00:00:12 Speaker 1: I guess I grew up on an all day brow. Hey everybody, and welcome to episode A hundred and thirty one thirty one three zero of The Hunting Collective. I don't know, is that a big number? Nope? No, that's nothing to celebrate, nothing to celebrate. We shouldn't be celebrating. In fact, this is a somber occasion because there's nothing to celebrate. Um. Joe Fernado, Hello, sir, how are you doing? Man? I'm doing great? How are you? Man? How's your weekend? It was good? What did you do? What did you do? Uh? Went and shot my bow at the bridge of Bowman bow shoot shot? Actually really well, you did? You did really well? It's really really happy. Was excited about? Okay, now total archery Challenge coming up. Yeah, I'm probably gonna win it. That's how good I shot. Yeah. Now, there's definitely winners and losers, and I'm usually a loser at those shows. Phil T Engineer, Hi, hey, buddy, did not shoot any bows this weekend? What did you do? I played video games and mode the one? No? Uh oh wait, yep, yes I did see yes, unbubelievable. But this is eventually we're just gonna take hunting out of the podcast altogether. It's gonna bet it's like, what are we even talking about we're even talking about hunting anymore? Straight so far from the core, but hey, that's what we do here at th HC. We got an interesting program today. I'm excited though, because I think this is. Over the last so roughly six days, we've got the most emails ever, which is saying something that even beat Barry Kay Gilbert's appearance, which generated scores of emails, many many emails. But this, this last I don't know if it's it's just a smattering, it's not all in one thing. Everybody just seems to be thinking and thoughtful right now and right and in and so we're gonna make this episode about you guys. Everybody's thoughtful. Not everybody, but most people that email in are thoughtful. The social media thumbs get the flying off off in a rodging direction. But Phil, we're gonna make this about the emailers because we got a lot of them. So we're gonna run through as many of these as we can before we get to Diana Rodgers and Rob Wolfe, who are the authors and uh makers of the film Sacred Cat which is also a book, and we'll talk about that here in a minute. But we got a lot of emails. Are you ready, Phil, Yes, let's hear him. Are you ready? I said, yes, Well, geez, he's playing those violent video games. A lot of this is like I will read a few of these that are kind of self congratulatory only because the people writing them are saying how great we are. Um, and then other others will question major issues in society and our culture. I want to start with my favorite one. I don't have Chad. I think Chad's being serious here, and UM, all the all the better for Chad, And we're gonna it seems like a joke, but we're gonna treat it like he's he's he's being serious. He said, Hey, Ben, I would like to start by saying, in regards to your last episode, you describe your politics to be left and right depending on what the issue is. Typically, I don't like when politics politics get brought up in most media content. Do you feel like that, Phil? You agree with that? Well, it depends on what what I'm showing up for. If I'm showing up for a hunting podcast, then I usually don't want to hear about I've changed this. Here's the thing. If it if you're gotta look at it through the lens of the show. If like the politics pertained the you know, the hunting collective, then share your politics. But I don't want to hear anything about your thoughts on the infrastructure budget because that has nothing to do with tell him film now. This is what Chad said. A typically he's not into it, but I like what you had to say. You mean me all right with your own politics. What you brought up in that discussion was the The guy who brought this up was an al Burden who considered himself to be left center minded. When I heard that, I was like, ah, there are more like me. So Chat apparently is a left center minded Alberton, which is important for what you'll hear next. He goes on about his his life. He's an adult onset hunter. He's fairly new to it. He's hunting for about seven years now, and he's been searching for a good hunting partner with a similar mindset as his wife and himself, who are left leaning. I was wondering if you could help me out. An extended invitation for left minded Alburton's who are looking for a possible partner. I don't want my email given out to the public, but I gotta ask of you to be a mediator slash hunting partner matchmaker. Interesting. I know that may be asking a lot of you, as you're busy guy, but I would appreciate any help as I feel it's easier to find a wife than a hunting partner. If you can't or don't want you, I understand, but I would like to ask if you can mention this and if someone is in the same situation as I am. I can be found on Liberal Hunter of North America Facebook page. If you like, I could do a little write up on what and how I like to hunt and what I'm looking for. That's a Facebook page. Thanks for your time and consideration. It's like it's like the Rule thirty four. Joe. You know, there's if something exists, there's a porn version of it. If something exists, there's a Facebook fan page as well. So Joe, please pull that up. Jamie, please pull that up, Google it or whatever. Phil Well, I feel I feel one. I feel like I have an obligation to Chad to help him his his the title of his podcast or as email, is swimming alone at sea. He feels that this is very sad. But this guy, and let me let me tell you, I feel a drip. I want to thank you for for for helping him out. I think this is good because coming from someone who's definitely uh, probably one of the more left leaning people that works for this company, and probably someone who never would have been interested in hunting at all if I didn't get a job here, I completely understand why it would be tough for you. Know, it's it's it seems kind of alienating sometimes even if that is not you, son of a bitch. Listen, Chad, I know sometimes it's lonely out there. I don't know. Sometimes you feel like you're swimming alone. Let's see, So you create a Facebook page called Liberal Hunters of North America with a picture of a sad looking dog on it. How many people have joined his group? Joe, there's no way to know members of the Liberal Hunters of North America. Chad. I hope you find a connection, and I hope some other liberal Justin Trudeau voting anti gun son of a bitch, takes you hunting. And see Chad Ben's I want to tell you that I feel you, and I hope someone finds you a match made, a match made in heaven. So Chad, listen, in all seriousness, I hope you find somebody go hunt with bud Um. I hope you find a mentor a and and somebody up there in the great land of Canadia find you as entertaining as I do. Anything anything else filed you want to close out out because I I really did that if I lived in Alberta, I would be your hunting partner. The thing is he would have to teach me everything that it would be the option. We address the fact that he said it was easier to find a wife than a hunting partner would. Would you, Guys, I don't know, Me and Joego Hunt were both He's getting married, I'm married. I mean that's uh, I know, that's like really sad at me because like, here's I could find a hunting partner like that. Maybe it's hard, Maybe it's it's maybe he's way too liberal. Maybe you can bring him back a little bit, you know, maybe it's because of people like you who look at him and just call him an anti gun Trudeau, anti liberal chat. Maybe that's why it's hard from a hunting partner. It's just a it was just a joke, Phil You can't joke now, Ben, you can't joke about you can't joke chat. I Simon Tasty want to make fun of you and help you get hunting partner. Is that okay? I think it should be okay. I think that's fine. Um, moving on, If you're gonna go hunt with Chad, email and email and if you want to go up, let's do a little bit better than just giving that Facebook page that's seventy one. If you want to go home with chat it seems like a nice guy, well meaning, I just want somebody that thinks the way that he does to go hunting with Email us at THHC at the Meteor dot com and we'll hook you guys up. And that's that's very serious. We're all about new hunters are three and whatnot. Um, But moving on, I felt I feel should I take that back? Was that too mean? Yeah? It's fine, okay, thanks Philip, Chad and you know, change his ways, changes ways, get him on the rat side of it. Anyhow, dear Ben, I feel you on the yoga thing. I would even go so far as to say it is critical to hunting. I swear it makes it easier to sit still for long periods of time, shoot from awkward positions and endure boredom slash being uncomfortable. Sincerely, Chris Tomaso. Thank you, Chris, thanks for affirming my yoga. I've stopped doing the yoga though that didn't last long. Well four days in a row. Wow. You know, like Joe, we hunted bears last week, and did my hips seem like they were like real fluid and working well? Do you until about the end of the hike when you were saying in your hips are gonna that's true? I did say that, didn't I I was sore the next day. I should go back to the yoga. All right, back on the train. I'm back on the yoga train. But thank you, Chris. Hopefully maybe we can start some sort of like yoga liberal hunting retreat faceboear, Facebook or Facebook page. I'd like to do it in person. I feel like that's way more impactful. So Doe do yoga in the evenings and then paying in the mornings, and we'll have like focus groups on liberal ideas in the afternoons. People still do that. It's a good thing. Focus groups came. Moving on to the next email, This is all about you, guys. This comes from our favorite buddy, Sergeant Mike Peterson. Um he says, I just want to reach out and let y'all know how much I appreciate your show and your general outlook. I've seen some negative comments towards you guys during some of the recent unrest. Have you seen any negative comments abouts? I don't look at anything pertaining to this show. I haven't seen anything. I show up and I and I try to support you, and I don't even see Phil any other time than in this room. In fact, we sat on the cooler next to each other at a cow's house and it was kind of awkward. I'm like, weird, what about we're not recording our conversation, weird man. Anyhow, I haven't seen Joe. Have you seen negative commons? Yeah? I get the email. Oh anyway, back to back to Sergeant Mike. Uh he says, I want you to know that many of us appreciate enjoy what you do. I especially wanted to say thank you for the entertainment. In the last two weeks. While assisting MPD with rioters, riots, looters, and peaceful protesters. This was a wild experience, coming into contact with hundreds or thousands of people with COVID nipping at our heels. It has been a surreal year for him. Last year this time, I was doing missions in Afghanistan, and I would never have believed that a few months later I would be in the same gear, with the same weapon, working here in the States, especially in my own commune, on the same streets I take my wife out to dinner on or go to the Sunday farmers market. However, even during these uncertain times, I thought I would share some positivity. I just finished ten days of assisting law enforcement in their jobs of protecting the rights of peaceful protesters as well as the rights of small business owners. And although there were some bad apples, like a dude trying to light a veterans museum on fire, it seems like a pretty bad apple. Interactions we had with protesters and citizens were positive, sometimes wary, but once everyone acknowledged that the person on the other side of the issue was just that a person, that person with hopes and dreams and a desire to better the world around them, everything was great. Interactions and experiences over those last ten days. Give me personally, personally, give me hope that not only we can be constructive, but a dialogue can happen, but more importantly, we can find real solutions to the problems this country faces. Hope this gives you some hope, and hopefully my COVID test comes back negative. Sort Sergean Peterson, there's a for you. It's all Sergeant Peterson. Is he National Guard? Is there any backstory there? I'll have to have to ask. It kind of seems like it he said they were supporting police. Yeah, that would that would make sense. He didn't say in his his note, I can I can email him and ask him. He sounded like you knew him pretty well. He's written in before. I don't know. I don't know exactly what he what his role was in this um. I know he was, he served. I don't know what his current role is, so we can ask him. But it sounds like he's a National guardsman. It sounds to me, Yeah, that's what I would assume, not that mass. Does that make you feel fil It makes you feel good, helpful? Yeah, that means a lot better than a lot of the stuff we've been hearing lately. Yeah, I mean, I think the way I look at it, like I imagine most folks experiences is like Mike's. He's just that's not what the news and what the news media likes to show us, because that's not quite as compelling as some of the other stuff. But I imagine that's my experience. My interactions are positive, um, even in in times of turmoil. And so I don't know if that's an outlook in life thing or just that's just really how it is, and it just depends on how you shape your world view around it. But thank you Mike for your service in every way, and thanks for the note man, very much appreciated. Moving on to the next one. What do we got here? Next? We got our buddy DJs or now DJs or is a big a, big time advocate for public lands. He's big into b h A. In fact, last year he was doing the Hike to Hunt challenge, which is a challenge that b h A does. Worry if you can, the more miles you do, the more money you can raise for public lands. Offered to get a back tattoo if he was if he won the like to Hunt challenge like a tramp stamp. Did he win? He didn't win. Like I helped him promoted, I wanted him to win, but I don't think he wont and thus does not have a back tattoo. It's unfortunate. I think everybody back tattoo. That is fortunate. Now in terms of like reading the cod I don't read the comments, but I do read our emails, and most the emails we got about last week's episode with Matt Best and across the board. I will say love Charles Rodney, love what he had to say. That's been that way and since