The Highwire with Del Bigtree - Episode 492: FLORIDA LEADS THE PACK, CELEBS DEMAND ANSWERS & BEHIND THE 'CLEAN FOOD' INDUSTRY

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

Florida makes a dramatic move against vaccine mandates as Dr. Joseph Ladapo charts a new course for families.Then, Hollywood voices join the growing demand for a real investigation into COVID vaccine injuries, as Jefferey Jaxen follows new questions surrounding Fauci, the CIA, and the pandemic’s darkest chapters.Plus, the avocado-oil scandal exposed just how little we may know about what is really in our “clean food.” Del sits down with food-brand powerhouses Robby Sansom, who founded Epic and Force of Nature, and Jason Karp, co-founder of Hu, for the conversation every health-conscious American needs to hear.Guests: Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD, Jason Karp, Robby SansomAirdate: September 3, 2026Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Wherever you are out there in the world, it's time for us all to step out on the high wire. You know, as I was traveling the country, when this all started for me with Vax, the film that drew me in the center of this conversation around vaccines, I would meet with all of these leaders. groups around the country and discussing strategy. And one of the big questions would come up is what do we all agree on? Like what is it we are actually fighting for? Certainly there were groups that just want to eradicate vaccines from the planet. They're the worst idea ever.

They're poisoning everybody. They must be gotten rid of. And then, you know, ultimately we would all sit around. And it came down to really we wanted to get rid of mandates. It was one thing everyone could agree on. you should not be mandated to do anything with your body. And of course, those mandates turn into essentially being forced upon you, especially your children if they have to go to school. It's why when I started the nonprofit that we are in, I can, the informed consent action network.

I wanted to capture that. It wasn't the eradicate vaccines from the Planet Earth Network. It was informed consent. I want you to have the right to choose always. medical decision that you're going to make you should be told all the benefits all the side effects but this isn't just my idea in fact it is the cornerstone of modern medicine that was brought about after the trial of the doctors from Nazi Germany of course I'm talking about the Nuremberg trials and out of that

all of the free countries got together and wrote the Nuremberg Code and the very first number one rule of the Nuremberg Code is informed consent. We talk about it a lot, but let's read through them because it's been a while. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent, meaning if they're nine or 10, 11 or 12 years old and they can't drive a car or drink a beer, no, they're not ready to make this decision. Should be situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice. They have to be healthy. They shouldn't be on drugs. They should have just gotten an epidural while they were giving birth and

then asked, do you want to make this decision? Without the intervention of any element of force, there can be no force, no fraud, no deceit, no duress, or overreaching or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion. I love this word coercion. What does it mean if you tell someone your child can't go to school if they don't? Or you can't go to work if you don't? It's called coercion. It's a direct violation of Numeric code. Let's read the rest of it. So, constrain to coercion and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved is to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject that

should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment, the method and means by which is to be conducted all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected. The effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment. So ultimately, every medical decision we have made from that moment on was supposed to be your choice. You're never going to have a government say, well, we think it's for the greater good of the population, even though some of you are going to die today. Some of you will have injuries today. But we're deciding that for you.

We're taking on that risk discussion for ourselves and we're not going to show you anything. That's essentially what the mandated vaccine program in America is doing. It is a complete and total violation of the Nuremberg Code. It takes away your right of sovereignty, control of your own body, and your parental right and your choice to oversee decisions for your child while they are not in the capacity or mindset to be able to do so. And so when the government steps in and starts injecting you in your, children with things you've got no control over.

I've said it before. I'll say it again, and I'm going to stick to this. You do not have the rights of a free citizen. You have the exact same rights as a farm animal. I think America should do better than that. There's a lot of states to talk about it, but only one right now seems to be really taking this as seriously as we had informed consent action network do. This was some of the statements being made last year. Of course, I'm talking about none other than Florida.

up. And this is the Surgeon General of Florida, Dr. Joseph Lattipo. This is what he was saying last year. Watch this. What I'm most excited about is an announcement that we're going to make, that we're making now, which is that the Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law. All of them, all of them. Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery. Who am I as a government or anyone else? Who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body?

I don't have that right. your body is a gift from God what you put into your body what you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God I don't have that right government does not have that right

they want you to believe they have that right and unfortunately they've been successful they've been successful Well, of course, that was Joseph Lattipo talking about what right you actually have, your God-given rights. And in case you think maybe he forgot about that was September of last year. Headlines are coming out right now. They look like this. Florida continues to push to repeal for required vaccines for public and private schools.

Your body is a gift from God. It goes on to say the proposed rule also expands religious vaccine exemptions to include moral and ethical beliefs and lets parents and college students opt out. of having the records included in the state vaccine database. Florida moving forward, plan to end requirements for four school entry vaccines. Another headline, Florida's Department of Health removed four vaccines from a required list for public schools. What are those that they're removing?

Here's the list very quickly. It's chickenpox, hepatitis B, hemopulose influenza type B, pneumococcal disease. Well, to get to the bottom of this and why this is important, why Florida is focused on this, it's my honor and pleasure to be joined, now by Dr. Joseph Lattapos, Surgeon General of Florida, the man, the myth, the legend, the guy we're all jealous of thinking, why can't he be Surgeon General of the United States of America?

But Joe, how are you doing? Hey, I'm doing great, though. Always just I catch you guys every week, man. I want you guys every week. Love what you guys do. Well, it looks like we're penetrating, Joe. It looks like we're getting to you because I remember, you know, very early on when you were working with Rhonda Sands. when you took on that job, obviously COVID was the focus, and the COVID vaccine was where everyone was really focused. And you were ahead of the game in really trying to hold on to the rights to choose in that situation. But even then, I remember asking you about childhood vaccines. You said, I haven't looked deeply into them.

But it does seem that, you know, like many other doctors, are now looking into them. So just quickly, you know, what has this journey been like? What were you trained as a doctor and what have you found surprising when you look at the childhood vaccine program? I almost don't know where to start. I think actually where I might start is I would just encourage everyone to read Aaron's book Vaccines Amen. I mean, you know, Aaron more than better than any person on this planet is just able to literally lay out the data that support how the vaccines that we, widely used have, you know, gone from development to approval. And it's astonishing.

I mean, it's astonishing. If you had told me when we talked the, probably the first time, you know, almost five years ago, that, you know, the hepatitis B vaccine was approved by the FDA, the two versions that exist on less than a week of safety data, I would have said, oh, okay, sure, Del. Yeah, I bet. And yeah, that's about the face I remember.

I think I remember that look. And yet, you know, that is a fact. Like that is literally a fact. So, you know, so that I think that my own personal revolution has just been, you know, fortunately benefiting, absolutely benefiting from the hard work, you know, the investigations that you, your colleagues, and others have done in this area. And, I mean, I'm just gab smet. I just, it's just the amount of evidence that supports the safety of so,

I'm not saying they're unsafe. There are some that are unsafe, I think. But the amount of evidence that supports the safety, certainly at the time of approval, it's horrific. I mean, it's really, really, really bad. It's just a very rotten scientific landscape. So now is it becoming, do you think you'd be able to be making these decisions,

putting forward these ideas, start pushing to removing, mandates. And what, first of all, you're really bringing attention to the fact. I don't think people realize this. The federal government is not the one that actually ultimately brings the mandate upon the citizens. This is a state's rights issue. So each state has to grapple with it. What is it about the state of Florida? Do you think the cultures there is different? Is the mindset different that you're able to have these conversations? Or do you think every, you know, surgeon general could go after this across the country?

You know, I mean, Governor DeSantis is, like, he's just different from every governor that is, you know, is working right now. And none of this would be possible if it weren't for his leadership and his ability to do what he believes is the right thing, even when it might seem uncomfortable. I would say probably leadership is the,

that is the distinguishing factor here in Florida. We have a lot of free-loving, freedom, pardon me, We have a lot of freedom loving people here in Florida, but we have a lot of people who are, you know, not so into freedom also here in Florida, like many states. But fortunately, we have his leadership, and that's, I mean, that's made all the difference. How did you go about choosing these four? Let's bring them up again very quickly, the vaccines that you're really looking to take out of mandate right now in Florida, chickenpox, hepatitis B, hemophilous influenza, and pneumocococcal disease. Why those specifically? Was there a different rationale for each one of them? Yeah, I mean, there was a distinct rationale, which is, you know, when we made that announcement almost a year ago, we worked with the lawmakers. Unfortunately, some of them were supportive, but unfortunately many of them were not, and leadership was not, unfortunately.

And, you know, I get it. It scares people, this idea of not forcing vaccines, but we need to realize it's a barbaric. path. It's totally barbaric. A government comes in and tells you, well, you have to put in your body. Your body came from God. A government doesn't have that right. It's a barbaric act to force people to take a medication. It's totally barbaric. So, you know, we tried and we worked with them. And we have a lot of wonderful, I mean, really great people, our lawmakers, our senators, our representatives, but we just weren't able to get there with, you know, a shared understanding. So, you know, legislative session ended. And as we were reviewing things, we did have vaccines that we were mandating through rulemaking in the Department of Health. So the ones that we mandated through the Department of Health, obviously before I came in, before Governor DeSantis, are those four. So if there were eight of them, there would be eight on that list. So these are ones your jurisdiction, you have jurisdiction over. It's sort of people, I think there's another we don't understand if something's an act of

Congress, the president can't just write an executive order and deal with it. Similarly, in a state, as Surgeon General, you can only really affect things that were decided by former Surgeon Generals and Health Departments, and these are four that were put onto the list by them. Very interesting. And so what is the culture like now? Your job. I mean, you're in a top position. Do you spend time sort of educating other health department members and trying to get them to understand because I would assume not everyone around you just like I know it not everyone around Robert Kennedy Jr. right now is HHS is in agreement. What is the process? Do you need a consensus? Do you want a consensus? Do you want support? How do you

go about getting that? Yeah, I'm into sovereignty, right? So, you know, people don't people disagree. God bless him, you know. I also am into leadership. So what I do is, you know, I just keep presenting the information. We had Aaron C.R. here for grand rounds actually, you know, I don't know, two months ago. Oh, wow, cool. You have fantastic grand rounds. And, you know, I don't force, I mean, people, people are sovereign. They can believe what they want.

