Pursuit of Wellness - The Shocking Truth About The Chicken You're Eating, Grocery Label Lies, Pesticides & Soil Health, Recovering from Lyme Disease, How to Start Your Own Farm, And Raising Chickens with Farmer Paul Greive of PastureBird.

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Ep. #38 On today’s episode, we are joined by Pasturebird Farm’s founder & farmer,Paul Greive. Paul transitioned from city life as a corporate accountant without a background in agriculture when an illness required him to change the course of his life. After serving in the Marine Corps and contracting Lyme disease during sniper school, Paul began to look more closely at what he was putting into his body to focus on healing, but wasn’t able to find pasture-raised chicken that fit his Paleo needs. His family ordered 50 chicks as part of an experimental hobby when they first moved to Temecula, and now Pasturebird is the largest pastured poultry farm in the world and official supplier of chicken to the LA Clippers and Dodgers. On this episode, we get into the problems with our food system, why pasture raised chicken is important, industry myths, sustainability, how to read labels at grocery stores, regenerative vs. factory farming and what this means for both plants and animals, glyphosate and its long lasting impact, the importance of buying directly from farmers, hidden truths about farmers markets, soil health and the environment, ancient wisdom from indigenous practices, and getting back to our roots by finding the joys of nature at any age. Paul was kind enough to share a discount code exclusively for the POW community so be sure to check out their website below and listen to the full episode if, like me, you’re inspired to get your own chickens and want to know where to start! Use code POW for 10% off all products at https://www.pasturebird.com/. For Mari’s Instagram click here! For Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! For Pasturebird’s Instagram click here! To shop Bloom Nutrition Greens click here!  To download Mari’s workout plan & recipes click here! Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. At Westin hotels, there’s amenities and offerings aimed to help you move well, eat well,and sleep well, so you can keep your well-being close, while away. Find wellness on your next stay at Westin Go to www.modernfertility.com/POW to get $20 off the test Go to www.Brooklinen.com and use PROMO code POW for $20 off Go to Ibotta app and use code POW you can get $5 just for trying Ibotta Go to www.lumedeodorant.com and get $5 off your starter pack that is over 40% off when you use promo code POW Produced by Dear Media See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Mari has grown her to fitness and nutrition brand. Co-founder of Bloom Nutrition. Forbes 30 under 30 list. A successful entrepreneur. Someone who has lost 90 pounds. Today's guest is Mari Llewellyn. Mari Llewellyn.

My friend Mari. Welcome to the Pursuit of Wellness. Hi guys, welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. I am so excited for today's episode. I really have been manifesting this one. Today, we are welcoming Paul Grieve, who is really living my dream. He's also known as Farmer Paul over at Pasture Bird Farms. His story is really unique. He grew up in a city and became a corporate accountant with no background in farming or agriculture.

And after serving in the Marine Corps and contracting Lyme disease during sniper school, Paul began to look more closely at what he was putting into his body and focusing on healing. He wasn't able to find pasture-raised chicken that fit his paleo diet needs, and he started his own farm, which I think is absolutely incredible. In this episode, we get into the problems with our food system, why pasture raised chicken is so important, industry myths, how to read labels at grocery stores and source the best meat for you and your family, regenerative versus factory farming for plants and animals, the importance of buying directly from farmers, soil health, and the benefits of raising a family on a farm, which I found really interesting and

inspiring. I am dying to visit his farm in Temecula after our conversation, and he has some really exciting community initiatives in the pipeline to encourage a reconnection with nature and education around sustainable practices. We also have a code for you guys to use on his chicken. Listen to the end of the episode to get that code. Greg and I eat this chicken all the time. We have it in our freezer and it's so, so good. You can so tell the difference. Anyway, with that said, let's get into the episode. Please welcome Paul. Paul, you are kind of living my dream. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. You went from cubicle life to becoming a farmer. Everyone who listens to the show has heard me mention my dream of farming and having my own chickens. What you're doing is obviously at a

much bigger scale, but I think what you and your company are doing is fantastic. And I can't wait to learn more. My husband and I have been ordering your products for a long time. So let's start from the beginning. How did you become a farmer? First of all, I appreciate you guys ordering and stuff. It means a lot. It was never part of the blueprint. I grew up as a downtown Seattle city kid, no interest in food or farming at all. And I never thought I'd go down this route. But I went into the Marine Corps after college and I contracted Lyme disease during sniper school, laying in the woods for like three days straight, try not to move. And sure enough, it's the bull's eye rash. And then it's like brain fog and fatigue and just such weird health issues for a 22 year old athlete. And, um, pretty much paleo and CrossFit were like starting to hit. This was like

2007, 2008. And it started to get really popular. And I was like, there's no way that'll affect the way that I feel. Sure enough, like two weeks into eating paleo, I felt like a kid again, back pain was gone. I could like breathe through my nose, you know, I was like, oh my gosh, that's the first time I thought, okay, the food that you eat affects the way that you feel and the way you perform. And so I went to Iraq and came back and our family was sort of just struggling to find good food. And my in-laws had like a little two acre spot out in Temecula, which is like a rural part of Southern California.

And we were sort of just joking around about getting some chickens for the backyard, like you do. And my brother-in-law, he just sort of like disappeared from the room, came back about 10 minutes later and he goes, hey, I just ordered like 50 chickens are going to be here in two weeks, you know, get ready. And we're like, no, no, we weren't serious about that. 50 is a strong start. That's like really bold. The first birds arrived and we thought it would just be for our family, like a little family hobby thing. My wife and I, we lived in Corona Del Mar for forever, for like 10 years. And so

there was no moving out to Temecula. There was no interest. Like when you grow up in Temecula, which is where she grew up, you never go back. Like that's the whole point. But sure enough, the business kind of got going and waitlist started and like people were really excited about the product. So we sold out of the first 50 before my family could even try one. And they were all mad at me, you know, and it went to 100 and then it just kind of started to grow from there. It was crazy. And now you are the biggest pasture poultry producer in the world.

Yeah, but it sounds impressive on paper. Yeah, it does. We're like a tiny producer in the grand scheme Yeah, but it sounds impressive on paper. Yeah, it does. But we're like a tiny producer in the grand scheme of things because there's just not very many pasture producers out there. Right, which I definitely want to talk about. Yeah. Just to go back to Lyme disease for a second. Yeah. Is there a cure for Lyme disease? No, it's a very like unknown autoimmune condition. You really don't know a lot about it. Technically, do you still have it? Technically, yeah.

