Realfoodology - "Eating Cheap Food is a Privilege" - The True Price of Our Food Choices | Mollie Engelhart

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

EP. 182: When Chef Molly Engelhart, a fervent proponent of regenerative agriculture, joins me, we uncover the sobering truth behind the so-called privilege of inexpensive food in America. Our candid discussion traverses the unseen toll on farm workers, the alarming use of chemicals in our sustenance, and how these factors collide with the well-being of the soil that feeds us. Molly's firsthand experience running a regenerative farm brings an authenticity to the conversation, as we scrutinize the intricate dance between our eating habits, mental health, and the environmental repercussions of our modern food industry. Topics Discussed: 0:00:00 - Regenerative Farming and System Corruption 0:08:33 - Discussion on division and chemical warfare's impact, including the recent sale of a heart farm and changes in the restaurant industry 0:16:03 - Conversation about the importance of healthy soil and food, and the connection between gut health and mental well-being 0:30:13 - Insights into the importance of real food and the significance of discernment in food choices 0:39:03 - Analysis of misconceptions about the affordability of organic food and the choices people make regarding health and nutrition 0:45:37 - Examination of the effects of chemical sensitivities on health and the impact of everyday scented products 0:57:57 - Discussion on sodium levels, birth rates concerns, and the role of salt in our diets 1:10:47 - Reflections on the challenges faced in farming and food production, including starting a farm and managing its ecosystem. 1:23:26 - Promoting Sustainable and Local Food Choices 1:28:58 - Food Sovereignty and Consumer Choice Importance Check Out Mollie: Instagram Online Sponsored By: Honed Vitamins use code REALFOODOLOGY for 15% off at livehoned.com Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% Off Natural Cycles for 15% off go to naturalcycles.com with code REALFOODOLOGY LMNT Get 8 FREE packs with any order at drinkLMNT.com/realfoodology BiOptimizers MagBreakthrough Get 10% off at bioptimizers.com/realfoodology with code REALFOODOLOGY Check Out Courtney: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson Edited By: Mike Frey

On today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. But the privilege is eating cheap food that other people likely got cancer growing, harvesting, and getting to market for you. That is the privilege. The privilege is living in America where we can eat cheap food that is killing people, killing the consumer slowly,

but killing the farmers and the harvesters and all the farm workers at a much faster rate, that is the privilege. Hello friends, welcome back to the Real Foodology Podcast. I am your host, Courtney Swan. In today's episode, we have a guest that has been here before, Chef Molly Englehart. Her brother, Ryland Englehart,

who I originally got connected with, is one of the founders of Kiss the Ground. So if you have seen the documentary Kiss the Ground on Netflix, or more recently, they came out with Common Ground. Both are amazing documentaries. And if you have not watched them,

I highly, highly recommend. They are my favorite food documentaries to come out in the last like 10 years. I know it's a bold statement, but they dive into soil health and how incredibly important it is. They also talk about regenerative farming. And more recently, this new one, Common Ground, I want to see it like a million more times. They do a great job of showing the corruption that's happening right now in the food system and really how these large food corporations are getting away with poisoning us essentially the the funding that they're getting

and how our government is kind of turning a blind eye slash paying for some of this and how we're also paying paying for it all with our tax dollars and subsidies and it does a really great job of breaking it down and really helping you understand so anyways anyways, we don't talk about any of that in this episode actually, but I just was reminded because Molly's brother co-founded Kiss the Ground. So you may recognize Molly's name. She was actually on the podcast,

I believe it was in 2021. Highly recommend going back and listening to that two-part episode. It is such a good episode. And some of what we talk about today is a little bit what we dive into deeper in the first episode that we did together that we turned into a two-parter because it was so long and chock full of information. But in this episode, we talk about what she's doing now. So if you guys are unaware of her and what she does, she had a regenerative

farm out here in California called So Heart. It was outside of, I believe it was outside of Santa Barbara. Oh no, I'm sorry. It was outside of Ojai. And she was using that farm to provide locally grown food to her restaurants that she started Sage. She has a couple of restaurants still in LA. Some of them have unfortunately been since closed since COVID, but she does have a restaurant called Sage Vegan Bistro and myself not even being vegan, I love that place. Really great food. They don't do all the like plant-based meats and stuff. It's really just veggie forward, locally grown food and it's a great place. But we talk about the chemical warfare that's happening right now on us as humans and how we're getting

it from every angle. It's being sprayed on our food and it's in our water. And you guys hear about this all the time. We talk about it a lot. We also talk about the microbiome and the connection with the good and bad bacteria in our guts and the bacteria that's in the soil. We also talk about this and we talk about how convenience is killing us. This need for everything to be fast and cheap and packaged. And we really, we are due for a reframe around our food and the way we approach things. And we really dive into that. I loved this episode. I think Molly is just full of so much information. She's such a wealth of knowledge. I also love that she has a regenerative farm with animals on the land, but she's been vegetarian her whole life. And she can really speak about the vegetarian versus

meat eating from such a informed place, which I really respect. And I love her perspective on it. So with that, let's get into the episode. I'm going to stop blabbing. If you guys could take a moment to rate and review the podcast, you know the drill. It means a lot to me. It also really helps the show and it helps get the word out. So also speaking of getting the word out, if you want to tag me on Instagram, I hopefully, I think I see almost all of your tags. I try my best to get back to everyone. I wish I could personally hug all of you because I'm just so grateful and appreciative of your support, but just know that I would hug you if I could. Thank you so much, guys. Did you know that blindly taking supplements can end up

doing more harm than good? You need to understand what's going on in your body first before you start supplementing. I'm a huge proponent for mineral and vitamin testing so that you know exactly what's going on in your body, what mineral and vitamin deficiencies you have. And then from there, you can decide what vitamins and minerals your body actually needs. I love honed vitamins. They use hair tissue mineral analysis, which is a foundational tool in functional medicine to understand what's going on with your cellular health and metabolism. It is so cool. They send you a little test kit and you send in a clip of your hair. They send it off to their lab. They analyze it and then they come back with the results and they do a metabolic test on your hair, which reveals the status of

29 minerals, including calcium, magnesium, potassium, copper, zinc, iron, selenium, and boron, just to name a few. It also reports on eight heavy metals, including lead, magnesium, potassium, copper, zinc, iron, selenium, and boron, just to name a few. It also reports on eight heavy metals, including lead, aluminum, and mercury. And then from there, they give you personalized supplements that are sent right to your door every month to keep you on top of your health goals. It's such an easy, simple test to do. There's no blood involved. And then from there, you're actually taking vitamins and minerals that you know that your body truly needs. It's based on your bio-ind. And also what's cool about it as our bodies change, our nutrient status may change over time as well. And so you're able to retest your nutrient status over time to track your progress and then adjust your supplements as needed. If you guys would like to try honed

vitamins today, use code real foodology for 15% off go to live honed.com that's l-i-v-e-h-o-n-e-d.com and use code real foodology and you are going to save 15 did you know that women can only get pregnant around a six-day window i grew up thinking that women could get pregnant any day of the month and i know so many women that got on the pill because they thought that they could get pregnant any day of the month this is simply not. And I personally didn't want to put synthetic hormones in my body, which is why I use something called Natural Cycles. It is the world's first FDA cleared birth control app. The app's algorithm uses hormone driven changes in body temperature to let users know when they're fertile or not fertile. And it's 93% effective with typical use and 98% effective with perfect

use. Perfect use means abstaining from unprotected sex on red days. To put this into perspective, it's more effective than condoms alone and about the same effectiveness as the birth control pill. It's also important to note that no form of birth control is 100 percent effective. So how does it work? It was developed by scientists and is supported by clinical evidence. And it's based on hormone driven changes and body temperature. The algorithm lets you know whether you're fertile or not fertile each day. A green day means you're not fertile and you're good to go. A red day means you're fertile and you need to use another form of protection or abstain. So all you have to do is first thing in the morning, take your temperature either with a thermometer or if you have a wearable

like an Oura Ring or an Apple Watch, it automatically connects to your app. But you do not need a wearable. You simply just need a thermometer and to take your temperature first thing in the morning. If you would like to try Natural Cycles, go to naturalcycles.com, use code realfoodology, and you're going to get 15% off an annual subscription plus a free thermometer. Again, that's naturalcycles.com code realfoodology. This is an ad and Natural Cycles is for 18 plus and does not protect against STIs. Molly, I'm so excited to have you back on. The last time we recorded was still to this day, it is one of my favorite episodes that I've released. You are such a powerhouse and such a voice for this movement and this community and just

for everything that's going on right now. And I want to talk a little bit again about what we talked about before, just because I felt like some of the points that you made were so incredibly important that I think people need to hear them again. And I also want to talk more about what you're doing now, check in with everything that's going on with you and your farm and regenerative farming and all that. So anyways, thanks for coming on. Excellent. And I also want to talk more about what you're doing now, check in with everything that's going on with you and your farm and regenerative farming and all that. So anyways, thanks for coming on. Excellent. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me back.