But I just consistently share what I believe is accurate information and from a place where they're free to, you know, take it or leave it. They're free to ask questions. They're free to reject it. And I mean, I didn't come in here with any, I came in here with the objective of really making a difference, certainly for COVID-19 stuff, but you know, for just preventive health in general. And what my experience has been that I do feel we have a wonderful team here at the Department of Health, and people have shifted. And, you know, and I always smile inside when I see people, you know,

members of my team who hear an idea that I'm saying. And it's not like the silence in the room that, you know, that was dominant when I first came in because they were, the ideas were so in opposition to public health beliefs. Now people seeing that not everything we are told is accurate and there are things that we thought were okay from a health perspective that actually are riskier or there's uncertainty. So my team overall is like we're really kind of talking more

at the same channel on the same level. And I think that continuing to show up and just say what you believe is true, You're not trying to force anyone to believe anything. And the folks who are open and receptive, some of them will shift. How long do you expect this to take? What is the process you're involved in now to get these four vaccines out of the mandated protocol? Well, you know, we're going to have a hearing soon.

It should be in a few weeks. And then the next step, we're going to be challenged. So legally, there's going to be a legal. Really? Shocker. Spoiler alert. And so then that's going to add, you know, I don't know, probably, you know, will it add another month or two?

Will it add three months? We'll see. But we're on very solid ground. I mean, there's even a legal argument that we actually overstepped, the Department of Health overstepped authority by even mandating these in the first place. So it seems like we're on pretty solid legal ground. So I'm hopeful that that's going to work out. But whatever the outcome, I mean, this is the right position.

Like, you know, I pray everyone gets there. Everyone who is there just keep beating the drums. It's absolutely the right. Morally correct. I mean, you were reading the Nuremberg Code. It's so simple, guys. You know, I get the fear. You know, the fear that, you know, people will get sick.

There'll be outbreaks, da-da-da-da. But you just have to find an ethical way to get there, right? You, you know, you need more education maybe. if you believe that people should be taking certain things. You need more availability. You need to make it easier. You need to be more transparent. But like forcing people just to get the outcome that you want,

it's just not right. I completely agree. One of the things I really found interesting about this approach is you're talking about inside of the religious exemption. Also you're adding this ability to opt out of having your medical records when you're going to schools and universities and things like that. I mean, really,

virtually the opposite of where so much of this country and the world is going with AI and tracking systems and data tracking. Of course, we're hearing how great it would be if everyone's data was in a centralized place that government could get to and help you with your health decisions. But you're moving in another direction. Frankly, it seems to me to be mirroring a lot of what I see with Ronda Santis. He's been very vocal against tracking systems and AI systems that are really, I think, scary when you look at the future, what could be done with all of our health records in the hands

of really a computer system. But why did you decide to put that in here too? Honestly, we actually just hear from some Florida families that that's something that's important to them. So I'm obviously sympathetic to people's distrust of government. You know, government does a lot of wonderful things, but unfortunately government also does sometimes a lot of awful things. And for people to be distrustful and feel like they don't want their data being sort of secured by government, I get it. So that's why that piece is there. That's really, it's just a response to some of the families that are, you know, suspicious of government.

So my next question, since, you know, you're obviously hero to many of us in the medical freedom movement, Ron DeSantis is coming to the end of his tenure is governor. There's got two new candidates running. The primaries have been had, so it's now going to be between Byron Donald's and David Jolly, I believe, if either, you know, whichever one of these gentlemen, if they were to take office and ask you to stay on as Surgeon General, would you stay on in that position? Well, I must say, Mr. Jolly's already announced that he's going to, it's going to be his first that when he becomes governor to get rid of me, you know, to fire Dr. Joe.

So he's your first choice then. Oh my gosh. And, you know, Byron, he's a, he's a good guy. You know, I think some people have asked him about what he would do and, you know, it's his choice, right? If he becomes governor and I hope he does, I wish him the very best, you know, he'll have to make his decisions about how he wants things to move forward. certainly open to staying and continuing. There's clearly a lot of work to be done, and I love being able to partner with people like you, you know, sort of that partnership, government, and out of government. But, you know, we'll see. And, you know, and just, you know, I feel like

I have full trust in God for, I know wherever the heck I'm supposed to be sitting is where I'm going to be sitting. I've been noticing. Byron's actually using a lot of decent talking points as of late talking about medical freedom, things like that. I don't really gain of function. He's focused on these things. Would you, you know, characterize, I don't know how well you know him, but is that an evolution in his understanding of this issue? Has he always been on our side? And are you seeing this evolution amongst other politicians? I don't know Byron super well. I mean, I think that, you know, there are some issues that I think are his bread and butter issues. I'm not sure that this is one of his bread and butter issues, but, you know, President Trump has been very vocal about his,

his position on some of these issues clearly in conflict with the medical mainstream. And, you know, I've seen Byron say some, some very encouraging things. So, you know, we'll see what happens, right? You know, we'll see what happens. All right. Last question is Ron DeSantis running for president? Oh, gosh, let me give him a call. I'll check right now. Now, let him know we're all fans out here in the high wire world. It would certainly be great to have someone that has championed guys like you inside of government has really been about an open dialogue around medical decisions. I actually like where he's standing now with AI and so many things that I think are just

moving too fast and not many people are paying attention to it. So I hope he throws his hat in the ring just at least to the conversation alive. Very, very important conversations that are really growing and thriving in Florida. So for everyone not in Florida, we're all jealous. We're all jealous of you as a surgeon general there, but Dr. Loudapult, thank you for taking the time to join us today. Thanks so much, Del. All right. Talk to you soon. All right. We've got a great show. You know, we're going to be talking about food, health, food, safety. This all really got a lot of attention during the test that showed that the avocado oil we're all getting may not actually

be avocado oil on our chips and foods. So I've got a couple of just rock stars of the, I don't know if we call it natural food, clean food, but Robbie Sansom's joining me and Jason Carp both. I'm sure you have products of theirs inside your cupboards as we speak. I'm looking forward to that conversation. How do we make sure our food is clean and safe? But first it's time for the Jackson Report. There's a couple politicians and people out there I wish we could just clone. I could advance, if AI could just clone Latipo, and then we just lock it away for a while. You know, maybe that'll be one of the good things.

I'm like, all right, if you could clone Joseph Latipo, you got my attention. Right. Del, I want to talk about, let's stick with that conversation. I want to talk about some serious, serious individuals here doing change. one of them is Woody Harrelson. Right. Yes, the actor Woody Harrelson. Now, just to paint this story, remember in 2023, when the world was coming out of the pandemic response

and realizing that it was kind of a failed response, and Legacy Media wasn't talking about the vaccine issues or all of these medical issues at the lockdowns, Woody Harrelson had a chance to host Saturday Night Live, and he chose this just to remind people for his monologue, take a look. All right. The last time I did SNO was around Thanksgiving, 20, and I did, and I did, and I was around Thanksgiving, 2019, three years ago, and you would not believe what happened after the show. I went walking in the greatest part of this city, Central Park, leaned against the tree,

and started to read the craziest script. So the movie goes like this. The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes, and people can only come out if they take the cartels drugs and keep taking them over and over. I threw the script away. I mean, who is going to believe that crazy idea being forced to do drugs?

I do that voluntarily all day long. It almost sounded from the audience. They didn't even understand what he was talking about. That doesn't sound like a very good script at all. You're in it. You're in the script. Okay, yeah. Great. It's a New York audience with all due respect. So we have Woody Harrelson now activating to help people that were injured by this COVID shot. And this is the headline here out of

the telegraph. You have Woody Harrelson urges Burnham to launch COVID vaccine inquiry. This is Andy Burnham. This is the new UK Prime Minister. And along with Woody Harrelson, we have our friend Rob Schneider. We have tennis legend, Pat Cash. We have other people. And let's go to this letter here. This is from the heart group. This is the health advisory and recovery team, and they put this forth to the prime minister in the UK, a second letter to our fifth prime minister. Several public health figures add their support for suspending MRI vaccines. They're still asking for this. It goes on to say a group. It's not just actors, it's a group of 160 doctors, scientists, and health professionals have written to you

asking you to do something. Your predecessors have repeatedly failed to do. Commission an independent examination of outstanding questions about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and ensure that those who believe that they have been injured or bereaved are. properly heard. But then Dell, this doesn't just stop at the borders in the UK. These are problems all over the world. And this letter puts the fine point on it. Here's the issues we're still dealing with. It says this. There remain legitimate and unresolved questions about adverse events following COVID vaccination, including cardiovascular events, increased cancers, the cause of excess mortality and increased long-term sickness since the pandemic, all huge issues.