we've had him on the show. But um, not everybody was was super happy with what Matt Best I had to say. In particular, again, fifteen people liked it, one person didn't. But I think DJ is a well spoken dude, um and he had something to say. So I'm gonna play his his voicemail that one will react to it a little bit. For for DJ, Thanks for the coffee mug Bud DJ's are here. A couple of thoughts on episode one with the man Charles Rodney, Crispy and Matt Best. I love Charles Rodney's perspective on everything, but onto the Matt Best Crispy Conversation, Matt said something that kind of struck me talking about the uh, the fact that systemic races him and white privilege kind of doesn't exist, or shrugging off the fact that it's there, And I think that he really missed the market. I appreciate the dude's opinion, and it's his opinion, but I think you need to have a counter opinion to that, because, in my opinion, uh, systemic racism and white privileges is totally real. And I'm not saying that you and I have to feel guilty about being white. We didn't like, we didn't choose to grow up with the privileges that we got, but we damn sure got some privileges that a lot of black folks don't get. Uh. So my challenge to you is to have Killer Mike from Run the Jewels on the podcast and talked to Killer Mike about his views on the Second Amendment, which he supports, and then talk to him about systemic racism and offer him a chance to counter what Matt said about the whole white privileged thing not really existing, because it damn sure does and it us in the military as a as a veteran. Believe you me, man. I was stationed in the South, and racism is real in the South, and there is some hold ons in the military um on on that whole white privileged thing. I feel like I had it. I had it better, and I had different opportunities than other folks did. And my best friend on the boat was from Watts, California. You couldn't pick a more obtuse couple to pall around on a submarine than a Midwest punk rock kid and a dude from Watts who had really no other options besides going to jail or going into the Navy. And we were best buds in the engine room. We fixed everything on that fucking submarine together, and after every watch, we lifted weights together. And the only argument we ever got in was if we were listening to West Coast hip hop or Midwest punk rock. So that's my challenge to you, killer Mike, And thanks again for the coffee bug, Love you, but bye, all right, d J. Well, listen, man, I appreciate you sending that, in appreciate your thoughts. I think there's there, you know, like many things with this, there's there's some duality happening here from listening to Mat. I haven't listened back to the Matt best Um podcast since we recorded it, but I will say that I felt like his message was more toward positivity and that anybody can kind of change their situation. I think Crispy definitely is a good and Charles Rown he's also good examples of that. So I took that's what I took away. I don't know if you went up to Matt and said, hey, Matt, does white privilege exist? He would say absolutely, you know, categorically no it does not. Um. I I don't think he would say that, I want to put word in his mouth, but for me, I think he was. He was hitting on the fact that in his life he's seen he's seen the positive path come from the way he moves through the world, and he articulated that in that show. So I I agree, But secondarily to that, I agree with you, Um, I think both those things can be true at the same time. Systemic racism is prevalence and prevalent in my life and then um, in ways that I view it, and I'm sure a lot of people listen to this feel it on a daily basis. I know my friend Charles Rodney definitely felt it through his entire childhood, and we're still working on a piece for the media dot Com that that hopefully will be very impactful and describes that in detail. Man, if you can get killer Mike, then uh then I don't think we're gonna get killing way more more working into this show. Don't think we're gonna get killing Mike. I don't think so either. I pretty much am fully on board at that voicemail. I think uh d G might become into some like conclusions about what Mats Matt Best was saying. I mean, maybe jumping one step further, but I I wouldn't say he was shrugging it off, but i'd see like the takeaway from that conversation that I don't want to say I had an issue with, but that i'd say didn't go far enough in my opinion, is that the take away it was kind of like, oh, just just live life with empathy, with positivity, and that will solve things. At least that's kind of I'm not saying that those are the exact words, but it was kind of like that's all you have to do, or at least if everyone did that, the world would be a better place. I'd say I agree with that, but that's just in my opinion. If you want to fight systemic racism and white privilege, which does exist, you have to actively fight against it. And that doesn't mean throwing a brick through a window, but like, there are small things you can do that go beyond just living with kindness in your heart and empathy. And like I said, I think, I think, I guess that's kind of where I see DJ coming from. It could be wrong. I think it's where it comes from. And I think listen, like I said, there's two things can be true. And that's the difficult part about what we're going through here, Matt. It's just expressing the fact that that's how he moves through the world. This man started a company, is a very diverse company. A lot of a lot of people from different minority groups work at Black Rifle Coffee. I'm very sure or of that, um and so his the change that he's seeing in the world is that and that's through what he's done in his life and his positive outlook and having empathy for everyone. UM and so I think you're kind of like talking past each other in one way, like when you start when you start where d G I think starts. It's hard to hear anyone say anything but go protests, go fight, go fight, go fight. Matt's not saying don't go do that. He's saying, this is the way that I do it. This is Look what I've been able to do while moving through the world in this way. So I think most they think what Matt was saying is like the best way to go fight is too completely challenge that narrative, you know, and pull yourself up, fight for what you want, work hard, and make it happen. And I really agree with with what Matt said. That's why. And we've talked about this in the office a good bit and well, you know, like we're not gonna stop talking about this here. We'll continue to touch on when it's relevant. But what people are talking past each other, just talking past each other because everybody's passionate about like they're what they see in the world. Um. I think it's okay for Matt to say that, But I think if you walked up to him and said, like, do you believe in systemic racism? Do you believe in these things that that DJ is talking about? I think I think my guests, as he would say, Yeah, man, I get you. I'm with you. This is how I deal with it, um, and I'm not I I don't walk through the world like a victim. My narrative is like, I'm going to win the next thing. I'm positive and that's how I'm going to tackle things. And so, UM, I don't believe it's cop out for me to say like both those things. Both those things are true at the same time and can work in the same environment. Um, because you can't really expect somebody like Matt Best, who has fought for this country, and and even Crispy Um to say anything what they believe and what's worked for them in their life. And then I found it. I was a little bit surprised at how positive they were about things like social media and how positive they were about the gun industry and the culture and things like that. So um, that's what I took away from it then. But but again, I go right back to what you said, Phil into a DJ said, I agree. Um, I would just encourage everybody to be like he's right, I'm right, and and let's try to find a way to come a little bit closer in terms of the conversation. Um, But thanks DJ man and dj uh showed up to the virtual rendezvous last week the b h A Virtual Rendezvous which was really cool, thanks to everybody who saw me on there. Um, and he got a th HC Yeddi tumbler for his trouble. So hopefully he's drinking something cool out of that and listen to this show. But thanks d J. We really appreciate you man. UM. Look forward to more discourse on the subject Phil. Yeah, you knew that we had to return to uh some form of dumping pretty much on every episode at this point. But I'll have you know that this has nothing to do with you, very little to do with God. This is from Andrew Wolf. You remember him from episode one. He was the game warden who caught it, who caught I got dumping trash at trail Head and that I that was dumping trash recognized THHC and said he was a big Phil fan. Remember that I love it. It's so good. Remember that that was back in the innocent days, well before the quarantine. The recent unrest. Um he said, he continues to said, Well today I got a call from a hiker who believed there was an individual dumping trash. I haven't read through this, but I hope this guy was a Phil fan too. I went to the area and it was an overflow parking lot for one of the more popular stocked lakes, and I got my bins out and started looking for this supposed dumper. There was one truck in the parking lot, and lo and behold, there was bags of trash in the bed. Out of the bushes comes a man who I recognized as the dumper. Who recognized THHC. It's a repeat repeat. I also wanted to be a new dumper that was also a Phil fan. Damnit. And to my amazement, I see him picking up trash and putting it in a bag in his hand. I say because I was an exclamation point. I drove up and made contact with him, and he explained to me that he was picking up trash that had been littered around. When I asked him why, he told me after hearing about it on the podcast, he was ashamed and realized how bad what he was doing was and had a change of heart and wanted to clean up and make amends. This isn't this isn't real. It's real. I'm reading it verbatim. So thanks to you and Phil, you haven't in a way made the world a little better place, having turned at least one individual from not caring about our wild places to wanting to keep them clean. So thank you for that. Also, he said he had a Star Wars shirt on, and when I told him Phil would love that, he said, oh, my son got this for me. I think that weird space magic shit is stupid. He's not wrong. That's a new to the know. If you were right, if you were to write this story a new movie, someone would say. I don't believe dumping trash into the woods gets publicly shamed and then is now now cleaning it up. He said, sorry, Phil, for what it's worth. I am a Star Wars fan. Keep up the great stuff, guys, and keep on preaching the good word of keeping nature pristine. Man, Phil, that's good. I love that. That maybe like maybe one of the best, one of the best emails ever. Man, Um, I I want to say that I've been It's funny. I've been very taken aback by some of the things that we've heard um in a recent couple of days, like last last week. It seems like the the what the podcast. This has like some effects that we didn't intend. Um for the first THHC book Club, the North American Model of the Concert Wildlife Conservation Book by Shane Mahoney and doctor Valerious Geist. Um, we got a couple of notes that that book is sold out in many places. So I don't know if that was because us, but I'm sorry everybody. Hope you're you already have your copy and you're reading it. Please continue reading it and making your notes and questions. We'll discuss that very soon. But we also I also got a call from David Clark, the manager for Colonel Tom Kelly, and he said the THHD is selling some books. In fact, he was like you, I think he bought me a new car. So thank you everybody that went out and purchased one of Tom's books. We're gonna try to have time back on. David was was letting me know that that time is of course getting up there in age. He's still spry in the morning time. Um, he's got a bunch of other books that you guys can go look at again where I'm not making any money off that relationship. I love the man and I love his work, and I admire it. And that's so I'm glad that you are all out there buying those books. Please keep doing it. And which how to get Tom Kelly back on to discuss his other works and what he's up to where he is now glad he made it through so far. This quote code mess unscathed sounds like he was doing pretty good. So I think that's that's it. I don't think any email will get better than that. Phil. I like that one. That's probably a good one to unless you have some more. But I thought that was a good that's a good end one. The other one I will say, I don't this, I like I said, this is gonna seem all self congratulatory, but whatever. Um, the guys that forced the Nature Meets you'll remember them from episode What and Everyone. One of those two, Um, Robbie Sands came on. UM. One of his guys called me the other day and told me that a major grocery store chain, the major grocery Stores Meet buyer is a fan of the show and that and he listened to both episodes where he had Forced and Nature on and thus, um, they're now going to be providing some regenerative agriculture meet in their grocery store chain. That's a major, major, major by so good vibes, Phil, all coming really from you? Yeah? Thanks, Man Wars. Can we make a T shirt? Let me get back and fine, I lost this email. They're going we can find that quote about star Wars um because oh my son got this for me. I think that weird space magic ship is stupid. That might be a T shirt and the make it's I let it of itself right there. All right, Well, we're gonna get to two great guests, Diana Rodgers and Rob Wolf. Now I just got done watching their documentary, like one of the fine cuts of the unreleased documentary called Sacred cal They sent me a PDF of their book which I read. Um. I will tell you that it's some of the best work the book, especially some of the best work I've read on Regender b agriculture in this kind of food sourcing food system issue that we've covered in other episodes. I think this is just an extension of that last episode within the cola from Impossible Foods and Robbie Sandsthing that we mentioned from Force and Nature Meets. But just so you know, Diana registered dietitian. She's got a clinical