Yeah. So, okay, let's talk first of all, because the last time you and I chatted, you had Sew A Heart Farm outside of LA or it's outside of Santa Barbara, I think, right? Do you still have that farm? Nope. Just as of like three weeks ago, we just sold it. Wow. And do you still do sage? I still have two sages, but the way people responded to sickness, essentially, destroyed the restaurant industry in a way that's been very, very detrimental. The pieces don't fit together anymore. And so it used to be that people that lived in LA could work a job serving or waiting tables and make enough money to go on vacation, pay for their

apartment, have a fun life. And now the people that work in my restaurants can't live in the neighborhoods where my restaurants are. They can't afford to do anything. They're working two jobs. They're commuting from some faraway place. The people that live in the neighborhoods where my restaurants are can barely eat at the restaurants in the neighborhood because they're trying to pay their mortgage. That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, it's really heartbreaking. I get it. I live in LA and these are a lot of things that my friends and I have been talking about as well because I don't think that this is a left or a right issue anymore.

This is an issue that every single person across the spectrum is being affected one way or another, whether you're a business owner or you're just simply a consumer that wants to go out and have a good night out and eat good food. And the restaurants are dwindling. A lot of them have failed. A lot of my favorite restaurants have shut down. And then the homeless issue is becoming a big issue. A lot of people don't feel safe anymore.

Yeah, it is. It's a really interesting time, especially in LA. And I will tell you my friends who were the most extreme leaning on certain sides of politics are now also starting to be like, what is happening? This is crazy. The people who I never thought would ever say that. I mean, I, yeah, I don't know. It was interesting for me because I've been kind of centrist, I guess, because I was a business owner and whatever.

But I've been centrist and I've always been anti-big pharma, anti-the medical establishment. And so something weird happened during COVID. If you were centrist at all and then you didn't want to take this thing, then all of a sudden you were just like, you were a white supremacist or whatever. So it was very interesting to watch the world just kind of divide. And it's funny as like, it's all part of the psyop. Like it's just that we, you and I know that we're being poisoned with everything we do, the water, the food, our clothing,

like everything is poison and it is killing us. And there's all these deaths happening all around us. Younger and younger people are sicker and dying and cancer and all this stuff. And literally we're fighting with each other like, I cannot believe that you believe this and I can't believe this. Like instead of being together, and it's all a big psyop to keep us totally distracted and thinking we're separate. And people that I've loved for my whole life, people that I've been friends with and grown up with, there's a distance between us with me moving to Texas and stuff. And I noticed that. And I just keep being love and being a space of reminding reminding them that like, I'm the same person

and I love you. And like, we can't let these outer influences have us not be friends or not be loving with each other. And I always say we have to learn to love people we don't agree with. And we have to agree with people we don't love because that's the reality of life. Like we're not going to love everybody. We're not going to love everybody's ideas that we love and we're not going to hate everybody's ideas for people that we don't get along with. We're going to be like, oh my goodness, Tucker Carlson said something right. And I, you know, I don't agree with him on the border, but I do agree with him on vaccines. I think we have to realize that we're all going to be...

We're never going to agree with everyone. And so why do we try? I'm unfollowing you. I always say to people like, okay, go ahead. I know. It's so funny that people think that we actually care. I'm sorry, but it's like, I don't know you. I didn't even know you were following me.

Not even saying that to be a dick, just straight up like, okay, bye. Great. It's all a construct. People talk about other things being a construct that I'm not sure are a construct, but this pitting us against each other is totally a construct that is to have us feel separate and disconnected from each other. And it's not what's in the benefit of all of humanity. And I think that we're at a heightened time of really wanting to be together. And that's part of the big thing in California was the regulations around letting people live on your land. And so we couldn't create a community. We couldn't live in community.

And so here in Texas, we're putting tiny houses and we've put other modular homes and we built a restaurant on the farm and we built this bed space. And so we're going to be able to create this hospitality and agro community. And it's allowed. And I say that not joking. Like it's allowed, whereas it's not allowed in California. And so, yeah, the weather's not as nice here. It's hotter and it's colder. But I like being able to live with who I want to live with.

I like being able to sell raw milk if I want to. I like being able to have agreements between two people and not need the government involved in every single decision we make. Yeah, yeah, it is. It's really wild what's happening right now. I want to go into what you said a couple minutes ago about this chemical warfare essentially that we're under right now. And I was thinking about it also as you were saying that we're being pitted against each other right now. And it's so interesting to see, especially what's happening. For example, I'm seeing it really heightened online where I will share something. For example, like Cheerios came out, there was a third party

test done showing that Cheerios are really high in glyphosate. And so I'm sharing this, you know, and then there's, it mostly happens to be registered dietitians that come back and push back, which is very interesting, but I don't want to single them out because I also want to say that there are some really good registered dietitians doing amazing things. But then there's this whole narrative online or this like group of people that are then going, oh my God, you're being too extremist. That's so privileged, which is another thing I want to talk about. I can't believe that you're talking about this. And then we're fighting, we're being pitted against each other. And I'm over here being like, guys, but this is actually like a really big issue. And why can't we help people navigate to eating other foods? And that's not the first test. I mean,

I think I learned that Cheerios had the highest rate of glyphosates of any food. It's like Ritz crackers and Cheerios keep coming up on the top two. And so it's been multiple tests it's not like this is at the first or second time but I you know I own vegan restaurants and I used to be a staunch supporter of the vegan diet and I shifted my opinions and I think that that is what wisdom is is that you you stand by a belief and then you see a you see something that actually cracks your belief, well, then you don't just keep believing your belief. It's like, oh, wait, that makes total sense. And that bovine on grass is actually what we need for healthy guts, for healthy planet. Oh, okay. Well, let me shift my... Oh, wait. Oat milk with oil in it is not good. Raw milk from my own cow is good.

Okay, that makes sense. Like I'm willing, but when people just make up something in their head and then it's like, no, soy milk is better than cow milk because, and they just keep that one thing, that's not wisdom. That's just a religion, orthodox. It's a cult. Yeah.

And so I would say that people love to throw, when you talk about what's poisonous in our food, and I like to believe that people have the best intentions, it's easy to throw the privileged conversation, like you're privileged, you're white, you're all these different things, you have money, why I cannot eat Roundup. Well, the truth is I can't not eat Roundup because I'm going to be at an airport sometime with my kids and they're going to eat a piece of pizza at the airport or whatever. There's going to be moments that Roundup gets into my kids' food. But the privilege is eating cheap food that other people likely got cancer growing,

harvesting, and getting to market for you. That is the privilege. The privilege is living in America where we can eat cheap food that is killing people, killing the consumer slowly, but killing the farmers and the harvesters and all the farm workers at a much faster rate. That is the privilege. And it's convenience and not privilege that we are addicted to.

And privilege is a word that we use to cover up our human addiction to convenience. Nobody wants to drive somewhere separate to get their milk. Nobody wants to do this. But the truth is the cheapest things in the grocery store are the non-prepared things. So whether that's vegetables or meat or eggs, like the things that are not prepared. And so the more that we can prepare from scratch, the less chemicals that we're going to have in our foods. But it's the convenience that has led us all to want to have these really simple foods that have really, really bad things. And when you think about, if you look at the chart of how glyphosate is being used in our food system, and then you look at the mental illness chart and how much psych drugs that

Americans are taking, it's like, and it's like, there's a connection between the gut biome and your mental health. And sure, people will say that Roundup or glyphosate have zero effect on the human body. Yes, the skin bag that houses my soul is not affected by the Roundup, but I am 49% that skin bag,

and I am 51% microbiology that all has a Shikame pathway. And that Shikame pathway, that microbiology is being killed. Well, that microbiology is necessary to keep the skin bag going along. And so when you look at it that way, 70% of the microbiology in a healthy gut is in healthy soil.

And all the food we're getting has been sprayed by Roundup and is not coming from healthy soil. And Roundup is essentially an antibiotic. It's killing off the microbiology in our gut and in the soil. We're not getting replenished. But if you think about a hundred years ago and grandma got a cabbage out of the

garden and she rinsed it off with the hose, maybe chopped it up and made sauerkraut, that microbiology was massively available for the person that was going to eat it on their meat, the dried meat or whatever they were eating through the wintertime. Now, even if I make sauerkraut from a cabbage that I buy at the store, it's probably been dipped in some kind of sanitizer, even if it's organic, just a lesser sanitizer. So we're constantly trying to kill off that microbiology. And that is then constantly having us be having a not healthy gut which is having us have a not healthy mind which is obvious if you look at america and you can take

any issue mental health is like at the core of it homelessness guns like whatever you want to like every kind of thing you can look at, if we are healthier mentally, we will make better decisions and those things will be less of an issue. Yes. Yes. There is a massive connection with our health and the health of our gut. And this is something you talk about a lot, and I know you do this with your farm. So what is the importance of that microbiology that you're talking about in the soil? Like, why is that so important from an environmental standpoint and also from a health standpoint? So if you think about,

and I just want to preface this by saying, I'm going to have this conversation from the lens of carbon in the atmosphere is bad and wrong. And I don't know, you know what I mean? I don't, I don't know if that is, I know that that's what we're being told. And that is the lens that I'm looking at this from. So carbon in the atmosphere is a, is a problem for heating up the planet through this lens. But carbon in the top eight inches of topsoil is excellent for growing plants. And carbon in the atmosphere is good for growing plants as well. But carbon in

the top eight inches of topsoil is the best for growing plants. And so a plant in just doing its normal thing will cycle carbon out of the atmosphere, turn it into carbohydrates, sugars, and feed it to microbiology that then makes the nutrients in the soil bioavailable to the plant that it's pulling down the said carbon or to the plants next to it. So God made this amazing system that works. And then that microbiology is also in us and it's a perfect system. But every time that we till and spray and till and spray, we're killing all that microbiology. And then we have to add on more nitrogen. And so when we're adding on the more nitrogen, it's just nitrates. And so it's not exactly the bioavailable kind of nitrate, how it would be if it came through the soil and

then through the secretions of those microbiologies. And so it can run off and go into our waters and our oceans and our waterways. And so this is not the way we want to do it. We want to cycle, pull the carbon down out of the atmosphere. But when we plow and till, we also let, we kill all that microbiology. So just like a dead animal rotting would then let gases up into the air, so would the microbiology. So we then start over, over and over and over again. And so in all those ways, it's for the environment, it's for the cleanliness of our water, it's for the health of our own guts and microbiome. And so essentially healthy soil makes healthy food, which makes healthy humans, which helps have healthy, clean water.