The adequacy of the systems for identifying vaccine injury. So that's not. just a UK problem that's a US problem that's a Canadian problem that's a problem all over the world and those who believe they have suffered serious harm have been at adequately investigated and supported they have not we know this we've been reported on this and it's important to point out the fifth prime minister in the UK is the fifth prime minister in five years they have run through prime ministers like shark teeth there because they basically use and throw away use and throw away because the agendas that the politicians are pushing are so

unpopular that they can't keep a prime minister. It's historically unprecedented to have five prime ministers in five years there, seven in the last decade, if you're counting. So something wrong is happening in UK politics just on that alone. But it's not just the UK. We have Canada, too, starting next week, live streaming here on the high wire as well. We have the Allison Inquiry. This is in Canada, Ontario MP, Dean Allison will chair four days of sworn testimony between September 8th and the 11th on Parliament Hill. That's their parliamentary location. They're building their government headquarters focused on COVID-19 vaccine injuries.

They're taking a book out of Senator Ron Johnson's playbook, and they're doing that in Canada. This is the first time they will be heard in mass like this. This is massive. Wow. You're having the UK. You have in Canada. Concerted effort here to put focus on these vaccine injured throughout the world, really,

for a shot that's still on the market. And what's happening in the U.S.? Remember we reported this. Kennedy had put forward in the Federal Register that they wanted a vaccine injury list for COVID-19 vaccines. Remember right now it's under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program. You have to prove the injury was caused. But with a list, the petitioners, the people that were injured,

can get better, easier compensation. So that's happening. Compensation push HHS gears up to draft this. It's still in the draft mode. So we still have a little ways to go, but we're keeping our eye on that. And remember, we have alongside the new CDC director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, during her confirmation hearing, was another person that hasn't received a lot of press. This is Sean Kaufman, and he's up for the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response in HHS,

and that deals with the countermeasures, that deals with the COVID vaccines. And he specifically said he wants people to be heard. He wants this to be looked at. So between him and Kennedy, he has not been confirmed. yet. We have politicians coming back from a recess. Hopefully he will be confirmed. But this is a big deal because, again, what's happening in the FDA, we're still approving these shots. We have the updated shots approved. They're pushing them on people with comorbidities, people over 65. And again, people with comorbidities, that's pregnant women. That's considered a comorbidity by the CDC. So here we are

again. We have a lot of work to do in the U.S., but Canada, UK, all moving in a concerted effort to help these people that have been injured by these emergency shots that were mandated upon them. Wow. I mean, it's great to see it. It's great to see celebrities getting involved. Obviously, just talking to Joseph Lattipo, that's exactly what he's pointing out. This culture is changing. He couldn't even attempt to write the laws he's writing four or five years ago. We keep saying it. This is where, you know, whether or not you see, you know, you want to have this big explosive change. But really, it's this incremental change that is really starting to move our direction as you see. Celebrity is getting into the mix.

It's very exciting. And different nations and politicians up in Canada having a hearing to say, all right, let's listen to the vaccine injuries. These are great developments. Yeah. And it's about what we do here each week. Keeping the spotlight on this momentum showing as is happening. Because legacy media, you're not going to hear about this. I want to bring a gentleman up. We really haven't talked about him too much. He's Dr. Richard Ebright. He's a molecular biologist, Rutgers University, but he's also one of the loudest advocates for biosafety in these labs, these labs that created COVID, doing gain of function. And what he said recently really put a fine point on the entire COVID, really pandemic response. Take a listen.

Okay. Anthony Fauci funded research that directly contributed. to the cause of COVID and us to 20 million deaths and 25 trillion dollars in economic damages. And that culpability that he shares by virtue of his funding of that research is compounded and aggravated by the fact that he misfeasantly violated U.S. government policies to carry out that funding, starting in 2014 and continuing through 2020. It is plausible, I think, likely that the date of the pardon specifically matches the beginning of the approval of that grant and the series of misfeasant events beginning in late 2014 that continued the funding in violation of U.S. government policies. Yeah, I think the date of that pardon has always been in question when you look right at that moment. And then when you see the Democratic Party standing with Fauci,

you might understand that the Democratic Party wants to continue gain a function. These are the kinds of questions I'd like to have, everyone being asked. You know, while you're grilling Robert Kennedy Jr., can we find out, are you pro gain a function or against it? We should know what our leaders are at. These are the questions we should ask when we're thinking about voting for people, because these are important issues. Yeah, and Fauci is at the center of this because he ran,

basic gain of function in the U.S. for decades unopposed. He was not just this media figure. He wasn't just this person that ran around behind the scenes in these emails and tried to shut down any relationship to one of his funding studies. He ran the entire complex. This new study, or I'm sorry, new emails just came out here. Exclusive from the daily caller, Fauci's Institute worked hand in glove with the CIA new documents confirm. And it says CIA funds would be used to leverage pre-existing civilian research efforts in a way that would benefit both the CIA and NIH, the document state. These are from Rampal.

He says, unclassified basic research on viruses, quote, will be used to augment and complement CIA research and development the document states. So the CIA was also researching and developing gain of function bio weapons alongside with Fauci. So they're working again, hand and glove with this. This puts a whole new aspect on this conversation, this gain of function conversation. I want to rip this thing out at the root because, It goes back several decades to, we have an anniversary coming up of 9-11.

In the wake of 9-11, there were anthrax attacks. These bio-weapons were sent in envelopes to politicians. And Bush, at that time, President Bush, he activated. Here is an article showing how this thing, the Genesis, how it started in 2003, LA Times, Biodefense Lab on the defensive. It says the federal government spent $60 million on non-military biodefense research in fiscal 2001 and 317 million in fiscal 2002. The Bush administration has asked for about $2 billion

for the current fiscal year, more than the combined research budgets proposed to fight breast cancer, lung cancer, stroke, tuberculosis. They didn't care about chronic disease. Back then, this is where it started. It was all about gain of function, bio-weapons research. But then it goes on to say this. Some critics question the wisdom of so rapid a buildup.

If a military lab has had problems, they say, civilian labs nearly all inexperienced with exotic pathogens might generate more security concerns than they solve. And then they go on to quote somebody, quote, this well-intentioned response may perversely have exactly the opposite effect, said Richard Ebright, there he is again, 2003, saying it's going to have the exact wrong response and it did. And here's a document now unclassified from the CIA at that time, 2003. It's titled, the Darker Bio-Weapons Future. And you pull this segment out, it says the detection of related activities, particularly the development of novel, again, new bioengineer pathogens, you know, the ones that started the pandemic we just lived through

will depend increasingly on more specific human intelligence and argue panelists will necessitate it closer and perhaps qualitatively different working relationship between the intelligence and biological sciences community. What they're saying there in government speak and CIA speak is we want CIA operatives to connect with, even be involved in the labs that are bioengineering these bio-weapon viruses. We want the CIA to be doing this, and they are doing it. And Fauci, at that time, for $2 billion in 2003, was given the controls, NIH was given the controls for gain of function research for all of the United States. It went from military labs to civilian labs. Fauci oversaw it with NIAID. He oversaw the funding. It's surprised that a pay.

pandemic it didn't happen beforehand, but now we have, so the CIA is saying we need to work better with scientists that are doing this gain of function. We have Ram Paul doing an active investigation right now into Ralph Barrick. Remember, Ralph Barrett was the actual scientist that did the gain of function research that souped up this coronavirus and made it more transmissible on human cells. He's the guy. He bragged about it. Here's Ram Paul. Chairman Ram Paul seeks intelligence community records related to COVID origins. And look at this. In an email dated, September 10th, 2015, the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA and ODNI, Office of Department of National Intelligence, initiated contact with Dr. Barrick to set up a meeting to discuss a, quote,

possible project related to, here it is, coronavirus evolution and possible natural human adaption. So the CIA reached out to this guy in 2015 and said, we want to talk to you about this idea of souping up this coronavirus. Then it goes on to say this, just under two months later, Dr. Barrick and Dr. Shee would publish on their joint coronavirus experiments in a paper titled a SARS-like cluster of circulating back coronaviruses show potential for human emergence. So, I mean, we have evidence here that the CIA has his hands all over this thing. They said they want to protect the public and we want to, they want to work closer with the scientific community when you're looking at that to help.

But it looks like they actually sped this process up. And now the biggest bombshell is another document from Ramp Paul's document dump. Here's the headline, Pfizer and the CIA privately cited high population immunity in May 2020 on classified documents detail. Scott Gottlieb, the former director of the FDA, was tapped by the CIA to have a secret meeting in May of 2020. In that meeting, he told the CIA officials that he met with, top officials, that this zero prevalence of this coronavirus that basically,

how much is being found in the populations, how many people have antibodies, they've been exposed to this, is around 20 to 25 percent, means a lot of people are having this thing. A lot of people were gaining natural immunity fast. The R-not was R3, meaning this thing was infecting people, two and three and four people at a time when someone was infected and close to them. Herd immunity was on its way. Scott Gottlieb was at the board of directors for Pfizer, but that's not what he said publicly. What he said publicly was this. Take a look. I don't think we'll ever reach true herd immunity like we see with polio or smallpox. I don't think the coronavirus allows for true herd immunity.

So understand that vaccines weren't going into arms until December 2020 in the United States. So May of 2020, he's telling the CIA, hey, we're probably going to reach herd immunity. But he's out there. So is Fauci, so are Willilinsky, all of these people. They're out there stopping early treatment, telling people that herd immunity. can't be reached unless there's a vaccine. There's a race to develop this vaccine. This is a massive, massive story right here.