But I don't feel symptoms. I feel as good now as I did when I was getting into the Marine Corps at 20. So you basically manage it through diet? I think so. Diet, stress, sleep, mental well-being, all of it. But diet's a big part, for sure. And what are the major symptoms of Lyme disease? I mean, I really felt foggy. That's the best way I can describe it. I just wasn't sharp. I don't know how else to say it. Like there was pain, there was inflammation. There was like,

I hated not being able to breathe through my nose. But the biggest thing was just like, I don't know what it was. I just felt like I didn't have like clarity and I wasn't that sharp. And that's the worst. Especially when you're trying to do business. It's like you need to fire on all cylinders. 100%. And you found that paleo was the best solution for you. Whatever. We call it paleo, but it's like eating traditional foods. It wasn't at this point, I'm not eating like strict, strict paleo or something, but that's definitely those principles. Anti-inflammatory foods,

a lot of superfoods like cooking from scratch, eating out as little as possible. It's so funny because I saw a meme or a quote on Instagram yesterday about how crazy it is that we eat so much junk food now that eating real whole foods is considered a diet. Right. Like that really resonated with me because I was like, we're not dieting, we're eating whole foods is considered a diet. Right. Like that really resonated with me because I was like, we're not dieting, we're eating whole foods like that really is the key. Even the fact that it was branded as a paleo diet was like part of its downfall. Yeah. This isn't a diet. Like we always say this is just a way of living. It's a lifestyle.

100%. You feel so much better. And I think so much healing can happen from food. Yeah. Food is medicine was like, that was the whole concept for thousands of years. And we've gone away from it so far away from the last 50. And we could talk about how all that happened and what's enabled that. But we veered so far off of, I think, like God's intention for food to be a very healing thing for us. Yeah. Why do you feel like we have veered off that path so much? I mean, antibiotics are really the thing that like enabled,

at least on the animal side, would enable what we would call factory farming today. For thousands of years, it wasn't possible to leave thousands and thousands of animals in a confined facility without moving them around. I mean, animals are meant to move all the time. They're meant to eat the grass, poop on the ground, fertilize the ground, actually give

back and then move on. And the only thing that really allows us to do that now is like the invention of antibiotics and drugs and ionophores and all these other things that they call non-antibiotic. It's good on the sense that like, okay, food has become like insanely cheap on a price per pound or a caloric basis. But I think it's actually gotten pretty expensive from a nutrient density perspective. So it's just an area that we don't talk about much. But antibiotics were the really big pivotal moment in the 1940s, 1950s when it enabled industry to pack tons of animals inside of a confined facility.

So that's the main role of antibiotics in food is to prevent them getting sick because they're so close together. Yeah. Most of it's prophylactic in the industry. Most antibiotics are not used as like, oh, this flock is sick. Now we're going to treat it. There's some great companies out there that don't do it that way. But a lot of the antibiotic uses use preventative to prevent the animals from getting sick, which is such a slippery slope. And what kind of an impact does antibiotics have on our health as humans? Look what it does to your gut microbiome. When you or I take antibiotics, it just has this host of negative side effects that I don't even think we fully understand, to be honest.

But you jump in and you throw off this natural process. You wreck the gut microbiome, and that's the source of all health. So of course, the same thing happens to animals. I mean, they have a gut too. And how about hormones? Hormones are kind of a tricky one because a lot of people think there's hormones in chicken. Those were like outlawed in the 80s. So actually, there aren't hormones in American chicken. Added hormones, obviously, they have hormones, but there's not added hormones into American chicken. It still exists in some other proteins, but really in chicken, it's been regulated out by the government. Am I wrong by saying people still put hormone-free on chicken packaging?

Of course. That's insane. They put gluten-free on water, too. Wait, that's so funny because I didn't even realize there weren't added hormones in chicken most people don't and i mean there's we could go through we could do a whole podcast just on labels and the loopholes and the nonsense and the games and shenanigans that happen let me ask you about labels like how does the average person listening to this podcast go into a grocery store and look at a label and know they're getting good chicken they don't it's like not a thing what would you recommend that they look for i mean if you're

serious about this i think we were talking about this offline before but you got to go find individual farms and buy direct that's the only way like in 2023 when we're recording this that's the only trusted source even the best best best retailers and grocers there's not a single one that i would say you can walk in and blindly just buy their proteins yeah it doesn't exist you just told me even air one or whole foods two companies have a ton of respect for yeah they're not they don't have it all figured out i think they'd be the first ones to tell you that they're trying to offer things at different levels for different consumers which i've come to appreciate you know i hated it for like the first three years i was like no it's pasture-raised organic regenerative or nothing you know but

there's different budgets and different realities and different time commitments and stuff like that so i think that they're offering things at different levels but don't think that you can walk into even arowan and get pasture-raised, regenerative, and organic. It just doesn't exist. I really think that grocery shopping is moving towards online ordering because myself and my husband, I was telling you, if we want quality meat, which we always want, we order from farms. We order from you guys. We order from Force of Nature, White Oak Pastures. I really think that that's where the industry is shifting for people

who are very conscious of where they're buying their meat from. I agree with you. And I also think it just speaks to the power of brand. As much as like me as a farmer, I hate talking about brand because I'm like, stupid, fake, creative, all these people. But no, actually, it's really important. So for the last 20 years in the protein space, it's called attribute-based marketing. So it's like, is it grass-fed? Is it pasture-raised? Is it organic? Is it free-range? Is it this and that? And that has dominated the space. But you're seeing it quickly with people like us in Force of Nature go back to, no, no, I want to buy from this brand because I know them and I trust them and I follow them on socials and I've been to a tour and like I know how they

do things. So I trust and I want to buy it from this brand. I think you're going to see a shift back to that too. So yeah, online is going to explode. But I think buying from brands more than just attributes, like you're going to see a resurgence of that, which I think is super healthy, you know? Yeah. And I love the fact that when you go on the pasture bird website, you see you and your family and you kind of know who you're supporting and who's behind it. So I agree with you a hundred percent. cozy season is approaching guys i'm getting so excited about all the pumpkin the cooking the family time the leaves it's also the perfect time to upgrade a bedding and home essentials with the change in season greg and i get asked all the time what kind of bedding we use and we have used brook linen products for years. We

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that all they eat is pasture nothing else that's actually not true that's like a bit a myth that we try to be very clear about and debunk ruminant animals like cattle can have a hundred percent of their diet come from pasture alone that's super cool chickens and monogastric animals like chickens and pigs they can't like they can't survive on just pasture so they need to be supplemented but pasture raised means the birds were actually raised on a pasture as opposed to having either you know outdoor access or just living inside of a barn where they're living on what's called like chicken litter which is wood chips and almond holes and rice holes and manure. You know, in pasture raise, we use mobile coops.