practice where she helps people recover their health through what they eat. So you'll hear about that. You can find her at Sustainable dish Um and she's really the heart and mind behind these this book and film, and she partners with Rob Wolfe who she met after reading his book The Paleo Solution Back then you'll hear about that. We talked about a lot of things in this in this episode, some of the cultural war stuff that we see so interested to hear what everybody thinks of the email about you know that, but specifically a thought that I had that it feels the reason regenerative feels more real. And the Sacred Cow documentary really goes into this because they talked to farmers and rural people and people that live in these small communities, small farming and ranching communities, how how they've changed over the years, how they've either fallen into or out of the food system that would well we would call factory farming, and how all that works. And we talked a little bit about in with Diana and Rob about um this culture warrant that maybe Nick Hola and Possible Foods are part of this, like intellectual cultural elites from the coasts that are trying to tell these people in Middle America what to do, how to be. Um. So I think that's an interesting to think about and pick up on as you listen to this, but without further ado. Thanks for all the emails, by the way, I love you guys and hopefully you enjoy Robol. Diana Rodgers, Hey rob well if how are you good? Good? What's new and exciting? Wow? So many things, so many things. I am just uh charging my way through Sacred cow um. Diana sent me a link to the drawbox, so I download the pdf. I'm not used to read and via pdf, but I'm enjoying it. The publisher has been a little stingy on print uh galleys with COVID and bookstores being shut down and everything, so it's uh yeah, it's been a little different experiences go around. I don't mind. It's it's a wonderful read and I'm like I was feverishly thumbing my thumbings probably not the right word, scrolling my way through it. Um yeah, and excited to to get to talk to you guys as I was as I was reading. So I also need to say hi to Diana. Diana, Hey, thanks for having us, no problem, Thanks for doing what you're doing. And I know Robbie Sansom from Force of Nature introduced us and he basically said that he knew a lot about the subject, but there was nobody that knows more than Diana and rob So I'm thankful that you get a horrible state of affairs. If we're if we are the experts on this, then we are doomed. Yeah. I'm scared of being called an expert on anything, UM, let alone something as complicated is what we're about to discuss. So I appreciate the leap that you guys are taking. UM. Diana, I guess we should first start with UM your background. I know your registered dietitian, you have a clinical practice, you help people recover their health through real food. UM. Can you just kind of describe what it means to you to to do that for profession and obviously it's spun into something more. Yeah, definitely. UM. I I came to this because I had sort of this lifelong health crisis and I didn't know until I was twenty six that I had undiagnosed celiac disease pretty much my whole life. UM. And so when UM, when I first went gluten free, it definitely was a an eye opener for me, but it was I still had, you know, all these blood sugar roller coasters, and I wasn't really sure what was going on, and so UM, I just kept on trying to learn more and more about nutrition and UM actually ended up reading the Paleo Solution right when it first came out and gave it a shot, and it was just totally life changing, and I changed my career. UM. So I had a background in in marketing and I was also UM live. I've been living on organic farms the last eighteen years, and so UM. You know, the more I learned about real food nutrition and you know, regenerative farming, the more I realized how similar they are. And when you look at nutrition through an evolutionary biology lens, but then when you look at farming through a similar lens, they're actually pretty similar. What we try to do is just mimic nature, UM through you know, what we're eating, UM, and you know there's there's not the same exact foods that were around during hunter gatherer days, UM, but similar with farming, we can use technologies like electric fencing and other new things to also just kind of improve upon nature but still mimic nature at the same time. And so I realized that most of the people that we're talking about sustainability and UM diet, we're really pushing this vegetarian, vegan type diet UM full of ultra processed fake meats and things like that. UM. And so I thought that we could really offer a unique perspective. And Rob and I connected pretty early on in maybe two thousand and ten UM and and he also was very interested in the sustainability topic, and we were sort of the only two lunatics in the ancestral health UH space that we're really pushing for, you know, organic farming and regenerative agriculture and things like that. We got involved with the Savory Institute, and UM just started digging in this. And I've been wanting to write this book for years and years and years, and Rob kept telling me it wasn't time, it wasn't time, and so I was bugging him forever to do this with me, and then UM, the timing just seemed right. So so we started UM on this book about three and a half years ago, and then UM kind of halfway through writing the book. UH. And yet another vegan documentary came out, and I realized that's the way to reach young people, Like who's going to pick up a dense book like like Sacred Cow. I mean, we tried to write it in an approachable way. We have really nice graphics. It's it's written and of a conversational tone. You don't need a master's degree in science in order to understand it. But um, but young people are really making some really serious, misguided decisions, um, and how am I going to get to them? And so I thought that if we did a film in addition to the book, it would really hit all those, um, all those folks that we need to be talking to. So we've we've got a film in addition to the book coming out. Yeah, I'm excited to take a look at that. What's interesting to me, UM about a lot of this, And we had Nick Hola from Impossible Foods a couple of episodes ago, is how people kind of get to his story was is exceedingly interesting to me because he came from a family of farmers and he kind of made his way to um looking to end parts of the practice in in his professional life now and it's interesting to me to see how people come to these these beliefs and how they become public figures and speaking about it. So like you're growing up, Um, what was what was the relationship with food and the outdoors and all that, all that kind of stuff. Uh So I actually I grew up on Eastern Long Islands. There was a lot of hunting going on out there actually too, because the deer population is completely out of control. And I've seen the decimation of what can happen when people aren't into hunting, and uh, we don't have any wild predators anymore, and you just got this massive problem. Um. And uh, my my job all through high school and college was working on a farm and being outside and just really connecting with people, connecting people to their food and just absolutely loving it, falling in love with it completely. And um and then just you know kind of you know, thinking about what do I want to do with my life? And you know, what is it? You've got one shot here? What are you gonna do with yourself? And um, so it was really trust. I feel like it's a really great combination of like an environmentalism, being outside, working with nature, helping to improve nature, and providing healthy food for for lots and lots of people. So yeah, and and describe your relationship. We're gonna get to Rob here in a segment talking about your relationship with Rob and and how that's gone. And it seems like a fruitful partnership, especially the book that I've I've about three quarters of the way through. She calls me a lot of bad names frequently, but I deserved. We don't fight as much as we used to. See it's healthy. That's as healthy as anything. Um. Yeah, I mean I first, um just you know, thanked him for I mean, the Paleo Solution really was like a pivotal book in saving my health. Seriously. Um. And if I if I didn't eat in that way, I would be uh, very diabetic at the moment and very very broken and sick. Um. And I was never really like obese, but I was very very sick. And I guess we just I sent him a link to Alan Savory's Ted Talk, and um, we've done a lot of co presentations at Polly Face Farm down Virginia, and we both just sort of realized that you know, something can happen like once you save your body, um, then what like then you know, basically we just decided let's save the world, you know, like let's let's let's fix the broken system that we're in. So you know, I did listen to your podcast about Impossible Foods and then with Robbie, and you know, it really is like we're trying to um, you know, create a new system that um works with nature and actually repairs the land and not you know, taking some iteration of the existing system and just and just maximizing our profits based on that. So um, it's just two different you know, similar concerns, but just two different UM end games. Yeah, yeah, Eisily, you know, surprisingly different endgames. And Rob you're a trained research biochemists. Do you trained as a Reacher's podcast? Yeah, I did some cancer not a immunity research quite a long time ago now, but you know, I've always been interested in health human performance. I mainly did enough time in the lab to support being in the gym or hunting or spear fishing. So um, that was that was kind of you know, mainly a geek that like to hunt and fish and and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah, let's get here. And and as you as you think about writing the Paleo solution, and at that time, of your life prior to working with Diana. What's what's your life like? Did you have any similar struggles or like what brought you to this this passion or or you know, yeah, very similar. I would also both my my mother and myself. And now I've discovered like virtually everybody in my family has Siliac disease, this autoimmune condition driven by by gluten really terrible blood sugar management. Like nobody in my family should be eating much in the way of like white potatoes or bread or anything like that. Like it's funny, nobody in my family gets particularly obese, but they get high blood pressure than cardivascular disease, and then they die. And so we're in that spectrum where none of us would get three pounds. Everybody in my family would would die well in advance of that. So it was really kind of the personal health crisis that I had that got me into all this. And like Diana said, you know, once you fix your own stuff, and it's like having abs is cool, having some performance is cool, But I think you kind of stand up and you look around, you start asking what else can I do? Like how can I leave some some legacy here? And it was very early in the story when when I would interface with folks typically out of kind of the vegan vegetarian world, that would say, well, you know, animal has injury, is is unsustainable or it's damaging, or it's this, or it's that. And I'm a half decent student of kind of economics and markets and stuff like that, and also because of my biochemistry background, like I really think about things from kind of a physics perspective, like the thermodynamic inputs and outputs. And when I really started thinking about this, it just back at the envelope numbers. It's like, hey, you know, sunlight grass animals done. Like that's a really efficient system. Like that's been around a long time. It's been well pressured tested over the course of history. So you know, some of these these what what we would call advancements, like the industrial agriculture system, it's really amazing. It's very impressive, but it's also very extractive. And from that economics perspective, I think we're just now kind of circling around and recognizing, oh, it looks really efficient, so long as we ignore everything else that's going on. It's kind of like talking about electric cars, like they look kind of cool, and I'm kind I'm a fan of solar. It's that that's neat. But when you look at what the energy costs are of mining rare earth metals, pulling them out of the ground, processing them, sending them to China, getting components built, sending them back here, then we send everything back to China. When you look at the full energy inputs of that, electric cars aren't all that efficient, like just tinkering with you know, internal combustion engines is more you know efficient, and a lower carbon footprint and all that type of stuff. So those have really been kind of the orienting features for me. And it's incredibly unpopular. It pretty much guarantees I will piss everybody off whenever I talk about something. But I've I've really tried to let the data and the research drive this stuff first, and I spend a lot of time trying to blow up the assumptions that I've made. So Diana and I when we were writing the book, we had a whole list of assumptions when we really went after it with how do we destroy this? How do we make ourselves look like idiots? And then we kind of worked backwards from there, and I feel like, it's pretty scientifically robust and defensible, and also on it it's cool because that vegan vegetarian narrative is it's super sexy. It lends itself to an elevator pitch, you know, it a little thirty second sound bites are are awesome. We don't really have that advantage. But if we can get in and chat with folks a little bit and kind of paint this bigger picture, then usually you you can kind of see the light turn on and people get it and they're like, Okay, we're talking about working with nature instead of you know, trying to do something that we couldn't come back at thousand years from now and still have the systems that we're using today still working. It's got to be something different. Yeah, I mean, and its sacred cow. You say this in the opening pages of the book, and it is through true throughout it that it's an It's an idea that spans physics, chemistry, by biology, ecology and as you said, they're psychology, our culture, um, how we structure, how we relate to each other, how we relate to the natural world. So what