It's huge because if you think about, you know, first of all, we're being locked down and they push this vaccine and now we're starting to recognize most likely the entire nation was already immune to coronavirus. We didn't need it. We'd hit herd immunity. And by the way, one of the reasons we lost our YouTube channel and Facebook was because I said to people, if you're healthy, You don't have comorbidities. Go out and catch this cold. Let's get the herd immunity.

Well, apparently I was right. We were there. And then they went and vaccinated everybody anyway. This is one of the big things Rand Paul has been saying from the beginning. I don't need the vaccine. I've already had coronavirus. And they refused to admit natural immunity mattered. This thing just gets worse and worse and worse. The big question all of us are asking, are we just living in a bubble? Is anyone on the liberal side of this listening to CNN or MSNBC or mainstream? news, are they hearing any of this? These are massive, massive things we're discovering that we were just lied to on a grand scale, and we have now documented evidence of it. It's amazing, amazing research being done out there. Yeah, and really the big picture, let's forget about leaky bio-weapons research, these billions and billions of dollars going towards that, having the

public attention focus there. Let's forget just for a second about a measles outbreak that killed maybe zero people. We're still waiting for these transparent numbers. Secretary of HHS Kennedy put a really fine point on this topic, just like in 2003 when Bush put all that money towards bio-weapons and gain of function and forgot about people with breast cancer and strokes, cardiovascular disease, forget about all those people. Kennedy's bringing this idea back that we need to focus on the real killers in America. Take a listen. All right. I will say this. In 10 years, there's a lot. There have been three measles deaths in America.

There are now about 1.2 million deaths every year from food-induced illness. The media and certain demagogue politicians are constantly trying to scare us about infectious disease. And we take the attention away from the chronic disease that is being caused by powerful entities by big food companies, by big pharmaceutical companies. And what I'm trying to do as HHS Secretary, one, deal with the infectious disease outbreaks, which we're doing, but also redirect attention and resources to the thing that's really killing Americans, which are food-borne diseases.

I mean, that's reality, right? I mean, they get so focused. They just want to be celebrated for their... achievement in stopping measles when it was never a problem. We've been through it. But great reporting, Jeffrey. That actually is a great segue into my guest coming up and talking about our food supply, what is good food, what is healthy food. But people are loving the download, Jeffrey, every single week. You seem to really be finding your groove there. It's great for people just check in on Mondays and see what's going on in the world. So keep up the good work, Jeffrey,

and I'll see you next week. All right. Thank you. All right. So, you know, we have been doing a lot. We've been adjusting, trying things off the record, things like that, trying to get, you know, you to weigh in on what you're liking because we want to make the information more accessible. We want everyone to be able to have tools that you can hand friends because you are the network. You are the informed consent to action network. What are the things that you want? One of the biggest things you've said is it's so hard to figure out whether I have an exemption in my state or not.

So many people will say, there's no exemption to my state. You're like, unless you are in New York, Connecticut, Maine, West Virginia, or California, you have an exemption. People are shocked to hear that. So we decided to just put up a very simple tab on our website at Icandecide.org. But I thought I would show you how easy this is. I'm going to have my own computer, I think, hooked in here. So all you have to do is type in I can decide.org.

We're doing it right now. And there it is. Check your states. The opening page are going to check your state. You get this great graph. It tells you how many states have exemptions, 46, have a religious exemption that says there. And then you'll see the yellow states are the ones that have all the exemptions, medical, personal, philosophical beliefs, and religious exemptions. And so you can click on them and the information comes up for each state as you click on it. Let's, you know, if you go to Wyoming, here it is in Wyoming. You've got a medical exemption. You have a religious exemption. You don't have a personal belief exemption. And then if you want to get that exemption, if you want to fill it out, you just click on that state right there. Takes me right to the page. This is Wyoming right now. Waiver information. I can read about how to apply for a waiver or I can just go straight to the form and look at this.

This is their information. We just make it easy for you to find medical exemption, religious exemption or request, waiver request. And there it is. I've got it in my hands. I can just fill it out, take it with, you know, hand it to my principal. or maybe it's a university you're trying to get into. It's just that easy. Just one of the many things.

We're building a bunch of tools like this so that you can say to friends, oh, that's really easy. Just go to I Can Decide.org, and they've got it all figured out there. So that's the latest tool we're building for you. Once again, free to everybody out there. But we are making things free

because many of you are helping us fund that. Remember, Exxon's not paying for that. Pampers isn't paying for it. Tide isn't paying for. it. We don't even have a water, you know, filtration system paying for it. It's us. It's the informed consent action network. It's you. We want you to help us build the best products, the best media space. And by the way, all of that funding also goes to the greatest lawyer in the world. You heard Joseph Lattapo talking about how effective errands here in Syria is, both just

writing his book, but also in grand rounds there in Florida. You make all of the things that we're doing possible. So if you want to be a recurring due to, donor. It's super easy. You can just text me at 72022 and writing the word donate and I'll text you back and get you going. We're looking for, you know, or at the top of any page, you can go to Ican decide.org or the highwire.com and just click on the tab up there to donate. We'd love it if you become a recurring donor. That helps us know, can we take on some new lawsuits? I guarantee you Aaron Siri wants to bring more lawsuits than I can allow them to right now. I'm like, look, Aaron, we're doing amazing. You've got 90 lawsuits going. This guy's on fire, though. And if you want to

just let him lose, I need more of you to step up and say, hey, nobody else is doing it. We're in the catbird seat right now. We've got the wind at our backs. We got Kennedy inside of HHS. We have President Donald Trump that could all shift overnight. That could shift, I don't know. Hopefully, we'll see however the midterms go. But in two years, how does that go? Right now, there's so much we can get done, which is why if you are not supporting us now, I would love it if you become a part of our network worker. If you are, how about a couple more dollars a month? Just skip another cup of coffee. No matter what, you make this possible, all of the great celebrations, all of the change you're seeing around the world, and certainly in this country,

around these conversations, you're responsible for that. And I hope you feel the pride that we all do here at the informed consent action network and all my staff here on the high wire. Well, one of the things we don't just talk about vaccines. We don't just talk about drugs. We talk about everything. Our mission statement is dedicated to eradicating man-made disease. Is it possible the greatest diseases are, as Robert Kennedy Jr. is saying, being caused by food, the life-giving, the source of our lives? Is it that dangerous? Well, You know, we're all trying to do our best. We're reading the labels and we're, you know, listening to these great experts that are now coming forward.

Social media has made it possible to hear every new diet fad that's out there. And one of the big ones was seed oils. I think Robert Kennedy Jr. really brought light on this. It's been around for some time. And in fact, we'd even talked about on the show. But once Bobby started talking about it, the world was listening. And then we were all switching to avocado oil products until this happened. Breaking Maha news, this is a big one.

If you're paying extra for foods made with avocado oil because you think it's a healthier option, a new UC Davis study says you may not actually be getting what you're paying for. We have an avocado oil problem and it's not good news. Researchers found that 89% of the products tested contained cheaper oils, even though avocado oil was the only oil listed on the label. 89% of chips, mayonnaise, salad dressings with avocado. oil were faith. And the part that turns this from a health story into a consumer fraud story is what they were cut with. In most cases, the cheap seed oils you were paying a premium to

escape, you were overcharged, and arguably conned. Which is absolutely insane because people buy these products to avoid seed oils. We're talking about products from brands like Siette, chosen foods, Primal Kitchen, Jackson's, kettle brand, Boulder Canyon, sprouts, and so many more. A massive amount of food companies are just lying to us straight out. and they are getting away with things that I didn't think they could get away with by law. A couple of the companies have pushed back or at least made statements based on having their names at the center of this. This is just a couple of them. This is chosen.

This is the message they put out a recent U.S. Davis study, U.C. Davis study suggests that two of our mayos and two of our dressings contain seed oils, which is simply not true. We never add seed oils of any kind. We believe the testing procedures used in this recent study do not fully account for the unique characteristics of finished products such as condiments and dressings. We are steadfast and are promised to bringing families the best possible avocado oil products we stand by the quality of our food. So they're saying it's not true. Primal Kitchen had this to say. A recent UC Davis study raised questions about the purity of avocado oil and certain foods across the industry, including some primal kitchen products. We take these questions very seriously.

It goes on to say they're talking to their suppliers and make. making sure that they're delivering the best possible product that is out there. But what's it like if you're one of these companies? Is it your fault? You know, is it hard? Is there contaminants that are always there? Do your suppliers change out? I had a lot of questions when I saw this, and it seemed like a little bit of a hit piece.

Let's just go after all these health food companies. You know, who was funding it? I don't really know. But I did want to talk to some guys that are really deep in the food space. and one of them is Jason Karp. You'll know his face, certainly because he was one of the big players that helped us put together people versus poison in Washington, D.C. But he's also a big food entrepreneur.

Well, here, take a look at this. See you for yourself. Jason Karp. Fearless Innovator who's redefining health, wellness, and accountability. Jason is the founder and CEO of Human Co. In addition to Jason is the co-founder of Hugh Kitchen, known for creating the number one premium, organic chocolate in the U.S.

Today in front of this court, we are here to remember our sacred duty. People over poison. When we started playing God and we started thinking that we are smarter than nature is when we all have started to become as sick as we are. Americans now live in a toxic soup of synthetic chemicals, plastics, and untenable pesticide loads that permeate our food, water, and air. I believe the root cause of how we got here is the unchecked and misguided industrialization of agriculture and food.