So we're not the only ones doing this. It's a huge trend in the US. Every single day, the birds are living in what's called like a portable shade structure. They have grass under their feet. It's very fresh. It smells good and it's clean. But that system has to be mobile so every single day 365 days a year that thing moves itself or gets pulled by a tractor to a new spot so the birds are always in a clean fresh environment and it's almost like the invention of

modern plumbing you know so they're like moving away from the manure it allows that manure to be the best fertilizer in the world but then it gives them like this extremely clean environment to live in day in and day out that's also a big part of their diet they're eating grasses bugs worms flowers seeds weeds like whatever they can find in the pasture scorpion we just saw we had like a cool video from one of our farmers a chicken just devouring a scorpion no way and it wouldn't die from that. No, it ate the scorpion. I mean, chickens are like little T-Rex monsters. I mean, they're like savage animals, you know, so they're, they're crazy. So being classified as pasture raised, you need to be on a pasture. Are there any other boxes you need to check? Okay. So here's a really sad thing about pasture raises, not regulated at all. I was going here's a really sad thing about pasture raised. It's not regulated at all.

I was going to ask, are any companies claiming pasture raised that aren't? Yes. Okay. 90% of what's out there in the world right now is what we call pasture posers or fake pasture raised, where it's a free-range barn. So what free-range actually means, a free- range barn is just a conventional stationary grow house, 20,000, 24,000 birds, where the doors open up and the birds technically have access to go outside. Sounds great to the average person that's never had chickens before. But for anybody that's had chickens, they're like, well, we know chickens want to stay close to the food, water, shade, and their friends.

So you can open the doors, but the reality is the birds aren't going out there a ton. Maybe they go out. Some of the good producers will get the birds out, you know, four or five percent of their life. That's considered really good. To me, that's not pasture raised. Four percent of the animal's life spent outside, maybe a quarter of that on a pasture. It's not raising an animal on pasture, you know. So for us, we're saying pasture raised means that animal had to actually spend the majority of its life on pasture, living on pasture, foraging, doing all that stuff. But that's not the requirement right now. I'm not going to throw individual companies like under the bus, but companies that you

would absolutely know. It's really sad because it's like you have hardworking, well-intentioned, conscious consumers try to do the best for their family and they're being just like duped by yeah garbage labeling loopholes i immediately think of eggs because i think everyone's talking about pasture-raised eggs and how important it is to get your pasture-raised eggs and they really use that labeling to get you and i'm questioning now whether it's actually posture raised you tell me you you i mean you've spent a lot of time in the northeast yeah it's january you're in

philly right you have 24 000 birds in a confinement house they're gonna open that door up to two feet of snow are those birds going to just randomly wander out there like no chance you know so no one's no one's checking not at all it's even if they did they would say well it met the standard because they did have access and access to go outside i'm not going to go out because it's you know negative 10 and there's no food or water out there and no shade it's like it's like the opposite of what a chicken would ever want to do but technically it checks the box it had access to the outdoor 108 square feet you know of access so why aren't these farmers doing it the right way because it's

expensive well it's expensive it's it's just um it takes a totally different production model like every house that we have has to be mobile built on wheels with a hundred percent solar power because we're off grid we're out in these like remote locations in georgia for the most part where you're not going to run a power cord out to like drive a 7 000 square foot shade structure you know so they would have to completely redo their production process and it's just like not realistic. Sadly, you've grown a business, you know, that like scale is really important and being able to quickly scale. To have to build every house from scratch is like the opposite of scalability. They want to just be able to take

these free range houses that already exist, slap a couple doors on them and slap a new label on it. Like that's much more scalable, you know. But I think it's really disingenuous. It disappoints me. Even if it's legal, it still disappoints me that they do it, you know. How much less nutrient dense is a chicken from a farm like that versus a bird from pasture bird? I mean, we've done our own analysis. So what I would say is how much more are we? Same question, same answer, I guess. But when you look at like omega-3, three times higher are like pretty substantial. You know, vitamin A and E were both 50% higher. Saturated fat, 21% lower. You look at like NADH, that was four times higher.

ATP was like 12 times higher. Vitamin B was like eight times higher. And that's just because it's the diet. It's the lifestyle. These birds have a fresh green salad bar every single day. That's fun. They're up. They're walking around. They're exercising. They're moving like it's an athlete versus a couch potato. Right. So it's not surprising that it has a different nutrient profile. You know, I feel like chicken is a little notorious for being the least nutrient dense meat but i just wonder if that's because the average chicken is farmed this way yeah i mean when we compare it to like grass-fed beef especially

your pasture-raised true grass-fed beef you get a different nutritional profile like i i would contend that wild game is the healthiest you know moving into like pasture-raised red meat moving into like monogastric necks because they do they still have it's not gmo and it's locally milled it's all great but they still eat a good amount of like corn and soybeans now a chicken can handle corn and soybeans a lot better than i can because they have what's called a gizzard the gizzard's like a special organ inside of the chicken that actually takes grains. It sprouts the grains, it stone grinds them inside of their body to make them nutritionally available to their system.

And actually chickens and pigs would eat grains in the wild. So it's completely different than like a ruminant eating grains, which is toxic to their system, you know. But yeah, I think you get a different nutritional profile. I would put chicken, even though I do chicken like for a living, I would still put it third on the list. I would always go wild game first, including fish. And I would go like red meat next. And then I would say chicken after that. But still, chicken's the most eaten protein in the US now. Yeah. So we need to we need to do our best to like make it as good as it can. 100%. Do you think that this farming style is unique to the US?

Like how are they doing it, let's say in the UK or in Europe? Yeah, no, actually pasture poultry came from the UK in like the 1930s. There's rad old black and white photos. It almost looks like these like hand wagons and there would be, I don't know, 20 birds in each one and they would actually lift with a big front wheel and they would like push it forward and set it back down because chickens do need protection from predators.

That's another huge one. Yeah. White oak pastures. I know you're familiar with them. Company I like really respect. They've been through it with bald eagles and foxes and wild pigs and neighbor dogs and everything wants to eat chicken. So in these old British coops, it would be like you know four walls but

no floor so the birds are living on pasture but they're protected from predators they lift up this like shade structure they move it forward and they drop it down so technically i would say pasture poultry probably originated way before that even on a non-farmed kind of basis but it came from the uk that's amazing and um just in regenerative ag in general, I mean, U.S. trails, we don't lead in regenerative. Like Europe, especially kind of the Netherlands and like I would say Scandinavia

is really, really aggressive in figuring out regenerative. There's a lot that we kind of look to. And then before that, like we always say, the indigenous people had the original regenerative system. I mean, they didn't have inputs.

They had no external synthetic fertilizer. They had no antibiotics to keep animals alive. So guess what? Like their whole system had to be regenerative by design. So I think that there's so many good examples. Like we're not inventing something. Yeah. Let's talk about regenerative farming.

So what is regenerative farming? Like what is the most basic definition? Did you leave it better than you found it? That's what I would say it is. Did you leave the land better than you found it? Like when we went camping with my dad growing up, it was always like, all right, here's the rule. We're going to leave the campsite cleaner than we found it. You know, and that's the same idea. Like when we come onto land, the context of American egg is you're almost just extracting and pulling out whatever you can out of soil and out of land and trying to make as much short-term profit as you can.

