between a red meat and a white meat, like a chicken versus a grass-fed steak?

00:34:01.000 Beef is about 30% more nutrient dense than chicken.

00:34:05.000 Per calorie.

00:34:06.000 And chicken is really high in omega-6s.

00:34:09.000 Like really high.

00:34:10.000 Is that good?

00:34:11.000 No, the inflammatory fats.

00:34:13.000 So, you know, a lot of people think chicken is more virtuous to eat for some reason, but it's...

00:34:22.000 Virtuous?

00:34:22.000 Is that...

00:34:23.000 Yeah, like, you know, you'll see, like, everyone who has these, like, clean eating books that are eliminating meat, but they'll still have boneless, skinless chicken breast in there, of course.

00:34:31.000 It's more like, almost more like tofu of meat, you know?

00:34:35.000 It's not on a bone.

00:34:36.000 It's like white and, you know, kind of clean looking.

00:34:41.000 Plus, chickens are little heartless dinosaurs.

00:34:43.000 Yeah.

00:34:44.000 You know, cows, you can pet them and stuff.

00:34:47.000 Chickens are just trying to figure out if they can eat you. 0.91

00:34:50.000 And they will if they could.

00:34:51.000 Oh, dude.

00:34:52.000 I used to have chickens and they pecked at my daughter's feet. 1.00

00:34:55.000 And my wife is like, she thinks that the hen thinks our daughter's foot was a mouse or a worm or something. 0.99

00:35:02.000 I go, no, she's trying to eat our daughter. 1.00

00:35:05.000 She's just dumb. 1.00

00:35:06.000 This is a dumb little marble-brained fuckhead who's trying to eat our kid. 1.00

00:35:11.000 That's how I thought about that chicken. 1.00

00:35:13.000 I'm like, fuck off, you little cunt. 1.00

00:35:15.000 It's like, shitty birds. 1.00

00:35:17.000 So I always tell people, like, if you're in a grocery store and you don't have access to, you know, know your farmer, grass-fed beef, and you're just looking at pork, chicken, or beef, from a nutrient density, from an animal welfare, and from an environmental perspective, 0.98

00:35:35.000 actually beef is going to be the better choice when you're looking at the industrial food system model.

00:35:40.000 Okay, so this is where we get into the weeds, right?

00:35:43.000 Because when you say that in any way that beef or raising beef is good for the environment in any way, shape, or form, that's when people go nonsense.

00:35:55.000 The doctrine as stated up on high is that if we want to save the environment, we have to eat less meat.

00:36:02.000 Yeah.

00:36:03.000 I hear this from people with no evidence.

00:36:06.000 I hear it from people and they spout it out and I go, what are you saying?

00:36:09.000 Well, you should know already.

00:36:11.000 They'll give you that.

00:36:12.000 You should know already that if you're eating a lot of meat, it's bad for the environment.

00:36:15.000 I'm like, how's it bad?

00:36:16.000 Tell me how it's bad.

00:36:17.000 What's going on?

00:36:17.000 And they'll bring up factory farming.

00:36:19.000 I'm like, well, factory farming is horrible.

00:36:21.000 It's horrible.

00:36:22.000 Everybody says it's disgusting.

00:36:24.000 But what about regenerative farming?

00:36:26.000 And they're like, well, that's not sustainable.

00:36:27.000 That doesn't work.

00:36:28.000 Or we don't have the land for it.

00:36:29.000 Right.

00:36:30.000 And this is where sometimes I think that we chose to do the book and film because we wanted to commit career suicide and public self-immolation both at the same time.

00:36:42.000 Because it's like we...

00:36:44.000 This thing ended up pissing everybody off because we don't...

00:36:50.000 Totally in the whitewashed regenerative ag camp.

00:36:54.000 We see some laudable features to pieces of the industrial system.

00:37:00.000 Some of the meat that we brought you is from a local outfit that mainly pasture feeds their meat, but when they were in a drought situation, and so they reached out to some of the local breweries and they got a bunch of residue from the brewing process,

00:37:15.000 and that's what they supplemented their animals with.

00:37:17.000 Which is some kind of barley grain.

00:37:19.000 Yeah.

00:37:20.000 And that's a whole other interesting thing is the bulk of the food that is given to cattle comes out of the ethanol industry.

00:37:30.000 We're not stealing food from humans to do that.

00:37:33.000 With chickens and pork, You kind of are allocating food that could have otherwise gone to humans.

00:37:39.000 But even conventional beef spends 70% of its life on grass.

00:37:43.000 And then that finishing process, oftentimes part of the finishing process, they put it in a wheat field where the wheat's been harvested and then it eats the crop residues and it's eating the mash from grass.

00:37:56.000 You know, industrial or, you know, drinkable ethanol production.

00:38:01.000 So there's a whole interesting nutrient upcycling story there that just gets buried, and it's really important, and it's really valuable.

00:38:08.000 It's very efficient, but it doesn't really fit into either camp.

00:38:12.000 It isn't this beautific view that we would like all these, you know, grass-fed animals.

00:38:18.000 Pasture-raised, you know, stories to fit into.

00:38:20.000 And it's definitely not the horrors of, like, industrial chicken production, which is super gnarly.

00:38:27.000 Yeah, super gnarly.

00:38:27.000 What is drinkable ethanol?

00:38:29.000 Beer, wine, you know, just the stuff.

00:38:31.000 Because you have industrial ethanol and then you have the stuff for...

00:38:35.000 But a lot for, you know, beer, wine, spirits, all that type of stuff.

00:38:39.000 Even Oatly, they got into trouble from some of their followers because the hulls from the oats were going to feed pigs.

00:38:46.000 Yeah.

00:38:46.000 What is Oatly?

00:38:48.000 Oatly is an oat milk company.

00:38:52.000 I hate when they say that.

00:38:54.000 Oat milk.

00:38:55.000 Oat water.

00:38:56.000 That is not coming out of an oat breast. 0.99

00:38:59.000 Stop it.

00:39:00.000 You stop it with the milk.

00:39:02.000 You know, that's not milk. 0.99

00:39:03.000 That's just, you're doing weird shit with water. 0.99

00:39:05.000 Right. 0.99

00:39:05.000 You know, it's not milk. 0.99

00:39:06.000 It's oat tea.

00:39:07.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:39:08.000 Really?

00:39:09.000 Yeah, call it white oat tea.

00:39:11.000 Yeah.

00:39:11.000 Or almond tea.

00:39:12.000 But there's a lot of leftovers from their processing.

00:39:15.000 So they were feeding pigs with it, which is an awesome use of that.

00:39:20.000 Right.

00:39:21.000 But the vegans found out and put the kibosh on it, and now they're trying to form oat bars for humans.

00:39:31.000 Right.

00:39:31.000 Oh, God.

00:39:32.000 Out of this inedible fiber that...

00:39:35.000 Oh, Jesus.

00:39:36.000 And so...

00:39:37.000 But, you know, with cattle, because they're ruminants, their digestive system is very different than a pig or a chicken.

00:39:45.000 And a cow can actually upcycle stuff that has no other use in our food system, is just going to sit in a pile and emit greenhouse gases anyway if we don't feed it to cows. 0.97

00:39:57.000 And so they can actually eat...

00:40:13.000 We're good to go.

00:40:21.000 Is there a way to like – I mean it seems like it's silly to just not use it.

00:40:26.000 I mean the earth uses it, right?

00:40:28.000 If it does biodegrade, it's going to compost and it's going to have some sort of a function.

00:40:33.000 It does.

00:40:33.000 But when you're dealing with industrial levels of that, like in Brazil, there's a problem with the banana peels because the banana peels are actually – Pretty toxic.

00:40:43.000 And it's hard to figure out how to deal with those things.

00:40:46.000 Wait a minute.

00:40:46.000 How are banana peels toxic when I watch so many people on TikTok make shredded pork out of banana peels?

00:40:52.000 If they really get after it, they're going to have a rough day. 0.99

00:40:56.000 They're going to shit themselves to death. 0.99

00:40:58.000 Have you ever seen that? 1.00

00:40:59.000 Yeah, I've seen that.

00:41:00.000 So that's not edible, right?

00:41:02.000 Like what are they doing?

00:41:04.000 They're basically like spicing up garbage and trying to serve it as pulled pork.

00:41:09.000 Yeah.

00:41:10.000 That is so weird when they do that.

00:41:12.000 The Sean Baker videos where he's sitting there, if you haven't seen it, Sean Baker has a giant cutting board and literally like a machete.

00:41:20.000 Yeah.

00:41:21.000 And he's just slicing into beef and he's eating this like four pound ribeye and while he's cutting into beef on the other side of the screen, you see someone making like tofu ribs.

00:41:32.000 Yeah.

00:41:32.000 Yeah, here it is.

00:41:33.000 Yeah.

00:41:34.000 Look at him.

00:41:36.000 It's some of the best performance art on the internet. 1.00

00:41:38.000 Well, look at the size of that fucking knife. 0.99

00:41:40.000 I do love the size of that knife. 1.00

00:41:41.000 The knife is so preposterous.

00:41:43.000 Oh, and here's the banana peel.

00:41:44.000 Yep.

00:41:44.000 Big slices of meat.

00:41:47.000 And so they're taking this banana peel and they scrape off the stuff on the inside.

00:41:52.000 So he's eating pork, too.

00:41:54.000 And so he's eating real pork while they're eating this stuff.

00:41:58.000 Hey, pork. 0.99

00:41:58.000 Well, it's like, what... 0.99

00:42:00.000 What is in a banana peel?

00:42:02.000 I mean, is it just plant fiber?

00:42:04.000 Is there any nutrients at all?

00:42:06.000 I mean, technically there would be some nutrients, but what it has is the anti-predation chemicals to keep things from eating the banana.

00:42:14.000 So it has these, I don't know if it's saponins, and I think it's saponins, kind of a soap-like substance, but it will really irritate and damage the gut lining.

00:42:23.000 Like, they try to feed it to cattle, and even cattle that are really good at eating kind of squirrely things, it will make the cattle sick.

00:42:30.000 So that's just the outside, though.

00:42:32.000 Why doesn't the inside have those things?

00:42:35.000 Even that stuff that she's scraping out has some of that in it, too.

00:42:39.000 But the banana itself doesn't?

00:42:40.000 The banana does not.

00:42:41.000 That's why fruit is doing well for you right now.

00:42:44.000 So fruit wants you to eat it because it wants you to deposit the seed somewhere else.

00:42:48.000 Right.

00:42:48.000 He wants you to poo it out and so the seeds will be fertilized and then they'll grow somewhere else.

00:42:54.000 That's his whole strategy.

00:42:56.000 That's his plan.

00:42:56.000 Yeah.

00:42:57.000 That's the thought process behind the way Paul Saladino describes his...

00:43:02.000 He calls himself carnivore MD and basically he's got a meat-based diet, but he supplements it with fruit.

00:43:09.000 And this is the first time I've ever tried to do it that way, and it's so much easier to do than just eat meat.

00:43:15.000 It's great because before workouts, like today I had two bananas, and then I worked out.

00:43:19.000 Like, you have no problem exercising, whereas when I was just eating meat, I was a little draggy when I was working out.

00:43:26.000 And I love meat, but the only time in my life, like I've eaten kind of a ketogenic diet for 23 years, But there's a little bit of fruit, some vegetables, some different things in there.

00:43:36.000 And the only time that I had, like, neurotic food desires was when I was doing, like, strict carnivore. 0.97

00:43:41.000 And I wanted pizza and ice cream and shit that I never wanted before.

00:43:45.000 Like, I went kind of crazy, whereas, like, loosening it up and having a little bit of fruit, a little bit of honey here and there, particularly before, you know, pre or post-workout or something, like, I'm fine with that. 0.80

00:43:56.000 Do you think that's...

00:43:57.000 What is that process of converting the meat to sugar?

00:44:00.000 Gluconeogenesis?

00:44:00.000 Do you think that that's what that is?

00:44:02.000 It's like your body's like...

00:44:03.000 It's an expensive process.

00:44:05.000 It's a hard process to do.

00:44:06.000 Yeah?

00:44:08.000 Could be that. 0.83

00:44:09.000 Could have been I was just nuts.

00:44:10.000 I mean, Rob and I are already really restricted with our diet.

00:44:14.000 We both have celiac.

00:44:15.000 Yeah, so like...

00:44:17.000 So celiac, you can't have any wheat.

00:44:19.000 You can't have any...

00:44:19.000 What is the bulk of the restrictions?

00:44:23.000 Right.

00:44:24.000 Yeah, I mean, everything on the inside of the grocery store is just completely...

00:44:27.000 Or even going to a taco place, and if they fried the corn tortilla on the same griddle as the flour one, I would have a reaction.

00:44:37.000 Celiac is an autoimmune gluten sensitivity, so the villi, the little finger-like things that line the gut that help absorb nutrients, those just get killed via an autoimmune reaction because the body is...

00:44:51.000 It's made antibodies against proteins in our body by mistakenly making them against the gluten, gliadin proteins.

00:45:00.000 How many people have this and don't know about it?

00:45:03.000 I know that they think it's 1 in 133 people have it.

00:45:07.000 Wow.

00:45:08.000 It took me until I was 26 to find out that I had it.

00:45:11.000 I had it my whole life.

00:45:13.000 And you were just eating pizza and going off?

00:45:15.000 And being very sick.

00:45:18.000 Yeah.

00:45:19.000 Interesting.

00:45:19.000 So there's the celiac thing, and this requires you to stay away from all glutens.

00:45:26.000 Is there anything else that it requires you to stay away from?

00:45:30.000 Are nuts okay, like peanuts, walnuts?

00:45:34.000 I mean, I definitely feel better when I eat a diet more close to what you described.

00:45:41.000 But yeah, strictly meat was a little intense for me.

00:45:46.000 Although, you know, I wanted to mention, I had a nutrition client with compulsive overeating.

00:45:53.000 And I've sat through these, they're like AA meetings, but for people that are compulsive overeaters.

00:45:58.000 So like their reward signals just light up times a million in the rain when they encounter certain foods.

00:46:04.000 Really?

00:46:05.000 What is that?

00:46:06.000 I mean, you know, I think some people just are prone to addiction.

00:46:11.000 Is it a psychological thing or is there a thing you can track in the brain when they're overeating like this?

00:46:19.000 My theory on this is that some people are just low dopamine and they may get into heroin, they may get into gambling, or they may become compulsive overeaters and it's just sort of how it plays out.

00:46:34.000 Like some of my clients, they do all of the above.

00:46:37.000 All of them?

00:46:38.000 Yeah.

00:46:38.000 But so I sat in on a meeting when I was a dietetic student and they all have to identify their trigger food and then agree to not eat it and abstain from it.

00:46:51.000 So sort of like an alcoholic type meeting except for, unfortunately for them, you have to eat.

00:46:56.000 You can't avoid eating, you know.

00:46:59.000 And it was white foods that was unanimously the trigger food for like all these people.

00:47:06.000 But it still can be overwhelming to figure out what you're going to eat.

00:47:10.000 And so anyway, I had a young woman who she just wanted to go carnivore. 1.00

00:47:15.000 It was just easier for her to like just give herself only that and she lost.

00:47:21.000 And she had rheumatoid arthritis that went into remission.

00:47:23.000 She lost?

00:47:25.000 Gosh, like 60. It's still going, actually.

00:47:28.000 I think the last time I checked was 60 or 75 pounds.

00:47:31.000 And her arthritis went into remission.

00:47:32.000 Yes.

00:47:33.000 So what do we think is happening to people's guts?

00:47:38.000 Do you think that it's the plant defense chemicals that are messing with people's guts?

00:47:43.000 Do you think when it comes to, obviously not celiacs, which is an extreme version, but when people do have issues with autoimmune issues that are food-related, What is causing this stuff?

00:47:55.000 I think there's a lot.

00:47:57.000 Like we have now, you know, antibiotics were developed in the 1930s, like the sulfa-based antibiotics, and it was 1950s-ish that the more penicillin-derived antibiotics started hitting.

00:48:09.000 So how many generations now do we have, like mom to baby, mom to baby, like alterations potentially in the gut microbiome?

00:48:17.000 Some people who have the celiac gene don't express celiac disease because they have gut microbes that trim up the proleal endopeptidase bacteria that break up the gluten proteins.

00:48:32.000 Is that something someone can supplement with?

00:48:35.000 Kind of, but it doesn't work that well.

00:48:36.000 It will protect you from cross-contamination a little bit, but you get so sick with celiac, it's something that I would be careful playing around with that.

00:48:49.000 So you've got antibiotics.

00:48:52.000 You have alterations in just our environment.

00:48:55.000 I think that there's...

00:48:56.000 Gut issues, mitochondrial issues, and then changes in our food supply.

00:49:00.000 So I think it's a lot of different things.

00:49:02.000 Low vitamin D levels, like the autoimmune diseases, track very, very closely with latitude.

00:49:08.000 You tend to see relatively little autoimmune disease.

00:49:15.000 It's a big factor.

00:49:16.000 So there's a lot of different things that go into it, which is a little bit of the problem of trying to figure out how to fix it because doctors have a tendency to just say that people are crazy or it's mainly in their head because there's like this piece and that piece and the other piece.

00:49:29.000 Clearly a piece to a loss of gut barrier function.

00:49:33.000 That's pretty well understood.

00:49:35.000 Alessio Fasano, he's a researcher mainly looking at celiac disease, but he has celiac disease as a model for autoimmune disease in general.

00:49:45.000 But there's a loss of intestinal barrier function.

00:49:48.000 When intact food particles can make it into the body, then the body can mount immune responses to everything.

00:49:54.000 And then the flip side of this and maybe why carnivore works so well is if somebody eats a very simple diet, it doesn't irritate the gut, the gut can heal and then the body is not primed to be, you know, Reacting as much doesn't mount the same immune response,

00:50:09.000 and so you can kind of dial that inflammatory process down.

00:50:12.000 There's also other people that think that, you know, when you live in a really clean environment...

00:50:16.000 Oh, yeah, the hygiene hypothesis, yeah.

00:50:18.000 Yeah, so all of us have immune systems that want to be working and exercising themselves all the time.

00:50:24.000 And in places where you're more likely to have parasites or...

00:50:30.000 Other pathogens through your food, your immune system is busy working on all that stuff and keeping you healthy.

00:50:37.000 But when you are living in a place where there's just not anything for your immune system to work on, then it'll work on you and start attacking yourself.

00:50:46.000 How much do you buy into this idea that plants, whether it's like kale or what have you, these plant defense chemicals that these plants emit are causing some autoimmune issues with people?

00:50:58.000 For sure.

00:50:59.000 They are in some people.

00:51:01.000 It shouldn't really be that way, though, not to the degree that we see now.

00:51:06.000 And this is where, just looking back at, like, the 1950s, you know, people weren't—Celiac existed then, but it didn't exist to the degree it does now.

