Realfoodology - Reclaiming the Legacy of Meat - Why Vegetarian Diets Are Harmful For the Environment with Taylor Collins of Force of Nature

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

132: Taylor Collins is the Co-Founder of Force of Nature, a regeneratively sourced company with the mission to reclaim the legacy of meat. Taylor joins me to talk about one of my passions, regenerative farming.  Topics Discussed: How eating a species appropriate diet is healthier for the planet Plant based diets and how they have been high jacked by Big Food Plant based diets and how they destroy our planet  Why biodiversity heals the land  Rainfall simulator  Methods of restoring land through regenerative farming  Benefits of having animals on earth  Carbon intake  Organ meats and how to eat them Harvesting animals and how the experience is  Pasture raised eggs Vs factory farmed eggs  Is regenerative farming scalable? Check Out Taylor: Force of Nature Roam Ranch Sponsored By: KION Save 20% on monthly deliveries and 10% on one-time purchases by going to getkion.com/realfoodology BiOptimizers: Magnesium Breakthrough www.magbreakthrough.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 10% off any order. Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% Off Check Out Courtney: **REALFOODOLOGY PODCAST IS NOW ON YOUTUBE!** Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Further Listening: Reversing Climate Change Instead of Just Stopping It with Ryland Engelhart

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. There is no life without death. It's a transfer of energy and we're consuming this energy now and we're releasing this energy back into the soil. And what we don't consume, we're going to compost and we're going to, again, spread in our pastures. And so it's like fertility, life, death, it's all connected. And when you remove those blinders and you understand that, like you said, you have way greater appreciation and respect for your food. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast.

I am your host, Courtney Swan, and today's guest is Taylor Collins. You may know his name from Epic Provisions. You may remember they were probably the first company to make a protein bar that was just strictly meat-based. I was a huge fan of them when they first came out because everything is organic, pasture-raised, and they do have a huge emphasis on really high-quality grass-fed meats. And you'll learn in the episode, Taylor has since sold that company and he started Rome Ranch and also Force of Nature. If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably heard of Force of Nature Meats. They're one of my favorite meat companies right

now because they have organic pastries meat that comes from a regenerative farm. And one of the regenerative farms that they get their meat from happens to be Rome Ranch, which is what Taylor Collins founded. And the reason why I brought Taylor on today is because I wanted to talk about something that I'm incredibly passionate about. I have done many episodes about this and I will continue to because I think it's one of the most important conversations to be having right now about our food system. And that's regenerative farming. We talk a little bit about his background of being vegetarian and vegan for a long time and then eventually going back to eating animal foods. And the stark difference he saw in his health and his wife's

health when they started incorporating animal foods again. We also talk about the importance of regenerative farming and why vegetarian and plant-based diets are actually harmful for the environment. They are not this amazing fix-all for the environment that we have been told. And we talk a lot about that. We talk about regenerative farming in general and just why it's so important and what that actually means and how he took Rome Ranch from being a, basically the soil was dead with no biodiversity. It was basically monocropped farm before he bought it

and then how he brought life back to the farm. It is such an amazing episode. I really thoroughly loved this conversation. Taylor is such an amazing guy. I had the pleasure of meeting him when I went to the Force of Nature Regenerative Conference earlier this year at Rome Ranch, which is in Fredericksburg. It's a little bit outside of Austin, Texas. And what an amazing, beautiful experience to witness people doing farming the right way. And that requires us to get back to nature and work with nature

instead of against nature, which is the whole premise of regenerative farming. So anyways, I just want to get into the episode. I hope that you guys love it as much as I did. And before we get into the episode, if you could just take a moment to leave a rating and review, it helps this show so much and it takes barely any time. And I just want to say thank you so much for listening and I really appreciate your support. Thank you so much. Let's get into the episode. I feel like everyone in the health world right now

is talking about the importance of getting enough protein and also the importance of maintaining muscle mass for longevity. And I think this is a really important conversation. As we age, our muscles naturally deteriorate. So it's incredibly important, especially as we age, to focus on our muscle mass and make sure that we maintain it because it only gets harder to gain muscle and to maintain it the older we get. But if you start at a younger age and you are constantly working at it and making sure that you're getting good high quality protein

and doing strength training, it's only going to be easier as you age, not harder. And something really interesting to note is that, did you know our body makes up of 50% amino acids? Amino acids are the building blocks of life and they are the building blocks of protein. Protein is what helps us to not only gain healthy muscle mass, but to also maintain it. One of the ways I do this is I take Keon amino acid powder every single morning. They give you a little natural energy boost. They also help to build lean muscle and enhance athletic recovery and they taste really good. So it's a super simple way to get your amino acids in every day. They're really clean. They don't have any artificial flavors or sweeteners. I'm a

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brain fog. It can even help relieve muscle cramps. So if you work out and you get muscle cramps often, that could be a sign that you are low in magnesium. And it also maintains normal heart rhythms and build strong bones. Magnesium is incredibly important. It's responsible for over 600 different biochemical reactions in the body. And a lot of Americans are actually deficient in magnesium. So I cannot speak highly enough of this product. If you want to try magnesium breakthrough today, go to magbreakthrough.com slash realfoodology. That's M-A-G breakthrough.com slash realfoodology. And if you want to try any of the Bioptimizers products and receive 10% off,

go to bioptimizers.com. That's B-I-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S.com and use code realfoodology and you are going to save 10%. So will you tell everyone listening a little bit about your background? And then I want to dive into your ranch and hear all about Rome Ranch and what you've been doing with the place. My personal background is I have no history in ranching, no family multi-generation experience. It was never an option for me. So growing up, I was really into athletics. I pursued a career path in physical therapy. I was a physical therapist for many years. And I think when I look back, I was really interested and really curious how the human body worked, how to restore wellness and health. And a lot of what I learned was hands-on modalities, rehabilitative power and capacity

of exercise, but there was very limited nutritional input in my education. So I was working with patients and beating our head against the wall because it was like we were doing everything right from almost like this exercise rehabilitation front, but people couldn't get better. And so took a big, deep dive into health and nutrition in my own life. And then with my wife, Katie Forrest, who she's an amazing, sweet, powerful soul. In this journey together, she actually was going through some chronic illnesses and specifically some knee inflammation that was debilitating. We were competing for Ironman races.