And all of those things seem really important. So no matter what you think about carbon, that clean water, healthy food, that's like foundationally every mother, every father wants that for their next generation. Yeah. And the healthier that these plants are, then the healthier we are because we're getting all those nutrients from the plants. But we know now that because we've depleted the soil, our food does not have the same amount of nutrient. It doesn't have the same nutrient profile that it once did. No, not at all. Like a carrot, I don't know the exact numbers, but you have to eat like 10 carrots from one carrot from the 50s. That is crazy. And then you think about it too. So like that, I would say, well, these are both really big issues. Then the other issue side by side with that is that we're spraying really heavily with glyphosate, all these herbicides,

fungicides, pesticides that are then not only in our food, we are directly spraying them onto our food, but then it's also getting into the water. And now it's so interesting because I've been talking about this since 2011, which is crazy. And I feel like just now, mainstream is slowly starting to report about this.

They're like, oh my God, we have all this pesticide residue in our food. And oh my God, the average American, like 98% of people have glyphosate in their blood. And I'm over here like, yeah, no shit. Like, why are we surprised by this? When I was a vegan and I said I'm more concerned about Roundup in my kids' food than I am dairy or meat in my kids' food, people completely attacked me. And I was like, what? My kids, I have two kids that are vegetarian, two kids that are not vegetarian. Like it's on them, their choice. But I mean,

I just can't, it's obvious like poison, poison. I don't want poison for my children, but it's unfortunate that all of these plant-based meat companies are using products that are highly sprayed and genetically modified. So it's almost like the vegans have to have a blind, blinders on to the, and I'm not one to say what the right diet for anybody is. Like I've been a vegetarian my whole life, that works for me.

And I know people that it just wouldn't work for not for even a second. And so for me to think that I know what's right for every person, it would be like me thinking I know what the medical choices is right. I had my babies at home and other people had babies in the hospital. I had one baby in the hospital and I'm so grateful that I had the privilege to go to a hospital when I had a broken coccyx bone and we needed to get the baby out. I'm totally glad that I had that opportunity. You know what I'm saying? We can't think that every food diet is going to be right for everybody. Every birth journey is not going to be right for everybody. Every birth journey is not going to be right for everybody. Every vaccine journey is not going to be right for everybody.

But from that perspective, everyone can eat a cleaner, more whole food diet. And that is just what I want to encourage people about. Like, not everybody's going to be like into eating nose to tail and wants chicken feet soup or whatever. Great. I got it. Like that. It's not my thing either. But we can eat whole foods in a way that we've literally just forgotten how to do. People, people are scared to can their own foods. You know, people tell me botulism

like looks up how many people die of botulism. Like look up how many people die of botulism a year. Like just look it up. It's like five. Sleep is absolutely imperative to our overall health. It controls hunger and weight loss hormones. It boosts energy levels. It's also the key to our body's rejuvenation and repair process. And it impacts countless other vital functions. So a good night's sleep will improve your wellbeing more than anything else. I would say for my health journey, sleep has really been my main focus the last couple of years more than anything else. And one of the ways that I started doing that was taking magnesium breakthrough from Bioptimizers. It contains

all seven forms of magnesium. A lot of people are deficient in magnesium and magnesium really helps to calm down the nervous system, get your body ready for bed. I recently had the founder of Bioptimizers on my podcast actually, and we did an entire sleep hygiene episode. So if you want to go back and listen to that, we talk very extensively into why sleep is so important, how to get better sleep, what supplements really help. And one of the things that we talked about was magnesium breakthrough. And I can tell you guys, I've been taking this for about a year now. I travel with it and it helps so much. I wear an Oura ring at night to track my sleep and I've seen my REM and my deep sleep go up. So this magnesium breakthrough is a total game changer. If you guys want to get Bioptimizer's Magnesium Breakthrough today, make sure that you go to magbreakthrough.com slash realfoodology. That's M-A-G breakthrough.com

slash realfoodology and intercode realfoodology and you're going to get 10% off. There's nothing more comforting than a warming cup of hot chocolate before bed. I know coming from me, that may sound a little counterintuitive because you're probably thinking, how is hot chocolate healthy for you? But I've got a little hack for you and it's called Organifi's Gold Chocolate. First and foremost, the most important thing here, it has one gram of total sugar in it. So you get the satisfaction of having a comforting, cozy little sweet treat after dinner without all the loaded sugar. And it's like with this one, you get a twofer, a two for one, because you also have the added bonus of things like turmeric, lemon balm, turkey tail. There's also magnesium and there's reishi in there. So whenever I drink this at

night before bed, it gets me really sleepy and ready to wind down. And it really improved my sleep. There's also a blend in there that helps with digestion. There's acacia, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, and turmeric. So if you have this after dinner, it's also going to help with your digestion and it's going to get you ready for bed. My favorite thing about Organifi products outside of them being all organic, they're also glyphosate residue free. If you have listened to this podcast long enough or paid attention to my Instagram, you know that glyphosate is a huge, huge concern for all of us in this country. Glyphosate is a known carcinogen that is being sprayed. It's an herbicide that's being sprayed on all of our crops that are not organic. And it's also being leaked into organic products as well, organic foods. So this glyphosate residue-free stamp is so incredibly important. And it's one of my favorite things about Organifi outside of their actual products, which I love.

If you want to try this hot cocoa from Organifi or any of their other products that I mentioned today, make sure that you go to Organifi.com slash RealFoodology, and you are going to save 20% on your order. Again, that's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash realfoodology. Well, it's also like we've been canning foods since I don't know the exact time period, but for a very long time as humans. You know, it was one of the first modes of preserving our food. You know what?

So while you were saying that, I just kept thinking people do not know discernment and they are so out of touch with their own bodies. And I think this is probably the biggest issue right now because everyone is looking to everyone else for these answers. And I'm trying to remind people that you have that innate wisdom in you.

You have all of that. Like it's a primal innate thing. And yes, you can read the studies and you can listen to the experts and say, okay, like I should be avoiding these chemicals. Like there's certain things, like I tell everyone, like the only rule I have for every single human being on this planet

is we all need to be eating real food. And then outside of that, like there's food allergies, there's preferences, there's some people that thrive on a vegan and vegetarian diet. Great, there's people that don on a vegan and vegetarian diet. Great. There's people that don't. I personally was so freaking sick

when I went vegetarian and I was for five years. Lots of people are. And lots of people are. And so what kind of person would I be to say that you should be? It's crazy. And I mean,

it's just the way that we've gotten to this world where we think whatever works for us means it works for everybody else. That is not true. And what you're saying about eating the real food, we've mostly forgotten what real food looks like. I was talking to a gentleman and he said, so what does this mean, like organic tomatoes? Does it mean they weren't grown in a factory? Well, I mean, I guess there's like vertical farms and stuff, but like food's not grown in a factory for the part. Or someone found a rock in their black beans at the restaurant and she said, someone explain to me how this

happened. It's grown in soil, it's grown in soil. It's grown in soil. It's a little black rock next to a little black bead. There's like, it didn't get cleaned out. Like it was a mistake. Like, you know, so I, or people will say like, I have guests that will eat. I don't eat outside. I think it's dirty. Like, okay, your food was grown outside. And so we've just become totally disconnected. But I think that's also part of the PSYOP. As long as we think we're the problem, if we think we're the problem, then we will agree to only driving on Mondays and Wednesdays to save the planet. If we think we're the problem, we'll agree to eat bugs to save the planet. But if we know that 70% of the microbiology in my gut

is the same as healthy soil, then we know that we were ordained by God to be here and we are the apex species and it's up to us to steward the earth, then we have a sense of responsibility. Then we have a sense of like, I belong here, and I will do my best to take care of it for the next generation. But if we think we're the problem, then we become apathetic and just-

And we try to erase ourselves. And drive a hybrid and think we've done our part. And that is not enough. I'm sorry. It's not enough. If that's what people are doing and they think they've done enough. No, we're in a mass extinction event, not in a fear mongering way, like of microbiology, 25% of the life on this planet lives in the top eight inches of topsoil, 25% of life on the planet, and it is being eradicated. Right now, they're letting genetically modified soil microbes out into the environment. We will never be able to take that back in. And the, not ignorance, that's not the right word, the pompousness of these scientists

that think they can out-science nature will be the death of us. But we have to say, no, enough is enough. I want real food. We have to say, I don't want the FDA to, I don't need the FDA to tell me it's healthy to eat something. I don't need that. And I me it's healthy to eat something. I don't need that.

