The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 503: Alex Clark—Don't Eat That

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

What if some of the food we've been told is convenient, affordable, and perfectly safe is actually making us sick? Alex Clark, host of the popular Culture Apothecary podcast and a passionate advocate ...for healthier food, joins Mike to discuss Breaking Big Food, a documentary in which she appears that takes a hard look at what's really behind America's processed-food problem. The conversation explores how Big Food adopted tactics pioneered by Big Tobacco, the science and marketing behind ultra-processed foods, what happens when corporate interests collide with public health, and why it's so difficult to know what's actually good for us anymore. But this isn't just a crusade for Alex—it's personal. She tells Mike about her father's battle with chronic illness and death, and how it inspired her mission to figure out why so much of what we eat seems determined to kill us. Alex gets fired up. Mike gets curious. And together, they ask a simple question: What exactly are we eating? Today's episode is sponsored by PureTalk.com/ROWE—Switch your phone service today and get UNLIMITED high-speed data for just $34.99 a month and save an additional 50% off your first month. CamelCityMill.com—The last work sock you'll ever need. 100% American made with a 10year warranty.  Use code ROWE for 10% off Mike's favorite work sock. NetSuite.com/Mike—The #1 Cloud ER. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite'sFREE business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI Is Changing Everyday Work.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:03 And welcome to another episode of The Way I heard it. How are you, Chuck? Great, Mike. How are you? Are you hungry after that one? No, not entirely. Not entirely. This episode is called Don't Eat That because, honestly, everywhere I turn, everywhere I look, it seems that that bit of advice in some way, shape, or form is being articulated
Starting point is 00:00:27 and directed toward me with an increasing level of passion and enthusiasm. Is it just me? No, in particular, this Alex Clark really brought the passion and enthusiasm. Yeah, you know, I don't know if you know her. She's made the rounds. And every week or so, she seems to be getting more and more traction out there in the, in the ecosystem of whatever this is. How do people get known these days anyway? I mean, you know, all of a sudden, you're everywhere all at once.
Starting point is 00:00:58 Yeah, video goes viral. You know, you say something off. color or maybe controversial. Controversial, yeah. Yeah. Alex Clark has said some controversial thing. She has a very successful podcast that's growing by leaps and bounds called culture,
Starting point is 00:01:16 apothecary. Yep. What Alex is doing is taking on virtually everything and every one of, it feels like, the stuff from seed oils to the stuff in toothpaste that really shouldn't be in toothpaste. And I'm not talking about fluoride. I'm talking about sugar and all sorts of other things. Stuff that's in the lotions, virtually everything in your makeup.
Starting point is 00:01:40 It feels to me as if virtually everything has something in it that's just either unpronounceable, unnecessary, or bad for us. Yeah, everything's going to kill us in one way or another, it seems. Yeah. So there's this movie called Breaking Big Food that I watched a couple of months ago by a couple Sullivan's, I think, right? Yeah, that's right. Patrick and
Starting point is 00:02:07 Ashley. Yeah. And, you know, they're just on a mission. He got sick and, you know, a lot of it had to do with his diet. And so they just kind of turn their lives around like so many people are doing. And Alex Clark has mentioned in this movie. In fact, she's featured. And
Starting point is 00:02:22 more recently, she's been to the White House to express her frustration with an executive order that did not, in fact, ban the use of a chemical, most often associated with Roundup. I think it's called, that starts with a G and ends with a thane. There you go. It's not glutathymia. That's what I want to say. Are you sure? Yeah, because I drink that every night for my liver now. Oh, really? Yes. Okay. It's not glutathimee, but it's
Starting point is 00:02:48 something like that. Anyway, she's a lot of fun because she cares deeply and she's well informed and she's very controversial because she's taking on the establishment. And the establishment does not like to be taken on. But she's pissed. She's pissed off because among other things, a study was released not that long ago that argued a bowl of lucky charms had the nutritional equivalence of a bowl of ground beef. That is just ridiculous. It's like common sense would tell one that that's not true. Yes. And so whatever's happening in our culture more broadly has really been synthesized into Alex's brain and to her podcast and to the mission that she is clearly on. So I thought it would be a kick to hear from her and I was right. She has a lot to say. She's smart. She's funny. She's convicted.
Starting point is 00:03:43 Yep. You'll meet her. And you'll remember her right after this. Much as I'd like to attribute Pure Talk's explosive growth and unprecedented success to their decision to hire me as their official spokesman. I'm afraid I can't do that because I don't tell people to switch from big wireless to pure talk simply because I did. I tell people to do their homework. And even though I'm personally delighted with the service and the company, and even though I've personally saved thousands of dollars by switching, I'd never tell anybody to simply take my word for it. What I will do is brag about the results of the largest industry survey of its kind. 120,000 wireless customers were just asked to rate every wireless company out there for coverage, support, value, and data.
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Starting point is 00:05:10 Everything you need and nothing you don't at puretalk.com slash row. Pure Talk. Are we rolling, Chucky? Yeah, we are rolling. Fantastic. All right, Alex Clark is here from Scottsdale, where we were just discussing the temperature on the ground is somewhere between the surface of the sun and supernova. Yeah, and Satan's butthole probably.
Starting point is 00:05:48 Jeez, you had to drag the devil into it. Yeah, I never really think about the devil as having a lower GI tractor or anything involved. But I guess he must, right? I mean, if he embodies basic sort of human form. It's definitely possible. I mean, he was an angel, right, who fell. He's a fallen angel. So I don't know.
Starting point is 00:06:07 But I don't think people go to the bathroom and he. heaven, so maybe not, you know? Do you think maybe in hell then, they never leave the bathroom? That would make sense. I mean, if you've ever eaten a Taco Bell, it would make sense. Oh, God. It is so hot there. I remember leaving Phoenix a couple years ago.
Starting point is 00:06:25 It was 121, and the pilot came on with two announcements. The first was, he said, folks, we'll be on our way in a minute. Our tires are currently stuck to the runway. Oh, gross, yeah. And then he came on to say, you know, we've just been doing the math up here the cockpit, and we've determined that we'd be better off holistically if we had a few volunteers just to get off to get the weight ratio. And at that point, I'm like, I'll go. I'm off. Well, anytime you land in Phoenix during this time of the year, it's a requirement. You have to make
Starting point is 00:06:54 sure your air vents are on in the plane. All of the window shades have to go down. Oh, yeah. You know, all of that kind of stuff, because it is the worst. Did you grow up there? I didn't. I grew up in Southern Indiana by Louisville, Kentucky. So going to the Derby and doing all that. I started a radio career there. And I was 18, just had graduated high school, and that kind of started the whole trajectory of how I ended up at Turning Point USA. What in the world happened to you? I'm sure you're sick of telling the story. I wanted to talk to you because I think the most important quality and the one that's in short supply right now in our country is skepticism. I think it's really, really important right now. If we're ever going to get our faith back in our institutions to, be brutally skeptical of them now. And you seem to be pretty skeptical of a lot of what you might call the standard orthodoxy around the food and nutrition. Yeah, and I wasn't always. So basically, here's my story. I grew up in Indiana in a Christian conservative home. I had, you know,
Starting point is 00:07:59 my parents had Fox News on every single night. I grew up listening to Dennis Prager and Michael Medved and watching the O'Reilly Factor, right? And Sean Hannity and Combs and all of that stuff. And so that's how I grew up. And so as a conservative, we were very distrusting of mainstream media and the Department of Education and big tech and all of those things. But conservatives never historically questioned pharma or food. We just assumed if it's being sold in the grocery store, then it's safe. Because we have an acronym looking out for us, right?