She was a phenomenal athlete, still is, but she had won her first ever Ironman and couldn't compete in the world championship race because of this chronic knee problem and this GI distress. And so we went and saw like everyone in town. She had exploratory surgery, was put on chronic arthritis medicine, told she needed a knee replacement. She was like 21 years old. And we were already kind of like on this path of health and wellness and integrating nutrition. But we were going the wrong direction. For us, we were going the wrong direction.

For us, we were on this journey to plant-based and it was like our symptoms, her symptoms kept getting worse and worse. So we were like, okay, it's not enough. Let's go vegan. Let's go raw food vegan. Let's go juicing only. And so it was like this critical tipping point in this catalyst in our lives where we shifted. Something had to shift because it was the whole system that we were founding our lives upon was shattering in real time. And so we started reintroducing healthy grass-fed meat and it was total game changer. Yeah, maybe it's cliche,

but it was literally years of symptoms went away within weeks. And so once we were at that point in time, it was like our life's trajectory was in this completely new direction together where we were just in awe of the healing capacity of the gifts of mother nature and like this omnivore diet and especially the bounties of regenerative grass-fed ruminant animal protein. And so that for us, we started a company called Epic Provisions shortly after that. So Epic are like the meat bars, like protein bars consistent with our evolutionary genetics,

right? And so we had a beef bar and a bison bar and a turkey bar and a lamb bar. And this was like, we didn't know anything about meat necessarily. We just started eating meat again. And I think because we didn't consume meat for so many years, we forgot the capacity and what people really understood meat could be and what it couldn't be. So we're like, oh, of course, why couldn't this be in a shelf-stable bar form?

Genius, honestly. Yeah, I don't know why no one's done this, but let's just do it. And that was its own kind of fun journey. But we just quickly devoted our lives to that on our own kind of healing journeys. And really quickly with that company, recognized that in order to really nourish the end consumer, so like our family and our community, it didn't really matter. It wasn't so much the animal and it wasn't so much the animal living in its environment that it was intended to eating the plants that it was biologically engineered to, but there was

this other component, which was no human health can exist without the foundational health of the soil. And that was like this aha moment. And so that was quickly, that became kind of like our mantra and our battle cry for Epic. And everything we did after that was about growing supply chains of regenerative meat, giving consumers the purchasing power and the options to vote with their dollars

to create a more virtuous regenerative system every single day of their lives. And then also to heal their bodies at the same time. And so we ended up selling Epic in 2016. And then we immediately just doubled down on our mission and bought Rome Ranch, which is where we live now. And we raise bison, turkeys, pigs, ducks. And it's a beautiful place, but this is like our home and we're out on land all day. I had the pleasure of going out to Rome Ranch. Force of Nature had a regenerative farming conference

that I felt so grateful to be a part of because I left that weekend feeling so inspired and so hopeful about the future of our food because there were so many people there talking about it and learning about regenerative agriculture, talking about how we can heal our soil and heal our land and heal our food industry. So many of us in our society are suffering and so many are confused about what true health really means. And this is why I wanted to bring you on because I want people to hear this message and know that there are people doing it the right way.

Our food industry is fucked, for lack of a better word, but there are a lot of people that are doing really amazing things like you and your wife with Rome Ranch. I also wanted to briefly just go back for a second and just make a couple little notes on what you said about when you guys went vegan and vegetarian, I had a similar story where I was vegetarian said about when you guys went vegan and vegetarian.

I had a similar story where I was vegetarian for five years and I find it interesting. I think this is slowly, or at least I hope so, the narrative is kind of moving away from this. But I found when I first got into health, it kind of seems like it's the first stepping stone as people start getting into health. They think like, oh, I need to go vegetarian, I need to go vegan.

And there's kind of this like progression of, okay, you go vegetarian and then you think that you're not vegetarian enough. So then you have to go vegan and you keep going. And then as you get sicker, eventually you realize like, wow, I actually need animal foods in my diet in order to heal and create collagen and heal our guts and just feel better in our bodies and feel satisfied. And so I just wanted to make that note because I think it's really important for people to hear that. And before we go into regenerative farming and all that, I want to hear what you have to say about how is eating vegetarian and vegan and like a processed diet actually causing more harm to the planet and to our soil than a species appropriate diet? Yeah, that's a great point. And to what you said, I mean,

it's so interesting and you've talked to so many people and their health journey and so have I. And I have yet to meet a person that was really sick eating a very balanced whole food omnivore diet or a meat-based diet who was ill and then they went vegetarian or plant-based and it fixed it. Never possibly human history has that ever been documented. It's true. And so there's something to that and there's some ancestral wisdom to that. And so the modern plant-based diet, it has been hijacked by industrial agriculture and it's no more than junk processed food rebranded as healthy plant-based. And so you have your big multinational corporations doubling down. The people who are trying to control the food industry

are shoving this down consumers' throats. And it's really absolutely inconsistent with our own evolutionary genetics. And people are going to be really sick. And the problem is that when you make the argument that plant-based eating is better for the environment, it couldn't be further from the truth. And the biggest issue is that consumers in general are so disconnected from the source of their food. When you ask, when you poll people and you say, how many of you have been out to a farm or a ranch where you buy your meat or vegetables from? It's something insane, like 99.9% of Americans have never actually been to the ground. So when you're separated from the reality and the truth of what agriculture looks like,

it's really easy to make this uninformed decision that plant-based somehow is better for the planet, but it's not. And what's happening in these plant-based somehow is better for the planet, but it's not. And what's happening in these plant-based systems is currently it's double downing. It's like double downing on the industrial model where it's very chemical heavy, very chemical intensive, tons of glyphosate is used in chemical plant-based agriculture, mechanical disruption of the soil. So big tills coming, constantly churning up soil. And so you're seeing a collapse of ecosystems. You're seeing a collapse of our most valuable resource, which is soil. And then you're seeing a collapse in human health and it's all connected.