you're cracking into here is not a small, uh piece of subject matter. It really is this fissure between the approaches here is I think it's part of a larger idea of what of the culture war that we have going here in some and I think we use the term culture war probably about a dozen times in the book. Yeah. Yeah, And it's so you know, try to Rob if you could, think you describe for our listeners how you see that culture war. I know, it's it's coastal versus heartland. There's so much that goes into how we produce food, Who's eating the food, who's doing the talking here? Um, who's writing the articles in the New York Times? Who who are the voices that are kind of allowed to speak? Um? And I think that I think that's a great and important place to start here. Yeah, you know, And and first and this thing I want to say, I think that a lot of folks have some really good intentions. They have some some desires to improve things. But the path to hell is oftentimes paved on good intentions. And and you know of one oh one, you know, very superficial understanding of these complex systems can lead people to make decisions that the the knock on effects and the unintended consequences are absolutely catastrophic. But there are lots of elements of the industrial food system I'm not really a fan of. And again, I'm kind of one of these lunatic, kind of libertarian folks, like I really wish that we didn't have farm subsidies, Like farm subsidies are kind of the driver for the junk food industry. And and you know, and if you really want to look at an existential threat to Western civilization, it's our it's our highly processed modern diet like this, this covid epidemic. If the whole population had been metabolically healthy, this thing would have been a non issue. The fact that was scary is that a recent study suggested that fewer than twelve percent of Americans are metabolically healthy. And if we saw anything that was kind of a truth out of this very politicized topic, if you had one or more comorbidities, you know, high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascot disease, you had a really high chance of not faring well in this thing. So, you know, there's there's a lot of good intentionality within all this stuff, But then there's also the ability to really control some interesting narratives the folks that have developed this industrial food system, they own the intellectual property on our food and part of the end game with this, and it gets a little bit conspiracy theory, I guess, but we can we can slap on an Alex Jones hat for a minute and just just like take a rite on this thing. But some of the recommendations in particularly in doing away with animal husbandry, what we are left with is about four or five crops that are the intellectual property for these things is owned lock stock and barrel, and and you have no recourse. Anyone in the world would have no recourse other than to continue buying the seed from these these you know, very few manufacturers around the world. And even that is ignoring the fact that that system is completely reliant on synthetic chemical inputs which are really not sustainable. It destroys top soil, destroys ecosystems. It's really fascinating. Like the Audubon Society was historically very much in the in the UH, I guess, the opinion that like huge tracks of land just needed to be left alone and don't have anything going on for God's sake, don't don't graze animals on it, and then they actually looked at what was happening on some of these savory institute farms and ranches and massive numbers of these marginalized or or endangered bird species. We're rebounding because when people would do this holistic management that if you have more animals, if you have more birds, if you have more bugs, then the cows will be healthier. It's a you know, you don't want a moonscape. You want something that looks more like a forest meadow with a bunch of different animals and plants and insects and microbiome. You know that's occurring under the ground. So it's a it's a as you said, it's a big complex topic to unpack. But if you really take this thing to its endpoint, if Diana and I could wave a magic wand and kind of shift this whole thing, what we would have is tens of thousands of small, decentralized farms, processing facilities, very a non debt based food production system. So farmers don't need to go into massive debt to do these things. It's not a massive infrastructure investment to do the stuff, Like you could start on four or five acres and as long as you've got like a quad and some electric fencing, you can start scaling this thing and kind of ramping it up. People who work in these systems it's hard work and it's a lot of work, but they get paid well. So in this time of automation where we're starting to ask these questions about, well, where are people going to work, what are they going to do? Food production is is arguably if we don't go in the industrial agriculture direction, if we go in this kind of holistic management direction, it is arguably going to be the last place that artificial intelligence could displace human labor because all that these farmers do, all that these ranchers do is creatively problem solved from from morning tonight, and creative problem solving is something that arguably is either going to be the last thing to a I cracks or it's never going to crack it. So you could make the case that we would have a food system and economic system, a labor kind of kind of network that we could come back at thousand years from now when the thing is still functioning and it's probably working even better because we've figured out how to make the thing run better. But you know, this debt based extractive system. It's got a it's got an expiration date on it, and you don't have to be too conspiracy theory oriented to recognize that. I'd love to hear, Diana, you talk about this a little bit as I as I listened to him Nick from Possible Foods talk and I kind of was and it took me. I've been I still think about it almost every night and try to understand, you know, his point of view. I don't. I would just flat outside. And I said this in the following podcast. I just don't agree with the ideology. I can't. It does not track for me objectively. It's not that I couldn't see it if if if he convinced me, it just doesn't track. And part of that is because it doesn't solve what Rob was just talking about. It doesn't solve proximity to food um and that's I think what what I got from Nick, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts were, Hey, I have this, there's a symptom of the underlying illness that I can cure. What it's going to have all these other um ill effects, It's going to cause all these other versions of the same illness. So UM, be interested to hear your thoughts on on that. Yeah, I mean I definitely noticed that he didn't answer a lot of your questions. UM. For example, there's nothing organic even about this mono crop that he's growing. I mean, there's there's nothing. You know, he's very they're very focused on, you know, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and land use, but he didn't address the issue of, you know, all the non arable land and what are we going to do with that, and how are we going to improve that, how are we going to build soil health um? You know. Uh, And and just going back really quickly to your your question to Rob about you know, the polarization and how did we even get here. But it's just so interesting this Silicon Valley. UM. You know, us, us urban elite are going to then make decisions for the rest of these rural um idiots really the whole world. Yeah, And when you think about all of the places in the world that can't grow soybeans, um or crops, you know, UM, and all of the people who don't even have the privilege to be able to push away a nutrient dense food and would just love to have it. They don't have a CBS where they can get their B twelve supplements. UM. You know, products like beyond burger are twice as expensive per pound as organic grass fed burger. UM. And you know, there's a again, a lot of places where you can really only raise goats or camels or you know, other kite kinds of grazing livestock because the land is too hilly to the the soils to pour. There's also a lot of places where women can't own title to land, but they can own livestock. And when we improve the nutrition of women, we improve the nutrition of the entire family, and it can actually give the whole family a leg up in the world if they just get those nutrients, especially in those first thousand days. So that's where UM, I think our position is unique in that, first we make the case that real food is UM is a right that people should have a choice to be making, and it shouldn't be someone's um you know, moral dictate on the rest of the world that they don't have the right to eat foods that they're culturally have always eaten. Right. I mean, that's that's pretty basic right there. UM. And so we make the case that you know, UM, animal products are critical for human nutrition, and that supplements and these artificial you know, vitamins and minerals that are being placed into ultraprocessed foods are just not the same as getting them from real food, whether that's an elk or a deer or a cow. Um. And so we once we make that case that humans are definitely omnivores and you know, they thrive the best on nutrient dense food, largely things that we get from animal products, then we move into the environmental case in the book and start talking about very important things like land use, which um is how I actually got our book contracts. Are Our publisher is ben Bella. They did the China study. They're a vegan publisher, and who better to vet our book than a vegan publisher, right, I mean, we're we're writing the anti China study, is what we're doing. We're saying these epidemiology, you know, population based studies are ridiculous to be setting policy on, and um, you know, let's look at what really works in nature. Let's let's stop making assumptions based on um, you know, epidemiology, which really only can prove bias. Yeah, we gotta I think we've gotta continue to to look at how um the like the ideology and how some of the the ideas from beyond an impossible and kind of that Silicon Valley sect that's like sitting at the altar of progress. And and that's another thing that struck me in the way that they speak. They speak like they're going to go to rural America and tell them, hey, you've been doing. You don't know anything about this, you know anything about the natural world, you don't know anything about Let's let me come in. I'm gonna here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna come in. I'm gonna fix all your problems. And and I've thought about it, but I've done that in l A and Hong Kong, and it just doesn't seem it just doesn't seem to track. And then I'm and I read I know you guys did a breakdown on this. You were telling me. I read the article in the New York Times that the title is the end of Meat is here? Yeah, exactly, yeah, And and so equating that you know, all factory farming is evil and therefore we shouldn't eat meat is like saying, well, sweatshops are bad, so we shouldn't wear clothing. It's a strong man. Like anybody that knows anything about arguments, is that's that's the strong man of of the situation. Yeah, and so we try to very logically. We actually took all of the main concerns that people have about meat. So does it cause cancer, does it cause heart disease? Is it bad for greenhouse gases? What's going on with the methane, what's going on with land use? Is? Yeah, all of those things. And then and uh, and in the ethics section, you know, what about sentience least arm? What is the diet of least arm really look like? You know, is there is it possible to eat without death? Because no, it's actually not. And so um, we tried to vary logically, um, go through all the evidence we could find, which is why the book took us along to write and really just break down each single one. And as Rob was saying, it's it's not easy to explain, for example, with greenhouse gases, which is really all his argument is, right, he can't talk about eat, ecological function, he can't talk about um improving water, infiltration of soil, he can't talk about any of those things because monocrops, soy can't do any of those things. Um, you can talk about greenhouse gasses. But then when you look at biogenic methane, which comes from ruminants, it comes from moose. Uh. But yet in Sweden the Green Party wants to eliminate all moose because they emit methane. Um. And Rob even found an article where they were trying to get rid of muscles off the ocean floor because they meant methane. And and this is the danger of having a really simplistic understanding of an insanely complex system and then jumping to conclusions. If you just say all greenhouse gas emissions are bad, then what that means is all life is bad. And this is like there are people in these articles looking at a muscle and different shell fish populations that were suggesting, maybe we need to call these things to reduce their greenhouse gas emission. And that is a sign of either a living or a dead ocean to say nothing. And there's just so many different layers to this, but a very simple piece of this is that the greenhouse gases that are emitted via biological systems are a cycle. It's it's not a net. You know, It is different than taking oil or coal that's an underground for potentially hundreds of millions of years and liberating huge amounts of that in a fairly brief period of time. And the ironic thing is that properly managed life actually sequesters more carbon. It puts it underground, it locks it into you know, like a carbon formations like in in coral reefs and whatnot. And so the goal should not be less life. It shouldn't be an intellectually property owned life in the form of like five different crops. It should be as much different life as possible, and each local environment, each equal local ecosystem, you know, like if if you're in the mountains of Peru, you have a very different demand than you do in central Texas where I am, you know. And so when we start getting these very top down, command based recommendations, it just it ignores not just the culture, but the economics, the the energy inputs, the thermodynamics and so ham handed. It's it's remarkable and in this time, like I don't want this thing to turn super political, but