Starting point is 00:08:32 We have the FDA. We have whatever other long list of bureaucratic assets. that are going to protect us. Yeah. And so I thought, like I think the majority of Americans thought is, well, there must be so many steps and rules and things that brands have to go through before they're allowed to put an ingredient in your food. And during the pandemic, and I had grown up, well, let me say this, I had grown up eating primarily ultra-processed food, standard American diet. In high school, it was very normal for me to go through the line and just take six rice-crispy
Starting point is 00:09:06 treats and a Hawaiian punch. And that was my meal. I mean, it was horrible. I had zero nutrition for, like, the first half of my life. And my mom definitely tried, bless her heart. She tried to get me to eat real stuff, and I just didn't. I was addicted to sugar and ultra-process stuff. And by nature, they make it so addictive, which we can get into. But during the pandemic, when they mandated the vaccine, as somebody who had never questioned
Starting point is 00:09:28 any health advice or anything or our medical institutions, I just thought, this is so wrong to me, to tell people you have to put something into your body, whether you like it or or you're going to lose your job or you're not going to be allowed to participate in public spaces. And so when I started looking into that, I thought, okay, well, has the FDA ever been wrong before? And of course, you start looking into this and you go down the road of thalidomide, which was recommended to pregnant women, you know, which caused all kinds of birth defects and... Love canal. Yeah, all sorts of stuff. I mean, there's a bunch of things, but it also reminded me of oxycotton.
Starting point is 00:10:05 And Oxycontin, we were told, was the first non-addictive opioid, right, when it came onto the scene in the late 90s. You ever see Dobsick? So this is what's crazy. I'm so glad you bring this up. During the pandemic is when dopesick comes out. And I'm watching this, and I'm already having, like, the wheels are turning where I'm questioning, you know, how much can I trust the government when it comes to health recommendations? I'm watching dopesick, and I was very ignorant on the opioid crisis. I'm very privileged to be able to say, you know, my family wasn't touched by that.
Starting point is 00:10:35 And so I just didn't understand a lot of it. And I'm watching the show and I am enthralled. Like, I am reading every book I can about the Purdue Pharma scandal now and OxyContin and all these different things. Yes. And I just thought, this is the number one American true crime story. How is not everyone talking about this and talking about how we are not, we, it's not totally guaranteed that we should trust some of these three letter institutions, right? And so that really jump started my journey. after watching dopesick into questioning everything I had been told about health. Dobsick, if I remember, that's actors were portraying real life stories, right, from people who had become just remorselessly addicted. And it was just one story after another. But it was
Starting point is 00:11:24 powerful because it was rooted in a doc, but it was a portrayal. Was that the one? Yeah. So it's based on the book by Beth Macy called Dobsick. And so that was like a real life. kind of picture of these blue-collar states and cities that were wrecked by OxyContin and stories of real people who were affected, from doctors to athletes and, you know, just stayed-home moms or whatever. And so then Hulu came in and they were like, okay, let's have actors portray some of these stories. So it was like, you know, probably a little bit twisted or embellished, but overall based on the real story. Well, sure. I mean, I just talked to a guy the other day who produced a great movie called Young Washington. And he made the point. He's like,
Starting point is 00:12:05 look, when you're dealing with a topic, any topic that's really rooted in history, you have to remember when you're making the movie, you're not taking a picture. You're painting a portrait. And, you know, it's incumbent on you to get the broad strokes right. But the rest, you've got to get people interested enough to watch. You know, you've got to get them engaged. If you don't, then, well, who cares? What have you done? Yeah, so I was staying up all hours reading books on Monsan. and the American Beverage Association and all these different things and just had never heard any of this. And so I started sharing the information I was learning with my audience, which are a bunch of, you know, typically conservative women 25 to 35 years old. And I'm like, have you guys heard this before?
Starting point is 00:12:54 I had never. Your audience, are you talking about their radio days or culture apothecary? With Turning Point USA. Okay. So these are a bunch of young conservative women who had been following me. And they kind of grew up similarly to me. And they had never heard any of this either. And I start sharing everything that I was learning.
Starting point is 00:13:10 And my analytics for my content on social media, my show, just go through the roof. And so I knew that I needed to rebrand my show to be specifically a conservative health and wellness podcast, which is what it is now. And so in early 2024, I told Turning Point, hey, I think I need to rebrand. I think actually the future of the conservative movement with women is going to be health. And nobody was talking about this. They were like, what are you talking about? What does health have to do with conservative politics?
Starting point is 00:13:39 I was like, I don't think you understand. Everyone is so passionate about this, and nobody votes harder than a pissed off mom of a sick kid who cannot get any answers. And you need to be paying attention to this because if the Republican Party, because, you know, I'm a conservative. So I care about us winning. And so I'm like, if we want the Republican Party to win, we need to start sharing what we're going to do about these different issues. And by the way, these are all nonpartisan issues. So it's really not Republican. I'm just saying someone, Democrat or Republican,
Starting point is 00:14:09 somebody should be talking about it. And nobody was. In fact, Bobby Kennedy, who now, of course, famously jumped in there with Trump, he tried to go to the Harris campaign and said, hey, would you guys be willing to talk with me and work with me on how we can make America healthy again? And she said no.
Starting point is 00:14:25 I really think that Kamala could have had a better chance of winning if she would have taken that opportunity to partner with Bobby. that Trump did. Why didn't she? Because she's one of the most bought and paid for candidates that Farma has ever had. And so the Democrat Party is completely bought into Farma. But to be fair, because I call everyone out, the Republican Party is completely bought and paid for by big ag and big chemical. No kidding. What the heck was, what was that EO with that unpronounceable crap? Glyphosate. Yeah. What, I mean, come on. I mean, you grow up in a part of the
Starting point is 00:15:02 country where farmers are getting absolutely, they're just taking it in the neck on account of this stuff. It seems, it seems like it. It's definitely going to go down in history as one of the most controversial moves by the Trump administration bargain for this term. Explain it just so people are tracking. So the Trump admin comes out with this executive order basically saying we're going to protect glyphosate, which is a pesticide that is used on crops. You find it in Roundup that you spray in your yard, at our playgrounds where kids play, and the Trump admin says, basically, we're going to protect it. It's a national security issue because without it, you know, everybody starves, basically. Right. The whole food chain would get very wobbly.
Starting point is 00:15:48 Which is true. If you suddenly said you can't use this. Of course. And I've never advocated for a ban of it. But the problem is, is one, we shouldn't be just going out and saying this is a national security issue. We need to ramp up production and then also protect it. We should be saying, okay, how are we going to help our farmers transition off this cancer-causing pesticide? And everyone who is, you know, a friend of Bayer is going to say, well, there's no proof it causes cancer. Then tell me why you've done over $16 billion in settlements for cancer. If it doesn't cause cancer, what are you settling on?
Starting point is 00:16:24 That's a German company, right? Correct. So that's the other thing. So we are partnering with and protecting foreign chemical companies, Kemp China, China, Bayer is Germany. These aren't even American companies that we are going above and beyond to protect. But what made this so bad in particular is that you have moms across the country, Democrat, Republican, and everybody in between, who knows that this pesticide that is covered, has covered our food.