We exercise more than we ever have. We have more pharmaceuticals and treatments than we ever had. And yet we're the sickest we've ever been. How did we become the sickest ever when we actually have the most money and we have the most conveniences? Like, it's great that I can order a pizza on my phone, but not if I'm going to live the last 20 years of my life

with diabetes, heart disease, and be on 18 medications. It doesn't matter how cheap the food can get. We should not be poisoning people. Choose the land. Choose the community. And with God's help, we will all wake up and choose our children over money. Well, it's my pleasure to be joined now by Jason Carps. Great to see you, Jason.

Great to see you, Dale. Been such a great voice in these Johnson hearings out there in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. You know, a lot of times I tell my story. I walked away from my career, CVS, to get in the middle of this crazy conversation on vaccines and health. you were like loaded. I mean, you were working, big financial guy, right? Came from top schools, studying finance, you know, living the, you know, that dream. Why does someone like that leave the world of finance where power looms and decide to get into starting restaurants and food companies and things like that? I mean, to put it simply, I felt like my soul was rotting. I felt

like I pursued what everyone told me was the American dream, overachievement, top schools, big jobs, big money, and I was depressed for my entire adult life. The main reason I got into health and wellness was when I was 23 and 24, the second, third year of me working. I was working at a hedge fund, and I had this coveted job and was making more money than I ever imagined at that age. and I developed a series of diseases, the worst of which was a degenerative eye disease, where multiple doctors told me I would be blind by the age of 30. And they told me it was incurable, and that I needed to put my name on a corneal transplant list, and I might actually not make it and be fully blind.

Wow. And that was a really dark moment for me, and I consulted Western medical doctors who all told me that there was nothing I could do. And I did my own research. My background actually was in research and what they now call data science. And one of my inspirations were indigenous people. And I found in my research, and you find this also with what they call the blue zones, with indigenous people, we think they're kind of like cavemen.

In many cases, they don't have running water. And they don't have our modern conveniences, but they don't have chronic disease. And I noticed, this is now 26, 25 years ago, I noticed they don't have obesity. They don't have diabetes. They don't have heart disease. The incidence of allergies are almost nothing. The incidence of autism is almost nothing. How is this possible?

And then I looked across a variety of indigenous people, and some live in the Arctic, and some live in the jungle, and some live in America. They all had very varied diets. If you lived in the Arctic, you were eating blubber and meat, and there's no fruits and vegetables. Yeah. And if you lived in Africa, the Maasai tribe lives off of blood and meat. Some other tribes live off of fruits, nuts, and seeds. So it wasn't about vegan.

It wasn't about carnivore. It wasn't about anything other than they live a completely unprocessed life. Right. They eat as close to nature as possible. The animals are local and wild. The plants and fruits and nuts and seeds are all local. local and wild, and they're living as close to God as possible, without processing.

And so I developed this naive hypothesis, which was if I took my workaholism, New York City life, and went more, some people call it paleo, and I went more in that direction, and some people call it ancestral, then maybe I might be able to reverse my diseases. And the doctors told me that my hypothesis was insane. And I had nothing to lose, so I did it anyway. Right. And within between five and seven months, my diseases went away and my eyesight came back. Strictly, like really, like, not with like a bunch of vitamins and supplements and lasers and red lights and all of those things.

No biohacking. Really? No biohacking. Just food. I went, and lifestyle. And lifestyle. So when I was doing my peak workaholism, I was working, you know, probably 90-100 hours a week. getting outside, not exercising, minimal sleep, minimal contact with other people, which was also

a big factor. And I decided to start exercising again, I had to train myself how to sleep again because I was a workaholic. I started spending more time with people again. And I was doing all these things that traditional kind of modern American work ethic would tell you would be against succeeding. Right. So I was actually taking time out of my day to do things that weren't productive. And in doing that, I started to heal. And on the diet side, I gave up processed food. I gave up caffeine and alcohol. I gave up a lot of, I was eating a lot of kind of what I thought was healthy. Think of like 100 calorie snack packs of Oreos kind of thing. And I went to real food. And that process combining lifestyle and food, I healed everything.

and I went and got, you know, multiple diagnoses on my eyes, and my eye disease was gone. Modern Western doctors thought what I did was impossible. And if you Google my eye disease today, it still says it's incurable. Wow. And so I'm a medical miracle. Right. And that motivated me and my family, my brother-in-law Jordan, and my wife, Jessica, started Hugh, which was originally an organic-themed paleo-incestral restaurant in New York City.

The chocolate came out of the restaurant. Right. We were doing no seed oils in 2012. Wow. So you were way ahead of the game. And we didn't have scientific data that said that seed oils were toxic. We just knew how they were made. And we saw how a lot of modern food was made.

We knew, and I knew from my background as being a professional investor, that the profit motive is the sole determinant of why we're here. And I actually don't think most people in big food are evil. I think they're literally just motivated by the shareholders, the boards, their jobs, and we have set up a capitalistic system in public markets where the only thing that is rewarded and has been for 50, 60 years, is quarterly profit growth and cash flow. Hold that thought. I want to get someone else in this conversation. I also want someone that actually is out there ranching, working with animals, getting into making products that, uh, is seeing all sides of this conversation. And so, well, this is Robbie Sansom.

I guess today is Robbie Sansom. Robbie is the co-founder and CEO of Force of Nature. Regeneratively sourced meat company based here in Austin, Texas. Can you speak to like the big issues in our food? We've lost touch with our food. We don't have the relationship that we evolved to have with our food. A farming practice that incorporates herbicides. pesticide, pesticide, that are intent on destroying life, do we want the foundation of our food production

to rely on the destruction of life? I think there's something broken if that's the foundation of our system. Falsely depressed prices of meat that are coming from animals that are living in sedentary environments and who are sick themselves, feeding a population of now sedentary

and sickening people. And the only variable that folks seem most concerned with is how cheap can we get it? We looked at what does it take to try to disrupt the meat industry, given its size, and given its complementary relationship with big agriculture, big pharmaceutical, big chemical, big petroleum, big health care. The health of our land and our food system will be a reflection of our own health. Food system and our food culture have been captured, and it's killing us.

We're told one thing that promotes the current system is the only option, but the truth and reality tells an entirely different story. All right, well I'm excited to say Robbie, you're joining me now. Thanks for being here today. Thanks for having me. Thank you for your great products. Of course, the epic, I think it became everybody's favorite beef jerky snacks. You went on to sell that company.

But what got you into, first of all, what do we call it? We call it natural health that word natural seems to be totally destroyed. Now are we talking clean? What do you like to refer to your products as? I think that, I mean, the industry generally is considered the natural foods industry. Okay. You know, unfortunately, some of the best words get co-opted, but that's truly what it is. And as far as, you know, how I got into it and, you know, between Force of Nature and preceding that epic,

my co-founders at Force of Nature, Katie and Taylor, were vegans. And they actually started a vegan energy bar company called Thunderbird Energetica. And it was, you know, in the early, late single digits, early teens, when the dogmatic wisdom and guidance to everybody was, You know, animals, animal foods aren't that healthy. We should be eating more plant-based foods. They're better for the environment. All of those things that we were told through the press and the media.

And many people believed, even many of the very popular carnivore influencers and leading paleo influencers, most folks that are genuinely curious and want to pursue improvement and progress and evolve in a healthy way, we're kind of going down that path. and my co-founders were no different. They were so inspired and passionate that they started a vegan energy food company, and yet they had the same outcome that many that go down that path do.

They started to have severe health consequences for doing it despite having pursued it for the opposite reasons. And when they began to, as performance athletes, experience major GI distress or inflammation issues that were affecting their life as well as their performance, they realized with the help

and medical professionals that reincorporating healthy animal proteins into their diet would be essential for their well-being and their prosperity, at which point you're sort of faced with a real difficult decision. Oh, no, I was told, and I believed because it was so popularized in the media that I can't pursue these things, you know, animal proteins and be a good steward for the environment or be thoughtful and considerate of welfare of animals or actually be healthy at the same time. So, like, what do we do? How do we go down this path?

And then I joined up with them, and, you know, we figured out that, you know, healthy animals are part of a healthy diet. And healthy animals come from healthy lands. And healthy lands come from being managed in a way that's consistent with how all life evolved and symbiosis through functioning and diverse ecosystems and that there are practices within agriculture

that we can use to emulate those processes. And it's not just that plant agriculture or animal agriculture, it's bad, it's that the ways in which we're practicing agriculture and our chemically-laden industrialized system have led to these negative externalities at this massive scale and that we could pursue better changes to those systems that can drive positive outcomes

at scale. And so that is where we shifted from these videos vegan energy bars to meat-based bars and then jerkeys. And we were one of the first healthy animal cooking fats. We started selling, we started selling clean pork skins, and we started selling bone broths. We're the first to market very early. This is back in the 2012-2013 era and realized that we could be impacting food systems in the process.

Amazing. All right, well, let's get to the topic that made me call you guys today. Were you shocked? It was just over a week ago. We get this study done on all of these food products that we're switching over to avocado oil. We're all trying to get away from seed oil. And then all of a sudden this study comes out and it's like every major, well, it seemed like every major health food brand. First of all, were you shocked at the headline?

Were you shocked at what they discovered? I was shocked at the headline. We have many of those brands in my household. I know the founders of a couple of them. Yeah. And it didn't pass the smell test for me. I did the study itself or the article. The headline.