00:51:16.000 You didn't see these multiple chemical sensitivities that folks have now.

00:51:21.000 Plant defense mechanisms are definitely there.

00:51:24.000 I mean, part of the reason why people soak, sprout, and ferment grains and legumes is that it decreases those things.

00:51:30.000 So within most traditional food cultures, there's ways of taking relatively toxic foods and making them less toxic.

00:51:36.000 Like, what do they do with the taro root to get the cyanide out of it?

00:51:41.000 I mean, just cooking, but they will also ferment it.

00:51:42.000 Oh, yeah.

00:51:42.000 That's a big process.

00:51:44.000 Yeah.

00:51:44.000 Even with corn and lime.

00:51:46.000 Yeah.

00:51:46.000 Yeah, corn and lime, isn't it?

00:51:47.000 So there's a lot of historical food systems that help deal with this stuff.

00:51:51.000 But it just, you know, when you look at most traditional food systems, it took pretty good care of people.

00:51:58.000 Like, not everybody on the planet need to eat paleo to...

00:52:01.000 To have really outstanding health.

00:52:03.000 You know, traditional Mesoamerican food, even though it was very corn-rich, they figured out that you needed to do some things to prevent pellagra, which is this B vitamin deficiency ultimately, which was the inclusion of lime.

00:52:16.000 But there's something that's changed.

00:52:19.000 The inclusion of lime, what do you mean?

00:52:22.000 When you make corn tortillas traditionally, you ferment it with lime and that breaks down some of the anti-nutrients with the corn and makes it more digestible.

00:52:30.000 Oh, I see.

00:52:32.000 So this is when they're making the tortilla itself.

00:52:35.000 Right.

00:52:35.000 So what about the difference between a cooked vegetable versus a raw vegetable?

00:52:40.000 Because one of the things that people love to say is like, oh, I only eat raw vegetables.

00:52:45.000 And I'm like, hey man, I don't think that's good.

00:52:47.000 I used to think that was good, but I don't think that's good anymore.

00:52:49.000 You're right.

00:52:50.000 Period.

00:52:51.000 I mean, it's just really hard to digest them.

00:52:53.000 I mean, when you look back at traditional cultures, pre-agriculture, meat was what you ate when you could get that, and then all the other stuff was what you ate when you couldn't get the meat.

00:53:05.000 You just ate it to survive.

00:53:07.000 Right.

00:53:08.000 Just to give you some calories.

00:53:09.000 Right.

00:53:10.000 But meat is the most nutrient-dense, perfect food for humans.

00:53:15.000 It just is.

00:53:16.000 It's such an exhausting conversation when you say that to people, though.

00:53:19.000 Like you said, I think, you know, you're eating all that meat?

00:53:22.000 Like, what about your cholesterol?

00:53:23.000 What about, are you going to have a heart attack?

00:53:25.000 Yeah, and it's working its way into policy, which is really disturbing to me as a mother.

00:53:31.000 New York City public schools, vegan on Fridays now, in addition to Meatless Mondays.

00:53:36.000 So now you've got a school system where 70% of the kids are economically disadvantaged and might go home on the weekends.

00:53:45.000 They need school lunch.

00:53:46.000 Right?

00:53:47.000 And now you're flanking the weekends with nutrient-poor both Friday and Monday.

00:53:54.000 And it's this ideologically-driven thing that's based on this idea that if you eat less meat, it's better for the environment, like this thing that they say.

00:54:02.000 And they also say for health purposes, like, oh, they'll cite the China study.

00:54:07.000 It's one fucking study and no matter how much you say, hey, you need to read the rebuttals of the China study because they're pretty brutal and it shows that it's a lot of biased evidence and that they really didn't do a good job of being objective about that.

00:54:20.000 So there's one thing that's happening right now that's really interesting. 0.99

00:54:26.000 So there's this thing called the global burden of disease.

00:54:28.000 And this is published by The Lancet.

00:54:31.000 And it's what most global food policy is set on.

00:54:36.000 And between their report in 2017 and 2019, meat was 36 times more likely to kill you.

00:54:46.000 And there were some researchers, some friends of mine, that pushed back.

00:54:50.000 They wrote a letter to The Lancet, which was blocked.

00:54:53.000 The Lancet, it sounds like, is finally going to be publishing it, like, over the next couple days.

00:54:59.000 Finally publishing this thing that says that meat is 36 more times?

00:55:01.000 Oh, no, that's out.

00:55:02.000 The 2019 Global Burden of Disease is out.

00:55:05.000 And I actually had a graphic on that just to show...

00:55:10.000 So what are you saying is going to be published?

00:55:12.000 So some friends of mine, right, because these guys didn't provide any evidence at all as to why meat.

00:55:20.000 So there's this theoretical minimum risk exposure level that, you know, is supposed to be the safe level of meat you can eat.

00:55:28.000 And it went down to zero.

00:55:32.000 And according to these researchers, which is going to be global food policy, you can now eat zero red meat safely with no – so they said they did their own systematic review but they didn't show any of the evidence,

00:55:48.000 any of the papers they reviewed.

00:55:49.000 And there aren't – there's no research that's strong that's showing meat is – there's only one randomized control trial.

00:55:57.000 If they're not showing any evidence, they're not showing any papers, how is this science?

00:56:03.000 Right.

00:56:04.000 And so finally, the Lancet is going to publish this paper where my colleagues are questioning the results and where is the science.

00:56:14.000 And the Lancet, I mean, the global burden of disease is the Lancet.

00:56:17.000 So this is a really very big deal.

00:56:21.000 So I don't understand.

00:56:22.000 I always thought that with scientific papers you had to cite sources.

00:56:29.000 Up until about two years ago, that was pretty consistent.

00:56:32.000 And then I think we've seen a loosening of standards.

00:56:36.000 Here's the difference between 2017 and 2019. So you can see the top part is what we're doing in excess.

00:56:45.000 And you can see that diets high in red meat used to be a very small percentage of the cause of death globally, which is even a silly thing.

00:56:54.000 But it used to be sodium was much higher.

00:56:57.000 And now meat has gone up, do you see this, 36 times more likely to be the cause of death.

00:57:05.000 In two years.

00:57:06.000 So this is the study.

00:57:08.000 And this analysis, when they're doing this, how are they coming to this conclusion?

00:57:14.000 Right.

00:57:14.000 Nobody knows.

00:57:15.000 They just tell you?

00:57:17.000 They're just saying it?

00:57:18.000 They're just saying it.

00:57:19.000 So what is their motivation?

00:57:22.000 We don't really know.

00:57:24.000 I mean, a little tinfoil hattie. 0.59

00:57:26.000 I think that there's a powerful desire to consolidate food production globally, and this is an amazing way to do it.

00:57:39.000 As it is, I think that six or seven companies produce like 90% of the food that's consumed globally.

00:57:46.000 But what we've seen over time is just more consolidation, more consolidation.

00:57:51.000 And there's this kind of weird interface between tech and venture capital and food.

00:57:57.000 There have been some interesting pieces where folks are looking at food...

00:58:01.000 They want it to be operated like IP, like software.

00:58:05.000 They want you to be able to own the intellectual property.

00:58:08.000 It's interesting you say that because Bill Gates is now the largest owner of farmland in the United States.

00:58:14.000 We looked at that up once.

00:58:15.000 There was some sort of dispute about that, but then we looked at it and said he was.

00:58:18.000 He wants to be.

00:58:19.000 He owns a lot.

00:58:21.000 The Gates Foundation is one of the major sponsors of this study that I was just talking about. 0.97

00:58:26.000 So it's fuckery.

00:58:26.000 But the thing is, he keeps saying that we've got to eat less meat, and we've got to cut our consumption of meat out to be healthy, and that we're going to get used to these meat alternatives.

00:58:38.000 When a guy like that says that, I'm like, are you making money because of this?

00:58:42.000 Why are you saying that? 1.00

00:58:43.000 And by the way, you look like shit. 1.00

00:58:45.000 Because if you're eating those plant-based burgers or whatever the fuck you're doing, you're obese. 1.00

00:58:52.000 A guy like that, telling people about... 0.99

00:58:54.000 He's got these...

00:58:56.000 This is crazy.

00:58:59.000 You're one of the richest guys on earth.

00:59:01.000 You have access to the best nutrients.

00:59:04.000 You could have an amazing trainer.

00:59:06.000 You could be in phenomenal shape and you're giving out public health advice.

00:59:12.000 You're giving out health advice and you're sick.

00:59:15.000 It's literally like a non-athlete trying to coach professionals. 1.00

00:59:21.000 Like, what the fuck are you talking about? 0.99

00:59:23.000 How are you giving any health advice when you look like that? 1.00

00:59:28.000 Your health is piss poor. 0.96

00:59:30.000 I'm not a doctor. 1.00

00:59:31.000 But when you've got man boobs and a gut and you're walking around and you have these toothpick arms, I'm like, hey buddy, you're not healthy. 0.95

00:59:40.000 There's a lot of profit to be made in processing something into a Beyond Burger. 0.96

00:59:48.000 There's a lot of profit to be made.

00:59:49.000 But those aren't even selling anymore.

00:59:51.000 Have you noticed that?

00:59:52.000 Yeah.

00:59:55.000 We're kind of lucky in a way.

00:59:57.000 The consumers kind of got in and poked around that.

01:00:01.000 Forbes did an interesting piece where there was so much interest from the vegan community around Impossible Burger and Impossible Foods.

01:00:09.000 And this Forbes piece was interesting.

01:00:11.000 It made the case that these people are usually very progressive and very anti-corporation.

01:00:16.000 We're like the biggest fans or promoters of this corporatization of our food system, which is kind of where...

01:00:25.000 All this stuff is going.

01:00:26.000 They're getting duped.

01:00:27.000 They really are.

01:00:29.000 But on the one side, there's this story that meat will cause cancer and diabetes and all this stuff, and it's going to destroy the planet because of carbon emissions, and it's using all the water and the land.

01:00:40.000 And it's a slick story.

01:00:43.000 It's an elevator pitch.

01:00:44.000 It's elegant.

01:00:45.000 It's like buttoned up, airtight.

01:00:47.000 And then when we start trying to unpack that, it's You have to dig into ecology and non-equilibrium thermodynamics and it's not an elevator pitch and it's a lot of work to unpack what those claims are.

01:01:01.000 And then, you know, even what is the motivation to do this, then we start getting into conspiracy theory land.

01:01:06.000 It's like, well, there are people that want to control the food system and they want to, you know, turn food into intellectual property that they own.

01:01:14.000 But that really seems to be what's going on with this.

01:01:18.000 And I think they've realized consumers aren't going to just buy it in the grocery store.

01:01:24.000 And by the way, it's twice as expensive.

01:01:25.000 Like Beyond Burger is twice as expensive as organic grass-fed beef per pound.

01:01:29.000 Wow.

01:01:30.000 But they sell it in half-pound packages right next to the pound packages.

01:01:34.000 Oh, they're tricky.

01:01:35.000 So why not just make it policy and indoctrinate these kids? 0.91

01:01:40.000 From kindergarten to age 12 with these messages, like the Meatless Monday messages are all wrong.

01:01:46.000 Like, they're all wrong.

01:01:47.000 What is the message?

01:01:48.000 Meat is bad for your health and the environment.

01:01:51.000 And they use these beautiful, simplistic infographics showing, you know, livestock takes up three quarters of the land.

01:01:58.000 But, okay, but it's not talking about the types of land, you know, or that your burger used 10 bathtubs full of water.

01:02:09.000 But then we're not talking about, okay, most of the water footprint for a cow is actually in the grass.

01:02:15.000 It's called green water.

01:02:16.000 It's like water that's already in the environment, in rain.

01:02:21.000 Whether the cow is there or not, it's going to happen.

01:02:24.000 Do we have that infographic?

01:02:25.000 Yeah, I have the water one.

01:02:26.000 If you want to talk about how much water a burger uses up, you better not be eating almonds.

01:02:33.000 Exactly. 0.96

01:02:33.000 You better shut your mouth if you're eating almonds. 0.96

01:02:37.000 Right. 1.00

01:02:37.000 Those things are ridiculous. 1.00

01:02:38.000 Right.

01:02:38.000 So here's the water one, and I've broken it down, land use, feed use, but this is just the water one.

01:02:44.000 And so what most people don't get is that there's, you know, green waters, natural rain, and then the blue water is like when you look down on a map and see rivers and lakes.

01:02:54.000 So what we're looking at, folks that are just listening, is when you look at typical beef versus grass-finished beef, it looks like there's probably like...

01:03:01.000 How many dots are on this list?

01:03:03.000 A little different.

01:03:04.000 So at the bottom, I have the percentages.

01:03:06.000 So it's 94% green water for typical beef and 97% green water for average.

01:03:12.000 And this is average.

01:03:13.000 Like in Vermont, it might be different than Nevada, but...

01:03:16.000 So they have it broken down to these droplets.

01:03:18.000 And there's a hundred droplets on each side.

01:03:21.000 And two droplets from the grass-finished beef are lake streams and underground water.

01:03:26.000 Three droplets from the typical beef.

01:03:30.000 And that's what everybody's concerned about.

01:03:31.000 What people are really concerned about is the draining of the lakes and streams and the underground water.

01:03:36.000 So it's not drinking water.

01:03:37.000 Right.

01:03:38.000 And the rest of it, the entire graph, is natural rain, which is rain that exists, moisture that exists in vegetable matter.

01:03:44.000 Yeah, and I mean it's going to fall on this land, which is land that has been grasslands for eons, and we can't use it for anything else.

01:03:54.000 When people say we use all this land for cattle, You know, bison are a good example. 1.00

01:04:01.000 I'm good friends with the folks that own Rome Free Bison Ranch in Montana.

01:04:05.000 They do both cattle and bison because the cattle don't go up these super steep mountains.

01:04:10.000 And so, you know, they're these grassland mountains.

01:04:14.000 That the bison graze.

01:04:15.000 And if they don't graze it, then the whole ecosystem just collapses.

01:04:20.000 The ecosystem has been this plant-animal interaction for millions of years.

01:04:25.000 And this plant-animal interaction is based on the animal's manure.

01:04:29.000 It fertilizes the plants.

01:04:31.000 The animals eat the plants.

01:04:33.000 Dung beetles, insects, birds, you know, all this stuff.

01:04:36.000 So it's not stealing land from anything.

01:04:38.000 This is what grasslands do.

01:04:40.000 It's not stealing water from anything.

01:04:42.000 This is the rain, sleet, and snow that falls on the grasslands.

01:04:45.000 And these animals should be there because it's part of a healthy ecosystem.

01:04:49.000 Like the Audubon Society in the last 10 years has been getting really...

01:04:54.000 Involved in regenerative ag because one of the first things that they see when people start doing pasture-based meat is that the bird species come back and come back in remarkable perfusion because it starts fixing – if you fix all of the ecosystem issues, then these literal canary in the coal mines end up getting addressed and we see more bird species come back.

01:05:14.000 This brings us to this whole idea of regenerative agriculture being scalable.

01:05:19.000 Yeah.

01:05:20.000 And is it?

01:05:22.000 Well, first of all, 85% of the beef cattle in the U.S. right now are grazing on land we can crop.

01:05:31.000 So these...

01:05:32.000 85%.

01:05:33.000 Yeah, so, because cattle only spend about the last three or so months of their lives on feedlots, and so really good grazing can happen even if they do end up being finished on grain.

01:05:46.000 So most cattle are not...

01:05:48.000 All cattle.

01:05:49.000 All cattle.

01:05:49.000 So they don't just eat grain from the moment they're babies?

01:05:52.000 No.

01:05:53.000 They eat grass, and then when they're getting ready to slaughter them, then for how many months they eat grain?

01:05:59.000 Three to four, usually about three.

01:06:01.000 And then they basically get sick.

01:06:04.000 It depends on the system.

01:06:06.000 I mean, like this beef that I brought you today, They're still out on pasture.

01:06:14.000 They're getting some grain.

01:06:15.000 I mean, there's kind of middle ground.

01:06:17.000 It's not like all good or all bad.

01:06:20.000 In an area where if he were just to let his cattle graze, cattle wouldn't have enough grass because you guys didn't get any rain in Austin, and so the cows would get sick.

01:06:33.000 So...

01:06:35.000 So they had to do something to supplement, what you're saying?

01:06:38.000 Yeah, and we're going to have a brewery process.

01:06:41.000 If we're going to do ethanol, what are we going to do with all that stuff?

01:06:44.000 We can feed it to cattle, too.

01:06:46.000 Right, but when we're talking about scalable, when something's scalable, and I guess we kind of glossed over the Beyond Meat thing.

01:06:52.000 We probably should go back to that.

01:06:54.000 But is it scalable in terms of the entire population?

01:07:00.000 What if everybody abandoned veganism?

01:07:03.000 Everybody's like, hey, I'm sick.

01:07:05.000 I'm tired of this.

01:07:06.000 This is not working for me.

01:07:07.000 I'm going to go to some sort of sustainable agriculture way of living.

01:07:11.000 Without any factory farming, is that possible for the entire country?

01:07:17.000 One thing I want to bring up is that Diana went to Southeast Asia.

01:07:22.000 Can we talk about the Merck deal and all that?

01:07:24.000 Yeah.

01:07:24.000 Like antibiotics.

01:07:25.000 I just want to throw that one out there because there's pieces of this system that cannot go on.

01:07:30.000 So we use a huge...

01:07:32.000 Cannot go on.

01:07:33.000 Yeah.

01:07:33.000 So we use a huge amount of antibiotics in chicken and pork production because of the proximity that they...

01:07:40.000 You can't do industrial chicken without the antibiotic inputs that we have because they're just on top of each other.

01:07:48.000 Merck and some of these pharmaceutical companies recognize this.

01:07:51.000 And so historically, like before the 1940s, chicken and pork were a background part of the food system.

01:07:58.000 Like pork was fed largely food scraps.

01:08:01.000 Chickens were just kind of a background part of farms.

01:08:04.000 It wasn't a main feature.

01:08:06.000 I think it was Herbert Hoover that said something like a chicken in every pot is like a We're good to go.

01:08:33.000 Our antibiotic defense, basically.

01:08:35.000 If we lose the ability to use antibiotics because of creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria, we're all screwed.

01:08:43.000 And so, Merck is starting to educate folks that produce beef or pork and chicken that we have to figure out We're good to go.

01:09:06.000 We have to find something else.

01:09:08.000 And in the book and the film, we don't lay out specifically.

01:09:12.000 We're not trying to be futurists saying this is the way that this is going to work.

01:09:16.000 But a lot of what we suggest is that food production should be done at a regional level Yeah.

01:09:50.000 It does sound like he's dodging.

01:09:52.000 So I did go through the numbers in the book.