And that's a really sad way to look at a relationship with nature to me. Really depressing. I would never be interested in farming in that way. Regenerative is like, after you're done 10 years 20 years 100 years down the road is that land more fertile does it have more biodiversity or is there more wildlife is there you know is there more carbon sequestration water retention like there's all these rad markers you can look at but to boil it all down it's just did you leave it better than you found it you know how did you guys find your land in Temecula what What was the state of it when you found it?

So we were on a 50-year potato field. Potatoes are the most notorious. So they're not only pesticide, fungicide, herbicide, massive tillage, which just means you're going to go in and turn the soil over with heavy diesel machinery every single year. They do what's called fumigation. Fumigation is like chemotherapy for the soil where you just kill everything. Every pest, insect, weed, everything gets taken out with fumigation. So when we got out to this land, I mean, it was 160 acres where you would step and it was like probably 12 inches. Your boot would just drop down and it was hard

to call it soil. It was just dirt. And even after a good rain year and all this, like we would get little sprigs of weeds that were just trying to stay alive. If there's a chance to put something in the notes, you should see. It's unbelievable after 10 years of regenerative ag, which isn't just chickens.

We also use cattle. And those two animals work amazing together, right? Because in nature, the big animals always take down the tall grass, they mow it down. And then like, if you watch planet earth, or if you've been a safari or anything, you see how the birds come in behind the big animals and they're going to clean up and they're going to peck through and they're going to like

sanitize and they, they play this beautiful, we call it the beautiful dance, you know, it's like rest time, large animals, small animals, all kind of rotating but i mean we had grass like chest high unbelievable biodiversity 36 different species of like grasses and wild flowers and clover and bald eagles returned to the land and deer were out there and it was like this place is like paradise you know all from 10 years of animals which people think animals and maybe rightfully so like people think that animals are just how little harm can we do with animals that's their context it's like no no no that's like not the design it's how much good can we do with

animals if we manage them the right way you know how did you even begin to go from that barren potato field land to what you have now? I mean, there wasn't enough feed for cattle, right? So that's where chickens come in. That's such a cool opportunity for chicken because we have this supplemental feed and we can move them every single day. They put down a lot of manure, right? Every chicken puts down two and a half pounds of manure in their life.

That's a lot. If you multiply that by 50, 100, 500,000 chickens, like you're putting down so much free fertilizer. So they're pooping two and a half pounds. Per chicken. Wow. It's crazy. We talked so much about poop, so I just get used to it. But like poop is the original fertilizer. It's better than anything Monsanto has been able to figure out. And it's unbelievable in N, P, and K, which are all the things that you need to live. And so the chickens get on there. The land is barren.

You start rotating them through. Sure enough, a year later, it rains and you start to see like double the plant life pop up. And then two years now you have like a stand of grass. Well, guess what? You have two options now because chickens don't like really tall grass so you can either come out with your diesel you know your tractor and mow it down to where the chickens like it or common sense would say like you bring in the ruminant animals now and then you get this even crazier cycle of like now you have two animals fertilized in the land the cow is not only fertilized they're a thousand twelve hundred pounds so they're like using their hooves and trampling and disturbing

the land and waking up this seed bank and so you just get this like crazy compounding effect and that's where i would say at the end of the day regenerative is just so fun to be part of when you're out there and that's your office and you get to watch nature at work day by day and it's not degrading it's like healing year over year it's i mean you get to sit there and watch it go. It's like the most fun job in the world. That must be so rewarding and such a fulfilling feeling to see what you've done with this land. Yeah, and it's not me. I mean, it was not my idea. This is not my thing.

I mean, I would say God designed things this way. Mother Nature evolved this way. All we're doing is tapping into the way things were meant to be from the start so it's like all the credit to my team and all the people that were like involved in it but at the end of the day we're just watching nature do its thing you know and it's beautiful i think i saw or heard a study about farmers mental health being significantly better than someone you someone in an office job. That's so interesting.

Would you agree with that? I don't know. I would say regenerative farmers, definitely some of the happiest people I've ever talked to and just most grounded people I've ever talked to as well. We've laid on enormous pressure, debt, and expectation on conventional industrial ag. I don't know if that would be the stat for folks in that world. I think the highest suicide rate in the world within farming is in Indian farmers because it's just this tough thing where it's get big or get out. And they're constantly

up against the bank, debt up to their eyeballs, losing the farm. It's being consolidated. And you see some of the same things happen in the US. I don't know about the farm, it's being consolidated. And you see some of the same things happen in the US. I don't know about suicide, but it's just very sad when you're the generation that can't keep the family farm going. And maybe you're sixth, seventh generation. I mean, the pressure, like you and I won't ever understand it. I was first generation. I don't have to contend with that or worry about that. i can only imagine after seven generations you're the one that let the farm go and it gets rolled up into one of the big boys and it's just like gets planted into corn and soybean just like everything else and it's got to be pretty sad and then it's

the pressure of these houses with all these animals and it's like it's just it's managed down to the single digit degree you know it's whoa, why is your poultry house at 83 degrees? It should be 84. What are you doing? It's like, I don't have a context to understand how stressful that must be. Yeah. Because for us, it's just working with nature. And I'm not saying it's not stressful.

It is. But it's just a different context when you're trying to look at mother nature as the model and then as closely replicate that as possible versus trying to look at mother nature as the model and then as closely replicate that as possible versus trying to squeeze nature into your context and that just seems like i don't envy that i would never do farming that way all the respect to the people that do it i would not be interested in doing it that way you know yeah it seems like a very taxing job to have. We talk a lot about better for you products on this podcast, and specifically deodorant is a big one for so many people. And that's where I found Lume, which is female founded. She's also the CEO, which I think is incredible.