The headline. The headline. So I saw the headlines before I saw the study. Okay. And the fact that 48 out of 54 tested products failed with companies where I know the founders and I know their intentionality. Yeah. Even that these companies have been purchased by big food companies,

and it was part of the discussion. Yeah. I think it was like one out of 20 of the olive oil once failed. Like the fact that 48 out of 54 failed to me just immediately it was like either the study was flawed or the way that the press is interpreting the study is flawed because there's just there was no way to me that all of them were knowingly trying to deceive consumers. So that was your first thought. What was your thought when you saw it? I was I was exactly the same. I said something doesn't doesn't smell right here.

There's there's no way these these large. You know, number one, I did the same thing. I know several of these people, I started texting the founders and the people that are still running the companies. I said, what's going on? Something doesn't make sense. Yeah. But then the way that these large food companies work when they buy these up-and-coming brands,

they're listening to consumers. They're actually heating the call for change. They're recognizing that their whole portfolio is in a state of decline. And they see what's working, and they're trying to make that investment in those those areas where consumers are showing up and saying, hey, this is what we want, this is what we expect, this is better. So they're not going to pay these massive premiums to then turn around and adulterate that very thing.

So you made a deal with Epic with, was it General Mills? Is that right? Yes. I mean, that's like one of the satanic bad guys, I would think, in the world, at least how we perceive it. How did that, do you have, when you're making that deal, do you have a say in how your product's going to be represented in the future once it's out of your hands?

It's funny because when we actually didn't go to sell Epic, and General Mills started making overtures towards us, and we were like, we would cancel their orders. We wouldn't return their phone calls. We wouldn't, like, we were doing everything we could to, you know, tell them to pound sand. And it wasn't until John Forker, who at the time was running annies, who had been recently acquired by General Mills, came to us and said, you guys don't understand. And I said, what don't I understand? Here's what I think. I think that you're going to come in and you're going to adulterate the product. I think that you're going to terminate our employees who have dedicated themselves to this brand and poured blood, sweat, and tears into it. And I think that you're going to harm the people and our supply network that literally bet the farm on supporting us and our products. And he said, this is what you don't understand. What y'all are doing is working. And what we're doing is not working. And we want to invest in what's working.

And we don't have people that understand the secret sauce and understand what you guys do. And we won't and don't want to eliminate any of your employees. We don't have a network like the network that you've built with the attributes and the claims and the promises that you're selling. So we won't do any of those things. And that was the first thing that they said that got our attention, where we ended up moving forward with that transaction knowing that we would make more money if we waited down the road and waited for time, but that we wouldn't maybe find the right partner.

And it turns out after that acquisition, what happened, we didn't have any turnover of employees. Our supply network didn't change and it didn't change the products from when we made them to when they're in my pantry still right now. But what did happen, they added, they made it difficult to launch products because they make the safety standards so high, the regulatory standards so high, the legal standards so high, they absolutely do not want to get sued. That's the number one thing that they fear all of the time because they're constantly being sued. So they put so much extra rigor and scrutiny and requirements and what you would call in the space critical control points to make sure the product is effectively bulletproof. They also, because we are big into regenerative agriculture, they thought some of the claims that we were making seemed too far-fetched, too outlandish. How could animals be part of the solution?

They must be the problem. That's what we've been told. So they put hundreds of thousands of dollars into funding a life cycle assessment of a regenerative ranching operation to prove empirically using Qantas labs, the same laboratory that impossible foods used, that you had to eat a regenerative beef burger to offset the carbon impact of an impossible burger. And then they funded additional research beyond that. They became the first Fortune 500 brand to make a regenerative commitment. Now I think dozens, maybe as many as 30 or more, Fortune 500 companies have followed. So really tremendous good things happened. We then eventually left and started Force of Nature, which is, I think, having an even more and better impact.

And my co-founder started Rome Ranch, and we've had thousands of people go visit a regenerative field experiment and educational facility. So I think lots of good has come from an example of that transaction. And I don't think, what's funny to me is the negative that has come out of a transaction like that is that when we started Epic, there really wasn't any pasture raise or grass-fed jerkeys or products in the store. If you go to the grocery store, you go to the Whole Foods or Sprouts or a natural grocery store today, every product in there is pasture-raise and grass-fed. So we opened this door and we're the first to go through it. And under General Mills leadership, that brand has just kind of stagnated. The quality didn't change, but it opened the door to a category where so many competitors have torn through and just absolutely lapped epic and General Mills is kind of just like left

like in the back of the pack. But like it's really cool because that's what progress like leapfrogging is happening and progress is still occurring. It's very exciting. Are you as excited about the future of food that way? I mean, these giant companies. I mean, yeah, look, I completely agree. with Robbie that there was a period of time probably 20 years ago and maybe earlier,

really before social media. And I think that's an important distinction where big companies bought healthier brands, like the classic case study is Kalshi, which is a serial that was totally adulterated. But post-internet and post-social media, particularly social media, It's completely against the incentives of these companies to grossly adulterate these products for money because the internet is very good at being loud and angry about that. And so I agree with them. In the case of Hugh Chocolate, we weren't for sale. We were approached.

Similar story. We actually were able to put in contractually that with the products that they were purchasing, they couldn't change the ingredients. And you only made that chocolate because you could not find essentially an unadulterated chocolate anywhere in the world. Yeah, the chocolate was almost an accident. It was for our restaurant at the time where we had a paleo-gluton-free, grain-free baking section, and we wanted chocolate chips and our chocolate chip cookies and our muffins and our banana bread.

And we couldn't find chocolate that had the specs for food service of no refined cane sugar and no soy leicin and no preservatives and no kind of chemical agents that they typically use to make dark chocolate less acidic. So we had to literally make our own chocolate for our baked goods. And we ended up liking it so much, we turned into the chocolate bars, originally sold it just out of the restaurant, and then it took off out of the restaurant and then became... So screw the restaurant, this chocolate is going crazy. But, you know, to Robbie's point, Mondalese who bought it, they're also who owns Cadbury,

had a very similar speech to us. And that transaction was 2021, so five years ago. And the product, I think, is as good as it's ever been. The ingredients haven't changed a bit. And our pantries are stocked with Hugh Chocolate. And I think kind of the best proof of do founders think that the owners have adulterated is, do they still buy it? Right.

And we do. And I think the decision we made, was we didn't have the distribution or the knowledge of how to go international. And the majority of Mondalese's business is actually outside of the U.S. And we thought more countries and more people need access to organic, no weird ingredient, delicious chocolate that doesn't have any fake crap in it. And it has succeeded. And it has created a lot of other organic, clean-label chocolate

that have come, and so now consumers have a lot more choice. And so there is this knock of like big food is the devil, and if you sell out, you're the devil, and you just sold out. And I think that's a logical conclusion, but I don't think the facts, particularly in the last decade, support that. You're right. The court of public opinion is having a hearing every single day around this. It's why we've been able to do things like you and Bonnie Harri.

and getting Kellogg's to look at the fruit loops and, you know, things like that, the public pressure. So, you know, I want to get back to this study, but before I do, if you're running, how hard is it? I remember I talked to an owner of one of the big baby food companies that got called out for having heavy metals in the baby food. And they said to me, Dell, the sad case is that you cannot find enough grains and things for a large company, where it's just these contaminants glyphosate are spraying over onto organic farms. At trace levels, you're never going to get rid of these things because we live in such a toxic environment. Is that a relatively accurate generalization? Is it impossible to get to purely clean food because of the world we live in?

Or what are the difficulties when you are trying to source for the companies that you are starting and working with? I think the scale matters. So I think it's totally possible when you're at lower scale. Right. I think if you get to the level of Smithfield Foods with the way the current agriculture works, I don't think it's possible. I think if you're getting to the level where you're doing $50 billion of revenue, I think the American food supply is too contaminated to get to that level.

I think when you're in smaller scale, which by the way, smaller scale is still a gigantic business, right? Like a billion, 2 billion, 3 billion kind of revenue levels. I think there are many farms, regenerative farms are growing. Organic farms are growing, relatively speaking. I think we have a lot of damage to undo from the last. 40, 50 years where Monsanto and glyphosate basically took control of, you probably know the number of what percentage of conventional farms have glyphosate on them, but I think it's north of 80%.

Yep. And I think we have a lot of damage to undo. I think what Robbie and I were talking about, which is really relevant, which is companies can easily test their products at the finish point, right? So if you're curious about, you know, a local municipality's water, don't. don't ask them for their certifications, test your tap water. You can test it. And that's the answer.

And then you can find out if through the testing, what's showing up. And I think what Robbie and I were talking about that I think is really important to convey to your listeners is that the intentions of the operators of the company, the intentions of the founders matter a lot. And a lot of these companies, like some of those baby food companies, I also know the owners of them.

And these are some of the best people I know. And they're sourcing organic spinach. And organic spinach in America always has heavy metals in it. And they would complain that some of the ultra-processed baby food alternatives weren't showing having heavy metals, but because they had a majority of their ingredients that weren't real food. So when you substitute in not real food, of course it's going to go down. And so I think the intentions matter.

I think testing matters. and I think where we probably need to go as a food industry is we need to give the companies that are trying their best. We need to give them a little more space and a little more understanding if you know what they're trying to do. And they're going to mess up from time to time. And they're going to work their best to try to fix it. And I think if we're going to move this food system forward, we cannot, you know, shame and kind of brutalize and witch hunt these companies that are actually trying to do good because that's actually going the opposite direction of, I think, the progress we need. So, I mean, but it's that pressure, it's that consumer pressure that

finds us in the place where companies like years are thriving because we're looking for those people that are taking this stuff seriously, right? Yeah. What's the question? The question really is, also to you, to run a company like that, how hard is it to source? I mean, as I travel around, for instance, let's take this glyphosate moment. I feel like Donald Trump is blackmailed. It looks to me by Monsanto saying, we have way too many of your farms. We will cut all supply for this deadly poison that almost anyone with a brain wants out of their food. But if we cut it right now, you have no farm.