01:09:55.000 And it does look like we have the land in the U.S. right now to grass finish in a regenerative way all of our beef herd.

01:10:05.000 Before we go on to that, and I do want to talk about that, what is causing the need for antibiotics specifically?

01:10:10.000 Is it the factory setting where everyone's jammed in together?

01:10:14.000 That's what it is?

01:10:15.000 Yeah.

01:10:15.000 When did that start happening?

01:10:17.000 1940s.

01:10:18.000 So we had the Haber-Boschmidt process, which made industrial ammonia for firearms and munitions.

01:10:27.000 And then when we got done with that, we're like, oh, this stuff makes amazing fertilizer.

01:10:30.000 And it really is amazing, but it also damages the topsoil.

01:10:34.000 But it produces huge amounts of food.

01:10:39.000 It makes great fertilizer, but it destroys the topsoil at the same time?

01:10:43.000 Well, it makes great fertilizer in that you can short-term, and by short-term I mean like maybe a century, century and a half, you can produce a shitload of food.

01:10:51.000 But when we think about our planet, we want our topsoil to last forever.

01:10:56.000 Like we want to come back 5,000 years from now and have this topsoil better than what it is today.

01:11:01.000 So there's tradeoffs.

01:11:03.000 Like in the short term, it's good from a productivity standpoint.

01:11:06.000 And we started getting excess food production in a way that we could industrialize things like pork and chicken production by the inputs of grains and whatnot.

01:11:15.000 And then in the 70s is when it really ramped up with chicken production.

01:11:19.000 And that's when people started getting super affordable chicken because there was also, I believe it was vitamin D, they realized, was a nutrient that these chickens really needed in order to thrive in a factory setting.

01:11:33.000 And then as soon as they figured that out, plus the antibiotics, which not only keeps them healthier, but actually disrupts their biome enough to make them gain weight.

01:11:42.000 Oh, yeah, that's right.

01:11:44.000 And so those were sort of another couple of magical things.

01:11:49.000 And then in relation to the fertilizer, I just want to mention with the war happening or potential war, we're also running out of fertilizer.

01:11:59.000 So we have to start using animals for nutrients because there's just not enough.

01:12:07.000 You have to mine potash and that's already a limited thing too in addition to nitrogen.

01:12:13.000 So you mean fertilizer just for monocrop agriculture?

01:12:17.000 Yeah.

01:12:18.000 Just for growing corn and soy and all that other stuff that we grow in massive, massive quantities.

01:12:23.000 So a lot of the concerns that folks have, like damage to waterways from effluent, from CAFO beef production and chicken and all that, it's terrible.

01:12:34.000 But it's also something that if we did more decentralized production, we broke this stuff up and we had...

01:12:40.000 Cattle integrated with pork, integrated with chickens, and the effluent, you know, their byproducts, the feces, the urine, reintegrate that into the soil.

01:12:50.000 Historically, that's what we did before the industrialization of the food system.

01:12:55.000 This is what people still do in most of the developing world, is they have plant-animal interactions bringing this stuff together.

01:13:03.000 There's certain economies of scale that are really cool with the current system, but it's...

01:13:09.000 It's not like a Ponzi scheme, but I mean it's got an expiration date on it.

01:13:12.000 Like we are breaking elements of our ecological system by kind of strip mining the ability to produce lots and lots of food right now.

01:13:21.000 Yeah, that's one thing that I always try to say to people that are very plant-based centric thinking.

01:13:28.000 I just stress on them how unhealthy for the world monocrop agriculture is.

01:13:34.000 Like this completely unnatural, like you can grow food, you can grow meat in a very natural way, like the Polyface Farms model, Joel Salatin's model.

01:13:46.000 But if you want to feed the whole world with corn and grain, you've got to have these massive fields.

01:13:52.000 And you're not going to grow anything else but this one thing in these massive fields.

01:13:56.000 And whenever you do that, you are damaging that ground.

01:14:00.000 And that's what goes into lab meat and Beyond Burger and Impossible Foods.

01:14:05.000 They're not using organic products.

01:14:07.000 I mean, they're using 100% legit chemical ag to make their products.

01:14:15.000 Well, not only this, it's like one of the most processed things you could ever eat.

01:14:18.000 So all these people that want to eat healthy, plant-based, like if you want to eat like a healthy vegetarian diet, you certainly can.

01:14:26.000 But if you want to eat a healthy vegetarian diet and also pretend that these processed things that are filled with seed oils and like, what exactly is in a fake meat burger?

01:14:40.000 How bad are those things for you?

01:14:44.000 So, I mean, just on a nutrient density level, I've never seen a full breakdown.

01:14:52.000 Like, they'll say total protein, total fat, and it'll line up, kind of.

01:14:56.000 But, like, the fats come from soybean oil, not natural.

01:14:59.000 The protein is limiting in the amino acids.

01:15:02.000 But we still have yet to see a full nutrient breakdown of all the junk they put in.

01:15:08.000 And, of course, it's better to eat real meat.

01:15:11.000 What's the main ingredients of those burgers?

01:15:14.000 Pea protein is one of them.

01:15:16.000 I think soy ends up on the oil front and then also just some of the protein also.

01:15:22.000 What if they mixed those burgers in with a branched-chain amino acid profile?

01:15:28.000 Could you do that, like have a bodybuilding Beyond Burger?

01:15:31.000 You could.

01:15:32.000 You'd make a lot of money.

01:15:34.000 You'd make a lot of money.

01:15:36.000 But are you causing inflammation?

01:15:40.000 Are you giving people issues with the seed oils, like soybean oil?

01:15:45.000 That's not necessarily good for you, right?

01:15:47.000 Exactly.

01:15:48.000 Yeah.

01:15:48.000 And you're still, like, for every calorie that you consume of that, you're not consuming something else.

01:15:55.000 So where are you getting the vitamins, the minerals, you know, these other things?

01:15:59.000 And in a developed world, you could go to your corner store and get vitamins and do all that.

01:16:10.000 This whole story has been so tied into climate change, they're really pushing that the developing world adopt this stuff, too.

01:16:17.000 And this is one interesting area that different places in the developed world have pushed back because they're like, we can't be dependent on this.

01:16:25.000 We have these traditional food systems, and if you make us dependent on the exports of your industrial row crop food system, one, we're super dependent, and two, we can't afford it.

01:16:35.000 And then the third point, which Diana really detailed this well in the book, These folks don't have access to like a CVS to go get their B vitamins and their folate and their zinc and their iron and everything.

01:16:47.000 And the same deficiencies that underlie a vegan diet looks shockingly similar to what people face when they're in a malnourished state in a developing country because they eat a very starch-centric, you know, monocrop type of diet.

01:17:03.000 That is typically the main deficiencies in there largely arise from a lack of animal foods.

01:17:10.000 So when people talk about the difference between seed oils and there's other vegetable oils that are not bad for you, right?

01:17:17.000 Like olive oil is not bad for you.

01:17:20.000 Avocado oil is not bad for you.

01:17:22.000 Why are some corn-based oils and seed-based oils, why are they bad for you?

01:17:28.000 Just the ultra-processing and the ratio of omegas in them.

01:17:33.000 And they're polyunsaturated.

01:17:36.000 They're not really supposed to be heated.

01:17:38.000 And so they're very unstable, create free radicals.

01:17:41.000 So if you use them as salad dressing, are they okay?

01:17:44.000 I mean, but they've already gone through the high heat process and are rancid and they just kind of add deodorizers so that you can't smell or taste the rancidity.

01:17:54.000 Really?

01:17:55.000 Yes.

01:17:55.000 And then they also add coloring to make it look like a butter color.

01:18:00.000 Like you notice all the oils, that's not a natural color for canola oil to be- Is it white?

01:18:05.000 Like a clear rather?

01:18:07.000 Oh, there's an interesting video out there on the Great Conola, and it shows the process of making canola oil.

01:18:17.000 Go to that, Jamie.

01:18:19.000 You got that?

01:18:22.000 The Great Con Oil.

01:18:25.000 Conola.

01:18:26.000 Conola.

01:18:26.000 So canola oil is...

01:18:29.000 Rapeseed oil that was invented in the 40s to be an industrial lubricant.

01:18:35.000 Mmm.

01:18:37.000 Yeah, just the name alone is problematic.

01:18:40.000 So these seed oils, they're all rancid when they're stored in this way?

01:18:46.000 They usually go through a very high heat process in order to extract the fat out of the seed.

01:18:54.000 So just that process alone renders them rancid.

01:18:58.000 And if they didn't go through that process, there's no way to get the oil out of the seed?

01:19:02.000 There's cold-pressed.

01:19:03.000 Okay.

01:19:04.000 Like olive oil, some of it's cold-pressed, right?

01:19:06.000 Or like grapeseed oil.

01:19:07.000 You might see in a health food store, a cold-pressed grapeseed oil.

01:19:10.000 Is that okay?

01:19:11.000 But I suppose if you were to use it on salad dressing and not cook it, it might be okay.

01:19:18.000 But it's still not...

01:19:22.000 There's nothing redeemable about grapeseed oil.

01:19:25.000 And I'd have to look up the omega ratio, but you're much better with avocado oil or just good olive oil.

01:19:32.000 So why is avocado oil and olive oil, why are those good for you?

01:19:37.000 They tend to be high in monounsaturated fat and then relatively low in the omega-6 fats.

01:19:43.000 Like, none of these things have much in the short-chain omega-3 fats.

01:19:47.000 Some people get kind of wrapped around the axle, though.

01:19:50.000 Like, high oleic safflower oil is typically lower in omega-6s than olive oil is.

01:19:57.000 So just on that omega-6, omega-3 side, like, it can get a little bit squirrely.

01:20:01.000 But then you have the additional piece of how was it processed.

01:20:05.000 Like, if it was cold extracted, Then it's probably safer from like an oxidized fat perspective versus if it was heat extracted.

01:20:13.000 So it does get a little bit complex and that's where like a good quality olive oil or like butter or lard or tallow or something is just generally safer for most things.

01:20:24.000 Yeah, and so then we get to these fake meat burgers.

01:20:33.000 And these fake meat burgers, they're using soy oil.

01:20:36.000 And then how are they making it look like meat?

01:20:41.000 I mean, kitchen chemistry.

01:20:43.000 I mean, some of the stuff that Sean Baker has videos of just kids doing.

01:20:48.000 Somebody made a pork roast?

01:20:52.000 Not a pork roast.

01:20:53.000 A ham.

01:20:53.000 Somebody did a ham.

01:20:55.000 And I couldn't believe the stuff they put in on the front end.

01:20:58.000 But when they were done and they were cutting it, it looked like ham.

01:21:01.000 Really?

01:21:01.000 So you didn't find that one.

01:21:02.000 I mean, I was super impressed.

01:21:04.000 I actually commented on it.

01:21:06.000 We're good to go.

01:21:27.000 Yeah.

01:21:27.000 How many TikTok fans does he have now?

01:21:29.000 I don't know.

01:21:30.000 I don't know.

01:21:30.000 A lot.

01:21:31.000 It's amazing they haven't kicked him off.

01:21:32.000 TikTok is ruthless with kicking people off.

01:21:34.000 It's great with...

01:21:35.000 I have two teenagers and my son follows Paul Saladino and is now also doing that diet.

01:21:42.000 Really?

01:21:42.000 And meanwhile, I've been...

01:21:44.000 Telling him forever.

01:21:45.000 That's hilarious.

01:21:46.000 That's very funny.

01:21:47.000 Yeah, I see his videos constantly, which is very funny to me that this guy with a big knife eating meat has become ultra popular.

01:21:57.000 But they're brutal with their censorship.

01:21:59.000 TikTok just removes videos left and right.

01:22:03.000 They'll just call it hate speech and just yank you off.

01:22:06.000 Done.

01:22:07.000 I don't know exactly, but I mean they're going to extract the protein, some of the fiber, they're going to extract the fats from these different things, and then you start putting it together in a kitchen chemistry format to make it look like meat.

01:22:19.000 And the blood, like how they're making it.

01:22:21.000 Beet juice.

01:22:22.000 Beet juice.

01:22:22.000 Okay, so here it is.

01:22:23.000 Oh wow, that's interesting.

01:22:25.000 So this person is, look at his face.

01:22:28.000 What is he doing?

01:22:29.000 Riding a stationary bike?

01:22:30.000 Oh, God.

01:22:31.000 So they're making this like weird dough with some kind of flour.

01:22:34.000 Probably wheat gluten.

01:22:35.000 Yeah, wheat gluten.

01:22:36.000 Wheat gluten. 1.00

01:22:37.000 So this is going to give celiacs a fucking heart attack. 1.00

01:22:40.000 And then what is he doing? 1.00

01:22:41.000 He's like rolling it around and then...

01:22:44.000 But look at this when he...

01:22:45.000 Wraps it.

01:22:46.000 That looks like him.

01:22:47.000 Pretty wild.

01:22:48.000 That looks like him.

01:22:49.000 Yeah.

01:22:49.000 And that's just in this person's kitchen.

01:22:52.000 Vegan ham.

01:22:53.000 Yeah, but it's amazing like the process that's involved in that like all the kneading and twisting like when he ties it into knots He's putting all this stuff in there And in the film Sacred Cow, when I have Rob and Joel Salatin talking about all the inputs that go into Beyond Burger and Impossible Burgers,

01:23:12.000 I actually was able to use their own promotional footage.

01:23:16.000 Just with Rob and Joel talking about how disgusting the process is and getting this, what did you call it, biological goo?

01:23:24.000 Right.

01:23:26.000 Just over their own promotional footage of what a miracle it is of these vats that they've, you know...

01:23:33.000 Oh, we need to see that.

01:23:34.000 Is that available online?

01:23:35.000 Can someone see that?

01:23:36.000 The process of making a Beyond Burger?

01:23:38.000 It was an Impossible Foods.

01:23:42.000 I can look if he can't.

01:23:44.000 It was just the Impossible Foods, like making of Impossible Foods burger.

01:23:48.000 Yeah.

01:23:50.000 And the funny thing is, is their only claim, so they can't win on nutrition.

01:23:54.000 They try to win on ethics, right?

01:23:56.000 So they try to say no animal died for this.

01:23:59.000 Okay, here it is.

01:24:00.000 The Making of an Impossible Burger.

01:24:02.000 Wow, it looks legit.

01:24:03.000 Look at that.

01:24:04.000 It so looks like a burger.

01:24:06.000 There it is.

01:24:07.000 How do they taste?

01:24:08.000 I haven't had one.

01:24:09.000 I haven't had one.

01:24:10.000 Don't you think you should have one?

01:24:12.000 Just to comment?

01:24:14.000 No? 1.00

01:24:14.000 I could take that bullet, I guess. 1.00

01:24:17.000 They actually put a keem in it. 1.00

01:24:19.000 There's another one.

01:24:19.000 Oh, wait a minute.

01:24:20.000 No, I did have one.

01:24:21.000 I had one.

01:24:22.000 My friend CK brought it to one of the shows that Chappelle and I were doing at Stubbs.

01:24:27.000 Do you know if it's one of these?

01:24:31.000 Uh, heme? 0.86

01:24:32.000 The magic ingredient in the Impossible Burger?

01:24:35.000 Heme.

01:24:36.000 It could be that one because you can see the vats in the background and you just...

01:24:43.000 Anyway, I had one.

01:24:44.000 I had a burger that was in it, and it just tasted like a bland burger.

01:24:49.000 It was from some local place that makes some plant-based burgers and then some real burgers.

01:24:57.000 So this is them getting excited about these smash burgers that are made.

01:25:00.000 Look at these guys.

01:25:01.000 This is just like a real burger. 0.99

01:25:03.000 Has anybody ever eaten them and go, what the fuck is this? 0.98

01:25:06.000 This is not a burger. 0.99

01:25:07.000 Why are you feeding me this, man?

01:25:12.000 I mean, it's some great kitchen chemistry.

01:25:14.000 Yeah.

01:25:14.000 Look at the fake blood, the beet juice.

01:25:17.000 And then they have to get the flavor profile, right?

01:25:19.000 But basically, when you're eating it as a burger, then you're eating all the other stuff.

01:25:24.000 The bun, and there's the lettuce, and the tomato, and the pickle, and maybe you got a little sauce on there, or some ketchup.

01:25:31.000 It's probably easier to get that as a reasonable facsimile.

01:25:36.000 With all the other stuff, yeah.

01:25:37.000 That looks like beet juice.

01:25:37.000 I drink beet juice.

01:25:39.000 Should I drink beet juice?

01:25:41.000 It releases nitric oxide.

01:25:43.000 Like beets and beet juice are pretty legit.

01:25:45.000 Really good like before training, right?

01:25:47.000 Yeah.

01:25:48.000 But in limited amounts, right?

01:25:49.000 Because isn't too much raw beets toxic?

01:25:52.000 Yes.

01:25:52.000 Yeah, the salicylates in it.

01:25:54.000 Yeah, it could make your kidneys fail.

01:25:56.000 Too much raw beets.

01:25:57.000 So every now and then have a beet juice.

01:25:59.000 I think more like an ounce or something.

01:26:02.000 Yeah.

01:26:02.000 It's funny that these people think that they're eating something healthy while they're eating this big-ass bread bun.

01:26:08.000 It's kind of funny, right?

01:26:09.000 It's kind of funny, like, the promotion of this as a health food, and then you see them eating this fat bread bun.

01:26:15.000 They're like, hey.

01:26:18.000 So they can't really win on health.

01:26:20.000 They've all given up their health claims.

01:26:22.000 Have they?

01:26:22.000 What was the initial health claims?

01:26:24.000 Pretty much.

01:26:24.000 You know, that it's healthier and everything.

01:26:27.000 Looks good.

01:26:28.000 I gotta say that looks good.

01:26:29.000 They'll say it's less saturated fat.

01:26:31.000 Doesn't it look good, Jamie? 0.99

01:26:33.000 Is the cheese healthy and all that shit too? 0.99

01:26:35.000 I like cheese. 0.99

01:26:36.000 I like cheese.

01:26:37.000 It was probably vegan cheese too, unfortunately, right?

01:26:40.000 Which is like, who knows what that is.

01:26:42.000 It's a lot of whatever it is.

01:26:44.000 That's a crazy burger.

01:26:45.000 That's for a glutton who's also a vegan. 0.99

01:26:47.000 There's 80 stacks of patties on that sucker. 0.98

01:26:52.000 So you're saying like their initial claims that have been... 0.80

01:26:56.000 Yeah, so now when I go to their websites, I don't see a lot of health claims.

01:27:00.000 And I do know someone who's working on really taking those products and comparing them to meat and breaking it out for vitamins and minerals because it's just not going to win.

01:27:12.000 So their main claims are now carbon.

01:27:16.000 Less carbon.

01:27:16.000 Right.