Starting point is 00:16:53 And the parks that their kids play in is, you know, contributing to asthma and allergies and all of these different gut issues that kids have. of course, cancer, and they want something done about it. And so the executive order comes out at the same time that companies like Bayer are going state to state and trying to pass pesticide liability shields. Now, these liability shields would prevent citizens of that state from suing over 57,000 different chemical products in their companies if they are made sick from their product. Now, I can't imagine. I can't think of anything less American than that, that it's.
Starting point is 00:17:29 that if this product makes you sick, and by the way, it's owned by a foreign company, you cannot sue. If you, your husband, your child gets cancer. And so I have been working really hard in the last year with a few other key people in the Maha movement that Make America Healthy Again movement. We've protested at the Supreme Court
Starting point is 00:17:47 and we've gone to the White House to meet with the president himself and done a round table with the whole admin, you know, explaining why this is so important to change track on because this really matters to mom. but families. Did they listen?
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Starting point is 00:19:33 Pick up a bundle. Save an extra 10% with promo code row. That's camelcity mill.com code row. Camelcity mill.com code row. Well, it's been, that was in April. And so now it's been a few months. So yeah, now it's starting to feel like it was a pat on the head. But you know what? We'll just see where the chips fall in the midterms. Because I said this is, Pesticides are the number one most important issue to these moms that won 2024. You have basically given them the middle finger on this issue. In fact, the USDA just announced that they have ramped up production of cotton fields so that we can have more sustainable clothing.
Starting point is 00:20:11 Well, what are we using on our cotton crops? They're not organic cotton crops. So we're using glyphosate. So they're packaging all of these different initiatives and announcements to make it look maha. But in reality, it's all a handshake, a backdoor handshake for Bayer. Okay, let's back up a little bit so people really understand. And I'll take care of some of this in the preamble. So the basic exposition, right?
Starting point is 00:20:34 But you're a kid with a garbage gut. You eat like crap. You're doing everything wrong right in high school. You're just eating garbage. And somehow or another, you get hooked up with TPSA, and you start to change your diet a bit, I suppose. And then you realize that this larger issue that touches everything from toothpaste to cosmetics
Starting point is 00:20:55 to the lotions we put on our skin. And of course, anything we chew and swallow that falls under the food category, all of it becomes increasingly suspect in your mind. And so this is the audience you want to talk to. When does culture apothecary become a thing? How large is your audience? And when you talk about these moms as a cohort,
Starting point is 00:21:19 are they by and large your audience today? Yeah, so those moms are my audience. I went to Charlie Kirk in July of 2024, and I was like, look, I need to rebrand my show by September. I just, in my mind, I knew September was going to be the month to do it. Had no idea, by the way, that Bobby was going to come out and endorse Trump. We had no idea. And I said, I know that this is the future of the conservative movement with women. Maybe because we're heading into midterms, they won't care right now.
Starting point is 00:21:47 You know, my rebrand, it might be like a small, like, blip on the radar in the scheme of things that I've rebranded to use health and wellness show, because everybody's going to be talking about midterms. What was your prior show called? The spillover. It was just a, it was a generic interview show podcast that I was doing with Turning Point where I interviewed people that were experts and fascinating things or had amazing life stories. Like, they survived a serial killer or something like that. So I just. Sorry, but what kind of audience did you have just in terms of numbers so I can. Oh, like numbers? I mean, I mean, not even close to what I was. It did okay. It was just very niche and very small. I think before we rebranded, I had maybe accumulated like 7 million downloads, okay, in like a couple years. So it wasn't horrible, I mean, but it wasn't amazing. So I go to Charlie, I pitched this idea. I said, I really think this is the future. He said, okay, let's do it.
Starting point is 00:22:42 Like, I trust you. If you really feel strongly about this, you see the data. Let's try it out. I had planned the date to rebrand two weeks before that. Bobby Kennedy comes out endorses Trump, make America healthy. again is born. It explodes. And then I come out and I'm like, hey, I'm the, I'm the conservative girl and I'm doing a health podcast. And it just absolutely explodes. We thought the numbers, there was a typo. In fact, Charlie, when we told him how well it was doing after a couple months, he was like, you need to go back
Starting point is 00:23:10 and run these numbers. And we were like, no, we did seven times and this is the number. And he was like, well, you're right behind me. And I was like, exactly. I was like, so you better watch out. No, he was so proud and so excited and he really saw then and there like okay this is this is serious we have serious power here going to the election Alex was right um and you know we've maintained that success we're a top 10 health and wellness podcast if you look on Spotify charts in the health charts any idea how many people are listening uh we are i don't know getting close to 60 million downloads i think yeah so that kind of shows you the scale of i mean well somebody's digging somebody's digging what you're screaming yeah So it is all of these young women who are starting families for the first time and they see their precious, perfect baby.
Starting point is 00:23:59 And they're like, you know, how do I keep you safe? How do I protect you? What do I feed you? All of the guidance that I'm getting is literally bought and paid for by the big food companies. So that was a huge wake-up call for myself and my audience is finding out that a lot of the nutritional information that were given was genuinely paid for by people in big food companies. And it's like, well, how is that legal? How is that allowed? Exactly.
Starting point is 00:24:24 It shouldn't be. You've got this revolving door of the people in the government that are making decisions based on, you know, how safe a food product is. They literally have worked or will end up working at those same food companies. So you're pissing off people right and left. Every day, Mike. Every day. What is you? Including the White House every day.
Starting point is 00:24:45 Because like I said, I'm an equal opportunity. I call it out. I am, it is so important to me. just share the truth. And so if you're doing a great job, I'm going to say it. And if you're doing a crap job, I'm going to say it. How confident are you that you know what the truth is? And before you answer, consider how sure you were once upon a time of what the truth was. I don't think I was sure about what the truth was before. I think I was very ignorant. I just assumed I was outselling knowledge and I just assumed somebody else must know better.
Starting point is 00:25:21 than me. And the truth is, is that knowledge is basically free at this point. You don't even have, you don't have to go to college. You can find anything you want to know on YouTube. You can look up anything. You can read any book. I mean, you have all these amazing podcasts. You can learn all the stuff, right? You can listen to the experts. You can listen to the professors. I think a lot of us are smarter than we've been led to believe, right? Because they tell us, you need to trust the experts, or you don't know your own child. I'm the doctor. You don't know. I think a lot of people during the pandemic woke up and said, no, I'm sick of this. I'm sick of being told that I'm too stupid to understand. And I'm interested in finding out for myself. One small tweak, if you'll
Starting point is 00:26:03 permit me, devil's advocate. Knowledge may be not quite as ubiquitous as information. The information is a fire hose and it's everywhere. Right. And I get this. criticism a lot myself because I'm one more voice in a really noisy cacophony. I have an opinion about a couple of things that I'm pretty dug in on. I'm pretty persuadable in most other areas and I'm pretty skeptical now overall. But the difference between information and knowledge and wisdom ultimately, right? Like we just want to we just want to know. And I said to a guy who sat here yesterday who I think you would probably love a doctor called Philip Ovadia. Philip Ovadia. You know him? I don't. You're going to dig this cat, man. He wrote a book called
Starting point is 00:27:00 Stay Off My Operating Table and another one called Stay Off My Kitchen Table. The difference with respect between him and you and me and him is that he's a heart surgeon. He's done over 3,000 open heart surgeries. And he lost 100 pounds that he desperately needed to. I mean, imagine a thoracic surgeon, cardiac surgeon, 100 pounds overweight, about to cut through your sternum to fix something. Like the cognitive dissonance is incredible. But this guy now is basically, if you distilled everything he's doing into three words,
Starting point is 00:27:38 it would be meat is medicine. Great. All right. And I'm with you. And I'm with him. but that's what like the average person who is truly open-minded and truly skeptical now has to sift through books like his shows like yours people like me like we're all out there and like the like the certainty is easy information's easy knowledge is hard wisdom is tough yeah so how do you
Starting point is 00:28:11 think about that and how do you like because i know you're in business I got a business to run too. Packaging matters, marketing matters. And this pesky truth thing is like fluttering around it, like a moth around a flame, you know? I think it's asking people to bring back common sense. When you're talking about how we have all this information, how do you know what's true? Okay. So, for example, the experts put out a study saying that lucky charms were as healthy as ground beef, actually healthier. I believe what they said was it's magically delicious. Common sense would tell you.