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$159, which is a fraction of what it would cost at a fertility clinic. Get $20 off your fertility test when you go to modernfertility.com slash pow, P-O-W, modernfertility.com slash pow. We have had a lot of animal-based guests on the show. I think I told you about Paul Saladino and have had a lot of discussions about the environmental impact of a meat eater versus someone who's vegan. Do you think that the concept, if we want to do better by the environment, we need to eat less meat is accurate? Because I know that that's the consensus of a lot of America at the moment. I think we're shifting away from it, but I just want to see what you think. No, I mean, I would be on the same page, if not close to the same page as Paul on that one. I completely disagree with that. I think the idea that because we eat less meat means that we're doing something better for the

environment is just absurdly wrong. If you look at the numbers and you look at the stats, we need to eat less degenerative food. Like, I'll agree with you on that. I mean, but just because you don't eat, you know, a steak doesn't mean you are eating a good plant that was grown

in a good way either. Look at the way the plants are grown in the U.S. It's as bad, if not worse, than the animals are grown. And I'm not saying the animals are grown great either. Like, we have a huge problem

food system-wide that we need to fix. And and to me it's just about eat more regenerative food and actually the beautiful thing with with the design is that plants feed animals and animals actually feed plants and so i think that there's actually this future of food that i'm really hopeful and optimistic for which is the integration of plants and animals, reintegration. All that we've done in this country is we've completely separated the two. So it's like, all right, animals go here in their little house and then plants go here in their little house and synthetic chemicals have to like make up for the antibiotics on this side and the fertilizer, which is really just an antibiotic on the plant side. And if you look at the way nature's designed, that's not what it was

meant to be at all. And it comes back to movement and rotation and like heavy impact by animals for a short amount of time and then a long rest period after that. So another project that we're working on, which is really cool, is we call it the permaculture orchard. And so it's like 30 acres of trees and the animals actually graze through these you pick trees. And it's like they're providing the pest management, they're providing the pest management. They're providing the fertility. But then you're also able to like harvest food off of these trees.

And so, yeah, it's not like large scale. You're not going to see those products in the grocery store necessarily. Like that's the future of food. In my opinion, it's the reintegration of plants and animals together. So a majority of plants at the grocery store are being factory farmed as well. 100%. Yeah. Wow. And what does that look like? How do you factory farm a plant? So first thing you're going to do is you're going to come in and till the land, which is like the, I mean, that's where you release all the carbon. That's like where all

the environmental damage comes from growing annual plants and vegetables. Like you garden it all, you know, that in the start of the year, you're going to basically come up and disturb all that soil and scratch it all up and get it ready to plant, which means killing everything, you know, just right there.

Then you're going to put your seeds in. Well, then it's going to need synthetic inputs and probably weed control too. So you're not only like synthetic fertilizer to get the plants to actually grow because the soil might be dead. You're also going to need like synthetic weed control. Is that like glyphosate or something of that nature? That's exactly what glyphosate is. So glyphosate, all that means is they've developed

these seeds that you can spray a special spray on them and it'll kill everything except for that plant. That's pretty gnarly. We talk a lot about glyphosate on the show and how it's on oatmeal, it's on a lot of what we're eating and the impacts that could be having on our gut. Yeah, and it's one of those things that I'll tell you, oh, well, there's no conclusive research that says it's bad. It's like, okay, well, okay. Show me the conclusive research that says it's good and good luck. Because I'm sketched out by glyphosate.

I've waited at all costs. And to me, it just goes back to this fundamental problem that we don't have animals feeding plants. That's who's supposed to feed all these plants. So one thing that we're doing on pasture bird, which is really fun, we get to go on to, we've been on hay fields, we've been on cotton fields, we've been on peanut fields, on corn fields, on wheat fields. And after they've harvested their crop, we'll put

chickens on there instead of like spraying it with, you know, synthetic fertilizer or anything. We'll put chickens on there. We'll grow a pasture two or three years. We'll take that soil from like less than 1% organic matter up to like three, 4%, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's really healthy soil at that point. Then we'll get off and we'll go to a new spot. Well, that farmer comes back and then they can plant their peanuts or their wheat or whatever they want to do in that like really healthy soil. And so it's this like large scale integration of plants and animals that I really think if it's not the future, then I'm scared for what the future is. Yeah. So if you want to be a more environmentally conscious person, it's really about knowing where your food is coming from

and the environment it was raised in. Yeah. Just don't fall for the thing that you're doing something right by plants or animals by eating less meat. Because think about animals. So I was just talking to somebody about this the other day. A single application of pesticide, right? It kills billions of animals. Unless you think a cow is somehow more important than a caterpillar i don't like i think all animals are the same life is life like it's all really important to me so a pesticide is literally a poison and what it does is it paralyzes the animal so that they are going to die of starvation like that's what a pesticide does and so it's not right by animals to not eat animals either like i always say the the most vegan diet in the world would be hunted wild game.

Veganism is like doing the least harm. Very noble, very honorable, but it's like that's the least harm in my opinion. Being responsible for where you're actually getting your food from. Yeah, it's like one life. I mean, you take down one deer, you take down one elk. I mean, that can feed hundreds of families for a long time. It's a lot of food like one life. I mean, you take down one deer, you take down one like elk. I mean, that can feed hundreds of families for a long time. It's a lot of food from one life. We were talking about buying a whole cow.

I've been hearing about people doing this where they'll actually split a cow with their friends or their family. And you'll each take a few cuts here, a few cuts there. That kind of seems like a really resourceful way of going about meat. It's just the way it was done for a long time. And I can't even tell you, because that's the only way that we do beef. We harvest our own, you know, and we have a family company, Primal Pastures,

that does those like cow shares. So you can do a quarter, a half or a whole, all pasture raised, all regenerative, all organic, like the highest quality. But what you do is you end up with like 100, 200 pounds of meat in your freezer, which sounds gnarly, especially if you live in a a small place you don't have a freezer or whatever but it's literally the best feeling in the world when you walk out to your freezer like oh what do i want to have for dinner tonight and the cost savings alone is worth it you know because you're

getting you know steaks and roasts and ground beef and bones for bone broth and the liver. And you're getting everything all like at the cost of less than you would pay for ground beef in the store. So it's like, to me, it's a no brainer. It's just, again, not the most scalable. It's like, nobody's really cracked the code on it. I mean, that's how people should buy beef for sure. Yeah. I think I'm going to try that. You should. I might need to get a deep freezer. Yeah. We'll bring one to you. Yeah. I'll text you. We're going to figure that out. So why is soil health so important and what does healthy soil look like? That's a great question because I think a lot of farmers have it wrong. People always talk about regenerative egg and soil health and how that's so important for the

environment. And trust me, I'm an environmentalist first. That's like why I do what I do, but people don't care. Honestly, the average person living in New York or LA just doesn't care about your farmer's soil and how much carbon sequestration you have and water retention. They might want to care, but it doesn't drive purchase. What really drives purchase is the nutrient density of the product and the health of the product and the taste of the product. And so I think what healthy soil ultimately does is it produces healthier food. And that's like what we really need to focus on. The environmental benefits are amazing.

And we could like go on forever about them. They're kind of boring. And it's like, that's cool for you. What's in it for me, basically. And so I think healthy soil is how we get healthy food at the end of the day. And what does that look like? It's really about organic matter. In my mind, that's the best estimation of soil health is what the organic matter is.

So that means how much actual soil it is compared to just dirt and sand and clay. And the higher it is, the better generally. That's a really easy way to look at soil health. Why is our soil hurting so much in general? What has happened? We separated plants and animals. I mean, I really think that that's what it comes down to. We've lost the understanding of how to actually take care of soil.