01:27:18.000 And completely ignoring all the other ecosystem function pieces, that monocropping.

01:27:26.000 The damaging aspects of it.

01:27:29.000 Right.

01:27:29.000 So like in all these United Nations Food Systems Summit, we all have to reduce our carbon.

01:27:34.000 And everyone is so laser myopically focused on just carbon.

01:27:39.000 Right.

01:27:40.000 And that, I think, really comes from these fake meat companies because that's the only thing that they have.

01:27:47.000 You know, is that a valid claim that production of this fake meat is like pound for pound a reduction of carbon emissions versus animal-based?

01:27:57.000 No.

01:27:58.000 No?

01:27:59.000 How so?

01:28:00.000 Like even the grossest version of animal-based agriculture, factory farming?

01:28:06.000 So, because most of the greenhouse gases are coming from cattle, as part of their digestive system, its methane gets emitted.

01:28:15.000 And after 10 years, the methane gets broken into H2O, water, and CO2, carbon dioxide.

01:28:23.000 And it goes back down into the plants.

01:28:25.000 The plants release the O2 and photosynthesis.

01:28:27.000 And then the carbon becomes the plant, the roots.

01:28:29.000 And then it can actually store carbon in the ground.

01:28:32.000 And then the cow eats the carbon.

01:28:34.000 And so it's a cycle.

01:28:36.000 And I actually have a graphic showing the methane cycle versus fossil fuels.

01:28:41.000 So fossil fuels are mining ancient carbon from the Earth's core and pumping it straight into the atmosphere with no It could be part of a cycle, but it's going to be through plants and animals.

01:28:55.000 Okay, so we're seeing there's a beautiful sort of chart, infographic chart, that shows how the carbon from the atmosphere gets converted, and the methane,

01:29:10.000 it's converted, and so a lot of people think it's cow farts.

01:29:14.000 It's actually cow burps that are the big producer of methane.

01:29:18.000 Right?

01:29:19.000 And then it shows the cow's carbon cycle, meat and milk, and how the poop.

01:29:24.000 And this is like...

01:29:25.000 To explain this without saying everything on the chart...

01:29:29.000 And even if I said everything on the chart...

01:29:31.000 I have all these charts at Sustainable Dish backslash Rogan.

01:29:35.000 And people can just take them and share.

01:29:36.000 Oh, okay.

01:29:36.000 Great.

01:29:37.000 Sustainable Dish is your website?

01:29:38.000 Yes.

01:29:39.000 Okay.

01:29:39.000 So the difference is, when the cows are emitting this methane, we're thinking of it as just carbon.

01:29:47.000 Carbon equals bad.

01:29:48.000 But the carbon that they're emitting and the way that there is a cycle, that they're eating this grass, they're belching, it goes into the air, it becomes H2O and carbon, and then the carbon goes back into the ground, it gets into the grass,

01:30:03.000 they eat it again, and it goes on and on and on.

01:30:06.000 And it's a normal part of what it means to be a ruminant animal on a planet that has grass and you eat that grass.

01:30:14.000 Yeah, and so in the US, in North America, we don't have more methane-emitting animals than we did before we got rid of the bison and the elk and all the other natural ruminants that were already here.

01:30:27.000 And so we don't have a net bigger amount of methane.

01:30:31.000 We just have cows instead of bison and deer.

01:30:34.000 And the crazy thing is, even if we did, it's still part of a cycle to get to the point where the cow is emitting methane You had to pull carbon dioxide out of the air, into the plant, get sequestered in the plant until the animal eats it.

01:30:48.000 But the cyclical part really...

01:30:51.000 And he had Stephen Koonen on recently.

01:30:53.000 I think he talked a little bit about the differences between the cyclical pieces of this story versus just mining ancient carbon and releasing it.

01:31:04.000 But the accounting really needs to be different because the danger that we get into...

01:31:10.000 We discovered recently that shellfish produce huge amounts of methane, termites, rice paddies.

01:31:17.000 There's all these biogenic methane sources that then people start freaking out.

01:31:21.000 And there was actually some scientists that were asking, should we eradicate shellfish so that we reduce their carbon footprint?

01:31:28.000 And it's like they're suggesting that we reduce the amount of life on the planet so that we can protect life on the planet.

01:31:35.000 Or in Sweden with the moose.

01:31:36.000 Yeah, Sweden, they're...

01:31:39.000 The Green Party in Sweden wanted to kill all the moose in Sweden because they emit methane.

01:31:44.000 What?

01:31:45.000 Yeah.

01:31:46.000 Really?

01:31:47.000 It didn't pass, but it was proposed.

01:31:49.000 Oh my god.

01:31:49.000 That's so loony.

01:31:51.000 This carbon tunnel vision where you get so focused on carbon release and you lose the bigger picture of all this other stuff that's going on.

01:31:59.000 That is so loony.

01:32:00.000 Kill all the moose because they emit carbon? 0.99

01:32:03.000 Right. 0.89

01:32:03.000 Because they emit methane? 0.89

01:32:04.000 That's what's driving these poor kids in New York to eat vegan school lunches.

01:32:11.000 So who started all this nonsense?

01:32:14.000 Is it Bill Gates?

01:32:16.000 Bill, I'm a fan of your operating system.

01:32:18.000 I'm not all bad on you, buddy.

01:32:21.000 I think you need better friends, but...

01:32:23.000 I mean, we go into it a little bit how meat became a scapegoat.

01:32:28.000 And meat is a very powerful—it's the most powerful food we eat.

01:32:34.000 It's masculine. 0.89

01:32:35.000 It's strength.

01:32:37.000 It's bloody.

01:32:39.000 Like, it represents a lot of things.

01:32:41.000 You know, we used to have sacrificial animals.

01:32:47.000 And— Meat is also seen as barbaric and impure and unnecessary and too masculine.

01:32:57.000 And so there's this deep, weird cultural narrative that's really hard to tease out exactly where it all came from initially.

01:33:06.000 I mean, we idealize vegetarian cultures as more pure than ours.

01:33:10.000 And there's a really great example of that just showing...

01:33:14.000 I have two graphs.

01:33:17.000 One showing the ideal diets in the world and then one showing the global malnutrition.

01:33:24.000 And it's interesting how the ideal diets are causing the malnutrition.

01:33:29.000 But we're idealizing them because there's no harm and it's pure and it's all of that.

01:33:36.000 So how are the ideal diets causing malnutrition?

01:33:39.000 Is it from a lack of Animal source foods, 100%.

01:33:42.000 But is it, can they be, like, this has always been the big debate, right?

01:33:47.000 Can you have a vegan diet and be completely healthy?

01:33:52.000 Can you do it, is there a right way to do it?

01:33:54.000 Like we were talking about adding sustainable, or adding amino acids, you know, adding vitamins.

01:34:00.000 Is there a way to do it?

01:34:01.000 I think if someone is young and healthy already, probably was raised breastfed well and raised on enough good nutrition, there does appear to be some people that do okay on a vegan diet for a period of time.

01:34:19.000 Is there a rough estimate of like what percentage?

01:34:22.000 I mean, no.

01:34:24.000 Most vegans, you know, give it up.

01:34:27.000 85% give it up within three months.

01:34:30.000 And it's usually a health event.

01:34:34.000 So, it's not ideal.

01:34:36.000 I mean, just from a pure...

01:34:38.000 Humans are omnivores, and we need the nutrients in animal-sourced foods.

01:34:41.000 I remember reading about this guy who was a vegan.

01:34:43.000 He was a vegan for years, and he finally decided to...

01:34:47.000 He's having all these health problems, and he ate a piece of salmon.

01:34:49.000 And he said it felt like he was having an orgasm. 0.55

01:34:52.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:34:53.000 Like, he couldn't believe how good his body felt.

01:34:55.000 I read that one.

01:34:55.000 It's like...

01:34:57.000 Wow.

01:34:57.000 It's sad.

01:34:58.000 I hate being the I told you so guy.

01:35:01.000 I want people to be able...

01:35:03.000 If you don't want any animals to die for your food, they're going to die anyway, unfortunately.

01:35:09.000 But if you want that...

01:35:10.000 Does anybody want any coffee or anything?

01:35:11.000 I'm good.

01:35:11.000 You good?

01:35:12.000 Because of that, it's an uncomfortable discussion because so many people are so ideologically connected to this idea that a vegan diet is better, more karma-free, healthier.

01:35:28.000 And what we're seeing with younger people is that health isn't driving it.

01:35:32.000 It's ideology that's driving it, right?

01:35:35.000 And so they will suffer personally for their ideology.

01:35:38.000 And so they're really clinging on to the carbon story and the ethics story.

01:35:44.000 Well, a lot of them become these vegan influencers and then they get busted eating fish.

01:35:48.000 Yeah.

01:35:51.000 Then they get attacked by the community.

01:35:53.000 I've seen that happen multiple times where people were really suffering and they started eating meat and then people went crazy on them.

01:36:00.000 Or there was that piece where if they're out drinking, they have a tendency to snack on some burgers.

01:36:06.000 Oh, that's a giant percentage of vegetarians will eat meat when they're drunk.

01:36:11.000 Yeah.

01:36:12.000 You know, when we set in to do the book, and this was a long time ago, we thought that we were going to tackle the ethical part of this thing first.

01:36:21.000 So we cover the health, environmental, and ethical considerations of a meat-inclusive food system is kind of the big deal.

01:36:28.000 Yeah.

01:36:46.000 Breast milk, raising kids.

01:36:48.000 When you start trying to push this thing forward, it's really hard.

01:36:55.000 People can do it, but it's...

01:36:57.000 So you're talking about when a woman is pregnant?

01:36:59.000 Yeah, and there's been documented cases of...

01:37:02.000 Was it Finland?

01:37:03.000 What's that?

01:37:04.000 Was it Finland that they did the interview with the wealthy Finnish families that were vegan?

01:37:11.000 And they had really pretty terrible nutrient deficiencies within these folks.

01:37:17.000 And they're wealthy, they're educated, they're supplementing, and they weren't able to consistently pull this off.

01:37:23.000 Yeah, we see babies—so B12 deficiency causes permanent brain damage, like irreversible, or it can.

01:37:32.000 And B12 supplements, if vegans take the vegan version of the B12 supplement— It is actually an analog.

01:37:42.000 It's not real B12, and your cells think it's B12. They'll absorb it, but then it actually blocks real B12. It can make your B12... It blocks?

01:37:52.000 Yeah, it's a B12 analog.

01:37:54.000 It's not actually B12. It just pretends to be B12. But I thought you can get B12 from algae.

01:38:02.000 It's not true B12. Really?

01:38:04.000 Yeah.

01:38:05.000 So when you're getting B12 from like blue-green algae and spirulina and all that kind of stuff, like what are you...

01:38:12.000 From my understanding, it's a B12 analog and not true B12. It's above my pay grade.

01:38:18.000 I don't know.

01:38:19.000 I think it's an isomer.

01:38:21.000 I think it looks – it may be like the folate needs to be a right-hand shape and this stuff is a left-hand shape.

01:38:30.000 And so it can plug in.

01:38:31.000 And so is it partially effective?

01:38:34.000 Is it – So there was a documented case of a vegan breastfeeding mother who was supplementing with B12 in her baby diet from a B12 deficiency.

01:38:45.000 And she was supplementing with the vegan form.

01:38:47.000 This could be a rare issue with her?

01:38:51.000 Yeah, one person.

01:38:53.000 But when we look at general populations, Kids who don't have access to meat are much more likely to be stunted, to have delayed cognitive development, physical development, behavioral problems.

01:39:07.000 And we only have one study that looked at kids with meat versus less meat.

01:39:13.000 There's only one randomized control trial.

01:39:15.000 Everything else is like, oh, this population ate meat and this one didn't, and these guys got more cancer.

01:39:21.000 It must be the meat.

01:39:22.000 You can't make policy on those observational studies.

01:39:26.000 So this randomized control trial was in Kenya.

01:39:29.000 The kids at school that got a meat snack did better than the milk group and the over-calories group.

01:39:37.000 And that's the only evidence that we have.

01:39:40.000 And so there's no evidence at all that pulling meat away from children is going to result in healthier kids.

01:39:46.000 Now, when you get a standard B12 supplement, like non-vegan, what is that from?

01:39:56.000 I'm honestly not sure.

01:39:57.000 I don't know if they extract it or if it's purely synthetic.

01:40:00.000 If you get a synthetic version of B12, wouldn't that be sufficient for a vegan?

01:40:05.000 I would think so, yeah.

01:40:07.000 I know that there's non-vegan forms of B12, and I don't know what it's from.

01:40:11.000 Like actually, not analog, but actual B12. So, when a person is doing that, what is going on in their body?

01:40:21.000 Their body thinks it's B12, so it acts like it's got enough B12, and then it's just not getting it?

01:40:28.000 Yeah, Chris Kresser writes about it.

01:40:30.000 I'm going to pull up his study right now.

01:40:32.000 So like for there's certain toxins that you can do competitive inhibition so that the toxin doesn't get into cells.

01:40:40.000 So it's something that looks like the toxin.

01:40:42.000 It binds to the receptor site.

01:40:44.000 It could keep it out, but it can work both ways.

01:40:46.000 So you can have different nutrients in our body.

01:40:49.000 Like amino acids are like they call it L-lysine and L-dopa and whatnot because they're left hand shaped.

01:40:57.000 If you were to put them together In 3D space, they could have an orientation that's either left-handed or right-handed.

01:41:02.000 The right-handed amino acids, by and large, aren't biologically active.

01:41:06.000 And so there's a number of things like that within the nutrients that...

01:41:10.000 I'm trying to think of another one, like DL-phenylalanine.

01:41:14.000 Like, people will use that for chronic pain.

01:41:17.000 It's both the D and the L form.

01:41:19.000 Normally, L-phenylalanine is the form that we use, but the D form of phenylalanine seems to have some interaction in the brain where it actually causes some pain reduction.

01:41:28.000 But normally, the D or the R form of those types of nutrients don't really work in our physiology.

01:41:36.000 One of the things that you hear about a lot lately is the idea of bugs being a viable food source.

01:41:45.000 And that might be a way to get vegetarians or vegans to eat sort of a living protein source.

01:41:56.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:41:57.000 There's a lot of vegans that don't seem to give a fuck about bugs. 0.87

01:42:00.000 It's really interesting. 0.98

01:42:01.000 Like, I lived next to an ashram when I lived in Colorado, and I was visiting this lady who lived at the ashram. 0.55

01:42:08.000 We were talking about something, and she was spraying bug spray.

01:42:12.000 She was killing bugs. 1.00

01:42:14.000 And I was like, hey...

01:42:17.000 What's the story there?

01:42:19.000 You're supposed to be a Buddhist.

01:42:20.000 You're not supposed to be killing bugs.

01:42:22.000 And she's like, well, there's certain concessions that we have to make, and we have bugs that get in our trash.

01:42:28.000 And I was like, oh my god. 1.00

01:42:30.000 You're a murderer. 0.99

01:42:31.000 This is like mass-scale slaughter of life forms. 1.00

01:42:35.000 Buggage.

01:42:37.000 We have to make this distinction.

01:42:39.000 What is important?

01:42:41.000 Is it life or is it life with fur?

01:42:44.000 Is it life that weighs more than a pound?

01:42:48.000 People don't seem to get that upset if you kill a bug.

01:42:52.000 You could kill a bug on you and not even dispose of the body and no one freaks out. 1.00

01:42:58.000 If you swat a mosquito, you just basically Move your hand a little bit and fuck you. 1.00

01:43:04.000 It's like small enough that we seem to be okay with that thing just... 1.00

01:43:08.000 Where's the body?

01:43:09.000 Like, where did you put that...

01:43:10.000 You just murdered a life for him. 1.00

01:43:12.000 No one gives a shit. 1.00

01:43:13.000 But if you stomped on a mouse in front of people, they'd be like, what the fuck is wrong with you, Rob? 0.99

01:43:17.000 Why did you just stomp on that mouse? 0.99

01:43:19.000 That's gross.

01:43:20.000 Clean that.

01:43:20.000 It gets to a certain level where we decide it's either cute enough or large enough.

01:43:26.000 And when it gets to things like a buffalo that's large enough so that that's too big to kill.

01:43:32.000 It matters.

01:43:34.000 Equivalent to an ant?

01:43:36.000 Because that lady's out there spraying bugs. 1.00

01:43:38.000 She's killing at least a life form. 1.00

01:43:40.000 Is that one life form that's an ant, this tiny little thing, is that as valuable to you as a big bison? 0.83

01:43:47.000 And if not, why?

01:43:48.000 Tell me why.

01:43:49.000 And then especially if you look at how it's produced, right?

01:43:52.000 Regenerative ag versus typical monocropping.

01:43:55.000 Right.

01:43:55.000 So if you're going to have one cow, that's almost 500 pounds of meat.

01:44:01.000 And if that cow was raised in a way that increased total life underground and above ground and brought all these birds back and everything, that was a life that actually led to more life.

01:44:13.000 Yeah.

01:44:13.000 Well, if you buy corn, you're definitely responsible for some death.

01:44:17.000 There's just no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

01:44:19.000 If you have a monocrop field of corn, the only way they're going to keep those animals from eating the corn and to keep, you know, when they plow over the corn and they extract it, things are dying.

01:44:32.000 There's just no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

01:44:34.000 And then they'll say, but I didn't intend for it to die.

01:44:37.000 I don't know if that's good enough.

01:44:39.000 I mean if you're like shooting a gun into a crowd and you don't intend for anybody to die, but people die, I think you're still responsible for that death.

01:44:47.000 Yeah, it doesn't hold up very well.

01:44:49.000 You might not be looking where you're pointing the trigger, but I think that this idea of a zero-sum game, this idea of never losing any life, It's kind of crazy and one thing that people that are proponents of plant-based diets really hate is when you bring up plant intelligence.

01:45:09.000 They really hate that.

01:45:11.000 They really hate the idea that plants might not just have strategies to avoid predation but might have Real-time maneuvers that they do in terms of changing their chemicals, where it changes their flavor profile,

01:45:29.000 emitting these defense chemicals, because they don't want to get eaten.

01:45:33.000 And there's some sort of an intelligence that plants not just have, But they have with this symbiotic relationship to fungus under the ground.

01:45:44.000 And this mushroom, the mycelium, and the root structures of these plants are sharing resources and they communicate.

01:45:52.000 It's a really complex system that reeks of intelligence.

01:45:58.000 And we don't totally understand it, but we have this thought in our head that if it doesn't move, then it's okay to kill.

01:46:05.000 Even though it's a life form.

01:46:07.000 But we've made this distinction that a plant life, it does not have the same feelings.

01:46:13.000 It doesn't cause pain.

01:46:15.000 It doesn't cause emotional harm.

01:46:17.000 It's not like us.