Starting point is 00:28:52 That's not right. And so I think there are certain things, again, when you are looking at your child and they're struggling with something, they've got eczema or whatever, and you're like, okay, something isn't right, or I know my child is vaccine injured. We had none of these symptoms
Starting point is 00:29:06 until they took that MMR vaccine. And you're going to your pediatrician and you're explaining all of this evidence that you've seen with your own eyes and you're saying this isn't right. And, you know, the experts are telling you, well, that can't be right. I think a lot of this health advice that we have been given conventional medical wisdom is lacking common sense.
Starting point is 00:29:30 And so, you know, when it comes to, when you find out like how the FDA, again, has been promoting people to work there that we're with big food companies, you know, those are the types of things that I think you should question and pause. and kind of look more into things. Does that answer the question? Yeah, it does. You know, I think about it. The other book I'm really stuck on now
Starting point is 00:29:52 is called Collective Allusions by a guy called Todd Rose. And he, among many great points, argues that the thing we ought to be most worried about as a country is the power of the manufactured consensus. And that's why I think skepticism, by and large, is important on both sides,
Starting point is 00:30:12 on all things pretty much all the time, because the power of the media that you're in, the social media, the thing we're doing right now, when you get a consensus, when you get an audience, it's really easy to tell them what they want to hear, once you know what they want to hear. And that's the thing that I worry about. Like, for instance, right now there's a giant consensus in this country that data centers are bad and that AI is going to kill us. 75% of the people are very skeptical of that. But why are we so skeptical of it?
Starting point is 00:30:51 Maybe we saw the Terminator, maybe we saw the Matrix, or maybe the Chinese government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to impact the algorithms that determine the very ecosystem where you and I make our living to populate those ecosystems with all kinds of bot-driven messages to instill fear, skepticism, and uncertainty about this thing. And so the result in this country is 75% of us have a very negative view about data centers and what's coming.
Starting point is 00:31:25 In China, 85% think positively about the exact same things. So when I, like, I guess maybe my question to you is what consensus is that you're skeptical of do you believe we're manufactured? And how do you navigate them? How do you view them on your show? Are they a necessary villain? Are they the foil? And is the consensus in general terms your enemy?
Starting point is 00:31:57 Or have you created a consensus of your own that's starting to feel? You know what I mean? It's very tough to know when it tips. No, for sure. And so I try to, there's definitely some people I throw in there, like on my guest, roster that I don't necessarily agree with. I think, you know, that's interesting. I think it is important to listen to people that you think you don't agree with or you know you don't agree with
Starting point is 00:32:20 so that you can understand how the other side is thinking. You understand their argument. So I do encourage my audience to kind of go outside of that bubble. And here's the other thing, too. So if people listen to my show and they're hearing like, you know, a lot of anti-vaccine episodes, for example, they're like, well, why don't you spotlight a doctor who is pro-vaccine? I'm like, that's all you've ever heard. Lots of so-called experts disagree about the ultimate impact of artificial intelligence on humanity.
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Starting point is 00:33:41 This is the definitive guide to how AI can reshape work across your entire organization and how you can position your business to prosper from that shift. If your revenues are seven figures or better, pick up your free copy of Aligning for the Agenic Era, how AI is changing everyday work at netseweek.com slash Mike. The guide is free at netsuite.com. slash mike. That's net sweet.com slash mike. That consensus is basically everywhere. It has been a lot harder in the last several years. I mean, social media completely banned. You couldn't even post a
Starting point is 00:34:41 clip on Instagram using the word vaccine during the whole pandemic. So, you know, if you are looking for conventional medical advice, that's easy to find. That is the status quo. that we have been living under for the last, I don't know, 100 years, right, since Rockefeller? And so what did we get? Okay, so if people are like, well, how do you know that this way is right? How do you know that questioning these different institutions is right? How do I know? Well, look at where following the other experts, quote unquote, has gotten us. Okay? So we did their way. By the way, those same doctors who were supposed to be trusting were telling you it's okay and healthy to smoke, right? So those people have now led us where,
Starting point is 00:35:24 half the nation is completely morbidly obese. You have skyrocketing rates of non-alcoholic liver disease in teens, in teenagers. The reason why we had to rename type 2 by adult onset diabetes to type 2 diabetes was because so many freaking people were getting it and they weren't just adults. This is a diet and lifestyle disease. You are choosing to be fat. You are. You know, when it comes to that, like it's what you're eating.
Starting point is 00:35:48 It's how you're living your life. Now, when I look at those numbers and see where we're at, You cannot tell me that the conventional wisdom from the American Heart Association, who, by the way, was taking money from big canola and seed oils, which causes heart disease, by the way. Like, does any of this clock? Is any of this making sense? So, like, when I see stuff like that, I'm like, hello? I mean, what do we have to lose by trying something different? You know what I'm saying? What do we have to lose?
Starting point is 00:36:19 Again, you've got one in 12. We're in the state of California. one in 12 boys in the state of California is being diagnosed with autism. How can you tell me that this isn't environmental? You don't see, it's not that we're just finding a better way of testing it. No, that's bull. Because if that were true, you would see all these old people walking through the mall or down Santa Monica Pier, head banging and drooling and flinging poop or whatever.
Starting point is 00:36:44 It's not true. It's only happening in younger kids. And it's not that you have RFK Jr. saying we need to find out what's causing autism because we hate autism and autistic kids. We're not talking about the super geniuses who can, you know, you can say, what was the weather on June 4th, 1942, and they just know. We're not talking about those kids. We're talking about the kids who are living in a mental prison,
Starting point is 00:37:08 and their families are in a mental prison, and we're wanting to know how did that happen? Because you didn't always have that. And so when you're looking at literally just everyone, you know, cancer exploding under 30 years old, pediatric cancer, exploding. Just the infertility rate that's gone up 1% every single year, when you look at statistics like that, you know that something isn't right. And so it has to be something that we have been doing now for the last several decades. And what has that been? It's been following
Starting point is 00:37:39 this conventional advice on what is or isn't healthy to eat. Who'd you just piss off with the birth control thing? What was that all about? I make everybody mad only because I'm a conservative raising the alarms on hormonal birth control and the dangers to women's health. If I was a liberal, nobody would care. And I say that because it was actually liberal feminists who first brought up the birth control conversation and said, there's something not right with this pill. There's something you're not telling us. It's making us unbelievably sick. And you're not telling us the truth. It was liberal feminists in the 70s at the Nelson pill hearings who brought this up. And because they made a huge stink over it, that's why when a woman now is prescribed,
Starting point is 00:38:19 birth control, you open up your pill packet. There's like a, literally, it's like the size of this table, a huge pamphlet that has microscopic text of all the different risks and side effects. We didn't have that for the first couple decades of birth control until those liberal women raised alarms. And so now we have it. But this was really actually a feminist liberal cause because they were sold to take birth control first, right?