And so it's really hard to argue that that system is actually better for the planet, especially when you come out to a ranch like Rome Ranch and you see mother nature and her most brilliant, beautiful capacity co-creating. There's tons of life and tons of biodiversity and you're out here and there's bald eagles flying around and rabbits literally running with the bison. And you're like, wait,

this is supposed to be bad for the planet? Please explain that to me because this doesn't make any intuitive sense. Can you explain that? Why is biodiversity so important and how can that heal the land? Because I remember you took us on a little tour of a portion of Rome Ranch and you were showing us how you guys are growing back certain areas of the land and were comparing to where the soil was really dead. Can you kind of explain all of that for people that don't really understand?

Absolutely. So I mean, anyone listening to this, just close your eyes and imagine the most beautiful place you've ever been in the world. And so, if I do that, I think of the rainforest in Costa Rica or some coral reef in Hawaii. And when you have that picture in your mind of whatever it is, pay attention to the diversity because mother nature and her most functioning state and the intelligence of mother nature was intentionally designing biodiversity to be a part of a system because biodiversity adds resiliency and adds synergy and it makes the system stronger. And so the way that we farm and we ranch in a conventional setting,

it's removing all biodiversity. It's a single species, it's a monoculture, which for all practical purposes is an ecological desert. There is no life in a monoculture except for the single species you're trying to produce. And that can be a single species of beef cow in a feedlot, or that can be a thousand acres of corn. Really, you're at war with mother nature. You're fighting all that brilliant architecture that's been put in place for millennia. And the only way to produce food in that system is with

chemical inputs. And so with beef cows, it's like antibiotics, it's hormones, it's really trying to keep an animal alive in an environment that's not conducive for life. Same thing with the plant-based model where like that corn or that wheat or that soy, you're killing every organism in the soil. You're eliminating all ground cover and the biodiversity that should be there protecting that soil. And then you're also removing every insect, every ground nesting bird, snake, field mouse from that ecosystem. And so it's no more than a desert. This is probably one of the things that makes me the most mad about the narrative around our food, because we are being told right now that you can go and buy this Beyond Beef Burger or the Impossible Burger, and we're being told that this is better for the planet. And then you go and you

look at the ingredients, and the ingredients are, there's soy or pea protein or corn, wheat in some cases. I remember like the older versions of like fake meat was wheat gluten. And then what you just talked about and you think about these monoculture farms that are just growing rows and rows of corn or rows and rows of the wheat that goes in these burgers. And this is directly contributing to the desertification of our soil. But we're being sold a lie that this is actually better for the planet versus something that you're doing

with Force of Nature and Rome Ranch where you are creating a land in which there's biodiversity, there's animals and all these different varieties of plants that are all working symbiotically together as nature intended and that is what we're supposed to be doing yeah and that was beautifully said i love that you just kind of mentioned the desertification of our natural resources in the soil and there's so many um there's so many analogies between land health and human health and we're desertifying our own microbiome

in this whole process. And so just like healthy land needs diversity, so do healthy animals and we're an animal species. And we do better when our microbiome is living and it's enriched and there's a lot of diversity, different species. And so we can't forget, but when we try to remove that from a system in which we're consuming our nourishment from then we also lack that nourishment and then it's also brilliant because you know we talk about all the different ecological roles of plant species and animal species and you know there's like as far as plants go you have your grasses you have your broadleaves you have your brassicas and your forbs and your legumes and all these different types of plants that serve different ecological roles. Some of them pull nitrogen from the

atmosphere and deposit it back into the soil to feed that whole biome. Some of those plants, their process is to go deep down with really deep tap roots and to mine minerals and bring them up to the surface. Some of those plants collaborate with mycorrhizal fungi, and they're also fixing different minerals and phytonutrients. And so when we remove all those plants, all that complex community of exchange is lost. And our food lacks minerals. It lacks phytonutrients. It's not real food. And so we consume that and we're consuming that lack of energy. And I think it's not real food. And so that's, you know, we consume that and we're consuming that lack of energy. And I think it's, you know, obviously resulting in our current health state and our

health crisis. As I've learned this, I've started to make the connection of we are only as healthy as the soil that our food was grown in as well. Because like what you were just saying, you think about, I like to compare the gut to the soil, the microbiome. Our microbiome is diverse with all these different bacteria. And when I started realizing that and how we are in modern agriculture killing off the soil with all the pesticides and the herbicides, which is another thing I really want to talk about, because we are also exposing our guts to those pesticides and herbicides that act like antibiotics. And then they're killing off not only the good bacteria in our guts, but the good bacteria in the soil as well.

Absolutely. And to go there, it's also important to recognize the way that we perceive biodiversity in conventional industrial agriculture is we consider it competition. And mother nature, certainly there is competition in that architecture, but really there's more collaboration than competition. And mother nature, certainly there is competition in that architecture, but really there's more collaboration than competition. And so it's really like the collaborative capacity of different organisms, different fungus, different bacteria, different protozoa, and then different plant species, different animal species.

And the human mind is too simple to really recognize the full power of what's actually happening in this system it's very complex and so i think we're humble enough to recognize that that was by the design and when we disrupt the design of mother nature which has been in place for millennia we can't outsmart that system and there's these unintended consequences with our health with our land and that's that's exactly what you're speaking of. While we were there that weekend at Rome Ranch, we were given a demonstration of the way that healthy soil reacts with a bunch of different cover crops. Also, please correct me if any of this is wrong. There's a difference between having like a really biodiverse land versus soil that's basically been desertified, which is what we've been doing in

modern agriculture and the way that it reacts to rain and all sorts of weather storms. Can you talk a little bit about how our modern farming and the way that we're producing our agriculture now is actually affecting the climate in that way? Yeah, I think that was one of my favorite parts of the whole conference too. Yeah, it was really cool. And so the visualization that you're remembering, it was called a rainfall simulator. And we took different pieces of land

from neighboring property and from our ranch with different attributes, different types of coverage on the soil, different plants growing, different management histories. And then we simulated a rain event. And we showed this crowd what happens in these different circumstances that represent the management of that natural resource, which is the soil.

And so the soil that had the most diversity, the soil that had the most green growing plants covering it, it actually captured the water. It was hungry. It was like a sponge. Whereas the soil plots that were like the tilled field, the farmed field, the monoculture, that was awful. That water couldn't even get into the soil and it ran off. And so one of the most powerful visualizations here, and I think this is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen is on our ranch, we managed 900 acres, about 450 acres of that. Half of that was once previously monoculture, plant-based agriculture.