01:46:18.000 It's as removed from us as possible while still being a life form to the point where we could just eat it.

01:46:24.000 Yeah, in order to make a field for corn or soy, also you have to annihilate whatever was there before.

01:46:29.000 Like whatever forest, like you're killing habitat and animals in order to make room for this monocrop to happen.

01:46:37.000 And then the pesticides and insecticides and all that stuff too.

01:46:40.000 Yeah, and just having that kind of a structure where you have this one plant growing in this massive quantity is totally alien to anything that you ever find on Earth in terms of like, I mean, maybe you'll find grass, like large grasslands.

01:46:56.000 But then again, the grasslands is sort of like this weird little honeypot where the buffalo come over and eat the grass and they shit and then the bugs and the whole thing and the manure and it feeds itself.

01:47:07.000 It makes sense.

01:47:07.000 There's none of that going on with a monocrop soybean.

01:47:10.000 Well, and it's really not a monocrop too.

01:47:12.000 Like there can be dozens or hundreds of different plants in that grass ecosystem and they change throughout the season.

01:47:19.000 Yeah, good point.

01:47:21.000 And the amount of cropland that we have that can actually support that, that has healthy enough soil, rainfall, or access to irrigation, is flat so that you can drive a tractor over.

01:47:32.000 It's actually quite small.

01:47:34.000 Now, bugs.

01:47:36.000 Are bugs good for you?

01:47:37.000 For eating them?

01:47:38.000 Yes.

01:47:40.000 I mean, I've heard that they are.

01:47:42.000 I don't think...

01:47:43.000 My opinion on, like, crickets is that it's going to be a great animal feed for, like, chickens.

01:47:50.000 I don't think...

01:47:51.000 Or maybe a bar dare for dudes, you know?

01:47:55.000 A dare?

01:47:55.000 Yeah, like...

01:47:56.000 You're talking to the guy who used to host Fear Facts.

01:47:59.000 Crickets are small potatoes.

01:48:00.000 Okay.

01:48:01.000 Compared to...

01:48:02.000 I've eaten everything.

01:48:05.000 I ate so much garbage when I was on that show.

01:48:08.000 But I don't see them as, like, a regular...

01:48:10.000 But they do have...

01:48:12.000 They're a good source of B vitamins, right?

01:48:14.000 I believe they're B12 rich.

01:48:16.000 Like, you could eat, like, crickets, and I believe they're a good source.

01:48:19.000 Probably, because they're animal.

01:48:21.000 Yeah, and, you know, it...

01:48:24.000 It's a little bit even like the cultured mytho is that you still need an input to feed those critters.

01:48:30.000 And I think that they could and probably should play some sort of a significant role going forward.

01:48:35.000 But what is it that we're going to allocate to those critters?

01:48:39.000 Right, to grow them.

01:48:40.000 What are you going to feed them with and where are you going to grow them and how much land do you need to grow crickets?

01:48:45.000 Also, cricket farms are disgusting. 0.54

01:48:47.000 They are pretty nasty.

01:48:48.000 Oh, yeah.

01:48:50.000 Any picture of a cricket farm, they're like these cardboard tenement cities. 0.99

01:48:56.000 There's a lot of cricket poop.

01:48:57.000 And if you don't...

01:49:00.000 So my daughters got really geeked out because they want to figure out some...

01:49:03.000 Is this a cricket farm?

01:49:04.000 These are cricket farms. 0.92

01:49:05.000 Cricket farm...

01:49:07.000 So if you don't manage them, the crickets become cannibals and they eat each other. 1.00

01:49:12.000 Oh, Jesus.

01:49:13.000 Of course they do.

01:49:14.000 Little monsters.

01:49:15.000 Can you show me a video of a cricket farm?

01:49:18.000 I want to see what they look like.

01:49:19.000 So when I was in Mexico, we checked into this hotel and they had a bowl of cooked crickets.

01:49:27.000 And it's like a normal snack.

01:49:30.000 And my girls were like, eh, I'm not eating that. 1.00

01:49:33.000 I was like, I'll eat it.

01:49:35.000 I got one of my daughters to eat it. 0.99

01:49:37.000 She ate a cricket.

01:49:38.000 We used to get a cricket protein bar and my girls liked it. 0.88

01:49:42.000 They're kind of salty.

01:49:44.000 So what do you have to do to keep them from eating each other?

01:49:46.000 Just make sure they have a lot of food?

01:49:49.000 Apparently it hits some population threshold and then they'll just start...

01:49:53.000 Oh god, like nature has a built-in safe mechanism.

01:49:57.000 So that's them all ground up.

01:49:59.000 What is that, like a cricket cheesecake?

01:50:01.000 It looks like a carrot cake.

01:50:02.000 Yeah, a carrot cake rather.

01:50:03.000 Oh, look at her. 1.00

01:50:04.000 She's bold.

01:50:05.000 She sticks her tongue out with the cricket on it.

01:50:06.000 So these are like different kinds of cricket proteins that they've turned these things into and cricket snacks.

01:50:14.000 So look at this poor guy.

01:50:16.000 Why's he got a mask on?

01:50:17.000 Is it because of the pandemic or just chicken smell?

01:50:18.000 Probably chicken.

01:50:19.000 It's hard to tell, right?

01:50:20.000 These days, like, why are they wearing masks? 0.99

01:50:22.000 Is it because of the pandemic, or is it because this is what they do when they work around chicken shit? 0.98

01:50:26.000 So these guys are working, so the chitin, the shells, like, you can get an allergy to it, kind of like a shellfish allergy. 0.99

01:50:34.000 So they're probably wearing it for that.

01:50:35.000 Isn't it very closely related to shellfish?

01:50:36.000 Yeah, I mean, if you have a shellfish allergy, you can't eat it.

01:50:38.000 Oh, I can speak to this.

01:50:39.000 Because when we were on Fear Factor, we found out that if you have a shellfish allergy, you are also allergic to roaches.

01:50:45.000 Yeah.

01:50:45.000 We found that out by feeding people roaches.

01:50:48.000 Oh, that's a nice way to find it out.

01:50:50.000 Their throat seized up and the guy had to leave the show.

01:50:53.000 Yeah.

01:50:54.000 Sorry, dude.

01:50:55.000 Crickets are anthropods like shrimp, crabs, and lobsters. 0.87

01:50:58.000 It means they contain some of the same protein so individuals who are allergic to shellfish may develop an allergy to crickets. 0.97

01:51:04.000 Yeah, it would have been nice if the people that were running Fear Factor fucking asked those folks. 0.95

01:51:09.000 But hey, that's a long time ago. 0.93

01:51:12.000 So what's the protein and the nutrient profile of a cricket?

01:51:18.000 Is it similar to an animal?

01:51:19.000 I think they're really good.

01:51:21.000 You know, like pound per pound, their conversion of feed into basically nutrient upcycling I think is really good.

01:51:28.000 Oh, here it goes.

01:51:29.000 Look at this.

01:51:30.000 Crickets are a good source of vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

01:51:32.000 In addition to protein, crickets are high in many other nutrients, including fat, calcium, potassium, zinc, magnesium, copper, folate, biotin, panthotic acid, and iron.

01:51:43.000 One study found that the iron content of crickets was 180% higher than that of beef.

01:51:50.000 But you'd have to eat a four ounce block of cricket.

01:51:52.000 You wouldn't be doing that if you were hungry?

01:51:55.000 What if they're good?

01:51:56.000 What if they taste good?

01:51:57.000 If you have the right dipping sauce.

01:51:59.000 If it's a shellfish thing, right?

01:52:00.000 Like shellfish tastes good.

01:52:02.000 Right.

01:52:02.000 Everybody loves lobster, right?

01:52:05.000 I mean, isn't there a way?

01:52:07.000 Yeah.

01:52:08.000 And, you know, I think that this is at least some of the questions that we need to ask.

01:52:12.000 Like right now, 50% of the food that we produce globally isn't eaten.

01:52:16.000 It basically gets landfilled.

01:52:18.000 And so we could, you know, when people start asking about scalability, at a minimum we should be better about what we do with the food that we have.

01:52:26.000 Like, I forget the name of the outfit, but some folks in New Mexico, they have a pork operation and they've made relationships with the local...

01:52:35.000 Grocery stores and restaurants and basically their food that doesn't get eaten, expired food, they send it to the pigs, they autoclave it, they basically sterilize it, and then they feed it to these animals.

01:52:45.000 And this would have otherwise just gone into a landfill.

01:52:48.000 And we could do this like everywhere.

01:52:51.000 And this is part of the problem that we have is because of zoning and because of cultural things, like we could produce a lot more food in kind of a regional environment.

01:52:59.000 Fashion and then be much more efficient with it.

01:53:01.000 We could cut like 50% of our food is wasted right now.

01:53:05.000 So what if we took 10%?

01:53:07.000 Is that just nationwide?

01:53:08.000 It's kind of a global number.

01:53:10.000 Yeah.

01:53:11.000 So what if 10% of that got allocated into cricket and mealworm and different things and we use those to produce...

01:53:19.000 A possibly vegan acceptable protein source or it gets used to feed the chicken so that they, you know, there's just a lot of inefficiency there.

01:53:26.000 But there's also a lot of like cultural change that needs to happen to make some of those things more acceptable.

01:53:31.000 This is sort of unrelated, but there was a guy who ate bad Chinese food.

01:53:36.000 It was like leftover Chinese food.

01:53:37.000 Yeah, he had to get amputated.

01:53:39.000 Yeah, his body went septic.

01:53:41.000 He had to get his legs amputated, his feet amputated.

01:53:44.000 The photos are absolutely horrific.

01:53:47.000 It was just some leftover food that apparently it was sitting out, maybe, something.

01:53:54.000 And bacteria got in it. 0.77

01:53:56.000 And he ate it.

01:53:58.000 Within hours afterwards, his body was going septic.

01:54:02.000 He has these lesions all over his body.

01:54:05.000 Wait till you see this.

01:54:06.000 This is so crazy.

01:54:07.000 I've never seen anything like this from eating food.

01:54:10.000 I thought if you ate bad food, you just get diarrhea and you throw up and you'd have food poisoning.

01:54:15.000 I mean, I've had food poisoning.

01:54:16.000 I'm sure you guys have as well, right?

01:54:18.000 It's gross.

01:54:19.000 It makes you feel terrible.

01:54:20.000 Was it like botulism?

01:54:21.000 Did he get botulism from it?

01:54:22.000 I can't.

01:54:23.000 I don't know.

01:54:24.000 Do you find it?

01:54:26.000 There's a lot of stories.

01:54:27.000 The New York Post one is the best because they have all the juicy photos.

01:54:32.000 Because you know how the New York Post does it.

01:54:35.000 Classy.

01:54:36.000 Yeah, it's classy as it gets.

01:54:38.000 And like, it's so crazy.

01:54:40.000 Oh, no, this isn't the same one.

01:54:41.000 This is, no, it's Chinese food.

01:54:44.000 It's very recent.

01:54:46.000 I know, but New York Post didn't come up that way.

01:54:50.000 Just Chinese food.

01:54:51.000 Google Chinese food.

01:54:53.000 Oh, there's noodles.

01:54:55.000 Yeah, but just Google leftover Chinese.

01:54:57.000 It's a new story, bro.

01:54:58.000 It's like leftover Chinese food.

01:54:59.000 All of these stories are that story.

01:55:01.000 It's just not the New York Post one.

01:55:02.000 Oh, why were they showing a spaghetti bowl then?

01:55:04.000 That particular one went to the wrong one.

01:55:06.000 I don't know.

01:55:07.000 Oh, that looks like lo mein.

01:55:08.000 I know I have it on my phone because I sent it to somebody.

01:55:13.000 The New York Post one didn't pop up.

01:55:14.000 It gave me a different story from 2019. I wonder if they took it down.

01:55:18.000 It's too gnarly.

01:55:20.000 Yeah.

01:55:22.000 I don't think so.

01:55:23.000 I have specifically New York Post, but it's not.

01:55:25.000 Alright, just try to find one.

01:55:26.000 There is one.

01:55:27.000 But that's not the correct one.

01:55:29.000 Well, try the one right there.

01:55:30.000 Try that one.

01:55:32.000 And see if it has the images.

01:55:34.000 None of the other ones are having the images is the problem.

01:55:36.000 I'm kind of happy about that.

01:55:37.000 I was doing a lot of clicking really fast, and I wasn't finding anything with the images.

01:55:40.000 I'm good.

01:55:42.000 I can go to images.

01:55:44.000 Yeah, let's go to images.

01:55:45.000 I'm sure it'll come up.

01:55:46.000 That's just noodles.

01:55:47.000 They're just showing noodles.

01:55:49.000 That's unfortunate.

01:55:50.000 All right, give me a second.

01:55:51.000 I found it.

01:55:52.000 And it was horrific.

01:55:56.000 This guy had like his feet were like a gross multicolored thing and all of his skin. 1.00

01:56:02.000 And it was just from it going septic from bad food.

01:56:07.000 How bad did that smell when he ate it?

01:56:10.000 It might not have smelled bad.

01:56:11.000 I mean, how bad does it have to be bad?

01:56:12.000 Haven't you had food poisoning?

01:56:13.000 It didn't smell bad at all?

01:56:14.000 Yeah, it's true, but I haven't had amputations from it.

01:56:17.000 So, that's crazy.

01:56:19.000 Yeah, it is.

01:56:19.000 That's exactly it.

01:56:20.000 So, these are the photographs.

01:56:22.000 On admission to the hospital, a patient had a rapidly evolving, diffuse reticular, purpurish rash on the face, not shown, chest and abdomen, arms and legs.

01:56:32.000 So, his whole body was covered in these horrible purple lesions.

01:56:36.000 And barely made it. 1.00

01:56:39.000 Damn. 0.99

01:56:39.000 It's really, really rough when you see it. 0.99

01:56:43.000 It's horrible.

01:56:46.000 So let's go to the top of it, so we figured out what happened.

01:56:50.000 Okay, it says, the patient had been well until 20 hours before the submission.

01:56:54.000 This is crazy.

01:56:55.000 When diffuse abdominal pain and nausea developed after he ate rice, chicken, and lo mein leftovers from a restaurant meal.

01:57:01.000 Multiple episodes of emesis...

01:57:04.000 Is that the word?

01:57:05.000 Throwing out.

01:57:05.000 Emesis occurred with vomitus that was either...

01:57:09.000 What are they trying to do to me here?

01:57:12.000 Biliose or red-brown.

01:57:14.000 The abdominal pain and vomiting were followed by the development of chills, generalized weakness, progressively worsening diffuse myelgias, chest pain, shortness of breath, headache, neck stiffness, and blurry vision.

01:57:30.000 Five hours before this admission, purplish discoloration of the skin developed.

01:57:35.000 And a friend took the patient to the emergency department of another hospital for evaluation.

01:57:39.000 Upon arrival of the emergency department of the hospital, 4.5 hours before this admission, the patient reported a diffuse myoma on a scale of 8 to 10, indicating most severe pain.

01:57:51.000 On examination, he appeared pale, anxious, and moderately distressed.

01:57:55.000 He answered questions appropriately and was oriented to person, place, time, and situation.

01:58:00.000 Okay, blood specimens were obtained, complete culture content approximately 40 minutes after the patient's arrival.

01:58:09.000 During 30 minutes, tachyphena worsened and labored breathing, hypoxema psionis. 0.98

01:58:19.000 There's a lot of fucking medical terminology here. 0.93

01:58:21.000 Supplemental oxygen was administered, so he was just like fading fast. 0.98

01:58:26.000 Resulting in oxygen saturation of 83%.

01:58:28.000 Oxygen was administered through a high flow nasal cannula at the rate of 40 liters per minute.

01:58:33.000 Wow.

01:58:34.000 So this is a medical thing.

01:58:36.000 This is a medical journal that's talking about this.

01:58:37.000 It never really says they did cultures on it, but it didn't say what he came back with.

01:58:44.000 He smoked two packs of cigarettes weekly.

01:58:47.000 That's not a lot.

01:58:48.000 Smoked marijuana daily, holla, and drank two alcoholic beverages approximately two times per week.

01:58:55.000 Wow.

01:58:57.000 Yeah.

01:58:58.000 Okay. 0.90

01:58:59.000 Crazy. 0.93

01:59:00.000 Okay, no more Chinese food. 0.60

01:59:02.000 Well, it's not that.

01:59:03.000 I think I read another friend ate it too, but he didn't get as sick.

01:59:06.000 He just had like a little stomach ache and this kid went the other way with it.

01:59:09.000 Oh, wow.

01:59:10.000 I think I read that.

01:59:11.000 It's not saying that in here, I don't think, but I read it initially.

01:59:15.000 That dude's got bragging rights.

01:59:17.000 That's all he's got left.

01:59:18.000 They cut everything else off.

01:59:20.000 No, the other guy.

01:59:20.000 The guy that didn't get cut up.

01:59:22.000 The guy that also ate it but didn't really get sick.

01:59:24.000 Right.

01:59:25.000 You know, when he's wheeling his friend around.

01:59:27.000 Remember, I eat the same food, bro.

01:59:29.000 Just tougher.

01:59:30.000 Horrible.

01:59:31.000 Horrible joke.

01:59:32.000 So, do you think that there is a future where people can have this sort of, you know, this philosophy of having a plant-based diet is like to do the least amount of harm?

01:59:44.000 Now, if you had some sort of a organic back garden diet and you lived off of your garden, that's probably the most karma for it, right?

01:59:53.000 If you just want to eat plant-based foods and then you have crickets for your protein, I mean, it depends on where you live, because in most of the country, you can't grow year-round.

02:00:03.000 So it gets tricky.

02:00:06.000 And I think if we're talking about least harm, and one of the things, like Rob was starting to say, everyone likes to lead with these ethics arguments.

02:00:13.000 I want to do least harm.

02:00:15.000 And so we were going to lead the book with ethics.

02:00:18.000 But my thinking was that you have to fully understand the nutritional...

02:00:26.000 Yeah, I think.

02:00:42.000 Okay, so when we're talking about nutrients, and we were talking about the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Burger and stuff like that, so they don't really claim that it's better for you nutritionally anymore?

02:00:54.000 Not so much.

02:00:55.000 I mean, you know, there's new crazy studies coming out saying that you should limit your red meat to zero if you want to live.

02:01:04.000 But those aren't, this is going to get reversed.

02:01:06.000 Those are going to be exhausting, though, because you're going to have to talk to somebody that have read those studies.

02:01:11.000 They're going to stick in your face.

02:01:13.000 Yeah.

02:01:13.000 I have a friend who's overweight who's a vegan who likes to claim that I'm going to have a heart attack.

02:01:17.000 I'm like, bro, look at you.

02:01:20.000 This is so crazy.

02:01:21.000 You can't be healthy.