in this time when people make a ton of noise about respecting different cultures, this strikes me as the most disrespectful thing I could imagine, which is that a small group of largely wealthy, white vegetarian oriented people are telling everybody else in the world that their traditional food systems are unethical, damaging to the environment, and damaging to their health, when we can make a very strong case that that is untrue in all three of those areas. Yeah, that's it's interesting to bring it back, you know. And and I don't want to just keep harping on Nick from Impossible Food, because he was a very nice guy, um and was you know, I think very believes very holistically what he's doing. But you know, he's he spoke about talking to his brother about the farming practices and kind of speaking to him as if um, he had gone away to a monastery and and and learn the game and became enlightened and learned the truth and needed to then go back into these communities and and you know, kind of enlighten them as well. And that that's the thing that struck me the most about that conversation, listening back to it, thinking about it, And I don't want to continue to harp on the cultural piece of this, but I think that's a huge underlying current of like, why are we having this argument. Why can't we say a little bit of regendat a lot of regendative, a little bit of plant based stuff whatever. And I think it's because it's become such a backed into a corner ideology that then it becomes one versus the other, and is where is where we are? I think the interesting thing is the regenerative agg model. It is not amenable to any one individual owning it. You can't own the i P. It's a low barrier of ventry. It's really democratizes both food and food production and employment. And so that's a fascinating thing to me that these folks that are kind of more like social justice oriented, that they're actually moving towards these these mega corporations that operate outside of governmental institutions like they are are literally super national, like they they have ways of just basically bypassing, you know, the rules and regulations around the world because it's just kind of a shell game. They moved stuff around. They're always changing. And it's interesting that the that regenerative model. If you don't want to eat animal products, there will be food for you there. You can live your life way. And the people raising food in that way, are not going to care one way or the other the way that you eat. But yet that reciprocity, that other side does not exist. The folks that are advocating for this planet of the Vegans model, they literally want to expunge whole cultures because they disagree with it. And one, I think that ethically that's really challenging, Like I have beliefs, but I I'm I just can't imagine too many things that I would move, like a gun or bayonet point to move to shift people to my ideology. Like I am really uncomfortable with that. But this is kind of the sentiment, This is kind of the stated goal of these folks, and I see this careening into a really terrible place, you know, like driving this culture war two, you know, some sort of really terrible in point is is not going to be good and it's not ultimately going to achieve the thing that I think a lot of these well meaning folks hope to to effect. Joel Salaton had a great, great response. I was at a talk that he gave and someone asked him about, you know, well what do you think about begins some vegetarians, And he said, if you let me raise the food to feed my family. I promise you I will raise enough food for you to feed your family and do it in the way that you want to do. And if there was that reciprocity, then this whole topic would kind of go away. But there's a lot of money, there's a lot of control. All there's control both on the economic level but also trying to control like the ideology and the culture. And people get pretty enamored with that. Yeah, well, I think and and and you know why you call the book Sacred Cow. You say it in there, you say that the prejudice that meat is bad for health in the environment, and that eating it is morally objectionable, morally gextual practices effectively become this sacred cow, which is an idea, custom, and institution held especially unreasonably, to be above criticism. And and that's where this is moving towards. And that's the thing that those of us who are reasonable and who want to find a very tangible and very you know, close proximity solution to eating just this seems so far fetched that side of the Aisland, So Diana, I know, that's that's generally the thesis of what you guys worked on UM can you talk about and I would say too, it's UM. It's it's not just you know these uh A fanatical v ends. All of those those guys definitely exist and we talk about them in the book. You know, like folks can't even leave the cult of veganism without being UM totally destroyed. And actually, UM, I was just texting with Rob last week because of really major UM influencer that was involved in the Game Changers film just reached out to me UM telling me that he's now going back and you know, he wants to talk, but he hasn't you know, been able to announce again these things. But UM, when I was becoming a dietitian, UM, there's there's not just the fanatical veganism, but there's this underlying meat is bad. What we need less meat? Clearly we need less meat, you know, UM. And I think that that's really dangerous too, because it's just like everyone just assumes, you know, everyone in my town here in um eastern Massachusetts, they're highly educated, health conscious, environmentally conscious. None of them are eating beef because it's just like that bad thing and they they're not even realizing it. They're eating more and more, you know, factory farm chicken, which is actually the worst choice you could be making. UM and uh and the folks that are, for example, pulling meat out of schools, it's meatless mondays, I mean when you really look at it. Uh. So, the New York City Public School system is the largest school system in the US. UH And of those kids are either homeless or um low income. And there's never been evidence to support that feeding food insecure kids less meat is a benefit. There's there's nothing to base that on. In fact, there's only been one randomized control trial that looked at food insecure kids and um one group was given a meat supplement and the other one was just given extra calories. And the ones that got the meat supplement for firm better behaviorally, academically, and physically. UM. So, we have no evidence nutritionally to pull meat away from children who need that iron and be twelve in particular, and you know this may be the only meal or the healthiest meal they get all day. Um. And then environmentally pulling meat away one day a week and then just substituting in beans and rice and mac and cheese and and things like that, there's actually no evidence to show that that makes any dent at all. So there's one study that we cite several times in the book showing that if we UH pulled all animal products out of the US diet completely, greenhouse gas emissions would only go down two point six percent if we all went vegan, yet dietary nutrient deficiencies would go way up, overall calories would go way up, and overall carbs would go awayep So when we're looking at a population where of Americans or obese or overweight, um, you know, that doesn't make a lot of sense to actually be giving them more calories. And so we also looked at the greenhouse gases associated with obesity and diabetes. So all of the UH need dynog all the land sets from the all of that. So we we have to really look at this from from multi levels, not just like methane emissions you know, from moose and deer and cows and and all these things and say, well, it must be the methane from them, that's the worst thing in the world. Yeah, I think of what you're talking about too. There's there's the nutritional part which I definitely want to cover, which you guys do so so well. In the book. But there and there, there's also this idea that you present in the beginning of the book that that most of us want to follow the noble principle, you know that what would be a noble principle of doing the least harm? Right? And I think part of the simplistic notion here is that one side, the vegan side, maybe the you know, we'll put impossible in those books. In that side, they're taking advantage of that idea. Right, they're saying, you want to do the least harm? Boom, I got the I got the solution. It's a simplistic exchange, right. It's good people want things to be good or bad. They want things to be evil or or kind and benevolent. And I that's the thing that bothers me the most, and the thing that I think if people read Sacred Cow, they'll see that it's so much deeper and more complex than that. What you know, what Rob just talked about with electric cars, what you're just talking about with eliminating meat. These things are so much more complicated than what they would seem. And I you know, I think Rob, you can even speak to a little bit of of this least harm idea and how that's this kind of infiltrating the way people think and the way they make decisions. Yeah, you know, it's it and it again, I think that that's a noble proposition. Like I just buy a pellet gun for my daughters and they were interested in hunting, and I'm teaching them how to shoot starting with that, and they were talking about like, Dad, you know, it's hard to kill things, like this thing is going to die. And I'm like, yeah, so we don't shoot anything that we don't eat otherwise that's what targets in tin cans are for and stuff like that. So I I think that most people have some sense of that, like the sanctity of life. But we also um our dog got ahold of the normadilla the other day and like I had did, he didn't finish it, so I had to finish it and the girls were a little upset. But I'm like, you know, if Dutch were out in the wild, our Rhodesian ridge back, he would need to eat something, you know, like they and they really get that. In Diana has an amazing story from her daughter where her daughter basically said, oh, it's impossible to be vegan because everything lives, everything dies, our bones are blood, everything recycles, you know, and so at the end of the day, nothing is is really ultimately vegan. But at the same time, like, there are some ways that we could make our food system more humane, both for humans and animals, and we could make it more safe and more resilient. And so I think that there's great instinct there. But to your point, these super simplistic solutions, Oh, I got you. We're just gonna do row crops as far as the eye can see, process those things, and then turn it into something that kind of sort of looks and smells and tastes like meat, and that's going to fix the whole problem, and it just doesn't. But unpacking of that story is really challenging, and it it's very controversial too, because again, um it's it's presented as an unassailable fact that meat is bad for the environment, bad for your health, and an unethical thing to consume. But there was a study that was done out of Dana was at Oregon State University, the least arm principle study, like that original one. I'm pretty sure it was. Last name was Davis, Yeah, yeah, and he did an amazing kind of thermodynamic analysis of like how many animals are killed in the process of raising row crops and whatnot. And it's everything from like birds to insects, to snakes and lizards and on and on versus like if a family were to live mainly off of one cow a year, two cows a year, or what have you. And there was just no comparison. There were far fewer animals killed in this large grazing animal model versus this this road crop centric model. And this is where it really got interesting for Diana and I and and was part of the reason why we stayed in the fight. It looks the best from a least harm perspective, to have this grazing animal centric model. It appears to be the best from a nutritional standpoint, and then ironically, from like a resource perspective, it seems to be the most resource efficient, particularly when you realize that we can actually regenerate damage farmlands and and uh, there was there was some analysis that looked at Impossible Burger and they asked a question, well, because this is relying on synthetic chemical inputs, this thing really isn't sustainable, how would you make it sustainable? You would have to use regeneratively managed livestock to maintain the land that the impossible burger stuff is raised on. And so it becomes a little bit of a it's like you're going through a maze and you really don't want to find the answers, but those were the answers. Something that looks like a a large animal centric, grass based food system, fruits, vegetables, nut seeds that kind of rounded out um that ends up being the win or whether we're talking about energy inputs, ecological considerations, economic considerations. But man, it's a it's a lot of work to unpack that, and it's a pretty controversial topic for sure. Yeah. Yeah, as you guys well know, um three underpages the plus pages of of unpacking that in the book. And I think part of what what you said Diane about low income folks going to school and being and and and kind of being prescribed a diet or being being talked about this is and you know, around that noble idea. I think it's easy for people to accept when they're eating that if they're being told what they're eating is noble. But how many how many people do you think think about anything past is it affordable? How quickly. Can I get it? How is it? I think that's you know, what's the easiest way to feed myself. And then if somebody rubber stamps it that it's healthy and good for the environment, that's as much thinking as I'm gonna do. I can't go past the rubber stamp. I don't have time. And these other factors that that we're talking about so complex, our secondary tertiary and on down the line. Um. I think that point came came through well with what you were saying with those kids in New York. Yeah, and um, I mean you know when when coronavirus happened, we were really nervous, you know, because it's not easy to put out a book in a film when you know everyone's just sort of glued to CNN and and you know whatever is going on with the pandemic. But what we've seen, Um, so the farm I live on, we do a vegetables CSA, so people join and you know, get