Heavily chemical, industrial, mechanical, all this extractive technology that's at war with Mother Nature. It was like basically we were growing, the previous landowner could have been growing things for the Impossible Burger. And we have creeks on the property that date back 150 years. So when you look at the early settlers maps of our area, there was only three creeks that were listed. So there were significant creeks for life,

for habitat, for wildlife, and for navigation. One of those creeks is on our ranch and it's called Cave Creek. And when we bought this property, the creek had been dry for over a hundred years. So no one in modern history could actually recall the creek having water in it. Now, it only took us two years to cover that bare soil in what was 450 acres. By covering that bare soil, we started restoring the energy cycle. So we started depositing carbon back into the soil from the atmosphere, through the plant, feeding the mycorrhizal fungi and the different bacteria. And the soil becomes more porous. It becomes more thirsty for water. So for every 1% increase in

organic matter we could deposit in the soil, we could hold 20,000 gallons of rain per acre. And so when we bought the property, we couldn't even hold half an inch of rain. Everything over half an inch would have ran off, took all of our topsoil right into the river, which has other implications that are massive. But when we could cover that soil, when we could start capturing that rainfall, creeks started emerging on the ranch so literally water came from stone where it had never been recorded that that water you know like all human history no one living is around to have remembered that water flowing but it only took us two years to bring the aquifer levels up enough to where those seeps formed and water

literally started coming from the ground. And so that's just, you know, mother nature's capacity for healing is so much greater than our own species capacity for, you know, ignorance and for destruction. And that's really the silver lining. And that's the greatest hope that I have. It's so fascinating. And for people listening to help you understand that a little bit more, what happens when you restore the land in that way, it makes your land more resilient. So let's say, God forbid, you end up in a bit of a drought for a while. Your land is going to be a lot more resilient because it's actually going to be able to hold on to a lot more of that moisture and water for a

longer period of time. And so that's another argument for why we need to be encouraging more farmers to go to more regenerative style versus what we've been doing before. Because I remember I watched this documentary, Kiss the Ground, which I'm assuming you've seen it as well. Huge film. Great one. Absolutely. And I've actually had Rylan on the podcast as well from Kiss the Ground. And we've talked a lot about this, but I was so fascinated by the fact that there was this one farmer in particular, I wish that I could remember his name right now, but he was talking about how he had like three years in a row where he couldn't grow any crops whatsoever. He was being destroyed by droughts

and hail and all these extreme weather patterns. And then the second, when he started practicing regenerative farming, it changed the weather patterning around his land. And then his land was more resilient. He was able to hold on to water for longer. So they were able to get through droughts. And that's what's so cool about all this is that we are creating land that's resilient and then also changing the weather pattern. And there's so much talk right now about climate change and the weather and all this stuff. And this is how we get through this period of time and actually shift it. Oh, absolutely.

That farmer you're talking about, his name is Gabe Brown. And he farms in North Dakota and he has an awesome book. This is just such a good reference. "'Kiss the Ground' amazing documentary. It's on Netflix. Everyone should check that out. But Gabe Brown, he has a book called "'Dirt to Soil' where he tells his story

and his family's story. And it's incredible. Like North Dakota, some years they get like six inches, eight inches of rain for the whole year. And how effectively he's able to utilize that rain, it's unimaginable what he's doing there. How much life is on his property and how he can actually feed his community. And so I think that's just like such a brilliant, beautiful documentary to get into. I'm glad you mentioned that. 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 freeze 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 wanna 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. So when you first got the lands, you'd mentioned that it was pretty destroyed and it was probably monocropped and

all that. What was kind of your method of restoring the land? And how can we encourage people listening? Hopefully people listening maybe have farms or they know farmers and they can start encouraging them to heal the land. What was kind of your method? Yeah, we, you know, heavily inspired by some of the work of Gabe Brown, actually. And then Ray Archuleta, who was also in the Kiss the Ground documentary. And he was at the conference when you were there. He was the guy who did that rainfall demonstration. So he was an ex-NRCS employee, just amazing land steward. And there's Ray Archuleta has,

I mean, he's like the soil whisperer. And so this guy, it kind of came up with these six principles to soil health. And the beauty is that these six principles can be adapted and applied in all different types of contexts. And so it's like, it reigns true if you have a little garden or some plants on your porch in New York City, or you're managing 900 acres in Texas or 10,000 acres in Montana or even Australia. All these rules are consistent because it's really the architecture of mother nature. And so it's like all land that we farm and we implement agriculture on, that was hewn

from some type of ecosystem. Sometimes it's a grassland, sometimes it was a woodland, sometimes it was a savanna or a mix. And so you have to treat your land in that regional context of what it once was. And the principles that are really simple to follow, I'll just kind of go through them, but it's one, it's cover your soil.

So again, no functioning ecosystem has bare soil. When we till our soil, it's an ecological disaster. We destroy all function of that soil. So again, no functioning ecosystem has bare soil. When we till our soil, it's an ecological disaster. We destroy all function of that soil. Like you said, water, but also photosynthesis, like we lose the capacity. And then when it's really hot, it caps and water can't further get in. So it's just a disaster cascading effect. So cover your soil. Biodiversity is key. We already talked a little bit about biodiversity. Having a green growing plant year round. So in the cool season and the warm season, always cycling the gift of sunlight through photosynthesis, feeding the soil biology. It's super important. Minimizing disturbance of your soil. So do not till, do not spray chemicals.

The fifth one is integrate positive animal impact. So again, animals not only are important, but they're critical for ecological function. Animals have co-evolved with all of our landscapes for millennia. So when we pull, especially ruminant animals off land, that land will always suffer because it's missing some kind of keystone species that has a really important role. Why is that? Can I ask you why that is? Yeah. I mean, think about it with the bison.