02:01:23.000 Whatever you're eating is not good.

02:01:25.000 And I think for a healthy 25-year-old athlete or whatever, if they want to be vegan, that's fine.

02:01:31.000 As a mom and a dietician, I have a big problem with disadvantaged kids, meat being pulled away from them as policy for virtue signaling. 1.00

02:01:42.000 For sure.

02:01:43.000 But as an athlete, when an athlete is a young, healthy athlete and they're eating a vegan diet, do you think they're leaving something on the table in terms of the nutrition that they could be getting and the performance that they could be getting?

02:01:53.000 Totally.

02:01:53.000 Seems like it.

02:01:54.000 Seems like it, right?

02:01:56.000 I'm not aware of any top of the food chain LeBron James type people that are vegans.

02:02:02.000 When you look at an elite athlete, Canelo Alvarez, someone's at the very top of their game.

02:02:09.000 I don't really see any of them that I'm aware of that are vegans.

02:02:14.000 It doesn't mean it's not possible, but I don't know of any who's the best in their field that's a vegan.

02:02:20.000 Do you know of any?

02:02:21.000 Are there any soccer players that are...

02:02:23.000 Offhand, I don't.

02:02:24.000 I mean, there's always this piece, too, of could they have been better?

02:02:28.000 You know, maybe they are better being vegan.

02:02:30.000 Or maybe they could have been better with kind of a mixed diet.

02:02:32.000 You know, it's always a tough one.

02:02:34.000 It does seem like, you know, like the Game Changers movie, like all the athletes, they kind of detailed in that thing.

02:02:42.000 Everybody went retrograde after they went vegan.

02:02:45.000 The strongman guy got injured a bunch and kind of retired.

02:02:49.000 The strongman guy's a tough case because that guy's chock full of steroids.

02:02:54.000 There's just no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

02:02:56.000 I mean that's a steroided up business.

02:03:00.000 Unless they're testing people on a regular basis, and I'm sure there's some that do get tested.

02:03:06.000 When you're dealing with those guys that are just enormous human beings that are lifting the most amount of weight possible, a lot of those guys are on the juice.

02:03:14.000 And that can paper over a lot of other stuff.

02:03:17.000 It's hard to say what's really going on then.

02:03:20.000 Well, and also with these athletes, they're genetically gifted, period.

02:03:24.000 They can probably get away with eating a lot of fast food and be a lot healthier than me.

02:03:31.000 So I think when you're already starting with the ideal specimen of human, and then if they give up plants or meat for six months, it may not have the same impact as somebody who...

02:03:45.000 Has already damaged guts or an autoimmune disease or is an older person or is a developing kid who needs, you know, to grow.

02:03:53.000 There's been some football players that went vegan, right?

02:03:56.000 That were like elite football players.

02:03:58.000 But didn't one of them just kept getting injured after he went vegan?

02:04:01.000 Yeah.

02:04:02.000 Why would you get it?

02:04:03.000 Is it lack of protein, you think?

02:04:05.000 Like, what would...

02:04:06.000 I think just globally, you are consuming less nutrients, and definitely the protein piece is a big deal.

02:04:12.000 And then if you aren't recovering the same way...

02:04:16.000 Do you track heart rate variability?

02:04:18.000 Do you ever...

02:04:19.000 I do when I wear that WHOOP strap.

02:04:23.000 What's a cool insight with HRV is that if you're sleeping well and your total stress load, your allostatic load is low comparatively, then you've got more resources to put into recovery.

02:04:33.000 But if you're eating a diet, whether it's junk food or what have you, that is So this is where,

02:04:48.000 like, optimizing sleep and nutrition and gut health and all these things really is something that if you make money from your physicality, like, it behooves one to do that because you want to put every bit of recovery, you know, juice into that process because it gets you back in.

02:05:04.000 You can train harder, can train more often.

02:05:07.000 So that's where I could see Like the soft tissue injuries and stuff like that starting to be a problem.

02:05:13.000 It's kind of guesswork when a football player gets injured because it's kind of an injury sport.

02:05:17.000 You'd be really cherry picking if you said that this is why he got injured.

02:05:23.000 So back to this burger thing.

02:05:25.000 So the burger has soybean oil, pea protein, beet juice, and what else is in there?

02:05:34.000 I think those are the main...

02:05:36.000 And then they...

02:05:37.000 What kind of malarkey are they doing to glue it all together?

02:05:41.000 I mean, we saw, again, pretty impressive stuff just with what the person did in the kitchen making the ham.

02:05:48.000 Well, that looked nasty, honestly.

02:05:50.000 But it looked like ham at the end.

02:05:52.000 It looked ham-like.

02:05:53.000 But the burger looked pretty damn good.

02:05:55.000 Yeah.

02:05:55.000 With the cheese on the top of it.

02:05:58.000 It was looking all greasy.

02:05:59.000 Yeah.

02:05:59.000 That looked pretty good.

02:06:00.000 So it's soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower.

02:06:04.000 Coconut oil is good for you, right?

02:06:05.000 Isn't that good for you?

02:06:06.000 Yeah.

02:06:07.000 Okay, so there's something good for you.

02:06:09.000 Ingredient number two is good for you.

02:06:11.000 Sunflower oil, potato protein.

02:06:14.000 Is that good?

02:06:16.000 You need to eat 10 potatoes to get the protein that you can get in four ounces of beef.

02:06:23.000 And just really quick on that, what do you need to do?

02:06:26.000 So if they're marketing this as like a sustainability feature, how much energy goes into...

02:06:33.000 So raising a potato, you know, a bunch of potatoes, then you process them, extract the protein out so it can be put into that.

02:06:42.000 This is where, you know, like what they call a life cycle analysis.

02:06:45.000 And they did do that between like White Oak Pastures and the Impossible Burger and White Oak Pastures ended up having a lower...

02:06:53.000 Carbon footprint.

02:06:54.000 And again, that's not the whole story, but there's other pieces to it.

02:06:58.000 I'm sorry, white oak pastures in comparison to?

02:07:01.000 Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger.

02:07:03.000 So this is compared to their factories?

02:07:06.000 Their burger, the process of creating...

02:07:08.000 From the ground?

02:07:09.000 Yeah, a life cycle is like a cradle to grave study where it's the whole...

02:07:14.000 So they're following all the plants that can be converted into seed oils and all the jazz that...

02:07:20.000 I mean, there's probably limitations on how far back in the supply.

02:07:23.000 I know that they didn't go into some of the mined minerals that they need for all the vitamins and minerals.

02:07:32.000 They didn't go that far, but pretty far.

02:07:35.000 Okay.

02:07:36.000 And what was the result?

02:07:38.000 The white oak pastures ended up being net carbon negative.

02:07:41.000 So it's pulling more out of the environment than what it's putting in throughout their whole process.

02:07:46.000 And this includes the composting and the inclusion of chicken and pork.

02:07:53.000 It's the whole operation.

02:07:54.000 Now, is this pound for pound?

02:07:57.000 How do they do this?

02:07:58.000 I believe so.

02:08:00.000 It was literally like a pound per pound comparison.

02:08:02.000 Yeah.

02:08:02.000 A pound for pound from a regenerative farm, pound for pound for beef and chicken and whatever they grow, whatever animal-based protein versus this plant-based stuff that there's more carbon being emitted from the plant-based stuff and the production of, and it's worse for the environment.

02:08:18.000 Yeah, and funny, it was kind of weird, but I think it was literally the same number but the opposite direction.

02:08:23.000 It was like you had to eat one White Oak Pastures burger to nullify the carbon footprint of one Impossible Burger.

02:08:31.000 It was like 4.6 or something like that.

02:08:34.000 Yeah, 3.5 or something like that.

02:08:36.000 It's a grass-fed bee farm in Georgia.

02:08:40.000 So in terms of harm to the environment, at least from a regenerative farm, a regenerative farm like white oak pastures.

02:08:48.000 And how do white oak pastures run their thing?

02:08:51.000 They run it like polyphase farms. 0.97

02:08:52.000 Very similar.

02:08:53.000 That kind of deal?

02:08:53.000 Yeah.

02:08:54.000 Now, we were talking earlier about sustainability, or scalability rather, the ability to do that for the entire country.

02:09:02.000 Is that really possible?

02:09:03.000 Yeah.

02:09:03.000 Yeah, so I consulted some of the top experts in this area when I wrote the book.

02:09:09.000 And we went through the numbers.

02:09:11.000 And if we...

02:09:14.000 If we look at the underutilized grassland that we already have, so there's a lot of like BLM land or forest service land that's just not being grazed.

02:09:23.000 There's farmers being paid through the CRP program to actually leave their fields fallow.

02:09:30.000 So if we look at regenerative agriculture as actually being way more efficient than Typical grazing.

02:09:40.000 And I put that at 30% better, but most farmers will tell you.

02:09:45.000 I have four times You know, more animals on my property because my soil is so fertile and the grass is so healthy.

02:09:55.000 So I did go through the numbers for the U.S. and it does look like we have the land to finish.

02:10:01.000 Because remember, all cattle start on grass.

02:10:03.000 So it's really just those last three months that we're looking to finish.

02:10:07.000 We're looking to take them.

02:10:10.000 It takes longer, but it's the three months that would be in a feedlot to then finish them on grass.

02:10:16.000 But to finish them on grass?

02:10:19.000 It would take longer than three months, but we're not looking at the entire life of the cow is not spent in a feedlot.

02:10:24.000 Okay, but when you're saying feedlot, are they feeding them hay, are they feeding them grass, or are they feeding them grain?

02:10:31.000 So at a feedlot, they're getting like a ration of corn, of mashed up, you know, corn stalks from the ethanol industry.

02:10:42.000 So they're getting like food scraps that we can't...

02:10:47.000 And this is to fatten them up.

02:10:48.000 But what about pure grass-fed, which is supposed to be the most healthy, correct?

02:10:55.000 Is that debatable?

02:10:56.000 Yeah, it is, actually.

02:10:57.000 This is one of the things that gets us in a lot of trouble.

02:11:00.000 We started with a bunch of assumptions, and one of the assumptions was that pastured meat is nutritionally superior to conventional meat.

02:11:08.000 And we...

02:11:09.000 I mean, we turned over every study that you could find in this thing.

02:11:14.000 And what you find is that pastured meat has a little bit more omega-3s than conventional meat.

02:11:19.000 But if you're looking at just the omega-3s, you need to eat like eight pounds of meat to get as much omega-3s as what you get out of like three ounces of salmon.

02:11:28.000 It's not the place to look for that.

02:11:30.000 And pastured dairy is far more nutritious than conventional dairy.

02:11:35.000 Wild-caught seafood is far more nutritious.

02:11:37.000 Eggs are far, far more nutritious.

02:11:39.000 But it's this weird thing.

02:11:41.000 It would have been so nice if just pastured meat was like...

02:11:45.000 We're nutritionally superior.

02:11:46.000 We could have, like, had this, you know, soup to nut story on this thing.

02:11:49.000 We even hired an independent researcher, person with a PhD in nutritional biochemistry, and we just said, hey, do a compare and contrast of conventional meat and grass-fed meat.

02:11:58.000 We want to know their nutritional profile.

02:12:00.000 We didn't give this person any of our information, and they arrived at exactly the same thing.

02:12:04.000 But we have people really angry at us.

02:12:07.000 But at the end of the day, the crazy thing is even when you're putting things like corn stalks and weird things like that into cows, they're so good at upcycling nutrients that meat is just...

02:12:18.000 Ruminant meat is super, super nutritious.

02:12:21.000 And I think that...

02:12:23.000 The ethical argument for grass finishing is strong.

02:12:26.000 I think the environmental argument is strong.

02:12:28.000 There may be a case for like bioaccumulation, like things like glyphosate and stuff like that, but that's separate from it.

02:12:34.000 And I don't think it's as compelling a thing as what most people would think.

02:12:39.000 But just nutritionally, like vitamins, minerals, proteins, essential fats, essential amino acids, There's just not that big of a difference.

02:12:50.000 Why does it look so different?

02:12:52.000 Because it's a darker red meat.

02:12:54.000 It's leaner.

02:12:55.000 It's definitely leaner.

02:12:56.000 So finishing on corn marbleizes it.

02:12:58.000 So that's the only difference in terms of the color?

02:13:01.000 It's just a lean thing?

02:13:02.000 Yeah, so, yeah.

02:13:04.000 Because I was assuming it was like a nutrient density thing.

02:13:06.000 Well, it's kind of nutrient dense because it's more of the actual meat versus fat.

02:13:10.000 Yeah, for sure.

02:13:11.000 But there is a benefit to the fat from meat as well.

02:13:14.000 Yeah, fat's a nutrient too.

02:13:15.000 So there is probably some benefit to a fatty piece of meat that is grain finished.

02:13:22.000 Yeah, I mean, it has more calories, so it just depends on what your goals are, but it's not bad.

02:13:27.000 So it's not bad.

02:13:28.000 Okay.

02:13:28.000 So the omega-3s is the only big issue, but you really should get that from salmon anyway.

02:13:33.000 Yeah, I mean, it's like saying an organic carrot has three times the protein.

02:13:36.000 No one is eating carrots for protein.

02:13:39.000 Right.

02:13:39.000 Got it.

02:13:42.000 So if we're doing that, and you're trying to feed the entire country, how much more of an impact does the methane from the cows burping, how much more of an impact is it in terms of the amount of animals that you have to move around in terms of transportation and the fossil fuels that are emitted through that?

02:14:01.000 So ironically, I'm going to Brazil next month to speak at a cattle conference.

02:14:07.000 And they are actually having to go more towards feedlots because they're getting so much pressure to reduce their carbon emissions.

02:14:14.000 And so when you finish a cow on a feedlot, it's faster.

02:14:19.000 And so the cow is not alive as long.

02:14:21.000 And so they're emitting less methane.

02:14:23.000 So it's actually, this one company, it's actually, they're being pressured to go the feedlot route.

02:14:31.000 And this is that carbon tunnel vision where they're missing all the other externalities that could be beneficial around the pasture process.

02:14:40.000 Like you can reverse desertification.

02:14:42.000 The ground holds more water.

02:14:44.000 It doesn't create as much of a heat footprint.

02:14:46.000 You get carbon sequestration.

02:14:47.000 You have all the other ecosystem benefits.

02:14:50.000 But this is where like this kind of neurotic focus on just greenhouse gas emissions absent this bigger picture is You start making dumb decisions, and we're making decisions at a global food policy level that are potentially going to be really injurious.

02:15:06.000 What they're doing in that process then, and I think they're looking just at the...

02:15:13.000 The emissions are coming from the animals in that case, but then what about all of the infrastructure that's necessary to get the grains to feed to the animals and what's going on with that?

02:15:24.000 And I think when we do these full life cycle analyses like what we do with the White Oaks farms, usually the pasture process wins, but you have to be willing to accept that that is part...

02:15:35.000 All that greenhouse gas emissions is part of a cycle.

02:15:37.000 That stuff that's in the atmosphere today is going to be part of a plant at some point and then part of an animal and on and on.

02:15:45.000 Now, when you're talking about the amount of cows that you would need to feed the entire country, what kind of a quantity of meat are we talking about per capita or per person?

02:15:59.000 So right now Americans eat about two ounces of beef per person per day and about twice that much chicken.

02:16:07.000 So we're really not eating like too much meat.

02:16:09.000 Everyone thinks that Americans are sitting down to a tomahawk steak every night and it's just not true.

02:16:18.000 You know, we're going to get our protein from different sources.

02:16:21.000 So I'm not saying we all need to be carnivores.

02:16:25.000 And, you know, then you have this other dilemma of the carrying capacity of Earth for humans, which gets really dicey when you even start talking about that.

02:16:35.000 So we don't talk about that.

02:16:37.000 But, you know, do you want healthy humans or do you want human feed to just have the largest number of humans possible?

02:16:45.000 Right, right.

02:16:46.000 So two ounces of beef a day does not sound like a lot.

02:16:51.000 No.

02:16:51.000 But if you want people specifically to live on this diet like I'm living on, like if this is something that people adopt, now you're talking about many times more.

02:17:02.000 Is that sustainable?

02:17:06.000 That seems like no.

02:17:07.000 I don't know.

02:17:08.000 Like, I don't know where that carrying capacity pops in, and I don't know.

02:17:13.000 It's interesting, you know, how much of that could be supplemented with seafood.

02:17:17.000 How much of that gets, like, if we start integrating, like, the pork and the chicken and making that all biodynamic and not as impactful, how much of that could be offloaded into, like, insect proteins. 0.96

02:17:30.000 But if everybody ate like Sean Baker, we'd be fucked. 0.98

02:17:33.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:17:33.000 Probably would be some problems. 1.00

02:17:35.000 Probably would be some problems.

02:17:52.000 Study back in, like, 2005 that was suggesting that by, like, 2030, 2035, the U.S. is bankrupt from diabetes-related costs.

02:18:00.000 Like, we have more costs dealing with diabetes than what we have GDP. And I don't know what COVID has done to that whole projection and whatnot.

02:18:08.000 Just diabetes?

02:18:09.000 Just diabetes alone.

02:18:10.000 And this isn't even looking at, like, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and all these other metabolically-driven diseases.

02:18:15.000 And if there's one thing that, although I guess it's still controversial, but there's one thing that there's at least a little bit of synergy out in the world, people like Lane Norton and whatnot kind of sign off on this.

02:18:26.000 If people under-eat protein, they tend to over-eat calories beyond that.

02:18:34.000 And so whether you eat higher carb or lower carb, if people eat adequate protein, they tend to not overeat the other stuff.

02:18:42.000 If you undereat protein, then you tend to overeat all the other things.

02:18:45.000 And this is probably the big driver of this illness.

02:18:51.000 What do we do about addressing the health and healthcare issue in all this?

02:18:56.000 In some ways, we can't afford not to address this in some effective way because we have to figure out a global public health food policy that's going to allow people to spontaneously reduce calorie intake or We end up with this kind of global control of the food system and you go to buy meat and it's like a social credit score thing.

02:19:17.000 It's like, sorry, comrade, you've already got your protein allowance for the month.

02:19:22.000 And then I looked into also the carbon footprint of diabetes.

02:19:26.000 Yeah.

02:19:27.000 Oh yeah.

02:19:28.000 With all the medical tubing.

02:19:30.000 Amputations.

02:19:32.000 You've got dialysis.

02:19:33.000 All the plastics involved in dialysis.

02:19:38.000 Shouldn't that be factored into junk food?

02:19:41.000 If we're complaining about methane from protein?

02:19:44.000 I guess it has to be if that many people are going to bankrupt the country from diabetes.

02:19:50.000 That's real.

02:19:51.000 I had no idea.

02:19:53.000 I thought diabetes was fairly rare.

02:19:58.000 Okay, here.