We will destroy your industry. We're not, like a lot of people argue, we're not in a place to have enough regenerative farms, enough organic farms to really meet scale for need. For instance, if we started all, you know, school lunch programs or completely organic or regenerative, you might take up every, you know, all of the food that's available. So how do you source and how difficult is that right now? What needs to change so that there aren't, it isn't, you know, as difficult? I think, I think a couple, coming at that from a couple of different ways.

Like, one, still the majority of farming in the world is subsist. So to say that the scale can't be achieved is not realistic, right? We have a pretty large population and a whole lot of really good farming out there. It's only in the most developed places that we've gone the furthest off the track of doing things in a more sustainable or regenerative way. So I think there's a lot of hope. And you got to think about the size and scale of agriculture. It's massive. It's like 11 billion acres out of 30 billion acres in the world or a little bit more than half.

Wow. of the land mass of the United States is agriculture being practiced on it. And so really, really big impact. Now, has it been bad and have there been terrible things? Yes, absolutely. But when we start to make subtle changes for positive, even if they're not perfect, if it's progress, it has a massive and profoundly positive impact. So like, let's not lose hope.

Now, can we scale really great food systems? Yeah, they're not, Pilgrim's Pride, couldn't do it today. But it could get there in time, especially if we give it support through the markets, which is where consumer advocacy and our point saying, hey, let's stand up, let's vote with our dollars, let's lead movements and not abandon them when they show signs of success by reaching bigger and greater scale. I think that's important.

I think government, I think there's a lot of different ways that we can continue to drive movement in that way. But I think, like, how do we, to your question, source in order to make sure that there's integrity in our supply, I think it's interesting to understand how a lot of companies source. A lot of companies send out an RFF, or a request for proposal. Here's an item that I want.

Here's the max I'm willing to pay for it. Maybe if it's a high attribute item, they'll say, make it a grass-fed claim, but I'm still not willing to pay a good, a healthy market price for it. And then they submit bids and whoever, you know, the lowest bidder gets it. I think that that system isn't going to be the system

that's going to create the best outcome. I think that you might get a better outcome. I'm not going to say too many negative things about it because it's better than just taking the cheap you know, only the most commodified that you're exchanging all the value out for cheapness. But I think that there's, you know, we live in a world of nuance, and I think a lot of the details matter. So for us, you know, we don't employ that practice. We have a very thorough, what we would call a sourcing protocol. So we basically look, we don't actually have

organic on our package, or we don't have a lot of third-party certifications on our package, whether even for welfare or for other things, but it doesn't mean those things don't matter to us or regenerative agriculture. We're pioneers and leaders in that, but we don't have a third party certification on our package. We've taken all the best certifications, and we've looked at what is in there, whether it be for chemical use or pharmaceutical use or land use or lifestyle, diet, welfare, all the things I just mentioned. We built those into a sourcing protocol that we vet for up front in determining of somebody can meet our requirements. Then we go and meet with them in person. We go visit the farm, we visit the land, we shake the hand, we make sure that they're

is greater than I think because I think you'll pay me a premium. And then we build a relationship and we engage and we manage that relationship over time. And we get the affidavits that we need and all of the paperwork that we need legally and reggae from a regulatory perspective in order to make the claims that we want to make on package, pasture raised, grass fed, regenerative, etc. And then to Jason's point, we take it a step farther and we test our products. We test our products for the fatty acid composition so that we can guarantee when we say a product is grass fed, that it's grass fed. I can do that empirically. And we've worked with some testing

labs to be able to do that. On our poultry, for example, the USDA says that 30% of poultry, or 30% of products sold in the U.S. labeled as antibiotic-free, test positive for antibiotic residue. 30%. So what do we do? We test every flock of birds to make sure there's no antibiotic residue. It's in our protocol. It shouldn't be there. We trust the people because we know them personally and don't expect anything, but things happen. And so we're testing the end product. testing for over 300 different agriculture chemicals, including glyphosate. We're testing for PFS. We're testing for heavy metals. We're testing for the absence of all the bad things that we can think of as bad things in the food system.

And then we're further testing for presence of more of the good things. And we're trying to pioneer this different ways. I mean, we're experimenting. We're trialing new things. We want to understand how can we find a more cost-effective way to deliver consumers, the integrity and the value and the quality that they're looking for. that is easier on a constituency of people who are struggling, farmers and processors. You know, we think of big ag and the big four processors, but there's a lot or thousands of regional processors that are critical to the health of our food system and to our rural farm and

rancher access to the food system and they need to be sustained. And we can make things too burdensome and difficult on them where the regulation that might be necessary for the big guy squeezes out the smaller guys. And so we have to continue to find ways to support the good actors in the space and give them good incentives to continue to improve their practices and also simultaneously on the other front line support consumers and getting access to better food and getting more transparency into what they're getting. Because candidly, right now our food system, I think largely, especially where there are claims, over promises and under delivers. The overwhelming majority of grass-fed beef sold in the United States is coming from the big four-past. The ones that everybody are told are the bad guys. The overwhelming majority of organic meat in the United States is coming from the big four packers and the big four companies.

And that's not what consumers expect. They think they see these certifications, they see these different claims, they think they're coming from systems different than they are. And so we're trying to be a brand that's championing a set of values and going the extra mile to do the work to ensure the integrity of the product. We should probably do the work to study the brands, people like you behind them, the power. behind them, the passion behind them, versus a bunch of these GMO-free, whatever, labels that are just stuck all over. What you pay for, right?

You're paying to get that put on the packaging. So bringing this all the way around, what would you recommend when we see a study like this, this avocado oil, what should a consumer, how should we take in that information? What would you like people to think about when we're looking at that? I mean, look, I think the Internet thrives on outrage.

Yeah. And I think it's good discernment for anybody that when something comes out that sounds scary, and it also thrives on fear, is to pause. You know, what I saw the first two days, it took, I don't know, another two or three days before I saw interesting commentary from other people that actually went through the study and said, oh, they didn't say these weren't avocado oil. They said that these didn't conform to the standards that we used to test avocado oil. right and the press then took it and said oh these all failed yeah and so i think discernment is

really important i think look we live in an age of convenience and everybody wants convenience they want rapid fast decisions they want to look really quickly at whatever they're trying to figure out and then buy it i think robbie's point is really important which is the people behind the brand the people behind why they do what they do matters more than any certification. And it doesn't mean that those people aren't going to fail sometimes, and it doesn't mean those people aren't going to make mistakes sometimes, but you know they're trying, and you know

that they're doing something for reasons other than just making profit. The reason that I became the largest shareholder in True Food Kitchen, and the reason why my family eats their three times a week, is because I know Andy Weil was behind it, I know how they source their products, I know how they source all their ingredients, I know they source all their ingredients, I know they that 99% of restaurants don't care about anything but money.

Right. And the people matter. And the same thing with force of nature. I mean, we consume force of nature a lot in our household because I know this guy, and I know what this guy cares about. And I have noticed from times that there aren't the certifications on his package that there aren't other things. I don't care because I know this guy.

And I think one of the lessons that we've learned in the last few years with all the things all these scares and in this era of convenience is that we have to get back towards human connection. And human connection means knowing who's behind what is making the thing that you're consuming. And I think we have moved into an era where we're consuming both literally and more maybe ethereally,

a lot of negative energy. We're consuming a lot of negative energy. We're consuming negative physical products that have toxins. We're consuming negative media. and I think all of that is conspiring to ruin us. And I think the human connection, understanding who's behind the things that you're consuming is something that everyone has to take a little extra time to understand,

but it'll be worth it because I never have to double check on force of nature again, because I know this guy. I never have to double check on True Food Kitchen again because I know how they make it. So it's not that inconvenient to do it once, whereas relying blindly on like the certifications, and the labels and this and that, you're going to get into trouble if you do that. First of all, it's amazing to be sitting here and hear the passion

and know that you guys are really bringing a lot of hope. And my biggest concern in things like this is it seems like the media wants us to give up. Oh, then screw it. I'm not going to stop trying to eat healthy because what's the difference anyway? I'm still eating seed oil. See, there's sort of that energy around sea. I knew it was all a lie that really undermines companies

that are trying to do this work. And so, you know, what would you like just to, as we sort of wrap this up, for the consumers out there to know, how should they go about choosing, you know, what brands and, you know, what do we do when we see headlines like this? I think, I think from a choosing brands perspective, you know, I think actions speak more loudly than claims. And we talked about certifications. We talked about the on-pack stuff.

You know, in the case of my industry, meat. This is a, these are, you know, what, 98% of households have meat in the house. And, you know, for most of us, meat is the majority of the plate most meals of the day. I don't think that you should be delegating your agency for what matters to you and what's important in those products to a certification body you don't know on, to certify a set of attributes you don't understand. I think you should be looking to whether it's the individual or the group or the brand, like, what are their actions?