So in mid 1800s, there would have been 40 to 60 million bison in North America. And in those bison herds, there would have been 30, 40 million elk. There would have been pronghorn antelope. There would have been 30, 40 million elk. There would have been pronghorn antelope. There would have been millions of deer. And so we're at the point right there in 1850, where we had more undulate hoofed animals in North America than we do right now. And so at that point in time, the system was working. It was functioning at a really high level. And all these large herds, they co-collaborated, they evolved with this native landscape. And the way that it works is there would have been predators hunting these large herds,

particularly wolves, mountain lions, bears. So you had this predator-prey relationship where there would have been constant pressure. And so these herds of bison and elk and pronghorn, they learned for safety to group really tightly. And that was a defense mechanism. And those wolves would hunt those herds and always push them around. So if you stayed in one spot too long, well, A, you would have utilized all your resources and you would have been in all this nasty poop and pee. B, you would have been predisposed to an an easy ambush. Like all those wolves could have easily figured out how to manipulate that herd and pick off the weak. And so these herds were always moving up and down, you know, from like Northern Canada, all the way down into Central Mexico and all throughout the

United States. And so our grasslands, they received heavy amounts of animal impact. And the bison and all those undulates with their hoofs, they would trample in carbon into the soil systems. They would help loosen up cap soil. They would cycle plants through their rumen, inoculate it with their own microbiome, deposit that fertility back to the land so that the soil could reabsorb it and then grow more nutrient-dense plants the next year. And this is how mother nature designed the system to work. And so whenever you remove the animals completely from that system, you're not getting the grazing of the grasses, which actually stimulate further growth. You're not getting

the cycling of the carbon through the microbiome of the animal and enriching the soil. You're not getting the cycling of the carbon through the microbiome of the animal and enriching the soil. You're not getting the urine, which also actually the plants utilize that. And so there's just so much. And even with the bison, they're fantastic pollinators. They have hundreds of thousands of seeds all over their body. So every step they take, they are increasing the biodiversity of the plant system. We do a lot of bison field harvest out here. And my favorite thing to do is right after we harvest the animals to go up to the hoof

and to look at the hoof. And there can be thousands of seeds in the hoof of that animal. So every time that animal is stepping through a pasture, it is seeding for you. I mean, it's the intelligence of nature. There's not a better design for a seeder. I mean, even if we could like reimagine, reimagine, have full technology, all these smart designers come up with something for industrial agriculture, we could never even fathom how brilliant this system works. And that's what the bison do. And they don't even have to try to do it. And so those are the principles and those

are just some examples of how the system works with animals as a part of it. Yeah. Wow, that was so beautifully said. And it's just such a great reminder to be in awe of what you so eloquently put, the intelligence of nature. I think we are in this place right now with our health and the health of our food industry because we think that we can do better than nature. And we're continually learning that we can't. Yeah, nature is complex and our minds cannot fathom the interconnectedness of everything.

Nothing exists in isolation in mother nature. You can't just move one organism or one thing and not impact the whole architecture. So there really is that inherent intelligence there. And I think another really powerful example, something that's happened to us here at the ranch is in 2020, we had this record-breaking freeze where, I mean, it was like a tundra damn near out here in Central Texas. And everyone lost power and there was snow on the ground for six days. And I've lived here my whole life. I'm 40. I've never seen snow like this. And so all the guys up in North Dakota are laughing and they're like,

oh, I'll go out there in my underwear. That's not an issue. But it was pretty traumatic for us in Central Texas. But what happened was after six days of having snow on the ground, it started melting finally and we had cabin fever. So me and my family went out on a walk and we counted 140 dead deer, all within a five mile radius of our ranch. And so what we quickly noticed was all these deer were dead in the previously farmed fields. So the fields where they were spraying, where they were growing monocultures of plant-based agriculture in a very industrial setting. And so that's really interesting.

There's no dead animals anywhere where we're growing plants, where we have soil coverage, where we have biodiversity. And so we went out and grabbed a meat thermometer, put it in the soil. And sure enough, in all those old farm fields, the temperature of the soil was 30% cooler than it was in fields where there was that architecture in place, where mother nature's design was intact, where there was diversity, green growing plants, no bare soil. And so that 30% was the difference between life and death for these animals and their core temperature. And I mean, how powerful is that? And that was mother nature.

And those fields where it was 30% warmer, it was 30% warmer because the biology and the soil was creating a thermogenic effect to heat from the ground up and it could retain the core temperature of these animals where they could live through the storm. Wow, that's incredible. Going back to this narrative that going vegetarian and plant-based is better for the environment and for everything, which we know is a lie. Back in the day, there was more bison roaming in the United States than we even have cattle and bison roaming now, correct? If you account for the bison and then the elk on top of that and the pronghorn and the deer, 100%. Yeah, there was more ruminant animals in North America 150 years ago than there were today. And I think this is a really important thing to note because as we have everyone screaming about,

there's this guy I follow, Carnivore Aurelius on Instagram. Maybe you've seen his account. And he's amazing. And I just love he always makes jokes about how everyone thinks that cows farting is ruining the environment. And you think about now that we had more ruminant animals in North America back then than we do now.

It's not the cows farting that's the problem here. And you brought up a really great point about the carbon intake. And this is part of the regenerative farming model that Kiss the Ground talks about, where we need these animals in order to pull the carbon out of the atmosphere. And so if we are trying to utilize less animals on the land, it's actually going to make the carbon in the atmosphere go even higher and it's going to be worse. Yeah, a thousand percent. These animals, they're ecosystem engineers. And so they are highly effective at capturing carbon or facilitating a system which draws carbon down. And one of the really cool research studies that we got to be a part of in 2000, I want to say about 18, we did a life cycle

assessment out at White Oak Pastures in Southern Georgia. And so this would be Will Harris. He's a fifth generation regenerative rancher. Amazing. He's awesome. Oh, he was at the conference too. Yeah. Yeah. I got to meet him and he did an amazing interview with Joe Rogan recently too. So listen to that if you guys are interested in more. Yes, you should get Will on your show. He would love to talk to you also. So we funded this life cycle assessment. And LCA is where you look at every single input that goes into creating a package of finished product.