02:19:59.000 The staggering cost of diabetes.

02:20:02.000 2.3 times greater healthcare costs for Americans with diabetes.

02:20:06.000 $327 billion.

02:20:07.000 The annual cost of diagnosed diabetes in America.

02:20:13.000 More than 34 million Americans have diabetes. 1.00

02:20:17.000 Holy shit. 1.00

02:20:18.000 And that's just diagnosed, right? 0.99

02:20:19.000 Because there's so many more people on their way.

02:20:21.000 More than 88 million have pre-diabetes.

02:20:25.000 Oh, there we go.

02:20:27.000 So you're almost at half the population that's either pre- or diabetic.

02:20:31.000 That is bananas.

02:20:33.000 It's a third, essentially. 1.00

02:20:35.000 But that's still a lot of fucking people. 0.99

02:20:37.000 One in three is either diabetic or pre-diabetic. 1.00

02:20:40.000 That's nuts.

02:20:42.000 What if we found out that the obesity rate in America was like 40%, right?

02:20:46.000 Wasn't it something like that?

02:20:48.000 If you add overweight and obese, it's 70%.

02:20:51.000 70%.

02:20:56.000 Wow.

02:20:57.000 See, that is something that, you know, obviously this is anecdotal, but, you know, Jordan Peterson was one of the first guys that I knew that got on that carnivore diet, and he lost 40-something pounds.

02:21:08.000 He looks amazing, and it's just like he's completely slim and lean, and he just eats nothing but steak.

02:21:14.000 Like, there's something about eating meat where you get satisfied easier.

02:21:20.000 When I'm eating meat by itself...

02:21:23.000 I'll eat a steak and I'm fully satisfied. 0.99

02:21:25.000 But if you give me a steak and pasta, I will eat that steak and then I'll eat the shit out of that pasta. 0.99

02:21:32.000 And I'm somehow or another still hungry. 0.98

02:21:34.000 I keep digging in there.

02:21:36.000 Where if it was steak, it was another steak there, I'd stop.

02:21:38.000 And I'd put it in the fridge.

02:21:41.000 But I can't stop eating when it's pasta or bread.

02:21:44.000 Yeah, that buffet effect is interesting where if we get more food...

02:21:50.000 We'll tend to eat more things.

02:21:53.000 When I was on the show last time, we looked at the Adam Rickman, Man vs.

02:21:57.000 Food, and he did this Kitchen Sink Sunday Challenge.

02:22:00.000 I think we watched this thing, but he had to eat an eight-pound ice cream sundae.

02:22:04.000 And he's motoring through this thing.

02:22:06.000 He gets maybe 15 minutes into it, and then he just starts visibly turning green and starts gagging, and he's not going to make it.

02:22:13.000 And he asked the waitress in this place to get him a giant plate of salty, crunchy French fries.

02:22:19.000 And he would eat a couple of french fries and then a little bit of ice cream, a little bit of french fries.

02:22:24.000 But because he was able to go back and forth and change the palate experience, his brain didn't tell him to stop.

02:22:30.000 So the only way he would have thrown up, he would have failed eating that ice cream sundae without eating like 2,000 calories of french fries, which is just crazy.

02:22:41.000 It's weird.

02:22:41.000 Weird tricks you have to play in your brain.

02:22:43.000 There he is.

02:22:44.000 Look at him.

02:22:45.000 He looks so much different now since he doesn't do that show anymore.

02:22:49.000 He's all like normal sized.

02:22:50.000 Right.

02:22:51.000 Like that guy must have been killing himself. 0.86

02:22:54.000 I mean just killing himself doing that show. 0.91

02:22:59.000 Eight pounds of ice cream is absolutely nuts. 0.93

02:23:03.000 That is so bad for you.

02:23:04.000 And it's orange sherbet at the bottom, I mean.

02:23:06.000 Good God.

02:23:07.000 Look at him, though.

02:23:08.000 It's good right now.

02:23:09.000 He's getting after it.

02:23:11.000 Anyway.

02:23:12.000 So your body has this weird thing.

02:23:14.000 If you just eat protein, like when I eat steak and eggs in the morning, I'm very satisfied.

02:23:19.000 Yeah.

02:23:20.000 So we're in this horrible place where people are saying, but it's unsustainable.

02:23:24.000 Yes.

02:23:25.000 I think we proved it is.

02:23:27.000 Well, so you have to start with what is the ideal diet and how can we produce that in a sustainable way?

02:23:34.000 But all the other groups are saying, look at our broken ag system.

02:23:38.000 What's the most sustainable food and how can we convert that into human feed?

02:23:42.000 Well, they're not even just doing that.

02:23:44.000 It seems like they're playing funny games with the numbers.

02:23:47.000 They're not being honest about the environmental impact.

02:23:51.000 They're not being honest about the nutritional footprint.

02:23:53.000 They're not being honest about any of these things.

02:23:55.000 They just want this ideology promoted, which is that meat is bad for the environment.

02:24:02.000 Meat is bad for the environment.

02:24:03.000 I mean, I see that everywhere.

02:24:04.000 And then people say it on Twitter.

02:24:05.000 They say it.

02:24:06.000 It's just this cold statement.

02:24:08.000 They just say, meat is bad for the environment.

02:24:09.000 What kind of meat?

02:24:11.000 What are you saying?

02:24:11.000 In what way?

02:24:13.000 Are you saying like those pig farms where they leave lakes of sewage?

02:24:18.000 Yup, I'm with you.

02:24:19.000 That's bad for the environment.

02:24:20.000 When they have these horrific factory farm conditions where they're all packed in next to each other and they shit through the bottom of their cage because it's a grate and it goes into this big swampy sort of lake of sewage.

02:24:34.000 Yeah, that's terrible.

02:24:35.000 But if you're talking about what Joel Salatin does, No.

02:24:39.000 My thing is, though, you're not going to get everybody to listen.

02:24:43.000 We haven't had anybody listen.

02:24:46.000 I used to work at NPR. I have friends there.

02:24:49.000 They wouldn't touch this story.

02:24:51.000 I know people at New York Times.

02:24:53.000 Netflix was super interested in the film.

02:24:57.000 They flew me out. 0.93

02:24:58.000 And got right to the 11th hour, 59th minute, and then somebody was like, oh shit, we can't sign off on this. 0.99

02:25:07.000 Meanwhile, they have the most wacky documentaries that are so full of shit on so many different things. 0.99

02:25:12.000 Right. 1.00

02:25:13.000 On UFOs and Bigfoot and fucking the origins of currency. 1.00

02:25:18.000 Netflix has got some wacky shit. 1.00

02:25:20.000 So does iTunes. 1.00

02:25:21.000 Right. 0.99

02:25:22.000 The other day I was at home, I had a rare day off, so I just went through the documentary section of iTunes for a goof, or Apple TV, and I was like, what kind of fucking horse shit are you people selling? 0.99

02:25:32.000 And you won't sell this? 0.98

02:25:35.000 What I was going to say, though, is there's certain people that are just headline readers, and that is a headline reader statement, that meat is bad for the environment.

02:25:49.000 This is a thing, it's...

02:25:51.000 It aligns so perfectly with so many other narratives today, too.

02:25:55.000 Also, that are just headlines.

02:25:58.000 There's this really weird tendency to ignore facts that are contrary to what you've already espoused and believed in.

02:26:05.000 And this is one of them.

02:26:07.000 And once you've already said publicly multiple times, meat is bad for the environment.

02:26:12.000 An animal-based diet is bad.

02:26:14.000 Plant-based diets are the only diet that reverses heart disease.

02:26:18.000 They like to say that one.

02:26:20.000 Yeah, so I'm in a suburb outside of Boston.

02:26:24.000 Everyone's environmentally conscious, right?

02:26:27.000 They're educated.

02:26:28.000 It's a mess.

02:26:29.000 Poor people.

02:26:30.000 Of course they don't eat meat.

02:26:34.000 None of them eat meat.

02:26:36.000 Or they're cutting down or they're flexitarian.

02:26:39.000 They're all exhausted.

02:26:41.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:26:42.000 Yeah, they all look like shit. 1.00

02:26:44.000 That's what's weird. 1.00

02:26:45.000 I mean, obviously not some of them.

02:26:47.000 Some look great.

02:26:48.000 You're gonna run to that vegan.

02:26:49.000 It's all jacked.

02:26:50.000 It's like, bro, I'm a vegan. 1.00

02:26:51.000 I'm fucking healthy as shit. 0.99

02:26:52.000 I'm like, okay. 1.00

02:26:54.000 Touche.

02:26:54.000 You're one of the rare ones.

02:26:56.000 You're a fucking unicorn, pal. 1.00

02:26:58.000 But it is tough because it's such an airtight... 1.00

02:27:04.000 Beautiful story.

02:27:05.000 You know, if you don't eat meat, you'll live forever.

02:27:08.000 You'll be skinny.

02:27:10.000 You'll be ethically superior.

02:27:13.000 You're saving the planet.

02:27:14.000 I mean, sign me up.

02:27:15.000 It sounds great.

02:27:16.000 The ethically superior part.

02:27:17.000 People love that one.

02:27:18.000 People love that one.

02:27:19.000 Because of the social media.

02:27:20.000 Social media is just...

02:27:21.000 It's such a great place to espouse your virtue.

02:27:24.000 Right.

02:27:24.000 You know, that if you can put that little plant thing next to your bio and then put your pronouns underneath that...

02:27:32.000 You're off and running.

02:27:33.000 Nice.

02:27:33.000 You got a solid bio there.

02:27:37.000 And then what we're suggesting, and we don't even have like a solid endpoint other than mainly we make the recommendation that as to the greatest degree possible, decentralize the food production system.

02:27:52.000 And depending on where we- I didn't say that.

02:27:54.000 What do you mean by that?

02:27:55.000 So people in Nebraska should probably be doing things different than people even in Texas.

02:28:00.000 And I'm not in that crew where people get all bent out of shape that like an avocado is going from Mexico to Canada during the winter.

02:28:08.000 Like I don't care about that.

02:28:09.000 I do think that more of our food should probably be eaten locally.

02:28:13.000 But if we produce more food locally...

02:28:16.000 We have much more efficiencies generally. 0.94

02:28:19.000 And then a lot of these environmental problems like the lakes of like steaming pig shit and stuff like that should just be worked back into the farm. 0.95

02:28:27.000 We shouldn't be poisoning waterways. 0.99

02:28:29.000 They shouldn't be growing pigs that way. 1.00

02:28:31.000 The pigs should be integrated into the whole system the way that we did about 100 years ago.

02:28:36.000 But don't you need a vast swath of land to accomplish something like that?

02:28:41.000 Not necessarily, because you don't need to always do megascale.

02:28:45.000 And this is some of the stuff that we're going to have to come to terms with.

02:28:49.000 Also, so like in the UK, there was an experiment where they put in hedgerows around the regular, you know, conventional farms that they had, but the hedgerows allowed...

02:28:59.000 For these predatory birds and insects to have somewhere to hang out and then they would get in and eat the bugs that would, you know, cause problems with the, you know, like the wheat or the corn or whatever.

02:29:12.000 So there was a decrease in the total amount of harvest that they had because some of the farm was allocated these hedgerows.

02:29:19.000 But then the amount of insecticides and herbicides and whatnot that they had to use were dramatically decreased.

02:29:25.000 So we have to start putting what our values are.

02:29:27.000 Like, markets are really good at optimizing things, but we're not telling...

02:29:32.000 Currently, what we've asked it to optimize is make as much cheap food as possible.

02:29:36.000 And we've crushed that.

02:29:38.000 Like, we've crushed it...

02:29:39.000 I think it was 2006, 2007 became the first year, somewhere around there, that more humans started dying from overeating than undereating in infectious disease.

02:29:50.000 Like, chronic disease outstripped Infectious disease and lack of food as the main cause of death.

02:29:58.000 Really?

02:29:58.000 That's interesting.

02:29:59.000 2007. Somewhere around that point.

02:30:01.000 That's the tipping point.

02:30:02.000 It's kind of a tipping point, but it's a really important point in history.

02:30:05.000 But we crushed that imperative.

02:30:08.000 We produce huge amounts of calories, but now it's to the point that people are so sick that we're crippling our healthcare system and people are unhappy and What I was getting at in terms of sustainability is that if you have a pig farm that is a factory farm, pig farm,

02:30:23.000 you're raising thousands of pigs on a relatively small footprint.

02:30:27.000 What you need is more smaller farms with some pigs and you need not five corporations to own the supply chain.

02:30:38.000 But this is a bigger problem.

02:30:39.000 What I'm saying is if you run a pig farm, And you only have X amount of acres and you have thousands of pigs on that pig farm.

02:30:46.000 That's the only way you're going to be able to raise the same amount of pigs on that farm.

02:30:51.000 You're going to have to bring in food to them, you have to keep them contained, you fatten them up, and then you kill them, and you have this giant lake of their feces.

02:31:00.000 This is what is the only thing that you kind of can do to have that kind of yield on a small piece of land, relatively small. 0.95

02:31:08.000 If you have 100 acres and you have 10,000 pigs in these fucking containment facilities, you're not going to recreate that on 100 acres with the Joel Salatin method, correct?

02:31:19.000 If you're going to do regenerative farming, you're going to need some land. 0.97

02:31:23.000 You're going to need some land, but you're also going to need to have a different supply chain.

02:31:26.000 You're going to need to sell directly to consumers and not meat as a commodity.

02:31:30.000 But what about meat as a commodity to a place like Burger King or Jack in the Box or what have you?

02:31:35.000 They still do that.

02:31:36.000 I mean, that still even happens to...

02:31:38.000 Joel sells to Chipotle.

02:31:40.000 Yeah.

02:31:41.000 Chipotle is a pretty good source.

02:31:42.000 Right.

02:31:43.000 Chipotle has...

02:31:44.000 Yeah.

02:31:44.000 I mean, when you get like a good beef burrito there or a beef bowl...

02:31:48.000 Pretty damn good.

02:31:48.000 I mean, in a scenario like that, then I don't know how Joel handles his, but if you're selling to McDonald's, then McDonald's gets its meat from more regional source versus like this consolidated source the way that happens now.

02:32:05.000 Do you anticipate a time where they'll be able to, I mean, I know they are doing factory cloned meat now.

02:32:11.000 Do you think that that will be scalable?

02:32:15.000 No.

02:32:15.000 The short answer is no, because it's so expensive to do it.

02:32:19.000 But for now, it used to be really expensive to get a cell phone, but now they're fairly cheap.

02:32:24.000 It's true, and I'm a huge fan of Moore's Law.

02:32:26.000 It's a really good point, but the thing that kind of gets missed in this is that it's so expensive to run a lab.

02:32:32.000 I actually did tissue culture, and you have to take all the products of industrial farming Pull that out, process it, and then, you know, I've got protein and carbs and fat in these, you know, jars that I put into this vat and then inoculate it with meat cells and have to keep it the right temperature,

02:32:52.000 the right humidity.

02:32:53.000 I have to...

02:32:55.000 Keep pathogens off of it.

02:32:56.000 Keep pathogens off of it, so I've got to use antibiotics.

02:32:58.000 There's actually been a couple of good...

02:33:02.000 I think?

02:33:22.000 Sunlight, grass, animals.

02:33:24.000 It's a really efficient system versus, again, trying to pull that all under a roof like this and try to grow meat at scale.

02:33:33.000 If you're on like a spaceship or something, you have a closed loop deal, I could see something like that working.

02:33:38.000 But as long as we have the sun and grasslands and whatnot, there's still a really efficient piece of that.

02:33:44.000 Now, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but As marijuana has become more legalized, people have gone outside frequently to produce it where they can because it's just cheaper.

02:33:55.000 The infrastructure of that versus a greenhouse scenario tends to be pretty economically viable.

02:34:01.000 So I think you run into those similar situations with the lab-grown meat and kind of butting up against the scale piece.

02:34:09.000 Yeah, you'd have to talk to a real marijuana farmer.

02:34:11.000 But I think there's some questions about...

02:34:16.000 You know, quality and how you grow it and the soil, you know, like the difference between the hydroponic versus growing it outside.

02:34:24.000 Right.

02:34:24.000 Yeah.

02:34:26.000 What other pieces of the puzzle are missing in terms of, like, if we're looking at beef and nutrients and we're looking at the carbon footprint and we're looking at all these different things in terms of, like, Like, a viable and sustainable food source.

02:34:43.000 What other pieces are we missing in this discussion?

02:34:46.000 Well, I mean, one thing I was going to bring up is just with White Oak Pastures and the impact he's had on jobs and this town.

02:34:56.000 Like, he's in the poorest county in the country.

02:35:00.000 And when, as we've lost...

02:35:02.000 And where is that?

02:35:03.000 In southwestern Georgia.

02:35:07.000 And to see what he has done on this property is incredible.

02:35:12.000 He sells direct to consumers and so he can get a good margin.

02:35:16.000 And when he sells direct to consumers, does he have like a farmer's market type deal where they come to him?

02:35:22.000 He ships.

02:35:22.000 He ships?

02:35:23.000 So he does it online?

02:35:24.000 Mm-hmm.

02:35:25.000 Okay.

02:35:26.000 So you could just like buy a side of beef, a half a cow, you could buy the pounds, cuts, steaks.

02:35:32.000 Yeah, but they also have restaurants that they supply too.

02:35:35.000 But what the beauty of that and also Some of the stuff that Wendell Berry talks about, I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but there's a great documentary they did on him called Look and See, and he's an agrarian thought leader.

02:35:52.000 And he just talks about how everyone from a small town, you haven't really made it in the US until you've left your small town.

02:35:59.000 And nobody's like coming back and actually working in their small town and loving the land that they're from and making sure that that gigantic, nasty, polluting pig farm doesn't happen.

02:36:11.000 So that's part of it.

02:36:13.000 But as we've lost all these small farms, small town America has just completely dried up and now it's just big box, everything.

02:36:21.000 And so if we're able to sort of dismantle these like four meat companies that control 80% of our meat, Yeah.

02:36:54.000 I think we're good to go.

02:37:04.000 This process of regenerative farming is a really creative endeavor.

02:37:09.000 You're problem solving constantly. 1.00

02:37:12.000 People have a tendency to relegate these farmers as just kind of inbred idiots and they're not that smart. 1.00

02:37:18.000 There's an enormous amount of information that they have to learn. 1.00

02:37:22.000 I think?

02:37:41.000 Worked in agrarian settings, and then we shifted into urban centers.

02:37:45.000 And maybe there's a case to be made that more people need to shift back into a quasi-agrarian setting, both for the employment, but also for like the quality of life and the production of our food and different things like that.

02:37:56.000 Yeah, and I was just going to add too, you know, the vegan dialogue works really well for like Norwegian billionaires and Bill Gates and people that can afford it.