Starting point is 00:38:43 They were told, you should be living as men, you know, being the same. go to work, don't worry about getting pregnant, all these things. And so they took it first. And then they were finding out the risks and the side effects were so dire, were so terrible. And so when I started talking about it, because like I said, conservative women, we just trust it. We had no idea about any of this. When I started bringing up with my audience, their minds were blown. NBC news and all these different outlets are reporting on me talking about it as if I'm some like Christian
Starting point is 00:39:15 nationalist. And, you know, my goal is to have. Do they hate you, man? Yeah. You really, I guess, you know, what's the expression? You know you're over the target when you start taking that kind of flack. Well, and that's what I would say to them. Every single reporter that would talk to me, I would say, you know,
Starting point is 00:39:33 why aren't you questioning all of the liberal activists who've been talking about this? They don't ever publish that part that I say that. Well, I'm going to go back to a second. No one looks at common sense as the enemy. No one says, you know, don't, don't give me that. Everyone thinks their opinion rhymes in some way. But you do make a good point. I think in a way, the simpler point is that long shot of a sold-out crowd at Yankee Stadium in 1962,
Starting point is 00:40:08 next to that same exact angle of a sold-out crowd in 2026. In the first picture, you play a game called, find the morbidly obese person. You can't. You can't. There are 50,000 of them there, and you look and you look and they, you just can't, like, where are they? Ask the same question in 2026, and it's pretty easy.
Starting point is 00:40:35 They're everywhere. In fact, it's mostly everyone. So that's the argument I make when I think about the status quo and when I think about a consensus, you know, things change over time. You're right about the doctors too. When you see a guy in a lap coat smoking a palm all telling you it'll calm your nerves, it's not the fact that he's wrong. It's the fact that he's certain. And where does his credibility come from? And I think that's your point. He's sitting there not just as an agent of the cigarette manufacturer. He's sitting there under the office. He's sitting there under the
Starting point is 00:41:13 auspices of the government. And he's wearing his little costume. And we bought it. Why did we buy it? Jesus, because we want, we want a manual. We want an instruction manual. We need some direction.
Starting point is 00:41:30 We're desperate for it because what do we know? Well, and we trust authority. So I cannot think of the name of the study. You know what it is. You know, remember where they had those inmates, torture, the other, they thought somebody was in charge telling them, what to do. And then I don't know if you saw this documentary on Netflix a couple years ago
Starting point is 00:41:47 about the true story about the freak that was calling fast food restaurants for decades and decades and decades acting as a police officer and getting the managers of the restaurants to sexually assault their employees. Do you remember this? Yeah. Okay, that was a crazy doc. It was really well done. But I think of that. Like when you were told somebody is an expert and they're an authority, we're just so trusting. And it's a really, really scary place to be. I think that's something you know, parents really need to be thinking about is teaching your kids how to respectfully question authority, you know, ask why, and not just blindly trust the science. Are you worried, though, that, like, you know, a couple things can be true at the same time.
Starting point is 00:42:31 We can be right about the smoking. We can be right about the obesity. We can be right about the food pyramid. That's another great example. Not only was the food pyramid wrong, it was as wrong as wrong can be. Like you didn't have to rearrange the things in the, you just had to turn it upside down, right? So, yes, because authority has the capacity to deceive and or just be flat out wrong, and because we can point to examples where it happens, should our default position,
Starting point is 00:43:03 and I'm asking this as a skeptic, but should it be ratcheted up to the point where we fundamentally don't believe any authority at all? ever on its face where we just hold them to it like is there any consensus you're still comfortable with sure I think it's yes you question things but also when you're talking about experts it's not that you just don't trust any expert I'm talking about experts in quotes like you know the the ones that we are used to but I'm saying you know when you're being presented with a study okay who funded this study for example the Lucky Charms one that I brought up you know that's a real one that was done when we're told those different things
Starting point is 00:43:42 I think it's okay to look into, okay, well, where is this coming from? For example, there was a massive Washington Post expose in the last two years. They were wondering, you know, why are so many influencers on TikTok talking about body positivity? You know, everybody's talking about how like every size is healthy, every size matters, and, you know, it's rude for you to go to the doctor's office and for your doctor to question your weight and tell you that you need to lose weight. That's rude and hateful, and you should find a new doctor. Okay. So Washington Post looks into this and finds that tens of thousands of dollars were spent
Starting point is 00:44:18 by soda companies to give those influencers money to be talking about body positivity talking points. So that is an example of a consensus that so many people fell for in the last decade of, like, every size is beautiful and all of this stuff. No, it isn't. Because you're literally killing yourself. You'd say the same thing. I mean, look at Ariana Grande.
Starting point is 00:44:39 I'll say the same thing about Ariana Grande. She's not, oh, because something is wrong with her. Make her a sandwich now. It's so sad. It is so sad. And so that's not healthy either, right? Get her some of those rice crispsies.
Starting point is 00:44:49 Right? And you don't have to have six pack abs, but we also shouldn't be glorifying 600 pounds. And by the way, some of those influencers who were famous doing muck bangs and just like, look how much I can eat
Starting point is 00:45:00 and they're famous for being fat have died. In the last like five to 10 years that we've got famous on social media for being fat and saying it's okay to be fat. They're dead now. I'm thinking, like if we could get you out of your shell.
Starting point is 00:45:13 Right? Like, if I wasn't so shy. Yeah. Poor Chuck. Chuck is like, he's turned you down as far as you can go. I'm so sorry.
Starting point is 00:45:22 Should I push the mic? No, literally, your mic is off. But it's coming through this. So now he's turning mine down a little bit. No, look, man, I really appreciate your, your enthusiasm and your passion.
Starting point is 00:45:36 I sincerely, I think it's, I think, Well, it comes from a personal place. Here's the thing. So my dad died a year and a half ago at the age of 57. He had glioblastoma, brain cancer. He had heart failure, type 2 diabetes, multiple heart attacks.
Starting point is 00:45:56 My dad was addicted to ultra-processed food. Every single meal, it was White Castle. It was Burger King. It was Chick-fil-A. We went to the hospital to remove his brain tumor, and literally pulling out of the hospital, he was like, can we please go get Chick-Fleigh? And then a couple hours later, we got home,
Starting point is 00:46:13 can you please take me to Pizza Hut? The food killed my dad. I know it. We were also sitting in the hospital, and the internet just raked me over the colds for this, said, like, well, if I was your dad, I would want to die too, because we were in the hospital
Starting point is 00:46:26 the night before his brain tumor surgery, which, by the way, at that time, we were told he might have, like, a little over two years to live. And so we're just trying to buy as much time as we can. And as we're sitting there waiting for the surgery, the nurses keep bringing in cases of orange fanta. And I said, excuse me, my dad has brain tumor surgery tomorrow.
Starting point is 00:46:46 Maybe, don't you think, it might be a good idea for him to have water? And the nurse is like, well, that's a good point, Ms. Clark. Mr. Clark, what do you think about what your daughter is saying? And he's like, no, I'm my orange phanta. I mean, you know, my dad was totally that kind of guy. And so, you know, the hospitals, don't even get me started on the hospital food and everything. Well, that's being changed. we're telling them they're going to be losing a bunch of benefits and stuff if they're going to
Starting point is 00:47:09 continue to serve that crap and not adhere to the new dietary guidelines. How about our military for how many years? Oh, the military. The military is a whole other thing. It is atrocious what our men and women on the front lines have been being served is crazy. And then, you know, we're at like 70% of young American men are not even able to join the military because of different chronic diseases, morbid obesity, whatever. I mean, this is a national security issue.