And so in Will's case, it was a package. It was a one pound brick of ground meat coming from his regenerative range. And we hired a company called Qantas, who was also hired by Beyond Meat and The Impossible Burger to do the same exact lifecycle assessment, the same methodology, the same researchers, the same tools to look at how much it truly costs to create one pound of synthetic meat sludge. And the results of that study were just definitively awesome, where you could be sitting and eating a regenerative beef burger from Will Harris at White Oak Pastures or even a Rome ranch. Literally for one pound of meat that comes off that farm, you are sequestering, you are

contributing to a system that pulls down three and a half pounds of carbon from the environment, puts it in the freaking soil. There's no other type of agricultural system, especially a plant-based system, that that happens. So the Beyond Meat, the Impossible Burger, for every one pound of that you're eating, you are contributing to a system that releases or emits three and a half pounds of carbon into the atmosphere. So we just always kind of joke around that in order to combat the negative impacts of the plant-based narrative, you have to eat regenerative meat. So for every burger you eat, you're fighting one impossible burger. You're creating a net neutral, you're offsetting the emissions from that.

That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, this is why I am such a proponent for regenerative meats. And I love what Force of Nature is doing. So I know that Force of Nature gets their meats from Rome Ranch, but are you also Force of Nature or is that a different company and how does that work? How are you guys connected? Yep. So my wife and I started Force of Nature with our friend, Robbie. Okay. So you did start it. Yep. And so it was at this point in time where we still believe that the consumer wields all the power. It's not going to be nonprofits that come and save us. It's not going to be government regulation that comes and turns this ship around. It's going to be the consumer and

the purchasing power that really shifts industry. And so we wanted to create a national brand. We call it Force of Nature that purchases from people like Rome Ranch or White Oak Pastures, people doing, implementing regenerative practices, and then create a brand, a trustworthy consumer brand that's available nationally to where people can go to the grocery store, purchase this, and purchase a product that aligns with their own values and their own beliefs and supports this virtuous regenerative system that they want to be a part of and that they want to see win and prevail. And so that's what Force of Nature is. And you can order meat from us at forceofnature.com. We ship all over the country and we have a lot of really cool products. And yes, a bunch of that comes from the ranch. We sell bison to that brand.

Yeah. Okay. So that's what I didn't understand. So you guys get your meat from a couple different ranches and one of them is White Oak Pastures as well? Yep. Yep. We get beef from White Oak Pastures. Absolutely. Because those guys are just the real deal. If you're like like my wife and I joke around about how like people, when they go on vacation, they just pick these really beautiful spots. And like, of course,

like everyone wants to go to Costa Rica. But what if we on vacation actually went out to the people who were producing our food to the suppliers to rule America and supported our farmers or at least connected with them. And White Oak Pastures

is one of those places where they're visionaries and they've set up this ecosystem to where people can come and stay and they have lodging on site. And it's just such an inspiring, hopeful place to be and see these regenerative principles in practice

bigger and better than anyone else that I know of. Yeah, it's so cool what they're doing. But it's so cool what you guys are doing too at Rome Ranch. It's really, like I said earlier, I left that weekend feeling so hopeful and inspired and it made me so excited. Even this conversation, I get so lit up just talking about this and it really inspires me when I hear about people like you and other people in this field that are doing really amazing things with our food and actually working with nature. And oh, and I wanted to mention too for everyone listening,

if you've not tried Force of Nature meat yet, it is my favorite. My favorite thing that you guys do is that you incorporate organ meats in your blends, in your ground like beef and chicken, which is incredible. As someone like me who I've tried so many times to eat liver, I can't do it.

I just can't do it. But I buy your ground chicken and your ground beef that has like the heart and the liver and everything else in there and you don't even taste it. Yeah. And I'm so glad you enjoy that. And thanks for supporting that brand. We call that the ancestral blend. And my wife is the same as you. She's just weirded out about cooking with organ meats. And it's kind of cool. How we created that product is we just take the proportions of the organs that are in that animal, and then we blend it in to the proportions of the ground meat in that animal. So it's like a true representation

of it. And yeah, we did it in a way that's really conducive for the modern palate. It's not intimidating. You just cook it like you would cook anything. It's very versatile. You make like burgers or spaghetti meat or taco meat, whatever you want. And it's awesome. It's a great way to get the nutrient density of all those organ meats that we all know we should be eating because those were like the prize cuts of our ancestors. Well, and that's where all of the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients are, you know, in the organ meats. And like you said, they were the prized meats back in the day.

And now we, you know, we shun away from them. I mean, myself included, I'm like, oh, I have a hard time with it, but I know that it's healthy for me. And so that's why I love these blends that you guys do because then I can enjoy it in my burger and not even know. Yeah, I think, you know, I love Texas history

and I love a lot of like the stories about the Native Americans and like the interaction with the early settlers, the early Europeans. And there's so many documented stories of people in my area of the world, Central Texas, that were on the front lines, you know, like this is 1830, 1840,

and they were kidnapped and they lived with nomadic tribes like the Comanches. And so there's books out there where they tell about living with these tribes for 10, 20 years. And it'd be really apparent that, you know, they were horseback, you know, warriors, and they would ride sometimes for three or four days straight without eating. And when they were able to harvest an animal and they were starving, it was like the thing they went to first was the liver. And we have the ability out here, since we raise bison, we do some field harvest throughout the year. And I'm telling you,

I promise you, you would be down with this. It's going to sound a little weird, but eating a raw liver, fresh off of an animal, I kid you not, it tastes like an apple. You're like, no way. It's impossible, Courtney. No way. It tastes like a freaking apple and the best apple you've ever had in your life. It actually has a snap, like a bite to it and it's sweet. And so, you know, I've been so in love with that experience. I've tried to figure

out how to keep that, how to not lose that and then have the liver that we associate with, which is maybe sometimes frozen or a couple of days old, it all changes in 24 hours. And so, there's really something magical about that organ when you eat it fresh. And the next time you hear it, we're going to do it. So I was invited. I was invited to this field harvest actually. And I have to admit, I'm not ready for this yet. This is actually another thing that I wanted to talk a little bit about with you because I really struggle with it. I was vegetarian for five years because of the animal aspect of it. And now, even now still, when I do eat meat, I essentially like pray over my, my meat and say,

thank you for providing the nutrients for me so that I can continue on with my life. And I really like to honor the animal in that way, but I feel like I'm even going to get teared up. I denied that invitation because I felt that I like felt that I wasn't ready to witness it. But I love so much that you guys do this because I do think that this is a very important aspect of it is that we're so disconnected from our food now that we forget. People just go to the grocery store and they buy this raw meat that's plastic and in a container

and you forget that there's a life behind it. And I do think this is a really important aspect of it that I still struggle with. Oh man, you are like the perfect person when you're ready to come to this event because this is about, this is the most reverence you could ever pay to an animal. And especially if you consume meat,

it is the highest degree of connectivity. And it's hard to watch and it's emotional, but it should be because that means you care. And I love that you pray over your meat and you're conscious and you're grateful because that's the ultimate gift and the ultimate sacrifice that an animal lives and dies so that you can pursue your passions, do the things that you love, the things that give you purpose. And so if we're not grateful for that and we don't take advantage of that gift, then it's desecration.