And I've been talking a lot recently on podcasts and different things about radical trust. The reason we have so many rules, the reason I have to check the temperature of my compost every single however many days, and I have to not only have a compost pile, a certain amount of height and all this stuff, is that we have stopped trusting ourselves, other human beings, God, our gut. Like we have, like you were saying, we have the innate knowing in us to know what's right and wrong for our body.

And when you eat something that doesn't feel good, like it was just Christmas time and there was chocolates with caramel sitting around everywhere around my house. And how many times did I pick one up and put it in my mouth? And then I could feel it within minutes. Like, ugh, why did I do that?

Like, why did I do that, right? My body knew. We all have that knowingness in us. We know when we meet someone like, ooh, I don't think we should do business with them. We know, that knowingness in us. We know when we meet someone like, oh, I don't think we should do business with them. We know, but we've stopped trusting. We need the government to tell us what a fair wage is. We need the government to be in between every single individual. But we have to get back to radical trust. And in order to do that, we have to get back to radical integrity,

where we take on being the most integrous being in our world and so that we can have people trust us so that we can trust other people and we have to trust ourselves like that has to happen for our food system to shift and it's going to have to be a radical shift for our food system to be different and people are going to say in the comments like well not everybody can live on a farm and has money to do that. Nobody has money to do it. I don't have money to do it.

Like literally, I'm living with like 27 other people. We're living in community. We're dealing with conflict. We're working it out. We're dealing with money stuff. Nobody has the money to do it. It's not the money that people don't have to do it. It's the desire to do hard things. And I suspect that there's a lot more hard times coming.

And so we have to start getting good at doing hard things right now. So growing food, animal husbandry, sourdough bread, fermenting foods, preserving food. These are hard things and we need to start doing them so that we can rely on our own selves. Because I go to the grocery store and I don't know what your number is, but it's less than four or 5%, maybe less than I would eat. I guess it depends where the grocery store is. In Bandera, it might be less than that. Yeah. I would say Bandera is probably not going to have a lot of things that I would eat. Right. That's what I'm saying. But if you look around, there's a lot of people growing food, canning food, preserving, quilting, all these skills that are important. And that is what I think that we

need to start doing. We need to start eating foods that are whole and complete, but we also have to start contributing to that. And if that's helping other people have a farm, if that's buying directly from the farmer's market, but we can't just sit in our apartment, order our stuff on Amazon and wonder why the world is falling apart and wonder why organic standards are still are letting this and that chemical inside. Like, no, we have, we are the ones we've been waiting for. There's nobody coming to save us. Yes. Nobody. Well, that's, and you made a great point that it's really hard. You know, like I get a lot of

pushback online from people and they're like, similar to what you just said, oh, that's so expensive or not. You know what I find really interesting actually, there's a lot of people that are like these warriors, like quote unquote saviors for other people that they make up. Like they make up these stories where they're like,

okay, well, what about the person living in poverty off food stamps that have four kids and their husband's out? And I'm like, where, like, and just to be clear, I'm not saying those people don't exist, but why are people fighting so hard for these people that they don't know that they're making up in their head? It's very different if you're like, hey, I have this person in my life. I'm trying to help them. They're struggling, blah, blah, blah. Okay, fine. But I'm sitting here telling you when I was younger and I was working three jobs, I wasn't sleeping. I was barely making rent and I was buying everything organic because at that time I was like, this is the number one because without my health, I have nothing. I won't be able to show up to my job. I won't be able to function.

We have to reframe our priorities. I can't tell you how many people I know that are ordering off Postmates every night for dinner and then complaining to me that organic is expensive. I'm like, how do you afford Postmates every night? It's like $150 for like two meals. I just don't get it. A hundred percent. Let me tell you a story.

I have four children, biological children, and I have one adopted son, Osmar. Osmar, at the early beginning of the pandemic, or before the pandemic, during the Trump administration, he came as one of those unaccompanied minors that were all over the news, right? Those unaccompanied minors and he was reuniting with his parents and he hadn't seen them in 12 14 years something like that came here from guatemala he reunited with his parents and he got sick when he got here and so he was googling can american food so he doesn't speak English.

He's recently here. He's living in downtown LA in an apartment with his parents and other people. And he's Googling, can American food make you sick? Because he doesn't feel good here in America. And he was in Guatemala. He doesn't feel good. He's having headaches. He's having high blood pressure. His mom's taking him to the doctor. Now he finds Mark Hyman on Instagram or

somewhere. And Mark Hyman is talking about regenerative agriculture and microbiology. So he finds apricot lane farms and apricot lanes he calls them and he says can i i'm in high school can i come volunteer on the farm they say no we don't take volunteers that aren't 21 years old or older he calls my farm and we're obviously don't have our shit together as much as them and we're like like, sure, come. I don't know. Like, do we have a rule about high school kids? I don't think so. And so he comes. And the truth is he never left.

And we adopted him. He's getting his American citizenship now. And he is the biggest advocate. He's like on me. Like we're not, we're here in Texas. We don't have the fencing yet to start the holistic plan grazing. And he's like, we're not being our word.

Like we have to get these cows onto this pasture, blah, blah, blah. Like he's onto it. He's arguing with my husband about plowing and versus this and how to get the vegetable beds up and going. And so I want to say that he was here and had no economic standing, no relationship even to the United States of America. And he got $70 to take an Uber to Sawhart Farm to volunteer to work for free for me on a volunteer day. And that is how he became my oldest, newest child. And so when we say that, I don't think it's fair for anybody to say how another person is perceiving the world or what's important to another person.

I think that I've lived primarily with newly immigrated Latinos for the last 15 years. And my husband and I have been married 10 years. My husband is from Oaxaca, didn't speak English when we got married. People on the farm may not be quite as committed as I am to organic, but I noticed that once the information is available, people are going to Costco and buying the whole organic chicken rather than going to the Viarta and buying the cut up chicken. I noticed that there's a shift in people's buying. Even there's people that don't drink the milk on the farm and they're

lactose intolerant. And then I had the conversation about glyphosate and then I noticed they're buying the organic oat milk and organic soy milk. I notice that people, when they have the information, do make choices that are better for them. And we all know fundamentally that in this lifetime, we only have this body that we're in. And we all get reminded from time to time what it feels like have this body that we're in. And we all get reminded from time

to time what it feels like when this body's not working well. And so people want to be strong. People want to be able to work hard. I had a conversation with a guy the other day. He was a welder. He came out here and I was talking about endocrine interrupters. He was having so much allergies. And I was like, you should probably take these air fresheners out of your car and this one hanging on your thing and the one spraying out of your thing. I suspect that your body is dealing with all of this chemicals all the time. And now the flower, the cedar is blooming. And so that's on top of that. But maybe if your body wasn't dealing with all this and then I was like, I can smell you're wearing Tide or Downy, like you have a lot of stuff going on.

The next time I saw him, he was like, I went and I got the no scented, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, and I feel much better. My eyes cleared up. And so it's like people don't even make the connection all the time that, oh, I'm suffering over here. And I think it's the pollen, but I'm literally I've glade plugins all over my house.

Yeah, that's a tricky one because so many people don't think about that. I was actually in a workout class the other day and I'm so sensitive to any of these kinds of scents now because I do none of it. And I kept smelling, I was like, I was like, oh, what? Like I'm getting a headache and I feel kind of sick

and I'm like trying to work out. And I'm thinking, oh, it must be the girl next to me or laundry detergent or something. And then I see it. There's a freaking Glade plugin in my workout class. So I immediately unplugged that. I was so tempted to throw it away, but I was like, this is not my studio.

I feel really bad. But I just like unplugged it and hid it. That my husband, one time we were out on a date and I had just had, I think this last baby. So it was less than nine months ago. Cause that baby's like nine months. It was like one of our first times going out with just us and the baby since the baby was born. And the, you know, it's always like a transition time to getting the baby in the car and all that stuff. So it was one within the first couple of weeks that the baby was born. And so I'm postpartum and we're going to the sushi restaurant and it's not a sushi restaurant

we had been to before. And I look and they put us in this back dining room and there's one of these things that keeps- Oh, it's like sprays. On the fiber. And we'd already ordered the food and I'm like, honey. And he was like, whatever you want, you want to get up and go? I said, I feel bad if we get up and go. And then he's like, and so he turns around and he walks to the bathroom and he takes the thing and he goes and he put it in the trash in the bathroom. Look, we are helping people with that because those things are so toxic and we're getting it from every angle, right?