their vegetables every week. Um, and we do a meet c s A two and um we are completely sold out for the whole rest of the year. And now we're booking our slaughter dates for one before the animals are even born. And and we've got there's a major bottlenecks with the small scale slaughter industry, especially here in New England, but all over the country. I've never seen such a high interest in where your food is coming from. Everyone I've talked to that is a producer that deals directly with their consumers is having the same year that we're having. It's absolutely amazing. And um, and I think that you know, these slaughterhouses that are shutting down, UM, it's really highlighting the fragility of our industrial system and um, you know, between how the workers are treated and um, you know, just a handful of companies controlling our entire meat supply and how dangerous that is from a national security perspective. UM. And so what Rob and I are arguing for in our book has actually never been more relevant. So, I mean, we we've been trying. Uh you know, there's this one conference that we've been going to year after year, and it started out with Rob and I in like three people in the room. UM, and now it just it seems like people because it's actually happening to them now, because they're being told they can only buy a couple of packages of meat in the store. I mean it's not everywhere, but in a lot of places I've seen that. Uh, folks, it's it's actually an amazing opportunity right now to be encouraging more regional, you know, sustainable food systems. Yeah that do you ever just think like I was right? I told you we do that occasionally. We do occasionally of the time we think we're crazy and I'm texting Rob like, this is such a bad idea. Why don't you know. At the end of the book, we have this thing that is almost kind of like the Prepper Checklist. And it was funny because we were kind of like back and forth on including it, but I felt really strongly about it. Our publisher was kind of like, you guys are nuts, but it was, you know, don't be in debt and have some food on hand and have your you know, have some backup water it And this is like I have good friends that live in Louisiana and they're facing down another you know, either tropical storm or hurricane. So this is just kind of some background stuff that most people should should think about having a little food and water on hand, having some cash dash somewhere, and stuff like that. And then Corona hit and like Diana before before, and when you look at all of the failure points that people had in this scenario, like that book was just a manifesto, Like if if the book had been released a year prior and people had followed that, they knock on wood. Very very fortunate. But because I'm kind of a doomsday bunker nutcase, like this thing didn't affect me that much because I've sacrificed elsewhere to kind of prepare for that potential rainy day. So psychologically it wasn't a surprise. I'm like, oh, of course a pandemic happened, Like it's either that or a hurricane or a comet strike, Like it's going to be one of the three, you know, And so I didn't have that moment of fear and panic. It was just like, Okay, well we're going to figure out how to navigate this and just what we're gonna do. And again, very fortunate to be in that position, but it was also twelve years of researching this stuff and thinking about it and allocating some resources into preparing for that. Yeah, no, I think for sure. I think we've had maybe thirty guests on We did a day of the podcast for a while. So we've probably thirty guests on since the pandemic began and since we were locked down, and each one I say, hey, what's going on in your life? Is there anything? And most of the people are all hunters, outdoors been people that kind of follow the same lifestyle most for most of the that I do. And most of them, yeah, we're good. It's not even it's not a conversation. It's like we're running out to to do things. And I had my friend, doctor Robert C. Jones, who's a vegan philosopher. Um, I used to be at a Chico State University but he's moved on, but he's a professor, and I asked him what's going on. He said, well, I'm looking at more how to be more self sufficient, and um, I want to change. I got to change my own battery in my car the other day and that's the first step to be in more self sufficient. So I think we're in the time of self sufficiency right. Definitely, definitely. And I mean, um, you know, living on a farm and and and uh, it's been a joy for my kids and to be to be stuck at home without school, um, and it's just a really nice life to be able to give them, and um, you know they're out there, um taking care of uh little bunnies that are that are trying to eat the lettuce and stuff like that, and people just don't have any idea. And I mean we're in suburban Boston and my kids running around with his little um pellet gun, you know. Um, but you know lots of things have to die in order for your lettuce to be here. Yes. Amen, you guys want to talk a little bit about the term neutral tag you Diana, Yeah, if you're gonna take that one. Um. So we just decided, you know, a lot of books that I read about food systems and things like that, I kept like flipping to the back and like, well, what just tell me what to eat because there are those people. And right in the beginning of the book, we actually have like this quick reference guide where you can sort of choose your own adventure, like okay, me gives me cancer page what you know, um, And so at the very end of that list, it's like, just tell me what to eat? Okay, what we have that too, And so we put together this nutrition sort of prescription for folks um and it really just takes the emotion out of it. And let's just look at nutrient density and what does that look like if you were to try to construct the most nutrient dense diet for humans, what is that? And could it could it be possible that maybe it also gies with everything else we said in the book, and yes it does. Um. And so when you look at you know, plants versus animals, it's largely animal products that have the most nutrient density. And that's you know, a lot of wild foods. Two oysters are off the charts. Shellfish kind of tops everything. Um. You know, wild salmon is amazing um. And then um, you know, when you get into the domesticated animals, it's beef by far above pork and chicken. Um. And then you know you could round that out with some uh, you know, brightly colored vegetables. Keep things kind of simple. We have this really nice meal matrix in there where folks can you know, it's basically pick your protein um. And you know, we give examples, but folks, if you don't like, you know, whatever, if you don't like hamburgers, you could just put in steaks or whatever it is, Uh, pick your protein, pick a fat source. Um that you know, brightly colored vegetables, and we gave some examples of vegetables that are particularly nutrient dense, like asparagus, red bell peppers, things like that. UM and uh. So basically, once you take the emotion out of it and just try to construct you know, uh, an ideal diet for humans, it actually also completely jives with everything else we were saying in the book. Um, we do give some recommendations around um, you know, baseline where you might start for carbs for folks that have been eating a lot of pasta and bread and things like that. UM and UM. Largely people are also under eating protein, is what I found, especially women in my practice. So usually when I have a guy come in he wants to lose a little weight. If I just give him permission to eat more meat, there's like no argument. He's running out the door and he's just all psyched about it. Um. For women, it's a little harder because meat, you know you had mentioned the beginning, like you know, meat has become the sort of skategoat um. And there's there's a lot of reasons why meat in particular has been uh demonized and um, it represents blood you know, there's a lot of things as a woman that that um make it particularly more difficult to eat something red and bloody looking that's on a bone. Um. You know, we're just sort of conditioned that, you know, a boneless, skinless piece of chicken is more feminine to eat because you eat that like on a salad and has no fat and it's okay. UM. So I really try to make a case for women in particular to like reclaim meat and be unapologetic about you know, eating more, getting more iron and really just feeling okay about that. Um. And actually speaking of that, Rob and I also have just finished recording a course called Meat Curious and UM. It's uh for folks that are just maybe they went flexitarian, maybe they're nervous about eating meat, or maybe they're an ex vegan or vegetarian and they just need a little more hand holding. And so we actually have a whole course for folks where Rob and I walk everyone through, Okay, so here's your concern, here's how we're going to address it. And um. And again there's special concerns when folks have been a vegetarian or vegan UM with social situations, their friend group, you know, sort of ostracizing them there. There's there's special considerations there as well. So um yeah, the neutral war diet, I mean it's very similar to a whole thirty keto paleo type thing. Um, you know, just really reducing your process food and take and just eating as much like natural foods and really prioritizing that protein. Did you, guys, Diana, did you listen to the Wilkes versus Crasher debate on Joe Rogan. I'm sure you both did. I'm sure because I know you guys know Chris, Um, yeah, I want to kind of crack that open a little bit part of you know something For me, I'm not really I'm not at all educated about these much like Joe. Him and I are both kind of similarly intrigued and know that these are important topics, and we're both hunters and we kind of understand the value and proximity to food and we can go through that. But I part of that was like the value of data, the value of eid epidemiology, talking past each other in so many ways, And that's one thing after listening to that particular conversation, UM, that I wanted to avoid as we explore This is two guys who know a lot more than the than the listener arguing about which epidemiology study is more effective? Um and and so, Diana, can you talk a little bit about that, how you communicate these things simply? I think neutralo is a great way to do it. These diet solutions are a great way to do it. But rather than just try to break down the complexity of hem iron um for folks in in data versus data, there's got to be a more simplistic way or maybe a more gentle to talk about it. Yeah, I mean I think that, Um, A lot of this comes down to worldview and just how you see the world. Are we here as just part of the are we a peace in the web of nature? And um and here just as as an animal? Or are we here on top of the pyramid to dominate everyone else, including uh, you know, those who might not have as much access to two things as we do. And is our job done to go around and enlighten everybody else with our enlightenment? Right? Um? And so I think you know, if if someone comes at this from a humble position where they're um, open minded and want to truly get to the bottom of it and and explore the truth and um, you know, instead of walking into this assuming that they have the answer already. UM. Like Rob and I really did try to prove ourselves wrong throughout the entire book. And you know, we learned a few cases where we were like, wow, that data doesn't support what we thought here. Um and uh. And so we're just really honest about that. And I think if you're a true scientist, UM, that's the way you have to operate, right, And you're always trying to prove yourself wrong, trying to be as open minded as you can and understanding that you're like this, and uh, in the grand scheme of things, I don't know, Robb, you probably have a much more ELK finances. Don't know that was phenomenal, but I mean it, It is tough. We live in a very data centric world, you know, like we try to make all kinds of decisions around economics and resources and and uh, you know, the the data involved with that is is no joke. And and because gosh, there's I want to say, like two thousand seventeen, there were thirty thousand peer reviewed journals on type two diabetes alone. So that's a number. Um, of all of human knowledge has been accumulated in the last two years. And this is that More's law thing, where like things get cheaper and better and we learn more and more things like our cell phones are are way better and all that, but every two years our information is going to increase by this exponential you know factor, and it's impossible to stay on top of all that stuff. So from there, I think that this is where these big picture heuristics, you know, kind of simple stories that you can't make too simple and you can't etch them into stone and tournamentto religious doctrine because then you you kind of get trapped. But these big picture heuristics are really helpful for at least making an inroad into understanding what's going on. And this is where that kind of like ecology ancestral health, Like we're people dying in the droves two hundred years ago from high meat consumption. No like they cardiovascar disease was lower, cancer was lower, you know, on and on and on, and we have, uh, you know, lots of different kind of kind of natural experiments that that unpack all that stuff. But then we marched this thing forward in our people generally healthier now that we eat a more industrialized diet. No, like we've twentieth century, we largely won the battle against an infectious disease. The twenty first century is going to be a story of battling chronic degenerative disease. That Congressional Budget Office predicts somewhere between which they originally made this prediction in two thousand and six, and so it seemed a lot further away. It's not that far away now. But we're effectively bankrupt in the US from diabesity related costs alone, and you know, there's lots of opinions about how to best unpack that. But this, this very vegan centric model has taken things over, and so it it paints traditional food systems and are really poor light. And so although it's it's difficult to unpack the difference between like a correlation versus causation study, Like when when it's said that meat is associated with cancer the same way that cigarettes are, it's it's challenging to unpack