Again, go back to indigenous communities. Not that long ago in the U.S., 200 years ago, they're still functioning and practicing. Like the Hopi in Arizona, there's no outside inputs going on. And we like to think in the West that like the best inheritance that we can give our kids is, you know, money and stocks and real estate and stuff. And for, for, I would say them, I'm not trying to characterize all of them, but a common native American belief is like the soil is actually the best inheritance that you can pass on. And I actually resonate with that. It's like the one thing that money can't really buy is like really, really rich, healthy soil that produces healthy and abundant food. So I think

that there's lots of ways that we can look at it, but we've lost all of them and we don't think about them. And we just think about yield, yield, yield. And we, you know, we're, we're very extractive in the West on how we think about agriculture and it's kind of toxic. Yeah. So if people want to support farms like yours, do you have any recommendations of others they can look at? Like where do you order your plants from? Yeah. So my, first of all, say like on the meat side, on the chicken side, we're just one player in a large movement that's like trying to fix the American food system and really beyond American. So we helped come up with this website called getrealchicken.com. That's like the first one I always promote. That is where you

could go on and actually type in your address and figure out a farm close to you. Because in a perfect world, unrealistic world, but a perfect world, you'd have like a small local producer that you can buy from that you know on a first name basis. You can shake their hand, like you can go visit the farm, you can see it for yourself. And that website has a lot of really great resources and individual farms that you'd never find in a grocery store. You know, I really like that site for people that are, don't have the time to do that or whatever. Like that's, I think where we come in. So with, with relationships like Sprouts and Gelson's and Jimbo's and all these great retail partners that we have, or, you know, something like pastshiver.com, or you can get something sent to your doorstep.

That's really helpful too. On the plant side, I'm a big believer in the farmer's market still. I hate to say it. That's where you're going to meet the producers at the good farmer's markets. There's a lot of really bad ones. There are. Where people will buy stuff and resell it. That really threw me for a loop because I was going to the farmer's market thinking everything there was kind of safe, only to realize a majority of it isn't.

There's only kind of one organic stand there. I actually want to ask you about the term organic. Yeah, so it means, I would say it means a lot more for plants than it does for animals sometimes. It aligns closer to what you would think of as organic. I would actually throw it back on you. I'd love to know what you think organic chicken even means. And it's always interesting to me to hear.

Because you're educated on it. You're not like a newbie. But I bet your perspective might be different than what it really is. Okay, if someone said it's organic chicken, in my head, I would be would be like okay it must be eating organic food that's what i would assume you got it that's what it is oh okay but it doesn't mean anything for how the bird lives right so you could still walk into that same and this again i always say this and it's like no disrespect to the people that grow this way there's great companies doing

this it fills a need there's a demand for it but you'd walk into that same like 24 000 bird chicken house and it looks the same as every other one maybe they have the little doors not a ton of birds going out but the feed that's in there is organic that's all the difference which what does that mean good question now we're really getting into it like what is organic feed so what it was meant to mean is that it's grown like without synthetic fertilizers synthetic pesticide you know it's grown in a clean way sadly like everything the industry has gotten a hold of that term to a certain extent at least and i think there's like 270 approved you know fertilizers and pesticides on that list some of which are better than others i still do

think organic is the gold standard for plants though i just don't know a better one i don't know how to recommend you something better than knowing the actual farm what we're trying to do on the orchard side is actual you pick like operation where you come in and get you literally you get your own food off of the tree and pull it out of the ground for yourself you know on a membership like that's that's the big idea there but short of that i think if you're in the grocery store like what we do is we buy organic produce from our local health food store and i would say we're i don't know everything but we're like pretty educated on this stuff and that's the best that we can kind of do other than growing it ourselves you know i'm a big fan of the you

pick idea i love it pick your own berries. Yeah. Oh, so fun. We saw it everywhere in the UK. I know! We had so much fun picking and we were just like, you know what? Well, first of all, how do you farm in California and be economically sustainable? Because it was really hard to be a large scale producer of anything with the land prices and the water and everything that we have. So it was like, all right, how do we keep it fun and keep it interesting? And we really think like just being outside and vitamin D is so important.

Having kids and adults alike, like reconnect to the food system in a meaningful way. It's like our, instead of doing a once a year apple, you pick let's plant 12 months of produce and have people just be on membership and they could come anytime they want get their food you know so that's the vision with that project it's still totally it's infancy but i do think that's like a really great way to have family time be outside know where your food's coming from it's like i have high hopes for that project we'll see where it goes you know a lot of

my childhood memories in the uk are of picking raspberries and strawberries. It's like such a fun family activity and memory. I really love that idea. Berries especially because it's like you go to the store, you know, berries are just rough. They're not meant to be transported. They're not meant to be like go through the whole distribution process. I mean, a true berry experience, you've got to eat it fresh off the berry plant, you know. I'm also so suspicious of these like glowing, gorgeous, right what's in you how'd you do that yeah yeah because that's not how they look on the farm they're like airbrushed yeah it's concerning it is so would you

guys ever expand beyond like do you get eggs uh we have eggs on the orchard okay but it's a small scale thing so for pasture bird I would love to do eggs. Like it's all the same principles. A big shout out to, if you're in California, Alexander Farms. In my opinion, they are doing what we do, but for eggs. Eggs is so saturated. We already talked about some of the labeling problems within eggs. It is a tough road that they're fighting, but they are an authentic, legitimate one. You can find them at Erewhon. You can find them at Whole Foods. They've tried

to scale the business, but they're competing, doing something authentic against stuff that's less. And that's a really hard place to be in for the average consumer that doesn't know. Both of them say pasture-raised. One's $10 a dozen. The other one's six. What's the catch you know but check out alexander i think they do an amazing job really really great family great company there's a market there but i would i would rather see us go into some of the other like monogastrics i think pork is so ripe to figure out you know beef it has it's almost like it's been done to a certain extent you can find really good regenerative grass-fed beef if you if you look for like five minutes you'll find it you know chicken is really

hard even harder i would say is pork turkey like those are the proteins that i would love to see pasture bird figure out in the coming years because i think that it's just hard to find in retail and even online yeah pork would be would be awesome. Yeah. Like sausage, ribs. Exactly. Love that. Love that idea. In your transition from corporate accounting to farming, were there any limiting beliefs you had to unlearn that surprised you in that shift? I don't want to say no, but the reason that question is hard to answer is because I didn't know that we were going to be doing this. It was meant to be a fun family hobby project, you know? And it just kept unfolding.

It was like, I felt like God just kept opening these windows. I'd be like, really? We're going to do 5,000 chickens, you know, like at a time? Now we're doing 50,000 chickens at a time. Now we're doing 500,000. It's like mind-blowing, you know? So I never thought any of this was A, possible possible, but be like even what I wanted to do. So it's hard to, it's hard to answer that question.