That's what's so crazy. It's like you get in an Uber and they have the plugins and the hanging things. And then you go in the bathroom and they have the spray timers. And then it's in our water. Our food is being sprayed. Like if you're using laundry detergent,

hopefully you're not still using scented laundry detergent, but it's like, I don't think people are understanding. Like if there was one thing, one thing, but we are getting it from every single angle right now that we can't even, our bodies are like, ah, what is happening? My ex-husband, when he would walk in the laundry aisle, he would get a rash underneath his eyes. Like if he just went in the laundry aisle at a store or if someone washed his clothes with like Tide or whatever. And I get a sore throat. My reaction is a sore throat to all this stuff. But what I think is like he or I is the canary in the coal mine. You're getting a headache because we're not,

because our body has not tuned it out. Like, you know how someone who has cat pee in their house, they don't smell the cat pee anymore. But you put their house and you're like, oh my God, that fucking litter box. What are they living like this? Right. So we've all had that experience like, whoa, the litter box is strong at this house. That person doesn't smell that litter box anymore. Like legitimately, they don't smell that litter box anymore. Legitimately, they don't smell the litter box anymore. They're just done with it. They're tuned out to it. Or you go to people's houses who fry a lot of food and they just have a fried food smell in their house. They don't smell that anymore. Well, me and you, we have not tuned out

all of the smells. So we're smelling it and then our body's having a reaction, but we're the canary in the coal mine. Like everybody's body's having some reaction. They're just not maybe feeling the reaction. But, and my husband used to think I was so white people. He would just be like, oh my God, like you're just so American. You're so white, right?

But now, cause he doesn't have anything like that in his car, his life is totally free of anything like that because I will lose my mind. Now he'll be in line at the DMV and he'll be like, this guy, I mean, he was assaulting me with his cologne. I could taste it. I was tasting his cologne in my mouth and I wanted to be like, this is not macho. You think you're tough because I can taste you? Why do you want another man to taste you? That's disgusting. My husband is going on a whole thing. And he'll be like, oh, I'm getting a sore throat from so-and-so. Did you smell so-and-so? I'm like, yes. And so it's funny that once he took all that stuff out, I don't think that me and you are that sensitive. I think everybody's that sensitive. They've just gotten numb because they're wearing Tide. If you're wearing Tide on

your body all the time, your body has to shut down a little bit to survive. Also, I would argue that a lot of people are dealing with issues and they're just not realizing that it's because of these things. Like for example, someone that has maybe psoriasis or like when I first started dating my boyfriend, he has like a mild case of psoriasis kind of popping up all over his body. And then I go in his laundry room and he's using dryer sheets and Tide. And I cleaned up all this stuff in his house.

Like I got rid of all the plastics. I put a shower filter on his shower. We got the unscented stuff and there's like some other things in his gut that we're having to address. But again, like people are not realizing. They're just like, oh, I mean, I have eczema and it's just like, it is what it is.

And the doctor's saying, I can't ever cure it. And I'm like, no, you can. It's literally your body telling you. Everybody's like, I have eczema. I have psoriasis. I have autoimmune disease. I have severe allergies. I have eczema, I have psoriasis, I have autoimmune disease, I have severe allergies, I have migraine headaches. Like try to unplug the glade. Just try it. Like it's crazy.

I have to call ahead to Airbnbs and be like, can you take all the plugins and everything out? Because otherwise I just can't stay there. I know. I know. And we advertise on our Airbnbs here on the ranch and other places. We're like unscented laundry soap. You can guarantee, we guarantee unscented laundry soap. Like you won't smell. There's no air house, no air fresheners, no. So good. Because I think that some people, there's got to be other people like me or you that care about this. There is. There's a lot of people

and there's more and more people concerned about it. I will tell you that I've noticed even just in the last year, people who discounted me as crazy or being too extreme or whatever, like everyone is starting to come back to me being like, wow, okay, how do I, you know, change this out or dang, okay, I'm going to stop drinking my water out of plastic water bottles.

Cause I just read that there's, there was just a report on, I think CBS where they were saying that the plastic water bottles that we're drinking our water from have way more microplastics than they first thought. Yeah. Duh. You think like we're being poisoned you know the coffee cups like the two they're lined that woman did the doctor she did a ted talk my brother knows that doctor they went on a ski trip together with these other people but they ted took down her talk about how the coffee cup has like a hundred thousand times more plastics microplastics that you should take in one day just by drinking out of the coffee cup. And the lid has it because where they punch the hole and now we're not having

straws, but that punched hole is like a brand new punch. So none of the little pieces have been like wiped off. Like actually an older plastic would be better. And then the lighter in all the paper cups is plastic and it's melting into your coffee. And so nobody can get pregnant. Everybody's like estrogen dominant. Men are not wanting to be men in the world. And it's because we're inundated with things that show up in our body like estrogen. Yeah. It's like everyone's on birth control right now,

had really high doses, men and women. Men and women. And people say to me, my last kid, I was 45, right? I'm 40, I still am. People would say to me in the restaurant, oh my God, how did you get pregnant at your age? How did you get pregnant? And I thought it was a weird thing to ask, but not one, two, five, so many people asked me, literally, I got pregnant the old fashioned way. So like, but it's because I'm not inundated with chemicals. And I still think I'm inundated. You know, I've had multiple kids and I feel like my body, I have fat on my belly that I can't get rid of. And I do think it's from all the chemicals in my environment that I can't, that like it's just holding on.

They call them, yeah, they call them obesogens. Mark Hyman talks a lot about these where they're essentially like these estrogenic compounds that mess their endocrine system and our bodies don't know what to do with them. So our bodies are so smart. They basically encapsulate these toxins in fat to protect us. I mean, in fat. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a real thing. But I eat really healthy now,

but I went through years of my life of drinking a Starbucks out of a cup every single morning, like when I was younger and thinner and whatever. But I think I took in all that plastic and all that other ways that I took in all that plastic and all that other ways that I took in chemicals. And now my body has a hard time. Like for kids back to back, I've just had a hard time. No matter what I eat, no matter what I do to balance my hormones, I still have

this like belly tire or whatever. And I think it's, I think, I do think it has to do with the, all the endocrine interrupters. Yeah. But what an amazing thing, bringing these beautiful souls into the world, you know, like that is so important. And I'm so lucky because I was so focused on career and other things that I made that such a big priority. And I could have went my whole life without having children. That could have been the trajectory. But, you know, I get to have these beautiful children and this beautiful husband. And so many of my friends are still looking for the perfect man. They're still looking for the, instead of being the best partner or choosing to create love every day. And then they're going to run out of their childbearing years.

And I came very close to running out of my childbearing years and having no children. And instead, I've had four children back to back from 37 to 45. Okay, so this is, it's very strange how pertinent this is to my own life right now. So I'm in a very similar position before you started having kids where I'm 39. I spent my whole 20s and early 30s really focused on my career because I feel like I'm so tapped in what I'm doing with my job. I feel as though it is my life's purpose, but I also think my life's purpose is to be a mom. And now I'm at this place where I'm like 39, trying to figure it out, like trying to figure out how I'm going to

have kids. And it's, I'm at the place right now where I'm just trusting because I believe there's a greater plan for my life. And I think it's all happening for me and not against me. And I think I just have to trust that that right person's gonna come in. Well, friends, we are officially in hot chocolate season. I am declaring hot chocolate season and I am so excited because that means that I get to go back to drinking my nightly salty hot chocolate from Element.

I personally know that whenever people first see that element has a chocolate salt they get icked out by it guys trust me you do not want to sleep on this and during the winter they come out with other flavors so far i have seen the caramel chocolate salt come back i am praying fingers crossed that they bring back the mint chocolate salt but do not quote me on that because i don't know yet if it's coming back, but it is so freaking good. One of my best friends actually drinks the chocolate salt in her water every day, just with cold water. I have not tried that yet, but it sounds like it'd be pretty good. But trust me when I tell you, if you put a little hot boiling water with either the chocolate salt or the caramel chocolate salt, you will not regret it. It tastes like a salty, sweet,

the most delicious hot cocoa you've ever had. It is insane. Just please trust me. Write me on Instagram. Let me know after you have tried it. It's so good. And if you have any concerns about the sodium levels in Element, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to my episode with Dr. James Dinnick. He wrote a book called The Salt Fix and he talks all about how we actually got salt wrong and how imperative salt is for every day. I will note, guys, it is important that if we are consuming this amount of salt to be working out every day, just making sure that you're sweating, moving your body, getting your lymph moving and sweating out toxins. I don't think we talk about that enough, just how important it is when we're hydrating. Also to make sure that we are sweating. If you want to try Element today,

that is L-M-N-T. Make sure that you go to drinkelement.com. Again, that's drinkelement, L-M-N-T.com slash realfoodology. And you will be able to claim a free Element sample pack when you make a purchase through that link free Element sample pack when you make a purchase through that link. The sample pack includes one packet of every flavor. This is the perfect offer for anyone who's interested in trying all the flavors or who wants to introduce a friend to Element. They offer no questions asked, refunds on all orders. So if you don't like it, you get to send it back, but I'm pretty sure you're going to love it. So if you guys want to try Element today, again, that's drinkelement,mnt.com slash realfoodology. No, I love that.