Starting point is 00:47:35 But metabolic problems. Yes. In some flavor are keeping 70% of men in this country from qualifying for military service. This is extremely disturbing. I mean, this is putting our country in a totally vulnerable place. But when I, back to my dad, when I posted, you know, how disturbing it was at the hospital was aiding and abetting this addiction for, you know, and then he's in there for the disease that those products caused, I believe.
Starting point is 00:48:05 People online were like, well, your dad is dying. He should just have a soda. Like, Americans do not understand still. There's so much work to do in explaining the addictive qualities that have been done to our beverages, to our food that are making people sick. And these, I believe everything that my dad has, that my dad had, was completely avoidable with correct diet and lifestyle changes. Unfortunately, I didn't have my awakening until it was like way too late.
Starting point is 00:48:31 And my dad was so sick. And he was like, well, I don't remember when you went to medical school. I'm like, yeah. So, I mean, my dad was the first person. When you're talking about skeptics on this stuff, my dad was the number one person. And so I feel like I couldn't save my dad. But if I can save one more person or one more dad or some other family from meeting the same fate that my family did, I will feel so accomplished. And, you know, every single day I get messages because I'm not an expert.
Starting point is 00:49:00 I'm not. I interview the experts on various different things. and topics. And I am getting told, you know, listening to your show, I learned this, and I completely reverse this chronic disease. So, you know, I learned this. Now we know who our local farmer and rancher is. We never would have known that before. How important was this movie? Breaking Big Food. I watched it on a plane. I liked the couple at the center of it. Patrick and Ashley. Yeah. No, I think they're on a great mission. And, man, when I, you know, I saw the farmer in there who I would just, that's Dirty Jobs 101. I wanted to go.
Starting point is 00:49:34 back and reboot that show just to talk to that guy and, you know. But you popped up and I was like, okay, I'd seen you around before. In fact, you know, when Charlie was killed, I kind of went back to look at that whole cadre of people because I, he had interviewed me two or three days earlier. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know this. About what? About microworks. He was a big supporter. He was a big fan of what... Of the trades. Yeah. Yep.
Starting point is 00:50:06 He had invited me, in fact, to the next big event. And he invited me the year prior to, and it was always a scheduling issue. Well, you should come. We would love to have you. At America Fest, a huge December conference? Huge. Yeah, that'd be so fun. Well, we should talk about it.
Starting point is 00:50:23 Because I think all the rules have changed. I think all the standards have changed. I think all of credulity has changed. I think this movie, to everything we've said so far, is the perfect metaphor. You have a consensus, you know, a deeply held series of beliefs by a plurality of people. And a lot of it's wrong. Is all of it wrong? Is some of it wrong?
Starting point is 00:50:53 You know, we don't know yet. And again, I just keep coming back to the same question to you. Are you prepared to throw the baby out with the bathwater? Is it like a pox on all their houses? I think for the first time, you know, there is some hope. Like we've had some incredible changes coming out of government, right? You know, with this administration, with Bobby Kennedy, just like the pesticide stuff, I've called that out, right?
Starting point is 00:51:17 So like I feel like that should gain me some credibility with this audience, is that there, has this been perfect in making America healthy again? Absolutely not. Have we made more strides than we ever have previously with any other presidential administration, 100%. The fact that we completely revamp the dietary guidelines, we're looking into baby formula, what causes autism, banning food dies, right? A lot of states are banning ultra-processed food from school lunches or banning fluoride from the water supply. This is unprecedented. So what you have here, oh, looking into microplastics and the effects that that might have on infertility and other
Starting point is 00:51:55 chronic disease. So no other presidential administration has cared. Most all of that, have been bought and paid for by big food. You had the, you know, Michelle Obama previously, famously tried to tackle the obesity epidemic, right? And what a lot of people forget, because I know a lot of people in the left like to bring that up. Like, well, you guys think are so cool trying to make America healthy again. What about Michelle Obama? You know, they do that. And I'm like...
Starting point is 00:52:22 Do they make that sound? Yes, they always do. It's involuntary, I think. So they bring that up. I'm like, okay, hold on a minute. Yes, at first, one of the first, one of the same. 100% Michelle Obama had a really noble mission, which was to figure out why are so many American kids becoming obese, dangerously obese. Here's the problem. Within, I don't know, a month,
Starting point is 00:52:45 a year, maybe weeks. I don't know the exact timeline, but it was a very short amount of time. When she started that initiative, she changed it quickly. I don't even remember what the first name of the mission was, but she changed it to let's move. And then she was partnering with Subway, the fast food chain. Right. Yeah. And so, and by the way, at that time, Subway Sandwiches had yoga mat material in them. So she's like, why are kids so fat?
Starting point is 00:53:10 Here, have some yoga mat. You know, eat some shoe soles. That's what she was doing, you know, unknowingly. But she was totally bought and paid for by big food again. So it was like, we can't escape this matrix. Finally, we have a president that's like, no, I want to look into this. And again, I'm not saying he has been perfect, but at least he is trying and he has accomplish some things on this. So when people are like, well, what, you know, what's the difference
Starting point is 00:53:34 between the Democrats or the Republicans? The Republicans still have failed on some things. Sure, but the Democrats, when it comes to making America healthy again, specifically, this is what I'm talking about. When it comes to making America healthy again, the Democrats are currently offering Americans zero. Zero. They are offering you zero initiatives to fix anything. At least the Republicans are giving you something. My opinion, I'm taking what I can get. I am going to hold feet to the fire. I'm going to call people out, call people out, hold them accountable. You promise this on the campaign trail. Now this is happening. Why? You know, it's scary. The White House listens when you're somebody that has Turning Point USA in front of your name and you're calling out
Starting point is 00:54:14 things. They don't like it. I can tell you. But you know what? It's also a drag when they're pissed off at you, isn't it? It sucks. It has literally been the most terrifying last several months of my life. I can't express to you the scariest stuff. I need to write it in my like memoir one day. Dude, you just, I mean, you just said that there was yoga mats and subway food. It was before. I can't exactly, because, you know, the name is like, it's like something I can't even pronounce. You said once, if I remember, right. But Vani Hari, the food babe, exposed it.
Starting point is 00:54:44 She exposed the, that they were using that ingredient. I'm not saying they're not. I'm just saying. They quit several years ago. Well, yeah, and they also hired Jared. Yeah, I know. It hasn't been great. How that worked?
Starting point is 00:54:57 Yeah. Yeah. But look, I guess maybe if you're just a citizen on a search for truth, but you don't really have time to take the deep, deep, deep dive. And you come across an Alex sling, right? You're like, okay, you know, I think she's the big tobacco thing. Yeah, and the big food thing. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Starting point is 00:55:19 But then, you know, I got to brush my teeth with what, whole milk or something. And they're putting silly putty and chick filet and hold on a second. That's all true. And chem trails. And like... Chemtrails are true. They've had to testify with the United Nations.
Starting point is 00:55:33 Look, I'm saying that it's like nail and jello to a tree. Like once you say, all right, as a skeptic, you know, if this is true and that is true, then these other things
Starting point is 00:55:48 become exponentially suspect. So as far-fetched as you think it is for me to say that the same ingredient as silly putty is used in chick-fil-a-s sandwiches, it is, by the way. the American Beverage Association was also going and telling our members of Congress that it's racist to remove soda off of snap. Okay?