I can't think of like a good example of something where I was like, oh, I don't believe we had a cool experience in 2013 that gave us a ton of confidence. So we were like backyard farming. We were, you know, very unimpressive, like a quarter acre in our backyard. My whole family had moved into 1700 square foot house, which is not just me and my wife and our then one year old, but nine of us total were living in this 1700 square foot house. And it was absolutely bonkers. We were reinvesting every dollar. We had no debt. We had no equity partners. We had no real money. You know, we each put $500

into the kitty and we're like, if this business goes, it goes, if not, we'll go back to our jobs, you know? But we were like, let's just give it a try. And we were doing this whole thing. And we got a call that I didn't even think was real from the chef from the Lakers. I don't know if you, I don't know if you know her or not, but Kate Shanahan was like the dietician. She runs in these circles now. She's super impressive, but she calls and she goes, hey, we're looking for like the best protein possible for the team. Is there any chance we could come out and see your farm? And I'm like, oh, she thinks we have like a farm. We have like a couple of chicken coops, you know. Pull it together, guys. Let's go. And so they came out. And sure enough, this is when

like Kobe Bryant was kind of getting towards the end of his career. Steve Nashash who were really into like ancestral health and bone broth and liver and all these things and they just like fell in love with what we were doing so we got to be the the chicken supplier for the lakers and then right after that the dodgers gabe kepler who's like the strength and conditioning coach there it's like well if the lakers are doing it we should do it so we started being the protein supplier for the both teams and i was like dude that for a young business it's not even a business it's a hobby and we're all sports nuts and like we got to go up and walk through the dugout meet the players and they were all so grateful and it was like that was an unbelievable stroke of just confidence for us in that moment

you know so we owe a lot to kate and and Gabe and kind of those two teams for like, it wasn't even volume. It was just like the confidence. It was so rad, you know, to really like believe in yourself, which is what business comes down to, you know. And I feel like sometimes at the beginning, you just need to be thrown into it when you're not even ready. So here's the other funny story. I don't know if you know my sister-in-law's skincare company. She does Primely Pure, which is like a really great natural skincare company they sponsor the show oh amazing yeah okay yeah so so you know that was born out of that same 1700 square foot house

no way yeah so she started making deodorant this is like 2013 and she and she was like hey try this what do you guys think i'm like dude this is so such a great product beef essential oils, like so clean, you could eat it kind of thing. And we're like, why don't you try selling it at some of our farm tours? Sure enough, people really enjoyed it and they liked it. So we're like, okay, put it on our online store and see how it goes. And, you know, pretty much she, she goes from 10% of our store to like 25 to 50. And we're like, okay, go get your own website. You got to think. and she's grown into an unbelievable you know natural skincare company but it's like it's born out of this like crucible you know that's and i think that's what you're talking about it's like you just forced into it you've got you know nine people and 1700 square feet it's like so tough you're just like i gotta

do something to get out of here 100 and i think good businesses are born there I feel bad for my really rich friends that try to start a business and I'm like it doesn't matter if you fail you can't you're fine I honestly feel bad in that situation

or overfunded companies I'm like that makes it hard I think you have too many options you can't start from the top you gotta start from the bottom

I 100% agree with you when myself and my husband started we had no money we had no help it was just us we were working out of our tiny attic with my dad's house i think the best ideas are born from there yeah and now that we've grown so much i almost feel like there's so many options and now it's just i agree with you you got to start out the mud forget who it was but there was a cool quote the other day. It said, and this is back to like the parenting stuff.

It was like the best childhood is like parents that are broke, but love you. Yeah. You know, it's like that same concept. It's like that crucible, but it's done in love and it's done out of passion. I mean, that's how great businesses are made, I think. Do you have any tips for someone like myself who wants to start a hobby farm? Order 50 chicks. That wasn't really what I was thinking.

Expedite the shipping. I was thinking five. I think it's just start, man. Everybody overanalyzes it. They think too much about it. I mean, if you go back like 100 years to there's these rad USDA sponsored ads from like a little more than 100 years, but 1913 and it says do your patriotic duty Have two chickens for each member of your household

They'll eat your chicken scraps and they'll provide you with eggs and it's an easy enough job that even like a five-year-old can can take Care of it, you know, it's like man. We've really over complicated it like this is not that it's not that weird It's not that crazy. It's not that complicated to get a couple chickens for your backyard. Yeah. And I get some people can't because you don't have a backyard, but even a small backyard chickens are such a great like gateway drug. Just be careful because then you'll have a guardian dog. Then you'll have a pig. Then you'll have like wanting to buy a cow and then you'll be moving to Temecula and getting land. So it all it all waterfalls.. That's going to be me. I already know.

I'm animal obsessed. It's not the worst thing that could happen to you. It's pretty fun. How much square footage do you actually need? Let's say four or five chickens. You can really do it on a very small footprint. And I always talk about mobile coops and how great it is to do regenerative. You don't have to start that way.

You can have a fixed coop. All that means is you're going to have to go in and clean can have a fixed coop all that means you're gonna have to go in and clean the coop out like you would kitty litter or a dog house or something like that and you scoop it out ideally you have a garden or you can compost that waste and then you can apply it to your garden and that's your fertilizer so it's like you don't have to have the mobile coop that moves around you don't have to do meat chickens like you can start with layers i always recommend that i always recommend start with laying hens, not baby chicks. Baby chicks are super fun, but it's like you kind of want eggs day one, ideally. You know, if you're impatient like I am, like buy the laying hens and the chicks

if you really want to do chicks. But yeah, I mean, a small backyard, like call it 500 square feet would be like more than enough to get going on a couple of birds. Cool. You just need to clean the coop if you're not moving it. That's the big deal. I could start right now. I've got chickens for you. I'll bring some. You should have told me I could have brought some up today.

I can buy live chickens. Yeah, definitely. You would have bought them today? I would have. Oh my God. My husband would actually kill me. So what? He's like an Italian New Yorker who is scared of going near animals.

And I'm like in with them, you know, like we couldn't be more different. I mean, you could have blamed that. I mean, it could have been like, yeah, I didn't know. I just thought I'd bring her like a gift. It's like a normal, traditional farming gift. Now I have a chicken dealer. This is actually going to happen. I got you set up. Last question I have is about your family. I know you're very family oriented. What has it been like to raise your kids on a farm? Yeah, I mean, I didn't grow up that way. So it's like the coolest thing ever to me. I'm always like so pumped to get the kids outside and running around on land. And they have this crazy relationship with food and animals that I never had. You know, I have one son, my oldest, who's 10, who I think

will probably work for PETA someday. He won't kill a fly. And I've got other son who's five, who's just like this burly kid Weston that I'm pretty sure is going to be like running a slaughterhouse someday. So the opposite ends of the spectrum, which is really fun. It's just like being out there and seeing the connection.