And also I'm finding to find that person that sees this as an added bonus and a joy to your life, not something that's going to take away from your life. Because I think, I feel so passionately about this. I see this whole narrative online. Well, there's two different things. I don't want to say that everything's negative, but I do see this trend online right now of women complaining about their children. And then there's also people saying like,

oh, there's too many people on the planet. Like we need to have less children. And the birth rate's going down like really scary right now. That is a sign up that there's too many people. Like we are almost going to be at a non-replace or we're at a non-replacement birth rate right now. People attacked me online when I had my third child. Like I thought you were an environmentalist. Like get out of my bed. Oh my God. Right. Like get out of here. No, I actually encourage people listening

to go look into that. I've listened to a lot of podcasts about this because I, you know, in the vein of what we were talking about earlier, I had a totally different mentality around this a couple of years ago. And then I opened my mind up to this reality that's actually happening

that the birth rate is really low. And if you look at some other places like in Japan and China, like they're actually having a crisis where right now this day, however many babies are born, you can't change that. Like however many children have been born

in the last like 10 years, that's what you have moving forward. And they're gonna have this problem where when they're older, they're not gonna have enough young people to take care of the elderly. And it's becoming a really big issue. And there's never, if the birth rate falls below like 1.57 or something, it's never goes back up again. And we've never had in history that that has happened. And we're at like 1.6 something right now, our birth rate. So for every two people,

one point. So we don't even have a replacement birth rate. So I'm all, I mean, if I could have another one, I'm going to like, I'll, I'm open to that. I think that, and if you listen to like what Dr. Zach Bush is talking about, as far as the, the current studies say that by the time my son's soul is 25, so 2040, the average sperm rate of an American man will be zero, of a first world nations, the Western world will be zero, the average sperm count. So think about that. And then think about if we already have a low birth rate right now, and then my kids may not even be able to have babies because, and I started to think about a lot of things like late, like what about diapers? Like we just have plastic on the vagina, on the penis of the baby for two years. Think about endocrine interrupters and things that we're doing to harm the ability to have babies. Think about how many...

And heating up in their bottles, heating them up in plastic. I know, I only breastfed. I never used a bottle the whole time. But yeah, it's crazy. And so I think we do have an obligation to have healthy children. But if you also look at the current rates of autism, if we continue on the trajectory we are like that, it's going to be that there's only one, it's going to be one in three people has autism. So basically out of every three babies that are born, there's going to be somebody and

then someone to take care of that, somebody, and then somebody to work. Like that's not going to work. That doesn't make sense. And so. It is. It's frightening what's happening right now. It's all to do with the chemicals. And we are completely, nobody's protesting in the streets about the chemicals.

Nobody is protesting. Nobody cares. I don't care if you were protesting at J6, you're protesting BLM, you're protesting against the war in Israel, you're protesting for the war in Ukraine. I can't follow where everybody- But these are all issues that are not even affecting our soil. Our soil right now, right here. And people are dying every day that didn't need to. My best friend died of a hormonal cancer at 37 years old. She died of breast cancer at 37 years old.

She would be 43 on January, I mean, on December 11th. She would have been 43. She died. She's forever 37. And when you watch that happen, needless people die. She was so healthy and the poisons that got to her, got to her, got to her and it wasn't like necessarily anything that she did.

And so when you see that happen, like that's should be, we should all be learning how to grow food. We should all be learning how to remediate poisons out of stuff. We should all be saying, absolutely not Cheerios, absolutely not Ritz crackers. And we will not eat foods that are sprayed with glyphosate. all be saying absolutely not Cheerios, absolutely not Ritz crackers.

We will not eat foods that are sprayed with glyphosate. It's crazy. And when those people that think that you were being so over the top, in the late 90s, we started directly spraying wheats and oats with Roundup so we could harvest it on a time schedule. And as long as it's two weeks until it's eaten or two weeks till harvest, it was never studied to be able to spray it directly on our food. It was never, ever, ever, ever studied to spray it on the crop, to kill the crop so it dries out so you can combine harvester, never studied. And we are all an experiment. Every piece of pizza that you eat is an experiment on if that works or not.

Yeah, I will never forget, there was a talk that Michael Pollan did once about McDonald's French fries. And I don't know if you ever saw this. It was circulating around TikTok for a while, and he was talking about potato farmers. So there's this specific potato that McDonald's French fries use. It's very long.

Yep. Yep. And there's a specific, I don't remember the exact chemical, maybe a fungicide, herbicide. Okay, I think it was a fungicide that is so toxic that they actually have to leave it there for like two weeks or something to let it off gas before they can even harvest these potatoes. And then people are eating those potatoes. And then I saw people defending in the comments like, oh, it's fine. There's no residue left. Like it's completely off gas. That's why they do it. And I'm like, you're missing the

point. This stuff is so toxic that we have to leave it be to off gas for a while. Okay, so maybe it does all leave, but what are we doing? Why are we even putting that on our food in the first place? How do we know that it all leaves? Exactly. And I posted, I'm confused. All of these influencers that eviscerated my father when he ate a hamburger for the first time in 40 years from his own cow that had a condition, had to be put down. And then the vet was like, yeah, well, you don't have to put them down. You can harvest them. It's a bone condition. It's not something that impacts the meat. And my dad was like, oh, wait, I don't eat meat because I don't want to harm animals. This was my cow. I loved it. Like,

oh my God, I have 1,900 pounds of meat. And so my dad eats a hamburger for the first time in 40 years and people go crazy picketing outside of Cafe Gratitude. Those same people were promoting the Whopper, the vegan Whopper at Burger King. And so I was like, I'm just having a hard time understanding farmer eats his own cow who owns Cafe Gratitude that is worth throwing paint on the windows and screaming and boycotting and unfollowing and all of that. Burger King puts a Roundup filled patty on a Roundup filled bun filled with tons of other chemicals it won't even go bad if you leave it out for however many years

and that is worth promoting. We've lost the plot tons of other chemicals. It won't even go bad if you leave it out for however many years. And that is worth promoting. Like, I don't, we've lost the plot. So I put, I said, I said that. And you're giving your money to a company that we know is only contributing to the CAFOs and the horrible treatment of animals. Factory farming is the worst thing that has ever happened to animals.

I said that as well. And my dad is serving how many millions of organic meals a year at Cafe Gratitude. So explain, I just don't see it, right? And people just lost it. I don't care about poor people having healthy food and all this stuff. Like just, you're such a this, you've lost them. Anytime they make a step in the right direction we need to celebrate it so it pushes more things in the right direction and I remember thinking like no like I don't know like I don't support Burger King at all ever I don't support McDonald's at all ever like there's not like a time oh I actually I do support it And there's not a time. There's just no time.

And so, but I remember being shocked, like, oh, this is an orthodoxy. This is a cult. I belong to a cult I never signed up for is what I was actually present to like, oh, it's no logic here. Logic has left. And I think that's with a lot of people's views nowadays. It doesn't matter how much of the facts and the knowledge,

if it goes against what they've already decided, it's people don't wanna hear it. I wanna ask you, and I wanna be mindful of your time. So I only have like one or two more questions, but from your perspective, who has someone who has been a vegetarian their whole life, but you're also a massive proponent for regenerative farming and ethical treatment of animal. And I believe in bone broth and marrow. And I, it's not like I don't believe in those

things. I just haven't chose it for myself. Yeah. Which I love. And I really, really do respect that because it goes back to what we were saying earlier that you're listening to your body and you're doing really truly what is the best for you. But you also can see the benefits of having animals in farming. And the reason why we have to have them

is more specifically when it comes to regenerative farming. But, you know, so what is your thought around this? And what do you kind of have to say to add a little bit of nuance in? Because what I don't like is I'm seeing this like vegans and vegetarians versus meat eaters. And I see it as like, no, but we're all in this together. We need to be more focused on local farms

and regenerative farming. And we need to all band together and get rid of these CAFOs because I see us all on the same page. Like we all similarly want the same things. And then I hear too that, if you're looking at just monocrop vegetable farming, that kills so many animals,

like all the ground animals and the insects that the birds are eating. So it's affecting animals in a different way, just you're not physically eating them. Yes. Well, I think that my journey was very specific. And so I think I can speak to this in a way that most people can't.

I started a farm and I had a fantasy of how it was gonna be. We were gonna have these animals, they were gonna graze, nobody was gonna to be. We were going to have these animals. They were going to graze. Nobody was going to eat them. It was going to be so amazing. Their poop was going to feed the vegetables. We were going to take the food waste from my restaurants back to the farm. And it was just going to be this utopia of amazingness, right?

And then it's like the first couple of weeks on the farm, raccoons like grab the chickens and eat their heads off and leave the rest of the body, eat their brains out. And then German shepherds killed a bunch of sheep. And then there was like some not half alive sheep. My husband had to kill and harvest him. And like I was just I was. Oh, my God, this is, and what I got present to is the idea that nature is kind and humanity is evil is crazy, ridiculous. And what I realized is that nature is kill or be killed.

And so no matter what we are doing, that cycle is happening all the time. And then I started to go, oh, there's the ground squirrels, the ground squirrels are eating this and okay, like we're going to trap the ground squirrels and I have found the falconer, the falconer is going to feed the ground squirrels to his falcon.