What are they really about? And if you find Force of Nature or many other great players in the space, you go to our social media, we're going to be educating you about health, wellness, toxins, agriculture, life, death. You know, we probably might even be annoying, falling over ourselves, going out of our way, to try to form a relationship with you to say, hey, look, you shouldn't distance, be so separate from your food. You should understand where your food comes from, and the story behind it, it matters,

It matters for you. It matters for the health of yourself and the world around you for the future. Those brands, that authenticity, that mission, that substance, that is real. So much of what is on the grocery shelves at the store is hollow. It is a marketing thesis. It is an exercise and academic marketing that is like, here's a couple of claims. You go to the website. It hasn't even been updated in 10 years.

You know what I mean? Like there's nothing behind it. I think it's really easy to sniff out. And I think asking consumers to do a lot is, you know, sadly this day and age is a big ask. But when it comes to something that is the cornerstone of your diet and maybe the foundation of your health, from a food perspective, you know, our goal is to make it easy for you, to almost, again, we have all the products you're looking for, where you're shopping for them, and trying to reach you with story and messaging and relationship where you can.

the brands that are like ours that are inspired by passion and surrounded and the halls are full of people that share those same values make themselves easy easy to find I think the second part of your question was oh the headlines and how should we react when we see stuff like this look I don't think that big food deserves any free passes here right like I think they deserve they've earned every bit of scrutiny that they're getting and the reason that the pitchforks and the torches are so quick to come out when a story like this emerges is because they've earned the characterization that they have. That said, let's be rational.

Let's call balls and strikes. Let's look at the stuff and be logical and let's recognize that like if we want to see change in the world, if we want to see our food system improve, if we want to see our birthright to health restored and our ability to live to our highest potential not be limited by the toxins and the evils of the system around us, let's not be crabs in a bucket every time somebody that's trying to do something good might slip, even if they are wrong. And in this case, I would suggest they probably weren't. But even if they aren't, let's be a little more discerning.

Let's have a little more grace. Let's be a little bit more thoughtful of the process. Again, nobody deserves a free pass. But let's not be so quick to cut the knees out from under the very people that are ones leading and succeeding at driving the very change we've all been fighting for at least my whole lifetime. and preceding that as well. You know, what I'm getting here, and it's interesting, I think we've all gotten so used to, you know, reading the labels,

but in some ways you're saying these labels may not be as important as just taking this brand, going to my computer, who are these people, why do they do what they do, you know, how updated is their information, can I get a sense of their passion of what they're doing? And I know it seems overwhelming, but we really are creatures of habit. I'm probably buying one or two different meat companies products. You know, one of these days you can just go and take a couple seconds since I'm going to make a zizig, oh, I'm going to switch the other one seems to be a company I like better. I'm getting the same chips.

We're not getting 20 different bags of chips. We're choosing one or two companies. Let's see, let's go and read a little bit about that company. It's a really interesting point to engage on that level. What is the story of the company and the products that are behind it? I really want to thank both of you for coming in today. I think this is a conversation that more and more people are having. And it's really exciting that we're seeing this shift in the world.

I know a lot of people would love to see the USDA moving quicker, Robert Kennedy Jr. moving quicker. But it's guys like you that are really driving this. It's in the people's hands, it's in the consumers' hands. So it's a lot of hope right now. So I just want to thank you for giving us another way to look at it. us another way to look at our food supply. So I really appreciate it.

So thanks for joining me. And thanks for coming in. It's really great. Jason, I want you to stick around for off the record. Okay. You have a whole idea that we're just looking at health completely upside down way. We're going to get into that. And I'm going to get you into an off the record sometime soon.

And speaking of off the record, we have been asking you, what do you think of airing it on Friday nights instead of just afterwards and maybe making it open to everybody? It has been such a slamming. We're talking like 2,000% increase rates on a lot of different. Numbers have been astronomical. You don't want to paywall. You want to be able to tell your friends. This is information that's important.

So we're going to keep doing it. Every Friday night we'll be putting out another off the record. May not always be a guest. It was on here. Another interview maybe I've done around Europe or somewhere else is some good ones that are in the can that you'll be watching. But go ahead and tune in Fridays. Tell your friends. All they do is put in their email in order to get it.

get on the other side of High Wire Plus and watching off the record. And speaking of just the world shifting and the pendulum moving, as it turns out, maybe bearded princesses weren't such a hot idea. After all, it's a new head of Disneyland. There's new royalty at the top of the Magic Kingdom. Josh Tomorrow, who had been head of the Parks Division, is being named the next CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Josh Tomorrow will be the new chief executive officer of Disney, 28-year Disney veteran and current chairman of Disney experiences.

The decision ending a year's long succession search for Bob Eiger, who's been running the company for almost two decades. This next chapter is about number one, telling great stories. We'll never forget that. We want to move with more speed and urgency than we have before. Embrace technology even more aggressively than we have in the past. And importantly, bring this company together. Disney is moving to where the profits are, and they want to continue to grow it while the media business continues to come under pressure. It has all to do with the fact that what they have been doing in the past like 10, 11 years by focusing so much on DEI this and DEI that and all this agenda-driven

garbage is that, yeah, it caught up to them and they now have to take some level of action to kind of dial back a little bit. Well, I mean, look, I think this is actually a perfect story of what we just talked about. The truth is, is you vote with your dollars. It's really that simple. And, you know, one of the things I love about this story as many is that, you know, we are the ones that change. The people change. The government in the United States didn't come in and say, hey, we're stopping DEI. We're going to put controls on Disney. Federal government is moving in.

The state of Florida is going to shut down Disneyland if they don't stop DEI. You just stopped watching the movies. You just stopped going to Disneyland. You just said, frankly, I don't feel like having my four-year-old daughter running around a princess outfit wondering why. this princess has got a mustache and a beard or my son asking why is the princess peeing standing up next to me in the restroom. These are things that are just a part of. And look, I've got nothing against how anyone lives, but we're talking about children. We're talking about children's products in a children's space. And why can't that just be left to, hey, ladies and gentlemen, as it

Turns out they're back to not just friends, welcome. It's ladies and gentlemen or boys and girls. It's just refreshing to see that things do come swinging back around, but mostly what I think I want you to get from this is both these gentlemen we're talking about your focus and where you put it, that we live in a world now where we bring a lot of power. When we get on social media, we complain about Disneyland, when we boycott movies, when we stop eating products, it matters. It matters. So look at the things

you're doing. Are you using products, engaging with companies that you don't like their standards? You don't like how they talk about humanity. You don't like what they're doing for humanity. We have so many options now. Focus on the ones that are doing it, right? And I think that a lot of people are going to return to Disneyland, say, boy, it would be great to just get back to those good old-fashioned boy meets girl love stories and the things that made Disney big once before will probably do it again if they want to break out that's fine but look the consumers have decided and the new head of Disneyland realizes hey just like almost every company of the world economic format as it turns out this DEI thing wasn't so hot for our bottom line because you

matter I keep saying it you are power powerful. The news will keep telling you you have no power. There will be governments that will pray that you don't recognize that you have power, but we do. We are the ones deciding everything we outnumber them. We're the ones consuming it. We can take it or we can leave it. And so I think it's really important to think about what you're doing, what you are buying, what you are focused on, because by the way, your kids are watching what you buy. They're watching what you focus on too. be speaking this weekend. If you want to see, we're going to be up in Silicon Valley for the Free Now Foundation. Great fundraise. This is a great group in California where we're seeing so much progress around the world. California is just still in hell when I talk about informed consent at the very beginning of the show. California is seeing none of it, but the Free Now Foundation is one of those groups that's fighting for California specifically. So let's just bring that up one more time if you want to see. Just go to Freenow Foundation.org.

and you can get a ticket to me, see me speaking Saturday night, September 12th. I'm looking forward to it. In the end, there is just us, you, me, our networks, our communities, and those communities are growing every single day. I see a lot of people whining about what's not moving fast enough or what's not going our direction or can you believe the avocado oils are lying. Boy, we so quickly want to just jump on that and poo it and throw up. our hands and give up. I actually think this is one of the things about judgment, about judging

Bobby or judging President Trump or judging a food company or judging, you know, especially the people, you know, I'm going to say, it felt like I grew up a preacher's kid. And I think a lot of you know that. I'm the son of a minister. And one of the things about being a P.K., you know what it is? It's like you get narked on for every damn thing that goes wrong. If I sneak, snuck into an adult movie. My parents found out about it. It made me have to be as pious as my dad appeared. But what I think it is is that people don't want to believe in, you know, something great. They want to just say, look, their kid is just as messed up as my kid. The preacher's kid is just as messed up. Therefore, I don't have to work any harder here. I'm going to just

accept where it's at. We do this with the products around. See, Robert Kennedy Jr. can't do anything. So there's no point in me making an effort. If the president of the United States can't changes. Why should I put any energy into it? These are all excuses so that we can sit on our couches and do nothing but judge everyone else. It's all not going perfectly. It's not all swinging our way, but a lot is changing. But most of those changes are not being made inside of government, not necessarily even inside of heads of company. It's people that got off their couches, got up and started talking, everyone they know, started making a difference in the community, started, you know what, I can't find a chocolate? Let me make a chocolate. I don't like the

organic beef that's out there. Let me see if I can produce a better product. That's ingenuity. That is the future. That's what it means to be independent. That is what it means to have sovereignty. You're not waiting for someone else to do it. You are the change. Be the change. Don't be the whiner. Be the change. And the world will be a better. better place, not just for us, but for our children and our children's children and the seven generations ahead of us. That's the ethic of change. That's what it is.

It starts, as they always say, very simply, with me. I'll see you next week on the High Wire.