Starting point is 00:56:07 So that is also, I mean, absolutely bizarre, crazy world. But it's true and it really happened. And that's the type of corruption that we uncover in breaking big food in the documentary. And I love that movie, too, as an Arizona now, because not only is it going through just corruption nationwide that we've faced as a country and why we are so. sick. But it also goes into how Arizona in particular is doing things so right. We are one of the best states for clean food. And I mean like clean restaurant options, organic farm to table. Like we're killing it, especially in the Phoenix area, which is weird. I don't think a lot of people think like
Starting point is 00:56:42 there's going to be a lot of seed oil-free restaurants in Phoenix, but there's tons. So it's a really exciting documentary and spotlights a lot of people who had a personal issue who were sick or had a family member that was and said, I've got to invent something, I've got to create something, I've got to build something differently, which is totally your wheelhouse and specialty, which makes sense why you love the doc. And so that's what I love about it. Like Patrick and Ashley, the main people, you know, he had cancer. He was super sick. And not only did they make this documentary, but they also launched their own organic coffee shop in Phoenix Firefly, which is great killing it crazy because it's, you know, one of the only places to get mold-free coffee. Because all coffee is moldy.
Starting point is 00:57:23 Coffee's moldy, Subways, got yoga mats in it. Azodiicarbonamide. That's it. ADA. Yes, that's it. Why would they do that? Why would they put just something so assy in my food? Because people care more about, Americans care so much about how something looks and feels and the texture.
Starting point is 00:57:45 And that yoga mat material was making that bread so soft and spongy. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's why they were doing it. Made me want to do it downward facing dog on it. You'd probably be soft. There's a beat in this movie where you've got a picture of, what are you doing, Chuck? You tell me how much time?
Starting point is 00:58:00 That's 50 minutes. I thought you were having a seizure. Every now and then I do. Your arms go out. It freaks me out. They have a heart out. I know they got a heart out. We've got ten minutes.
Starting point is 00:58:10 There's a shot in here of like, you know, McDonald's French fries next to other French fries or maybe it was French fries from 30 years ago and the list of ingredients, right? And just, oh, God. And you're right. I mean, it's the color, it's the texture, it's all of that stuff. The only question really is, is such a stupid thing to say, but is it really bad for us? Is it yoga mat really bad for us, Alex? I mean, again, when we go back to just common sense.
Starting point is 00:58:39 Yeah, yeah. Common sense. So somebody said this is totally safe to eat, put it in bread, but would you just take a munch in the middle of Pilates? You know what I'm saying? Like, use your brain. And so when you are talking about how we are a. America. We are the leaders of the free world. Why are we shortchanging our citizens with crappier food that we are not selling other places? So I marched in Michigan at the Kellogg's
Starting point is 00:59:04 headquarters in the fall of 2024 with Callie Means, who's also in this documentary, with the food babe Vonnihari, and a multitude of others. And we said, here's the deal. Why are you, Kellogg's, willing to make dye-free cereal, you know, using natural food colorings, not artificial food colorings for every other country in the world, but you're not doing it in America. Not only that, you are making the die-free versions in America. But our kids are being poisoned, but no other kids are. And you're an American company. Like, that has to change and stop. All right, all right, all right. You're a queen of the world. Right? You can do whatever you want by fiat. You can just decide, what are you going to legally remove from the shelves?
Starting point is 00:59:46 Ooh. Okay. So we have over, I believe, 70 or 72 chemicals that are currently allowed to be used in our crops that are banned in other countries, including by the countries that make the chemicals that we're using. You've got 7,000 or so food ingredients that are allowed in the United States that are not allowed everywhere else. All I am saying is put America on an equal level playing field. That's it. It should just be fair. It should just be fair. When you're looking at Roundup, for example, when we're talking about weed killer, which please, please God, if you remember anything from this interview, tell your dad, tell your, tell your grandpa, tell your neighbor to stop using Roundup on their lawn. Even if you don't use it in yours, the wind drift is carrying it over and your children are absorbing those chemicals that cause cancer through their skins, their bare feet when they're playing outside. It's just, it's horrible. But when you look at Roundup in the United States versus the EU even, they've got like a vinegar solution version. They have ingredients even in the roundup that they don't use that we are using. Now, never mind how much
Starting point is 01:00:53 I agree with that you've said, most of it, frankly. But from a persuasive standpoint, I would say the most compelling argument you've made is that one, equal the playing field. And then let the acronym or the experts or the agency or whoever's writing the checks, let them explain why. The only answer can be because it's a free market and this is what the people want. Can you live with that? Can you live with the explanation that says, look, TV sucks, but we have the TV we deserve because we watch what we watch. And our government is kind of disappointing on many levels, but we deserve.
Starting point is 01:01:40 it because we can vote them out, but we don't. And we're fat. We're eating yoga mats, shoes, silly putty, right? What are we thinking? Like, we kind of deserve it because we want the lucky charms. The market will decide, but here's what I believe, when you educate people and explain to them what a lot of these ingredients are, or that we are being fed things or things are being passed through that are not allowed other places anywhere else in the world, people will actively choose to not eat that or consume that product. And we as consumers have so much power. You're not only voting every four years in a presidential election.
Starting point is 01:02:19 You are voting three times a day every single time you choose what goes on your plate or your family's plate. And these companies abide. That's why you have Doritos now, haven't you seen these Doritos that are like, we're die-free. You've got... Oh, D-Y-E. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 01:02:32 Reese's cups just announced... Now with less death. Right. They've announced now that. that they're going back to their original recipe, you know, peanut butter and chocolate. Yeah. So, like, what else has been in there? Why do you need?
Starting point is 01:02:44 Why do you need that other stuff? It's because, you know, in the 80s, you had these chemists from the tobacco companies that were bought over by big food to start making our food as addictive as possible, exactly what they did to the cigarettes. And so when you explain that to people, they will choose otherwise. Remember how... Hold on, hold on, hold on. People still smoke in lesser numbers.
Starting point is 01:03:09 Sure. your dad wanted a phanta right people we think we think if we build it they'll come we think if we show them we think the evidence truly demands a verdict and we'll prosecute our case and we'll make our point but then you know what these people do our fellow fucking bipeds walking around they ignore it they do it anyway I can tell them and I can prove I can prove that when you say I'm famished, I'm starving, I'm so hungry that you're not. You feel hungry, you're not. I can prove that.
Starting point is 01:03:47 Yeah, you're going to eat anyway. You're going to jam in the Twinkies or the ho-hoes or the ring-dings or the ding-dongs or whatever the Reese's cups are. You're going to jam it all down. You're well-muscled throat and you're going to blow up like a dick. I can't stop you from doing it. My question to you is I'm stipulating all of it. You're queen of the world.
Starting point is 01:04:05 You've prosecuted the case. You've shown everybody. and the evidence is compelling, but they're still drinking the Dr. Pepper, right? And they're still just, like, do you get to a point where you go, nope, sorry, I'm taking the option away? Well, I'm not a Democrat, Mike, so I'm not going to force people to put certain things into their body. I'm not a Democrat.
Starting point is 01:04:27 I'm just trying to keep the conversation lively. That's what I'm saying. So, you know, if somebody, of course, if somebody wants to make the choice like my own dad, then they're going to make that choice. And so, you know what? You love someone where they're at. I still love my dad, even though I completely disagree with him. And I wish he would have made a different choice because I wish he could have even had just one more year.