So at least like, and I was trying to do everything right. And then at a certain point, it's like, we can't grow broccoli if the ground squirrels are eating all the broccoli and so then i'm like am i just killing grounds it's like i'm just trapping and killing ground squirrels because the falconer can only eat one ground squirrel a day and you know like what all these things and so as i went through this and then i'm buying tetra packs of organic milk and we have a cow and she had a baby because she was pregnant when we got her. And now this cow has this huge udder and we're like milking the excess milk because she's going to get mastitis and we're like throwing it away. And I'm buying tetra packs of milk and I'm like ridiculous. Okay. So then, now I got to train

my kids to want to drink cow milk. Okay. No, no more. Can we get the leche in the box? Nope, no leche in the box. This is the leche we have now. And so I got to look at that as we move closer to nature, it doesn't make sense. Nobody could have a, I mean, unless you're in like Hawaii, Costa Rica, some tropical place, there's nobody could grow all of their own food and eat a vegan diet. You just couldn't. I'm just being realistic. Like that's not a thing.

Like unless I guess if you're just like a corn farmer and you just ate like tamales and popcorn and corn and corn and corn and corn, which we kind of all do to some degree. But I think that you can't grow your own food. And so, and then you're looking at like, I have all this cow milk and then I'm buying olive oil, but I can make ghee and ghee doesn't go rancid,

it does, it's better for cooking. Like, and so, and so then you just start to realize like, oh, actually the way we've been doing it for a long time and whether it was in India where they don't eat the meat, but they do eat the animal fats from the milks and stuff like that, or everywhere else where they eat the animal too, you just realize like, oh wait,

there's a reason that we developed animal husbandry and we didn't develop some chemical way to extract oil from a rape seed plant. Like nobody wants to eat a rape seed. Like nobody ever said like, can I get a rape seed plant? But that's the name of the canola plant. Nobody knows that, but it's the rapeseed plant and so the thing is is to assess my husband grew up they grew sesame seeds yeah they would make some sesame seed oil and they'd use it for certain things but largely he ate lard because they could have one pig render the lard and that would be enough for their whole family for the whole year. When we went to get married in Mexico, the second time, once he got his papers and everything,

people were like, oh my God, I saw the pictures that you were at your husband's parents' house, and did they make you a vegan feast? And I was like thinking, but I'm the one with privilege problems, right? Like, no, they caught some fish in the ocean and they, and then they killed a chicken in their front yard and made, shredded it into tiny pieces and spread it among a bunch of tamales. And then they, you know, like they did what they could to make a, they had to feed my entire family coming in and dating their tiny little village or their tiny little thing. And no, it wasn't a vegan meal. Like she did make some vegetables for me, but like, it's crazy to think that culturally we could just go put our morals onto this other place. It doesn't make any sense.

And so my husband grew up very much that way, like where they would raise a cow and then dry the meat. They didn't have refrigeration. So he would dry the meat, render the fat, all this stuff. That's very much how he grew up. And so it's very natural to him. I grew up on a different kind of farm. We were vegetarians. We grew apples. It was different. It was like a hippie kind of different thing, but we didn't really have animals. We had horses and then we had cows that we would raise them for part of the time for a neighbor farmer, but we didn't really have animals in the program. But I now see why farms used to have a few pigs and a few cows and a few chickens because they all served a purpose and they all kind of went together.

And when we bifurcated everything, we made a factory farm for chickens and a factory farm for goats and a factory farm for cows and a factory for pigs. Yes, we got very efficient. We're so, so efficient at everything. But then you have all the poop is a problem instead of being

able to spread it on these other crops and all the chickens are a problem. But then we're having pest issues on the farm. Vegetable farm over here is having pest issues and the chicken farm is having poop issues. And honestly, all these animals lived together because they could follow each other and they could all contribute something to that small farm. But I also think that small farm takes a lot of people to do it the way it's meant to be done. And so those people that have like made a living on computers or made a living in an office, the idea of like getting out into the sun and growing their own food and doing something like I said that's really hard seems confronting but I actually think we need the amount of farmers that are going

down every single year is like the birth rate like how do we shift that how do we get people to live on land how do we get people to contribute to a agricultural operation in exchange for food because essentially that's what people used to do they used to maybe have a job and then also grow food and then sell some of that food but like we can't it the the paradigm of me working another job and paying everybody on the farm that That's not the paradigm anymore. How do we get people to radically shift how they want their food to get to them and be willing to pay what that food is worth? If people say, oh my God, an organic chicken, it was $4 a pound or I don't know what, it's a lot for organic chicken. Well, when I see organic chicken that are like $12 or $13, I'm like suspects. Like,

how did you grow a chicken? How did you grow a chicken from a baby, one egg, so 21 days in the incubator, someone had to watch it, put water in the steam part of the incubator. Then you raised it up, even if it's a broiler, only eight weeks to raise it up to killing size. We don't raise broilers. So egg-laying chickens, it's even longer. So eight weeks. So you're saying the 21 days of the thing and then the brooder for three or four weeks and then outside for four to six weeks they did all that for seven dollars like i i just it's hard for me to like it or they might not even start laying eggs till they're more than a year old like and then you see eggs for 99 cents a dozen and i'm just like i can't make it make sense like people don't want food to be expensive. I totally understand that. But

could anybody raise a chicken in their backyard and get a dozen eggs for 99 cents? No. It's because we're offsetting it with our tax dollars. And this is where that anger needs to come back. And the soy is all being done. And then we're subsidizing and we're subsidizing the wrong behavior. And that's what kissed the ground. We're trying to get stuff into the farm bill that is going to incentivize the right behavior. Now, I don't like the government in everybody's business, but if they're going to take billions of dollars, I certainly don't want them throwing it after corn, soy, and Roundup. So let's try to shift it in another direction.

Exactly. Let's start paying the farmers and paying for the food, like subsidizing the foods that are actually life-giving and healthy for us. It's crazy. That are not making us sick. I know. I mean, we're essentially paying to get sick right now with our own tax dollars. And it's really frustrating. And then fighting with each other whether you believe in universal healthcare or not.

Exactly. It's like, y'all, we're focusing on the wrong things. So how do we as the consumer change this? Like, what are some things that we can do? It's, you have to look at every instance, and I said this the last time I was with you, but where we're trading resilience for convenience. And I'm going to keep saying this because we all do it. I order stuff on Amazon. I sometimes buy the cheaper organic chicken food because it was right there and it was easy to get. So I think we have to just constantly be looking where we're selling out the resilience of the planet for our own convenience.

And so should you make the effort to drive directly to the farm and join a herd share and get raw milk? Yes, 100%. yes 100 should you join a csa a real csa not somebody that has a cooler in the valley and they're just buying a bunch of farm and their produce from a bunch of different farms and then telling you that they have a farm i'm saying like buy your produce from a farmer and then as someone who's been running a csa now for four and a half years, be willing to eat what's in season. Like this idea that you should deserve to have strawberries 365 days a year. Why? Why should you have strawberries for 365 days a year? Why do you need that? Why can't it be wintertime and you eat citrus and you make juice oranges and you have grapefruits?

And well, it doesn't taste good on my yogurt. Okay, so in the wintertime, maybe you have yogurt with maple syrup and almonds. And I don't know, she has teens. Decide something else to eat with your yogurt in the wintertime so that you can look forward to local strawberries that taste delicious. But we've kind of just traded, like we eat poorly tasting strawberries most of the year, like unless you bought them from Harry's Berries or myself or something. You know everybody's eating these big white inside strawberries that taste like this. And they're like tasteless.

And so I think that we have to learn to eat in season, eat what the farmers have. Don't be committed like, well, I only eat, I like to make potato broccoli soup on Fridays. Okay, well, why don't you make potato carrot soup now? Or why don't you make carrots and potatoes in the same season? But you know what I mean? Maybe it's a tomato eggplant soup in the summertime.

I think we have to eat what's in season. I think we have to eat what's readily available in our local area and then supplement that with the organic commodity crops, the rices and pastas or whatever kind of, and then you buy your meat from the farmer. And there is so much opportunity right now to buy directly from the farmer for meat. You can get it mail order. It's better to get it local, but local or mail order, find someone that you resonate with their family, resonate with their belief systems. But yes, you have to set up. I mean, but there's meat.

You can set up a subscription and get a box once a month of meat from a grass-fed, regenerative, organic, all the things. And I think you got to look beyond the labels because the labels can be, and I don't want anybody to say is that i'm saying don't buy organic what i'm saying is i couldn't certify my eggs in california because we were selling the feeding the spent grain from the brewery to my chickens and there was a chain of custody issue and so they wouldn't certify them because they said that even though I was the restaurant brewery and I was the chicken farmer, they wouldn't let me certify those.