what that really means, like tobacco consumption increases the likelihood of developing various types of cancer by like ten percent. These terribly produced epidemiological studies, if you believe the information that comes out of them it changes things by like one or two percent. And even then we could make the argument that that and that data has just been tortured to to beat the band and in correlation studies, if it doesn't reach, then it's it's noise. It's just noise. But this stuff has been institutionalized and accepted as as if it were like gold standard randomized controlled trial research. But again to your point, like, that's a lot to unpack and and uh, I do think though that running some of this stuff through like the big picture heuristic model helps people just at least get a foothold on what's going on. And then we really couch this as experiment. Do thirty days of vegan or ninety days and see how you look, feel and perform. Take some blood work and then do something that looks like this neutral board gig. And while you're doing it, set up some performance standards for yourself, like get a heavy backpack and see what you know, what's your best BIB mile time with like a sixty pound backpack, and do it while vegan, and do it while neutra bor and see how those two things play out. And then at the end of the day. It's not my opinion, it's not Diana's opinion. It's your personal experience of what ends up working best for you. But to get people there, we do oftentimes need these these big picture models to even make the case for like, well, why would I do this versus that? And I think that that's where they're helpful. Yeah, I'm really glad to hear you say that. That's very valuable to me as someone who says, yes, there is a lot of vegan and vegetarian literature. There's a Game Changer's documentary, there's a Sacred Cow documentary. This has become something where you have to take a side, and that's just not generally true. And that's why, and that's why, you know, we don't have time to break down every single thing that's in Sacred Cow. But one thing I appreciate about that as I knew that would be your answer, because in reading it, it's clear that it's like, we have to understand kind of the structure in which we're going to form our opinions here before we dive into it is very specific um sometimes very confusing even for experts. Absolutely, we give an example of grass World in the beginning of the environmental section, to just help people understand why something like biodiversity and ecosystem function is so critical. Um. And I think if if everyone just looked at food systems through that lens and said, Okay, is this is this contributing or taking away from soil health? Is this contributing to having more life you know? Or is this actually, you know, a system that only has one thing growing for miles and miles and miles um. And so once you start understanding um, like Rob was saying, the thermodynamics of the processes, and understand that all we have is the sun for energy, and so the most efficient possible thing we can do is use the sun as directly as possible and have a few steps between that food item and the consumer. The better. Yeah, it's it's a great point. And I think even in you know, at the end of your book, one thing I jotted down, as you said, it's it's it's basic human nature for us to create like us versus them scenarios and then project our fears on the two objects other than the real problems, right. And I think that's I've highlighted that and made a note of that because I think that that is at the core of what we're talking about here. Um Worth this book, what you're doing, and I know what the documentary will do is kind of fight against that. That inclination is to say like, there's more to see here, There's way, there's way more to see here. And I think for most people that's the that's the starting point that they need, and then they can get into making the right decision on what we've already said here is completely is it socioeconomics and economics and paleo anthropology, and on and on you go down the list. So um, I just want to say that I appreciate that, and I think hopefully listeners can take a step back and say like, let me get context here, let me get my worldview and check because I came to your book and came to the discussion that you listened to on our podcast last time as someone through hunting that has learned about biodiversity and ecology and has learned about ecosystem health and ecosystem services that different wildlife species are there. That's their job, and so I come to this looking for that to be reflected. Let's say I have lived in l A and I worked in tech, I would probably be looking for the ideologies and kind of the core ideas there to be reflected in these solutions. And I think that's a lot of times what's going on, UM. And I know ship and I know that's kind of where this conversation is going for the most part, but I think that's just so important UM overall. Yeah, I mean it's some days we've questioned whether or not this was going to be career suicide. Like, um, despite what some people may say, there are no big meat companies waiting with the paycheck for us at the end of the into this road. Like Diana has um, she it's so much sacrifice, like personal sacrifice, financial sacrifice to get the film in particular done. Like I just can't even describe how how much she individually is sacrificed. And I keep saying it again and again because nobody else has seen that story quite the way that that I have. But the only upside of this, both Diana and I have kids, and we love helping people, but we also love our our families and we want to provide an option for a better world. Quite honestly, not to get to to you know, airy ferry about it, but it's, uh, that's the thing that we really wanted to do. And if if it had been a deal where we dug into this and even though we needed animal products for our health, if if we had dug into the literature and it had said, nope, it's unsustainable, it's unethical, it's it's not particularly healthy for most people, then I think we would have produced something that was like, hey, there might be people out there like us that you maybe need to eat some animal products, but by and large people shouldn't. Then that's the book that we would have written. But that wasn't the case. And honestly, if if that had been where if that had been the book that we had written, it would probably sell many more copies, have been a lot less controversial. But it's, uh, that really wasn't where the data let us. And so we've been thus far willing to kind of run that gauntlet and and see how it goes. Yeah, yeah, is it? That is it? You know, you think about your career, Diana, isn't it easier to kind of cordon off an audience and say, like, I believe that you believe we're all together? Isn't it easier to do that? And than to challenge convention or even challenge kind of these ideas that we all have to be within a niche or within some sort of bubble. Oh yeah, I mean there's almost no dieticians. Let's say it's okay to eat me period um, let alone say it's sustainable. I mean that's crazy, um to say those two things, and then you're gonna say it's ethical to do that as well to kill beautiful animals. I mean, now you're you have three friends in the world. Um. And so it's, uh, it'll be interesting to see. UM. I know that I'm gonna get pushed back from the dietetics community. It's it's quite possible that my license will be challenged. Um. Uh. You know, but I feel like as long as I can show evidence for my case, and I think we the book is pretty well cited, um as far as you know, backing up our position. UM. It just it makes so much sense to me that sometimes when I look at mainstream nutrition, I mean we um, Harvard School Public Health is right up the street for me. And we actually did interview Walter Willett, who's like Mr Dietary Guidelines for the film. So I have a I have a release from him. Um, but he's the he's the main guy that is saying, you know, we need more plant base, we need uh. This eat land set nutrition guide, which is basically a global dietary guideline. Um, you can only eat less than a blueberry size worth of red meat per person per day. That that's the recommendation here. Um. But I have him in the film saying that farmers have known for thousands of years that if you want to fatten up an animal, you put them in a pen where they can't move very much, and you feed them lots of grain. And humans are like that too. But when you look at the dietary recommendations that that that school is putting out and and they're sponsored by Barilla, um it it is a very grain intensive diet that's you know, pretty low and saturated fat and very low and animal products and um. So this Uh, I don't know anyone else that is actually advocating that meat is healthy. Um. It can be done in environmental way, and it actually can be done in an ethical way to like it's there's no other piece where this is. Um. All three all three of these cases are made in one book. So we're just we're bracing ourselves. Don't worry. That's that means you're doing it right. If you're that nervous, that means you're doing something right. Um. But I do think, like in general, America, I wonder what Rob, if you could agree with this, America has done a pretty shitty job historically of suggesting dietary needs. Yeah, I mean, we we have a chapter devoted to that, and it's it's kind of interesting. I mean, it's interesting to me, but a little bit of history around it. But there was a guy, ansel Keys that did some research that suggested that higher fat diets and more animal centric diets were more strongly correlated with cardiovascar disease and cancers and host of different problems. Um. He originally was vilifying dietary cholesterol and then really early in his career said no, dietary cholesterol is a non issue. But he still maintained this kind of, um vegetarian centric kind of orientation. And they managed to kind of get involved with a governmental committee that was tasked originally with dealing with nutrient deficiencies in the United States, and again they did a pretty good job of addressing the overt nutrient deficiencies, but then they needed, you know, to justify their existence, and so they decided to try to improve the overall health of folks in the United States. And one of the clerks that was involved with this this governmental process was vegetarian, and they were able to really disproportionately influence kind of the language and the messaging. And there was enormous pushback from the scientific community around this. They're like, you can't justify this with the science you're sighting, like, there's there's no justification for completely upending our our food systems with this stuff kind of got rammed through. And then it was right around this time, just a little bit on the heels of this, Richard Nixon was getting ready to be elected in his second term and he was really in some pretty rough ground and he needed a group of people that were conservative and we're going to generally support him, and they dramatically expanded the far subsidy program. And the combination of kind of some messaging that fat, particularly animal fat was bad, and then the subsidies that it went into our food production system, we ended up with just massive amounts of kind of like corn and wheat, And this is when we figured out high fructose corn syrup, and we we effectively subsidize the the beginning of what we would call like the junk food industry. And so it's there was no like evil cobble of people like you know, uh, you know, figuring this stuff out, but there was some really unfortunate circumstance that came together that brought us to this spot. And again, like each every five years, I think they review the dietary guidelines like they're being reviewed right now, and in that review process, there is not a single paper that looks at this from like the low carb perspective. The totality of low carb dietary research has been excluded from the discussion around uh, these guidelines. I'm a big fan of low carb diets, but I don't think that they're appropriate for everybody. Some people thrive on them, some people don't. Really were Diana and I are is that people need to really make sure to get adequate protein, and then whether you run better on fat or carbs is for you to kind of figure out, and it's fairly easy to do. But these dietary gidelines paint a very monochrome picture that um animal products are bad, all fat is bad. Animal fat is bad, and uh, you know, it's it's costing us in so many different areas again like the diabetes epidemics, systemic inflammatory issues. The negative result of this um disinfectious disease, the COVID pandemic, was largely an outgrowth of a population that wasn't particularly healthy. Yeah. Yeah, And I think that's we're always learning, We're always getting better at this. But there's a whole lot of looking back on decades prior and saying whoa, whoops, sorry, UM do this differently. So I think now one of the biggest benefits of what you guys are doing, and really what everyone that is doing, including impossible foods, is it's it's it's causing people to think hard about this and look at it. And um, as people are thinking, Diana, do you you know how do you? I know the book goes through all of this, but as people are thinking of about these steps to take and and is there a simple process you you know, before they get to to the neutra war idea where they're making you know that what am I going to eat today? When I'm making the next thirty days? Before they get to that or their ideas and processes that you like people to go through. Well, if there anything like me, and they unwrap all their Christmas presents and slide them out very carefully and then slide them back in and make it look like no one actually unwrapped it. Um, so you can you can flip, you know, you can choose your adventure. You can flip right to the back. I do think it's very important that people understand the nutrition case first, because we why grow food if it's not healthy to eat? You know, that should be the number one thing. We don't have a problem in our in our world with calorie production. We have a problem with nutrient production and protein production. Um, so there's there's there's more than enough calories. Hunger is a political issue and a distribution issue is not food production issue. Um. You know. I think most