Starting point is 01:04:44 Even if he had two more months or six more months, that would have been such a gift to me as his daughter and for my poor mom. But people are going to do what they want to do. But here's the thing. I disagree like that it's then not worth pursuing. You just had poppy soda. What did they just sell to Pepsi for $4 billion? It's like the most expensive food buy ever, I think, in history. in the last two years or so. So that shows you, Big Food sees the trajectory. They see that the
Starting point is 01:05:11 consumer is actively choosing healthier foods with better ingredients, non-GMO, organic, what have you. And they are investing. And they do that when they see what we are doing, you know, with our money, when we're at the grocery store and the decisions that we're making. And this is all coming from education. It's podcasts like this and people waking up to what they're eating, making other choices. You know, calling out big food and ultra-processed food, people are like, well, what am I supposed to eat? Real food. Real food. Shop on the peripheral of the grocery store.
Starting point is 01:05:41 You know, is it an ingredient item? Chicken breast, broccoli, eggs, cheese. Okay, those are real food items. But, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Zetaaaaa, carbona, um, ADA. Yoga mat. That's not a food. No, you're in the wrong aisle, brother. That's not something that God made, right?
Starting point is 01:05:59 So if it's, if it's something that God made, it's like pretty safe. Okay, you should eat that. Are you telling me God didn't make a yoga mat? You'd be very careful with that answer. You think about what you're saying there. I know you're pressed for time. Lightning round, AI questions. These are sometimes fun.
Starting point is 01:06:16 I haven't read them yet, but ready? I'm ready. All right. What's the healthiest habit you've adopted that had absolutely nothing to do with food, exercise, or supplements? Going outside to get the sunlight in my eyes within 30 minutes of waking up,
Starting point is 01:06:32 resetting my circadian rhythm. Man, I hear that all the time. It's so easy for you. You have no excuse living here. You know what I... Well, you're in Scottsdale. Well, I know. And so it's easy for me,
Starting point is 01:06:42 but it's also 120 degrees even at 6 a.m. when I wake up. I've had enough of your excuses, young later. You can do this. You won't even need an alarm anymore. I learned from the doctor, who I'm going to recommend again... Why can't I remember his name?
Starting point is 01:06:58 Phil. Philip Ovadia. Ovadia, yeah, yeah. Vitamin D is not a vitamin. vitamin. It's a hormone. Technically. Yeah, the more you know. If you could require every American to read one product label from start to finish,
Starting point is 01:07:15 which product would you choose? Probably the Chick-fil-A sandwich. It's got over 50 ingredients. 50 ingredients in a chicken sandwich. What the heck? It should be chicken. It should be one. What kind of conservative are you?
Starting point is 01:07:27 Don't you love Chick-fil-A? They're always there. The volunteers, the disasters. I don't know. I don't know. going on, but they also switched. They used to be, you know, non-antibiotic chicken or antibiotic-free chicken. Now they're back to antibiotic chicken. I mean, they've totally lost their way. It's the Lord's Chicken, man, you know? What's something people worry about constantly that probably matters far less
Starting point is 01:07:54 than they think? Counting calories. Good one. You relax. Can't help it, man. She's on fire. I love it. I love it. I love it. What's the biggest health improvement you've made in your life that cost $0? Oh, and I already used my circadian rhythm one. You already use the sunshine. Now what? Moonlight? Actually, that costs $0?
Starting point is 01:08:25 Well, hold on. I'm thinking, that's hard. I know. It's tricky too, because there is a lot of money in all, aspects of health and wellness. How about this? How about this? Making sure that you are prioritizing community and spending time with loved ones, friends, family. That is a supplement. That is a health supplement to have fellowship with other people that care about you, that you care about laughing with your friends. That is medicine. Yeah, bullshit. No, you know what? Man, I mean,
Starting point is 01:09:04 that's pandemic 101, right? Well, exactly. And people with grandchildren live longer. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's good. Good answer.
Starting point is 01:09:12 Good answer. It took a while getting there, but I appreciate that you landed in the plane. What's the difference between being informed and being obsessed? I swear I didn't write this. I just said, Alex Clark's coming by. Give me some questions. Nobody ever asked. I mean, you can be informed on a bunch of things, right?
Starting point is 01:09:31 I'm informed on a bunch of stuff. I'm informed on why certain people are pro-choice. or whatever, but I'm obsessed with, like, things that I actually like. I don't know. That's a really weird question. I know. Chat, GPT, sucks. I should have asked Rock.
Starting point is 01:09:46 What topic do you think future generations will look back on and wonder why we weren't talking about it more? Okay. Oh. I think it's going to be the pesticides. Really? Yeah. More so than the toothpaste and the food and the chem trails, more so than meat.
Starting point is 01:10:03 Because here's the thing. This is why the pesticide issue is so, so, so. important. We could do a whole episode just on that. The pesticide issue is so important because when it comes to food, I have a choice. I can choose what I'm eating and what I'm putting on my plate. I cannot get away from or, you know, choose something else. Like the pesticides are being sprayed on all the food. It's in the air. It's drifting from my neighbor's yard. I cannot rinse it off. I cannot wash it off. We have no choice. If I want my child to play in the park or go to public school and play at the playground and have recess, they're being exposed to it. And we have no recourse and they're wanting to actively take away our right to sue that is so diabolically
Starting point is 01:10:44 evil and demonic well we started with the devil's butthole and we ended with demonic Bayer is demonic and in between I think we learned a bunch of stuff the least of which is certainly not breaking big food a fine dock available where is it now is it on amazon or i believe it's on YouTube. Is it on YouTube? Amazon and Apple TV. Okay, great. And then how often do you do this crazy podcast of yours?
Starting point is 01:11:11 Culture, apothecary. Twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, anywhere you get your podcasts. Whoa, six. So is it live? Do you do them live? No, it's just when we drop it. Oh.
Starting point is 01:11:22 Yeah. Drop it. Yeah. Any interesting guests coming up? Yeah. Well, there's this guy named Mike Rowe. Yeah, I did agree to do this. We haven't done this before, but for those of you still listening,
Starting point is 01:11:36 I'm going to go do her podcast right now, right here from this very set. Yeah, same set. Same outfits. We might switch. We'll switch outfits. No, I was going to say chairs, but I'll jam myself into your little denim get up there. I'll look like a summer sausage. I thought this would be a micro-appropriate aesthetic.
Starting point is 01:11:56 It is. It is. Genim, you know? Look, if it comes into a European husky, I'll put it on. In the meantime, that's Alex Squel. Mark, she's awesome. You might not agree with every daggone thing she has to say, but I'll tell you what, man. Read Teddy Roosevelt's, the man in the arena. She's not a man, but she is in the arena. We appreciate you being there. That's a really nice compliment. That's the nicest thing you're ever going to get from. Yeah, that was very nice. Really appreciate it. Come back anytime. Thank you. Adios. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile. Then share your satisfaction in the way that people do.
Starting point is 01:12:41 Take some time to go on and leave us a review. I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge, but in this world the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two. All you've got to do is leave a quick file. five-star review. Not four. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.
Starting point is 01:13:13 And not three. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Definitely not too. All you got to do is leave a quick five-star review. We need five. All you got to do is leave a quick- Even if you hate it. Five-star-
Starting point is 01:13:24 Especially if you hear it. Thank you. Thank you.

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