So I think we have to realize, but I was not putting all that grain in the landfill or we bring all the kale scraps and all that stuff back to the chickens as well. We have to be realistic that if someone is going through that much effort to close the food loop, but their eggs are not certified organic, don't tell me at the farmer's market, well, those guys are certified organic and you're the same price or you're $2 more. Like, okay. So they're buying chicken feed in a bag. I've closed an entire food loop for four restaurants at the time and i'm really doing something that is extraordinary so and this is what it costs to get that to market but i think it has to be willing to and honor the eggs maybe we don't eat four egg

omelets every single morning i mean i think we just, we aren't used to like having to ration anymore. But like my dad grew up one of nine. I was just talking to my uncle and I said, how much eggs would you go through in a week? Because he was saying how much milk they went through. It was a lot with nine children. And he said, you know, eggs, because it takes a long time to raise an egg chicken. Back in the day, eggs were expensive. So we would put one in pancakes for everybody or two in muffins, but it wasn't like we would just have scrambled eggs. And I'm not saying eggs are good food. I feed my kids scrambled eggs all the time. I also raise chickens, so I have an abundance of them. But I think we just have to think about, well, if you eat a

whole dozen eggs every day and they cost $12, $10 or whatever, the organic pasture free range, $15, yeah, it would be very expensive, but maybe we don't need to eat a whole dozen eggs every day. And maybe we have to figure out ways to stretch food and make it last and buy from the most local sources that you can, and then the most integrous sources after that. I totally agree. And everything you're just saying is a lot of this requires a reframe from us and a desire to truly be healthy and put our money into the systems that are doing right by us and right by our health. Because we're all in this together. And I think knowing that there's like a greater purpose

with all of this and that this really does affect our health, it affects our environment, it affects the animals. And knowing, like just knowing that and kind of holding onto your why will help you navigate those choices better. Oh, I say this all the time.

What would love do now? Would love eat the Whopper? No. If love was this all-seeing presence, what would love do? And I think that we have to think about that in all of our food. And it is going to take all of us.

And if we remember that we have all the... There is so many of us. There's much more of us than there is of them. That meaning like the governing bodies? Yes, we can make the shift, but we have to be willing to do the work. And when we are apathetic, they have all the power. And when we're fighting over whether you voted for Biden or Trump, well, all of us are having a water supply that's poisoned. We have lost the plot because everybody's voting for what they think is best for their family.

And you can count on that. Nobody's voting because they don't think it's what's best for their family. Nobody's voting with maliciousness like, oh my God, I'm going to piss these people off. That's not what's happening. So we could just not worry about that. Everybody's voting for what they think is best for their family. But what we need to remember is what's best for everybody's family is less poison in the food, less poison in the water, less poison in our clothes. That's the reality. And so don't worry who so-and-so voted for. You can move away from people that vote a specific way that create a specific problem with how they vote. But remember, everybody is voting for what they think is best. But as long as we're looking at the world through this blue-red paradigm, we're missing the plot. And the plot is both sides are funding the

war machine and both sides are deeply in the pockets of the pharmaceutical, chemical, agrochemical, pharmaceutical conglomerate. It's one thing. It's not like there's a pharmaceutical industry and then there's the agrochemical industry. It's one industry. They're getting us sick, and then they're charging us to keep us alive. That is it. It is not complicated. And we have to take ourselves out of that system by any means necessary. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh my God. I think this is where we end. This is perfect. That was like, boom, mic drop. That's what I tell people all the time. I'm like, there's not really a blue or red. It's all the same.

It's all the same. They're all doing the same thing. They're all doing the same thing. Get yourself out of the system. There isn't conservative views and liberal views. There is, of course. And we all have how we're trying to protect our family. And literally, however people are voting, it is because they're doing what they think is best for their community. And so this idea that there's a good side and a bad

side, it's crazy. It's really about how do we come together, grow food that we want to eat, grow food that is healthy and really get back to being human beings, getting to live with some sort of sovereignty, some sort of freedom to do what we want to do. Right now, look at this guy, the Amish guy just got arrested again in Pennsylvania. Here's the thing. We are adults. If I, as an informed adult, informed consent, can choose to drive a car, which is dangerous. I can choose to get an injection, which is dangerous. I can choose to drink alcohol, which is dangerous. I can choose all these things. I should be able to choose raw milk. I should be able to choose meat that has not been treated with different hormones or even just like chemicals for killing bacteria. They're

spraying the meat afterwards. I should be able to choose to have meat that's free of those things. And the FDA says, well, okay, you could get pathogens, you could get sick. That's for me to take the precautions to cook it long enough. That's for me. But the idea that the FDA needs to be between me and my milk farmer is crazy. I don't need you there. I'm a grown ass woman. I'm 45 years old. I just want to tell you one thing about canning. So I've been canning for years and I've been making hot sauce at the restaurant for years. I never thought it was an issue. And one day these people with badges came in and embargoed all my hot sauce. I apparently, with whatever permissions I have, a health permit, a commercial kitchen. I didn't have a cannery license.

And they embargoed all the food. Thousands of dollars. I grew the peppers. I made the vinegar from scratch. I made these bottles of hot sauce. And I've had that hot sauce. It is so good. But anyways, yeah. They embargoed it all. They sent it all off for testing, one from each batch. And then there was nothing bad in it, no pathogens or whatever. They said, you have to destroy it all. I said, I have to destroy it all? Let me just

take it home. I'll give it to people for Christmas presents. I'll share it with my family. No, too dangerous. It's too dangerous. If I just made hot sauce for my family for Christmas, I could make hot sauce. You don't regulate that. Nope. We even already know about it. We've been bargaining.

It's not safe. And they made me pay them $550 to watch me destroy it. Just imagine that. Like those peppers. Somebody started a Head Start nursery up in Northern California, started those pepper seeds. Someone harvested those pepper seeds, saved them to clean the seeds, right? And sold it to Johnny Seeds. Johnny Seeds sold the seeds to Head Start Nursery in Northern California.

Head Start Nursery in Northern California grew the pepper plants to be four inches tall, sent them to Sowerhart Farm. Lorenzo and Leo and Osmar planted them and then weeded them. And then 90 days later, they started making chili peppers. And then we harvested all making chili peppers and then we harvested all those chili peppers and then froze some of them we canned some of them right away and then i canned them and that's not even the garlic the onions the other things let's just use

the chili peppers and then i made the vinegar from persimmons that we harvested the persimmons fermented it for 18 months and then we heated it made it it, made it into a hot sauce, put it into the shelf in the restaurant. And then, bam, they took it and destroyed it. How much work went into that hot sauce? And it was not safe. It was not safe for me. And they even, they tested it. So it was safe.

Well, but they can't guarantee that every single bottle, because I didn't have it written down by procedures, that they don't know for sure that every bottle was safe they also just want to make money off all these certifications but that's like crazy like we have to say as a people I want to buy food from my neighbor I want to be able to buy food from my neighbor if if we had some sort of major food shortage right now your neighbors don't even have a canned supply of food. There's no grandma on your block that's been canning her Brussels sprouts all for 10 years and you guys are just going to be eating Brussels sprouts. It doesn't exist. I know. And so I really think as a consumer, we got to get back to preparing our own food, canning our own food, buying from people that you know, trust and believe in.

And then also getting like different co-ops, like cut out the middleman. You can start an Azure standard drop in your neighborhood. It's also a good way to meet people that we always love. I always loved having the Azure standard drop because I'd have people that cared about healthy food come to the farm and pick up their food. But I think there's lots of ways that we can participate in the food movement. But the truth is, and this is not an easy truth, we need more farmers. We need more people growing good food. And we need more people to put their neck out on the line and tell the truth about what's really happening. Those are the two things we need. And basically, at this time in life, people don't want to do

hard jobs and people don't want to put their neck out on the line and don't want to speak the truth. But those are the things we need. Consumer, consumer, consumer. We actually need more producer, producer, producers. We need custodians of the earth that are willing to step into that apex role to take care of the soil, to take care of the animals and to feed their neighbors. And that's not a hard call, but that's what I'm calling for. Like calling all of you that are out there in the corner desk, never far before. Like and it's like you keep watching videos on, like you're being called to do something. And it is not easy to follow a calling, but you gotta do it.

And if you're really like 101, I forgot to even promote this, but we're doing a homesteading 101 on the farm here in Texas in March. It's like super beginner homesteading. We're gonna milk a cow, milk a goat, hatch chicken eggs, take care of chickens, can food, ferment food, make sourdough bread.

It's one week on the farm. You're going to do all the farm chores, fencing, and you're like totally learn about it. Like dip your toes in full on for one week. So if somebody is, if this is calling you. How do they find out more information about it? I will. Yeah. It's on our Sovereignty Ranch website, but I'll send you more information about it. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. So we'll add that in the show notes and then, yeah, where can people find you, find the farm, find the work that you're doing? I'm chef Molly on Instagram and then

Sawheart Farm still has an Instagram and Sovereignty Ranch has an Instagram. And we are also Sage Vegan Bistro in Los Angeles. So all of those are things that I'm doing. And we're right now fundraising for a brewery. We're building a brewery here on the ranch in Texas with a whole hospitality and 15 tiny houses. It's going to be amazing. So if people are interested about that or you're just interested in coming and staying in a tiny house or having a wedding here, like we have so much stuff going on

and you can look us up at sovereigntyranch.com. Amazing. I love this so much. Molly, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. And it was lovely. And let's do it again soon. And maybe we can do it in person in Texas.

I would love that. I'm going to reach out. let's do it again soon. And maybe we could do it in person in Texas. I would love that. I'm going to reach out. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked the episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a Resonant Media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie. Georgie is spelled with a J. For more amazing podcasts produced by my team, go to resonantmediagroup.com.

I love you guys so much. See you next week. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.