people, uh, if they're new to this, they're likely wondering how they're gonna get skinnier and get abs and you know, look better naked. That's just like what you know, the the entry point is. And so if that's you know, what it is for them, then they can you know, start you know, eating a neutral diet and then then go back to the beginning and and read why. Uh So it really just all depends. Um. A lot of the folks that Rob and I are speaking to are already pretty on board with meat is okay, although there's still a ton that think we're eating way too much, and um, you know, the reality is we haven't increased our meat red meat consumption since nineteen seventy. It's been going down. UM. So people are assuming that, you know, everyone's sitting down to like a seventy two ounce tomahawk steak every night, but it's really only two ounces of beef per person per day in the US. UM. So this assumption that well, of course we need to eat less meat. That's the first thing that I actually really want to bust is that no, actually we most people are not getting enough protein. The recommended daily intake of protein is way too low. Um. And the assumptions around of that are are are just wrong. Um. It's based on some pretty flawed science. And so um, just jacking up your protein intake and eating, um, eating some more animal protein is going to make you feel so much better because it's the most satiating of the macronutrients and it's also animal flesh is the is the most nutrient dense, UM, protein source and so um. You know for most every single part. I've never had someone come into my office that was eating adequate or optimal protein. Um. And uh, you'll have more energy, you'll sleep better. I mean, you'll you'll build more muscle. It's it's just a no brainer to just you know, eat a little more protein. Um. As you're reading the book, maybe um with each page, just take a bite. Yeah. I Mean. One of the reason i want to ask that question or just kind of like probe that a little bit, is because I've been talking to family members, friends about Impossible Burger. A lot of people I know, of course listen to the podcast. I want to talk about it, including listeners um that are you know come back every show and write his emails. And a big thing that I saw, especially with folks i've in my family, is that the first thing I want to talk about is how amazing it is that you're eating plants and it bleeds and tastes like meat. I'm like, dude, that's the most That's a psychological trick they're playing on you. You're not talking about what it is that you're eating, or where it came from, or any of the things that are kind of baked into that ideology. You're talking about how amazing it is that this tastes like a hamburger, and that is ninety nine the impossible burger beyond burger conversation is how it tastes and how amazing it is. And that's to me the wrong approach to to that. And I think maybe part of the trick um and calling it a burger, well it it is some really cool chemistry. But if saying that is some really cool chemistry is kind of the high water mark for the food that you're eating, I don't know that we're really in a good spot at that point, but I think that's happening. And this is coming from a chemist. I love chemistry, like it's super cool, but I just don't know that, you know, a hat tip towards good food chemists is really where we want to be with our our food system. You know, a hat tip towards the rancher, the farmer that like literally sweat and bled to to you know, put food in our plate and have people employed and and you know, improve the land that they are on. That's something I would feel good about. That's a story I would love to hear. Yeah, yeah, and that's that's just the thing. That's what's happening though. And then it really is that it for I think a normal person who isn't listening to this podcast or who's who is a couple steps away from picking up your book and watching the documentary, that's the conversation and Maestrong poll that came up every single time, how amazing, and that was it. Oh interesting, And it's this replacement theory that is the only thing that matters if the idea that you guys approaching in the book is true, that the sacred cow does exist, that meat is bad. That idea seems so baked into folks now that they're just like, well, if it's not meat, it's this and how amazing that it still tastes like meat, And that's the equation. Um, let's worrisome to me. Yeah, I mean, I think we need to get back to honoring rural life and honoring the people that are producing the food. And it's time, you know that we get over celebrity chefs and and elevate celebrity ranchers and farmers. And so that was one of the big reasons why I did the film as well. I knew that, um, you know, people are really disconnected from farming and ranching, and so if they're not going to go see a farm, which is what I prefer, then I'll just bring it to them. And so um, I you know again this rural urban um divide or the idea that you know you haven't made it in your life if unless you've moved out of your small town and went and worked in a bank, is like the you know, the goal of every person and not to just you know, be a really great human and and maybe stick around and and honor the place where you were born and um and work land. I mean, there needs to be more, um more people celebrating that. Yeah, And I think hopefully this conversation, UM, I knew this would be inadequate to kind of cover everything. There's no way that we could we could do it, but I hopefully this conversation for for those of you listening, kind of helps to set up this idea of how you would approach this book, um when it comes out, and how you approach this documentary or any documentary, any book that talks about food systems or nutrition and covers these kind of developing sides of the story, so that that's what after making it most of the way through your book and knowing that I'll get to watch the documentary, my my fault was there's no way we can I mean each chapter would be an hour long conversation or more. Um, because I know you guys work really hard on it, so hopefully everybody can get that. UM. And Rob, do you have any anything you kind of want to say in closing or want to direct people in terms of of of what's your work working all right now? No, just again really giving a hat tip to my co author Diana, Like I just can't say enough how much she is personally sacrificed for this project. And you know, maybe we'll make some money off the back end of the royalties on this. Like people have this sense that New York Times bestsellers are are wealthy, but there's there's J. K. Rowling writing Harry Potter, and then there's a very long tale of people that that you know would have been better off, like being a greed er at Walmart. Probably we would have probably made money and the better money in the long hole on that. But UM, just really want to acknowledge Diana and the work that she's done on this. I also want to give a shout out to my nephew, Jackson Tura, who's birthday is coming up and he is like the biggest fan of you guys that has ever exists. It's I wanted to sneak that in there. Well, we're gonna get him surprise. If it's not already on the way, it'll be on the way soon awesome. So shout out to him, and and thanks for spending all kinds of time with us. Hopefully it's worth it. Hugh John or thank you, No Diana, anything any want. I don't wanna say last words. That's the real quick yeah remarks words. Uh well, I I should just plug the website that we put together. It's Sacred cow dot info is the website where we actually have a ton of blog posts. We have really great infographics that we made um that support each one of the water argument, the land used argument um, and so we have information on the book there. Um. I'm not sure when this is going up, but we do have some really awesome offerings for folks that pre order it um. Just to get those order in in early UM. We're giving out some uh some footage that didn't make it into the film and things like that. Um, and maybe even a little sneak peek at the film for folks that pre order the book. Um, and then they can follow along on Instagram. I'm at Sustainable Dish. So thank you so much. I really appreciate all the enthusiasm you have for this. It's really awesome. UM. We we hugely appreciate it. Thank you well. Thank you for doing all the work and having all the knowledge and letting me come in and and and in part some of the hard work that you've done. And I think that, Um, it's important. I always when we get in this topic on a hunting podcast, always have to stop and say, hey, everybody, I know it's a hunting podcast, but I'm telling you, you gotta listen to this stuff. It's important. Um. It's important for lots and lots of reasons that we've already discussed and we'll continue to discuss. So hopefully everybody look out for the book, look out for the documentary. We'll keep you updated here. We're working on creating our own book club, trying to be the Operah of hunting I can make that spans a lot of analogies Yeah. For me, it just means lots of giveaways in a book club. But I mean that's that's where that's where I go. Um. Well, so thanks guys, I really really appreciate it once again, and and your work is important in this time and it provides a lot of clarity to its a really muddy issue for me personally. So I would say a personal thanks for sending me an advanced copy and let me dive in with you. Guys. Thank you. That's it. That's all. Another episode in the books, thanks to Rob and Diana. Please go check them out. Sacred cal hopefully the upcoming documentary it's actually um. I was just finished watching it. As I was saying earlier, it's um narrated by Nick Offerman. Yes, Ron Swanson does a great job, and I told him and I'm serious about this, Ron. If you're listening, speaking to you now, Ron, just you. If you're listening you want to go hunt? His name is Nick whatever, he knows what ye. If you're listening, Nick slash Roun. If you want to go hunting on your man, I'll take you and Phil at the same time, teach you both hill grows mustache. That would be a dream. Experience. Wait a minute, would you promise to grow skimpy mickwek stash back if we got Ron Swanson to come hunt with us? Easy? Oh easy, easy? Okay, start now. I actually owned one of his books. It's called Paddle Your Own Canoe? Oh read? What's it about? Is it an outdoors book? Yeah? Kind of nice. Well listen, Nick, I know you're in a sense you're probably listening. You're probably a big fan. Um, please let us know if you want to go hunt with me and Phil, it'd be great. We have a good time. Um, So listen, We're gonna continue to talk about Regina vag I'll tell you what. As I watched the documentary Sacred Cow, there's a lot of stuff in there that I thought was was good to continue talking about it, continue thinking about a couple of quotes that that I thought were interesting. The anti meat movement is a well intentioned reaction to the abuses of a dysfunctional system. The first time I had heard the anti meat movement. You heard that film, Joe, Have you heard that anti meat movement? I didn't know that that was the thing, But it's the movement. We've covered it, and so it's real. Um, it's a debate about our planet, our ethics, and our health. Vegans and responsible farmers and livestock grows have a lot in common. They're both making reactions to the same evil, which is kind of what I think, what I thought all along. So hopefully we continue to move that conversation down the road. But next week, next week, big thing, next week, Joe, tell us about next week, buddy, because you were, you were there, weren't you were? You were in the room. What's gonna happen next week? You're gonna listen to an amazing story from Mark Carter, professional snowboarder, awesome guy, all around, good dude. Yeah, big, big fan, and he has a story to tell. Big fan. I'm a big fan of Mark as a person. Now, it's complicated, like many things, it's a very complicated story that he's gonna tell you next week. Um, you can't give up two months though. No, Fortunately, unfortunately, listen, Mark was Mark is a convicted poacher and a felon that gave up a lot, that gave it up. Damn it. I was trying to hold that in. No. I mean, I actually think it's good that you set that up before people listen to this. It's hard. It's hard. I don't I don't know, Like when I was thinking about recording the intro for next week and what we would do, and I don't think we're going to record one. I think we're just gonna let it fly. It's hard to comment on this without know and maybe after the fact, well we'll add some of our own commentary and thoughts after you listen to Mark. But listen, Joe and I spent a couple of days in Bearer Country with Mark, hiking around. Had a blast. Um, he's an epic individual and you'll find out all the things that he does. He works with dozens of companies, he's one of the best snowboarders in the world. Um, he's just an all around good dude. And that is mirrored by the fact that he did a pretty pretty bad thing and was punished harshly for it. And so it as we think about next week, you think about Cancel Culture. If if someone was going to get wrapped up in Cancel Culture version, Mark Carter would be the one. Um, hopefully you'll listen to this and don't think he deserves that, you think that he's he's he has been punished is being punished, stood up for what he did and said, I did it, hit me, punish me. I'll take it, um. But it's it's it's not only his story, it's a commentary on kind of where we are and how we treat people that have done wrong. And so I I mean, man, I was on a high for a couple of days after hearing his story, only because it's it's so tough for a guy like that. I think this podcast next week would be the first time that he spoke about it publicly in the detail that he did. And so it's important for a lot of reasons personally because I want you to get to know Mark as I did. But secondary to that, I think it's a commentary on our culture and what we're doing to people that do wrong and what they deserve and and um, how we should treat them after whether there is redemption available. So, as you can tell, I can probably talk about this forever, but we will say that to next week, episode one thirty one with Mark Carter. We'll see you then say bye, Phil, because I can't go a week without doing RNG oh without right about drinking

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