It's the worst thing we could possibly do. And at these field harvest experiences that we do out at the ranch, we bring people out so that they can see this firsthand. And when the animal is shot, we used to think that that was like, I hate to say it, but we used to call it like, this is going to be a lights out moment where the animal is not going to feel anything. And by the time you hear the gunshot, sentience is lost. But we've done enough of these to where it's the opposite. And it's so clear when you're present and you're there that the lights are not turning off. The lights are getting brighter.

There's an expansion of energy and a shift and this release of light that draws every other bison in that pasture to the animal that has been harvested. And every other animal comes up to it and touches it and nudges it and processes that. And then we go in there immediately after and we get to be a part of that.

We get to be surrounded by that expansion. And it's such a connected experience, one that just forever can change your life and your perception of this. And I think it's really important and it's in our genetics, it's in our DNA, but it's also like brings home this idea that you you you There is no life without death. You know, it's a transfer of energy

and we're consuming this energy now and we're releasing this energy back into the soil. And what we don't consume, we're going to compost and we're going to, again, spread in our pastures. And so it's like fertility, life, death, it's all connected. And when you remove those blinders and you understand that, like you said, you have

way greater appreciation and respect for your food. Yeah. I mean, and I think as a society as a whole, we're so disconnected from that life cycle. We're so disconnected from death. I mean, that entire thing that you were just speaking to, I was holding back tears because it's just, it's a beautiful experience, but it's also, it's a sad one too. I was holding back tears because it's just, it's a beautiful experience, but it's also, it's a sad one too. It is sad. My wife cries at everyone. No, it's, I mean, it's beautiful. It's, it's like this, this moment where everyone is crying, but in the present state, it's not necessarily you're crying for sorrow, but you're crying for, it's like a release. You're almost so touched and moved by this experience that something in you is coming out.

And we love that. And we encourage that. And there's like, no one's not crying. If our neighbors saw us, they'd be like, what the hell is going on over there? This is freaking weird. But it's beautiful. And it just opens up people. They expand to do things that they would never imagine doing, like touching this animal,

drinking its blood as it comes out of its neck, trying the raw organs. And then certainly the other part of how we honor this animal and we suck at this as a civilization is utilizing 100% of it. And I mean like food waste in the United States is damn near embarrassing. I think it's like 40% of all of our food goes in the trash. And those are living sentient beings that we're throwing away.

That's like so much desecration and disrespect. And so that only exists because we're so far removed from this system. And I think we're intentionally removed from our land, from our animals, because that's what big ag wants. Because if you were connected to the state in which your animals or your land was managed and raised in an industrial setting, you would be fucking horrified. If you're animal-based and you want to go see what an industrial feedlot looks like, shit, I'd go plant-based. If that was the only option, fuck that. And so big ag doesn't want you to connect. And so that's one of the things we're

trying to do at Rome Ranch and Force of Nature is reestablish that connection and show the value of that connection and the importance of it. Yeah. Oh, that's so well said and it's so important. And vegan leather, I just have to say this really quickly, is such a scam because you think about all these feedlot animals that like you said, we basically use their muscle meat and then we just toss everything else out. Why are we not using the hides for the leather? And then you think about vegan leathers being made from plastic. It's literally plastic. It's only furthering the damage to our environment. And then we're not respecting these sentient beings, like you said, by utilizing everything from their bodies. I mean, it is so crazy to me. Yeah. I feel like vegan everything is a scam. I saw a vegan honey the other day at the grocery store.

I was like, what the fuck is this? And I looked at it and it was just like high fructose corn syrup and like some food coloring. And there's probably healthier versions that are just like some bullshit sugar and some coloring. But I mean, like, why would we ever create a vegan honey? The honeybees are doing that because that's in their instinct and they're pollinating plants and this is the byproduct of it. And what they don't utilize as a hide, that's surplus. Yes. that we can re-engineer or recreate, like again, these animals that are so brilliant

and have done so much for our system and created a nutrient-dense product that we're supposed to eat. Yes, yes. I think the same thing about hens laying eggs. They lay eggs whether or not we intervene. Like they're just, they're popping out eggs all the time. And the fact that we think that it's bad for us to eat eggs

because we're harming them. I mean, if we're not eating the eggs, they're going to go to waste. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it's, yeah, chickens, all poultry animals is a whole nother can of worms. And I don't even know where I fall on that, you know, as far as like what's regenerative and what's not. There's different ways to look at this. But one of the big issues with poultry specifically is monogastric. So pigs and chickens and turkeys, their diet is imported. So they're supplemented with grains in every circumstance in some capacity. And those grains are always going to be grown in some kind of more industrial fashion monoculture setting, which is extractive and degrading towards someone else's land. So it's like, well, on one hand, you're regenerating your property

if you manage those animals correctly, but you're doing it at the expense of someone else where they're degenerating. So like true cost accounting, is that regenerating? I don't know. So that's like a whole nother can of worms. And you just kind of like barely tease me to go there. We don't have to go there.

We're just talking about eggs, but eggs are fucking awesome. And there's a big difference. There's a big difference between like regenerative pasture-raised eggs than conventional industrial eggs. Oh, 100%. Yeah. I'm talking about more from like a regenerative pasture-raised angle. I'm not talking about factory farmed eggs. That is bullshit and should be illegal. Actually, I think we have a mutual friend in Anthony Gustin. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so he was on the podcast a couple months ago talking about this. So we don't have to dive too into this really,

but he is actually working on this right now. He's trying to create a more sustainable and healthy feed for chickens so that he doesn't have to feed them grains. Yes, God knows we need that. Brilliant. Yeah. I mean, it's awesome. And again, you look into nature and how does she do it? Do the ancestors of chickens need to be fed with imported grains to produce eggs? No. There are ecological settings where these animals can exist and thrive

doing what they're supposed to do, which in many circumstances, they're intended to eat insects. They are more on a spectrum of vegetarian to carnivore. They are way more, have a higher affinity for being carnivore. And we've done some crazy experiments out here that some would be like, that's fucked up or unethical. But it's fascinating where you put like, okay, here's like all these badass earthworms. Here's like a can of cat food. Here's a dead chicken. And then you move it all the way down to like, here's your grain.