02:38:05.000 And they've got a Whole Foods nearby where they can get their goji berries and coconut oil and all those things.

02:38:11.000 But for the majority of people, they want meat.

02:38:15.000 They want to be able to eat it.

02:38:16.000 And now we've got even science so corrupted that people are trying to pull it away from people.

02:38:23.000 And so it's...

02:38:26.000 When you look at the nutritional ramifications of what happens when people have less animal-sourced foods, it's a social justice issue.

02:38:35.000 It's a food equity problem.

02:38:38.000 What was the motivation for demonizing meat?

02:38:42.000 Other than, I mean, we know about the studies that were done, that the sugar industry funded, that demonized saturated fat, which is really, when you know about those studies, I believe it was the 1960s, right, where they were saying that saturated fat was the cause of all this heart disease,

02:38:57.000 and they were trying to take the blame off of sugar.

02:39:00.000 They only bribed these guys with like $50,000, which is crazy, because those findings, so this is pre-internet, obviously, That swept through the whole country, and everybody's terrified of saturated fat, and people started drinking low-fat milk,

02:39:15.000 and low-fat this, and low-fat that.

02:39:19.000 Everybody got fatter.

02:39:20.000 It's really wild.

02:39:22.000 If you look at the difference between people that lived in the 1960s and 1970s versus people today, you've seen all those photos of people on the beach from the 1970s versus people today.

02:39:31.000 It's crazy the difference.

02:39:33.000 And some of that has to be attributable to diet.

02:39:35.000 So when we're saying science has been corrupted, What happened?

02:39:42.000 What's the motivation?

02:39:43.000 If they know this, I know this.

02:39:45.000 I'm not an expert. 0.99

02:39:47.000 How the fuck do I know this? 0.84

02:39:48.000 I would think that people who study food science know this too, and they would want to get that word out. 0.97

02:39:53.000 Like, hey, this is not real.

02:39:56.000 The problem is not saturated fat.

02:39:58.000 The problem is not cholesterol.

02:39:59.000 In fact, cholesterol is like the building blocks for a lot of hormones, and it's very important to cellular development, right?

02:40:07.000 Mm-hmm.

02:40:08.000 Yeah, I mean, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are one of the, from what I understand, are one of the big donors to this global burden of disease.

02:40:18.000 So do you think it's a financial incentive?

02:40:20.000 I mean, who benefits from meat being bad?

02:40:24.000 Big oil?

02:40:25.000 Because now it's not an industrial problem, it's a consumer's problem, right?

02:40:29.000 Just like recycling.

02:40:31.000 Like, you put it on the consumer.

02:40:32.000 It's not the company making the plastic bottles, it's the consumer.

02:40:35.000 Right.

02:40:37.000 So we've got big oil benefits, the ultra processed food industry benefits, not only because they're the ones making this junk, but also it takes the blame off all the cereals and pasta meals and all that stuff and puts it on meat.

02:40:52.000 So they're winning.

02:40:55.000 In the book, and I always forget what's in the book and what's in the film, but you dug into the history of, interestingly, Seventh-day Adventists, vegetarianism, they kind of founded the dietetics profession.

02:41:08.000 Oh, yeah.

02:41:08.000 So it had a very strong vegetarian underpinning to it because the religious leanings of the Seventh-day Adventists.

02:41:17.000 They founded dietetics?

02:41:19.000 Dietetics and nursing.

02:41:20.000 Yeah.

02:41:21.000 Really?

02:41:22.000 So a religion founded nursing?

02:41:26.000 Well, you know, like Loma Linda University.

02:41:28.000 So, I mean, they're operating within science, but it definitely had this vegetarian orientation to it.

02:41:36.000 And so, why has there...

02:41:38.000 I mean, the cattle industry is huge.

02:41:40.000 The beef industry is huge.

02:41:41.000 There's 95% of the planet eats meat, right?

02:41:45.000 Isn't it something high like that?

02:41:46.000 The margins are really small, though, because meat is such a commodity.

02:41:50.000 It's like steak is steak is steak.

02:41:51.000 But Beyond Burger, their margins are amazing.

02:41:56.000 They're new.

02:41:57.000 Is this an unorganization thing?

02:42:00.000 Do the beef people, do they not know the existential threat to their existence?

02:42:05.000 They don't.

02:42:06.000 Really?

02:42:07.000 It's weird.

02:42:08.000 It's weird. 0.99

02:42:09.000 They're out there shoveling shit and oblivious. 0.99

02:42:12.000 Well, because they're not part of the coastal dialogue. 0.99

02:42:17.000 And I think some of it, too, is most of the players that own the meat production, they own like the grain, you know, the corn and everything.

02:42:28.000 Because it's all consolidated, so they're like, well, maybe we'll lose a little bit there, but we'll make it up here.

02:42:32.000 And they're major investors in the plant-based meat as well.

02:42:37.000 The meat, the large meat packers.

02:42:40.000 Just for money.

02:42:42.000 Diversify.

02:42:43.000 Why not?

02:42:43.000 You're going to win either way.

02:42:45.000 Oh, craminy.

02:42:48.000 So when you wrote this book, did you think that there was going to be major pushback?

02:42:53.000 Did you think that, you know, you basically shored up all your arguments with data and solid discussion?

02:43:02.000 I thought there was going to be more pushback from, like, the vegan side of the house, and there hasn't been a huge amount.

02:43:09.000 And we did.

02:43:11.000 We tried to...

02:43:15.000 We really—even in the point, you know, like, is pastured meat nutritionally superior to—we really, like, we had a discussion.

02:43:24.000 I'm like, do we just lie about this?

02:43:25.000 Because it would be great.

02:43:26.000 Then, like, everything is consistent.

02:43:27.000 But one, I think the ethics are dodgy there.

02:43:30.000 And then two, it's a, you know, one— We're good to go.

02:43:56.000 Just super happy and invigorated because it filled up the buckets of, like, their preconceived notions.

02:44:02.000 Like, if you were really, really, really excited about regenerative ag, we sing the praises of that, but also we're kind of...

02:44:12.000 It's not black and white.

02:44:13.000 It's not totally black and white.

02:44:14.000 Yeah.

02:44:15.000 We make the case that there's all these other foods that could be nutrient upcycled that doesn't really fit into the grass-fed model.

02:44:22.000 So why don't we take advantage of that?

02:44:25.000 So it's been interesting.

02:44:28.000 The areas that we've had some pushback and the most aggressive pushback has actually been the really meat elitist kind of pastured meat scene because there are people out there that say it should be grass-fed meat or nothing.

02:44:40.000 It's like, well, that's interesting.

02:44:42.000 They're not understanding the nutritional importance and how that dialogue, grass-fed or nothing, ends up with New York City schools going vegan, right?

02:44:51.000 The grass-fed or nothing thing, that sort of, the ideology, is that oriented in like a nutrition system?

02:45:03.000 Is it a nature thing?

02:45:06.000 An environmentalist and ethical thing.

02:45:09.000 Right.

02:45:11.000 Yeah.

02:45:11.000 And so they cannot tolerate the idea that protein, period, is important.

02:45:17.000 We don't have enough regenerative meat to feed everybody.

02:45:19.000 We've got kids who, if they just got enough meat in a disadvantaged situation, they actually might have a leg up.

02:45:28.000 So we should just be feeding them the meat that's available right now instead of waiting for the whole world to go grass-fed.

02:45:36.000 Who's responsible for making Meatless Monday and No Meat Friday in these school systems?

02:45:42.000 So Meatless Monday is partially funded by Beyond Burger.

02:45:46.000 Oh, God.

02:45:47.000 And Johns Hopkins.

02:45:48.000 Really?

02:45:48.000 Which is a very anti-meat.

02:45:51.000 Now, why are they anti-meat?

02:45:53.000 I don't know if they have some kind of religious background.

02:45:57.000 I mean, Harvard is also, Walter Willett is very anti-meat and he's funded by Barilla.

02:46:03.000 Anti-meat equals woke, right?

02:46:06.000 A lot of it, yes.

02:46:08.000 Part of what the ideology is today.

02:46:10.000 And then the Vegan Fridays is Mayor Adams, Mayor Eric Adams.

02:46:14.000 I actually have a public letter on that.

02:46:16.000 So I started an organization called the Global Food Justice Alliance, where I'm trying to advocate for the inclusion of animal source foods for people.

02:46:24.000 And I have a public letter out to Mayor Adams on all the points why this is a horrible idea.

02:46:31.000 Do you know he's not really vegan?

02:46:32.000 He has been questioned, right?

02:46:34.000 He's been caught eating fish.

02:46:35.000 And he says, I have a plant-based life.

02:46:40.000 Whenever he is questioned, he's like, I don't want to get into the new ones.

02:46:43.000 And the Vegan Friday thing is just, I have a photograph, actually, that I sent over in the Dropbox of what the Vegan Friday lunch looks like.

02:46:52.000 Oh, I've seen it.

02:46:52.000 It's so sad.

02:46:53.000 The burrito.

02:46:54.000 Oh, it's so sad looking.

02:46:55.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:46:57.000 School lunch looks like shit already. 0.99

02:46:59.000 Right. 1.00

02:47:15.000 And so, you know, the top foods that kids love are mac and cheese, burgers, pizza, and chicken nuggets.

02:47:23.000 And I would argue the meat part of those is the best part.

02:47:27.000 And so if you tell these kids meat is bad, then they're just going to pull the meat parts out and just eat the fries instead and the Coke.

02:47:36.000 When a child is growing, do they have different needs per kilogram in terms of the amount of protein that they need?

02:47:42.000 Yes.

02:47:43.000 And we have major problems, even in developed countries in the U.S., with iron deficiency, which is one of the major things you need for growth, for your brain and for physical growth.

02:47:54.000 So the biggest pushback that you guys got was from the agriculture or from the grass-fed people?

02:48:02.000 Kind of what you would call the meat elitist.

02:48:04.000 We had lots of people in the pastured scene that were very gracious towards the book and thankful and everything.

02:48:09.000 But there's kind of a weird cross-section of like the health influencers that say grass-fed or nothing and then also kind of the...

02:48:17.000 And what are they basing that on?

02:48:19.000 Because I've said that.

02:48:20.000 I've said that because I read it.

02:48:22.000 Because I read it that it was higher in essential fatty acids is better for you.

02:48:26.000 Yeah, so they don't like it when I say that, because then that takes part of their argument away.

02:48:31.000 It's an emotional decision.

02:48:32.000 It's not a logical decision.

02:48:33.000 I've said that.

02:48:34.000 I'm probably one of the people that released that syphilis on a college campus, and then I did something crazy, and I really thoroughly got in and vetted the science, and it was like, oh, it's not that simple. 0.81

02:48:47.000 There's great ethical considerations for it.

02:48:50.000 There are really, really sound environmental reasons, but when you just...

02:48:53.000 But up against just that nutrition piece, it's just not the same compelling story on meat by itself.

02:48:59.000 Again, like the dairy, eggs, seafood, huge differences there, but just not the same with meat.

02:49:05.000 And there's a lot of very large family foundations that are...

02:49:12.000 Funding a lot of this grass-fed stuff, and it's a very progressive platform that they're taking.

02:49:20.000 And so to say that meat is healthy, period, it's all of a sudden I'm on the right and not aligning with their politics.

02:49:30.000 And this should be a bipartisan...

02:49:32.000 Apolitical.

02:49:33.000 I am totally apolitical on all this stuff, but I'm immediately tagged as a troublemaker if I say that meat is healthy.

02:49:41.000 We have so many problems with that in this country where people get so dogmatic and they're so connected to their ideology that they don't even question anything that goes outside of it.

02:49:54.000 And this sort of healthy questioning and just reasoning and logic and just looking at data and looking at information and challenging your own personal assumptions, it's so rare.

02:50:05.000 It's so rare.

02:50:07.000 I mean, maybe you get 1 or 2% of the people, I don't know what the numbers are, who look at their diet and look at their life and then look at things like this and read a book like that and go, hey, maybe I should try this.

02:50:18.000 Maybe I'm too rigid with this philosophy that I've adopted that plant-based is the only thing that's good for the heart.

02:50:26.000 Protects the environment you want to be a good person.

02:50:29.000 This is the way to go You know, it's it's just so rare most people they get something in their head and they just stick with that and then their Echo chamber that they exist in that that reinforces and supports that and that's all they ever talk about Yeah.

02:50:44.000 And there's a lot of very large interests that are pushing the plant-based narrative.

02:50:50.000 And then they have this grassroots army of ethical cheerleaders that are just backing them up for free. 1.00

02:50:59.000 And then on our end...

02:51:03.000 It's so complicated to be able to talk about the environmental – like we have health influencers that understand the nutrition piece but they can't really articulate all the environment and then you throw ethics in there and then environmental people don't fully appreciate the nutritional pieces.

02:51:18.000 That meat is good, period.

02:51:21.000 And so you end up with nobody really advocating for meat and also there's no money in advocating for meat.

02:51:27.000 It just creates the headache.

02:51:30.000 They've just made that idea.

02:51:34.000 It's so prevalent that meat is bad for you.

02:51:37.000 Meat is bad for your heart.

02:51:39.000 High cholesterol.

02:51:40.000 Bad for the environment. 0.99

02:51:42.000 You're a bad person. 0.76

02:51:43.000 That's why we call the book Sacred Cow. 0.99

02:51:45.000 Because it's just this unquestioned truth that cows are bad.

02:51:52.000 And where's the documentary?

02:51:54.000 It's on Amazon.

02:51:55.000 Only on Amazon?

02:51:57.000 It's on iTunes and all those video on demand type things.

02:52:04.000 I couldn't even give it to Netflix.

02:52:06.000 They wouldn't take it?

02:52:07.000 Really?

02:52:08.000 They probably have some funky deal with some vegan programming.

02:52:14.000 You know, it's worth mentioning the folks that – we were turned down from every single publisher.

02:52:19.000 No publisher would take this book.

02:52:20.000 So I'm like a – I'm not a J.K. Rowling, but my books have done really well.

02:52:26.000 I'm a – you know, more than a million copies sold of my books and everything.

02:52:29.000 Like I should be able to get a book deal kind of any time I want to do it and nobody would sign off on this.

02:52:36.000 And then the folks who did were the – The publishers of the – The China Study.

02:52:42.000 It's a vegan publisher.

02:52:43.000 Yeah.

02:52:44.000 Really?

02:52:45.000 Yeah.

02:52:45.000 And they happen to also be Stephen Kunin's publisher, too.

02:52:49.000 They're diversifying, sort of like the meat business.

02:52:52.000 I think they're diversifying, but they also, like, they're pretty ethically driven.

02:52:56.000 And even if in their team, there were folks that were like, I have some real reservations about this, but this is a story that at least needs to be told.

02:53:03.000 What was the rejection when you guys got rejected?

02:53:05.000 Yeah.

02:53:06.000 It was always a different answer.

02:53:09.000 That's when you know it's not really your fault.

02:53:12.000 It was a different reason.

02:53:13.000 I think that this has already been told.

02:53:16.000 I think that this is too complicated.

02:53:18.000 I think that this isn't going to sell.

02:53:21.000 And then the weird thing, and it's probably just COVID, but we would have made the New York Times list, well, if the New York Times wanted to put us on the list.

02:53:30.000 The first week we sold 7,000 copies, but Amazon only shipped 2,000.

02:53:35.000 Well, we sold out the day of release.

02:53:38.000 And we were all over them.

02:53:40.000 And this was my third book.

02:53:41.000 My other books have done very well.

02:53:43.000 So there was something really, really weird.

02:53:45.000 So you think they were holding it back?

02:53:47.000 Are you guys wearing tinfoil hats right now?

02:53:50.000 What is going on?

02:53:50.000 I mean, we really thought that this was...

02:53:53.000 A slam dunk.

02:53:54.000 Yeah.

02:53:56.000 Four years of work.

02:53:58.000 Well, let's see what we can do today. 0.99

02:54:00.000 Let's pump this motherfucker up. 0.99

02:54:01.000 It won't hurt it. 0.99

02:54:03.000 Well, thank you guys for coming in here.

02:54:05.000 Oh, and so the film.

02:54:07.000 Is there a trailer, Jamie?

02:54:10.000 Yeah.

02:54:10.000 Let's end with a trailer.

02:54:12.000 And so everybody, let's let everybody know this book is available.

02:54:15.000 You can go to it right now, right here, Sacred Cow, The Case for a Better Meat, Diana Rogers and Rob Wolf, right there.

02:54:26.000 And here's the trailer.

02:54:29.000 We'll leave you with this.

02:54:30.000 And thank you, everybody.

02:54:31.000 Thank you, Rob.

02:54:32.000 Tell everybody how they can find you on social media.

02:54:35.000 RobWolf.com.

02:54:36.000 You can find all my stuff from there.

02:54:37.000 And Diana?

02:54:38.000 I am at Sustainable Dish and then the Global Food Justice Alliance as well.

02:54:43.000 Awesome.

02:54:43.000 Thank you, guys.

02:54:44.000 Thank you very much.

02:54:44.000 I really appreciate it.

02:54:46.000 All right.

02:54:47.000 Play this, Jamie.

02:54:53.000 There's a debate out there about whether or not we should be eating meat.

02:55:00.000 Red meat is now worse for us in our minds than fat ever could have been, because there are so many more reasons to avoid red meat, not only for your health, but also now for the goodness of others, including not killing animals, and for the good of the planet.

02:55:19.000 You can't blame people for being confused.

02:55:23.000 They're trying to make really important moral and ethical decisions about what they should eat and how they should live.

02:55:28.000 It's easy to fall for extreme, simple answers.

02:55:31.000 The majority of meat produced in this country is under such abhorrent conditions.

02:55:37.000 We both are making reactions to the same evil, if you will.

02:55:43.000 They're just different choices of how to do it.

02:55:46.000 But what if we're arguing about the wrong thing?

02:55:49.000 You look at the Midwest now in the United States, it's corn and soy and corn and soy and more corn.

02:55:57.000 This massive amount of monoculture is having devastating effects on the environment.

02:56:02.000 What used to be great biodiversity is gone.

02:56:05.000 The agricultural revolution has been transitioned into the processed food revolution.

02:56:12.000 If you want to fatten up your animals, you put them in a pen where they can't run around and get physical activity, and you feed them lots of grain.

02:56:19.000 Humans are like that too.

02:56:22.000 What if the very animals we're fighting about are a key piece of fixing what's broken?

02:56:29.000 The animals are going to die, and your only choice now is to do it well.

02:56:33.000 That is the only choice left.

02:56:34.000 Are we going to be the death that's killing everything, or are we going to be the death that's part of the cycle of life that actually makes life stronger?

02:56:41.000 Those are really our only options.

The Joe Rogan Experience - February 25, 2022

Joe Rogan Experience #1784 - Diana Rodgers & Robb Wolf

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