I mean, they'll be out tonight and they're going to go out like collect eggs and run around and they'll like see birds and they also see life and death, which I think is super healthy. We always see death on the farm. It's like a major part of the farm it's a major part of life we also see like we don't have to have the sex talk with our kids because it's like oh what are those cows doing

well let's talk about that like this is how animals get pregnant this is also how humans get puzzle like all my kids from two years old have had like the talk you know yeah and it's actually great it's really healthy i think coming up in nature is great that way that you sort of start to understand these things that we see is weird or scary and it's actually just like very much part of life yeah um it's a real privilege and pleasure to bring kids up on on farm it seems like a much more natural way to grow up because I guess in a household, you're not exposed to any of those things on a day-to-day basis. So things are really like swept under the rug because they can be. And not to freak people out, but this is another

vision of the Orchard Project is an outdoor play space. Our parks are saturated with glyphosate. They're saturated with synthetic chemicals and fertilizers and just unbelievable amount of synthetic everything. So it's like what should be really fun, you know, you bring your kid out to the park for like a day to play, could be insanely toxic. And so to have this really natural certified organic outdoor space for them to run around and pick berries and just be kids and get dirty and sometimes get a little hurt. I love it. If my kids don't have like some scrapes on their knees, we're doing something wrong. You know, it's not like helicopter parent, like they're out running around. I teach them how to identify a rattlesnake

versus a gopher snake versus a gardener snake. Cause I need them to know if it's a rattler, like they need to do something different than if it's another animal. So it's like all these really cool, I mean, I just feel blessed. Like I said, I didn't come up with that way. I was a city kid through and through. So I had to learn these things on my own as an adult. But I feel like learning them as a kid is like the coolest way to grow up. You know, I never thought about the glyphosate at the park. That blows my mind. Yeah. So gnarly. Oh, OK. We can't escape glyphosate. I'm terrified. Now it's time for the question we ask every guest. I started this podcast because I believe everyone's pursuit of

wellness looks different. What does wellness mean to you? Such a good question. I think we talked earlier, like diet's just such a part of it. Eating pasture-raised, great, if you can do it. I think a lot of times when I go on a podcast whatever i i try not to come off as somebody who's like oh you better do this or it's shame on you or whatever i mean it's just about doing your best at the end of the day so if your best is maybe you can afford pasture raise once a week do it like start somewhere you know but i think wellness goes way beyond just what we put in our body i mean it comes back to for us it's really a focus and a prioritization of like god first and our church is like so important to us and our community and then it's like family after that and like business actually falls like pretty

low on that list not that it's not important it's just that there's other things that are way more important to us when we first started the business, one of the hardest things, my wife and I love to travel. And it was like, well, farming's not going to work because you're stuck on farm doing chores twice a day. One of the beautiful things is like, as the business has grown, I've been able to hire a lot of that out.

And it's like, I don't have to be there anymore all the time. So travel's really, really high up on our list. And it's like, we feel like we can live somewhere like rural Temecula because we're able to, you get out of Temecula all the time and um really trying to raise our kids like with an international mindset and that there's a lot more to the world than just our little small town and I see that in LA too because I spend a lot of time here it's like we easily get sucked into LA being the whole world and And it's just not, there's so much stuff going on and so many other things to go see. And so I think travel has been super important and we're really

keen on traveling before kids, but then traveling with all four kids and just loading them up on a plane. I mean, the amount of time those, we realized my son who's 10 has been in more countries than States so far. He's been like 30 countries or something. And I think just raising the kids internationally and like the day of being able to do some remote stuff and Airbnb, we spent a month in Italy two years ago and we were able to spend like a month in the UK last year in the summer and doing that longer form traveling really is like a wellness thing for our family. Longer form travel with kids.

It's like the only way to do it, you know, and you can work really hard and put a lot into your work if you know that you have these like longer form trips coming up where it's all about family, you know. And so I think that for us, it's less about balancing each day of like balancing the year and making sure that there's those sprints within the business. And she has hers. I mean, she's an interior designer, so she's got crazy sprints too, but then really like recharging with the family and stuff too. It's really refreshing to hear someone with a successful business say it's third on the totem pole because I think, yeah, as a business owner,

I completely hear where you're coming from. And for a while, the business does have to be number one, but I think there's a way to be successful and prioritize family and personal life and travel and all of those things. I also love the long term stay concept. I really want to do that. Oh, it's been the best. I mean, just with jet lag, like you bring four kids. So we've got 10, seven, five and three. You're going to fly to Europe. I mean, it's like three days before we're even functioning and normal. These kids don't, they can't just fall asleep on the plane like we can.

I mean, it takes a little bit. So for us, the month or even like five to six weeks, which feels crazy from an American. Like you go to Australia, you go to UK, really anywhere else in the world. They all know how to like holiday way better than we do.

We think like a 10 day trip is sick, you know, in the US, we're like, oh my gosh, 10 days. That's not even vacation yet. And it really takes a couple of weeks to even snap out of the whole like running a business mindset and just chill out. So I think it's super healthy. We always say it takes us a minimum of a week to stop being anxious about being away from the business. It's so interesting. Yeah. So then what's a 10-day trip do for you? I mean, we very rarely do it. I'm hoping we start doing it soon. But a 10-day trip by the end,

I feel like a completely different person, especially in Europe. I'm not a big like beach sitting person. But when I'm in Europe, I feel like immersing in that culture. You can't be in a rush. You can't get your coffee to go. I know.

You got to sit and enjoy. And I feel like by the end, I start questioning the way I live my life. So we're at the end of this summer. We've traveled for a month the last two summers. But then this summer, we didn't. And both my wife and I are like, ooh, we like feel it. Itchy. Oh, we just, well, the kids are going back to school now.

And it's like you kind of, well, I'm taking my son to South Africa for a couple weeks in september but it's not like a family trip so it's a little bit different but we're both like ah did we miss the boat a little bit i'm like this good family recharge because you go back into the school year once you have kids and it's kind of like all systems go so we'll definitely need to make something happen for next year yeah where can people find pastureure Bird online? So pasturebird.com is where we do everything. And that's nationwide home delivery. And we're really proud of that program.

It's really great. But like I said, I'd rather have you go find like local if you can. It's just not a lot available. So check out pasturebird.com if you want like a rad box shipped direct to your house. Amazing. And you guys like a rad box shipped direct to your house. Amazing. And you guys have a code, actually. If you want 10% off Pasturebird, you can use code POW, E-O-W.

Paul, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. It was fun. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Go comment on my last Instagram, at Mari Llewellyn, with the guest you want to see next. I'll be picking one person from the comments to send our bloom greens to. Make sure you hit follow so you never miss my weekly episodes. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to share and leave a review. See you next week. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products

and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.