Here's your like mealed up kind of conventional feed that everyone does for their chickens. And like the chickens 10 out of 10 times will always eat some kind of previous living animal, something higher in protein than the feed. That's like the last thing they want to eat every single circumstance. And so, yeah, again, we're like, we need to look in that. And as a consumer, when you're purchasing poultry or even pork, and if you see it say vegetarian fed on the label, that should scream out to you. Yeah, that's like, hold on, this animal was controlled. It was confined. It wasn't allowed to interact with its ecosystem in a way that it could even eat the way that it wanted to. That's fucked up. That is not a selling point. Like you

said, that's like a yellow flag. Head the other way. Yeah. It's a scam. It's a scam. Because it's not... Again, I always come back to what does nature do? What happens naturally in nature if we're not intervening whatsoever? And that's what we should be leaning more towards in all aspects of our food. I feel like that's a really beautiful parting message I mean, it's just that is like again, I feel like we've gone back to that but yes, it's trust Mother Nature

it's trust her own capacity because I believe that Mother Nature is resilient I believe she's self-organizing self-healing and guess what? I think humans are too and so it's like once you shift your mindset and you recognize that self-organizing, self-healing. And guess what? I think humans are too. And so it's like, once you shift your mindset and you recognize that, everything changes.

And it's a lot easier too, to just trust in our own intrinsic innate capacity to heal. And that mother nature can do this as well and get the fuck out of the way. It works. And so, yeah, in all walks of life, I think that's great. Like, just like, you know, every day reflect, look at nature, look at some birds, look at the ocean, look at the grasses and the insects and the pollinators and just think like, what

is this telling me? Because, you know, we are carbon-based beings. We are from the soil. Mother Earth birthed us, you know. And when we die, we will return to the soil and we will transition our energy into some other living form. And so we are connected to the system. We are part of the system. It's untrue that we are not... But people say like, oh, humans are different. That's the wild. We're domesticated. We might be living in this weird fantasy fabricated domesticated state, but we truly are wild animals that should be out in nature. And I think it gives

us with a lot of perspective and health. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So I want to be mindful of your time. So we're going to wrap up here. I wanted to ask you one more question because I'm sure a lot of people are wondering this and you don't have to go too far into detail. Is it scalable? Is regenerative farming scalable? Yeah, I love that question. And I feel like I've had to think about it differently over time. And the first way I would honestly reframe that question or think about it slightly differently is, is our current system scalable? Is our current system working? And I say, look at what I'm doing. I'm on 900 acres of land. I am managing it regeneratively. I can feed my community. I can feed my neighbors. We can survive 100% without any kind of inputs from outside of our community. I can do that. And so when I think about that, I think about, well, what if there's a scalable version or a

reproducible version of what I'm doing and other people do that? Then we can feed bigger communities. And then it's always like, all right, well, come on. What if you live in LA? What if you live in New York City or Austin? And I was like, well, maybe that's the problem. Maybe people living in that much concentration, again, like when we look in mother nature, that shouldn't be. That ecosystem collapses. It's being propped up. It's artificially kept in existence by extracting resources and diverting them to a centralized location. So yeah, you're never going to be able to feed those big populations in a regenerative way in our current state. But what if there was some kind of decentralization of people? And this is big, and we have to imagine shifting how people are in this country. But if we return more to this rural,

small community landscape, I have 100% certainty we could feed local populations regeneratively from products that are produced within 25 miles of their home. That's completely possible. So again, it's re-imagining the system. And I don't want to offend people that live in cities.

And I think people that live in big cities know this at some deep level, but it's very parasitic. And that's okay. This is our civilization and our structure and there's nothing wrong with you for being in a city. I lived in a city for my entire life. I lived in Austin, which is a huge city. But again, if we raised animals and we put like, I know Austin's like 2 million people now. If you put 2 million bison in the whatever square mileage of Austin, that place would look like shit real fast. We wouldn't do that. That would desertify the land. That would exceed the capacity of the land to sustain a population of animals.

And so we're just doing that. We're perpetuating that model right now. And I think I am hopeful that I do see a decentralization. I see a return where people are wanting to have some kind of like deeper connection or relationship with land, or maybe it's live a healthier lifestyle and different aspects, or maybe it's have more resilience and more autonomy and independence with their own food production. So I think there is this movement where people are seeing that and returning back to rural areas. And we're seeing that out here. And I think that's a really good thing and a really positive thing. And we're going to be able to build this system over time.

That was amazing. I think we need to reframe the way that we're viewing how we get our food and be more focused on getting it locally and everything you said, that was amazing. So before we go, I ask all my guests this question, what are your health non-negotiables? So these are things no matter how crazy your day is that you prioritize for your own health. Oh my gosh, we are just so living these health principles out in real time right now. And they're always evolving. So we have two little kids that are very small and sleep is just sacred. It is so important for us to function, but also again, in all of nature, every animal has some kind of resetting phase with the cycles of day and night.

And so non-negotiable right now is get our asses in bed at 9pm, no BS, no excuses, and then sleep as good as we can. And then we also do daily, really intentional sunlight exposure. And it's mostly sunny in Central Texas, probably 340 days out of the year. But whenever it's not sunny, we definitely bust out the infrared red light. And it just, I feel like, helps us not only feel good, but be able to perform at a much higher level than without it. Yeah, that's awesome. I love it. So please tell all my listeners where they can find you and where they can find Force of Nature. with the journey, we post a lot of really cool information that I think would resonate with a lot of your followers and fans. And let's just continue to connect and celebrate and unite and ignite and join together. Yes. Thank you so much. I really, really enjoyed this conversation a lot. I enjoyed talking to you. 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. Looking to build a more robust foundation in your health and wellbeing?

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