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Robb Wolf is back on the podcast to catch up. After a quick check-in on what the kids are up to, we dive right into two recent articles that have caught our attention.
First up, Robb discusses a post from Matthew Crawford about suspicions regarding Hollywood’s prior knowledge of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the article is tinged with a bit of conspiracy theory, it’s the first part of the post that is most interesting to us – which is all about James Cameron’s attempt to start an organic farm without animal inputs.
No surprise here – he quickly realized that to achieve truly regenerative status, he needed animals.
Next, I rant about the latest George Monbiot article, which fingers organic pasture-fed beef and lamb as the most damaging farm products. You can read my full response here, but basically, George refuses to acknowledge the unintended consequences of eliminating all livestock and rewilding the land. His solution to feeding the world does not consider the necessary logistics of actually feeding the world. Plus, he uses poor examples and outdated science to make his points. This article really makes my blood boil!
Here are the key takeaways from this episode:
- Farming in a holistic way is not possible without animals
- People don’t fully realize the consequences of the “solutions” they are proposing
- Rewilding isn’t as great as people think
- Why you should follow someone that’s been deplatformed
- Both sides are guilty of all or nothing thinking – don’t let perfection get in the way of progress
Resources:
Matthew Crawford: How Much Did Hollywood Know About the Plandemonium Ahead of Time?
Podcast: Bankless
The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan
George Monbiot: The Most Damaging Farm Products? Organic, Pasture-Beef and Lamb
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini, PhD
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
Connect with Robb:
Website: The Healthy Rebellion | LMNT
Instagram: @dasrobbwolf
LinkedIn: Robb Wolf
Facebook: RobbWolf.com
Twitter: @robbwolf
YouTube: Robb Wolf
Episode Credits:
Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connelly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.
Join me September 29 – October 2, 2022, for a fun and informative weekend getaway at White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia. You’ll learn about regenerative farming and nutrition, plus participate in farming activities and enjoy incredible food. To learn more, visit sustainabledish.com/events and get your tickets today before they sell out.
It’s officially Sustainavore September! We’re launching the biggest Sustainavore community yet, and I’d love for you to be a part of it. If you’re ready to reclaim your best health, recover from chronic health issues and learn how real food, grown in a sustainable way can heal your body and the planet, join us at sustainavore.com.
You’ll get instant access to the entire course with tons of extra bonus material all in easy-to-follow modules. Plus, interact with me and a huge community of people just like you. Sign up now at sustainavore.com.
And if you’re ready to take your support for a nutritious, sustainable, and equitable food system to the next level, join my Global Food Justice Alliance community on Patreon. You will have access to ad-free podcasts, exclusive videos, a discussion community, and much more. Go to sustainabledish.com/join to support my work.
Quotes:
“Ironically, the monocrop state is the more dangerous… non-equilibrium state because it only takes one or two tweaks to that system for the whole thing to collapse.” – Robb Wolf
“People are consistently making perfection the antithesis of good enough.” – Robb Wolf
“We need to be dynamic and not have these rules that make it impossible to respond to the way that things change.” – Robb Wolf
Transcript:
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connelly, who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now on to our show.
(White Oak Pastures Event Ad) Diana Rodgers
Looking for a fun and informative weekend getaway at one of my favorite regenerative farms? Come join me with celebrity farmer Will Harris at White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia September 29th through October 2nd. You’ll meet some really cool people, participate in farm activities, learn about regenerative farming, plus have nutrition classroom time with me. And, of course, enjoy incredible food. To learn more, visit sustainabledish.com/events and get your tickets today before they sell out.
(Sustainavore Ad) Diana Rodgers, RD
I’m excited to announce that September is now officially renamed Sustainavore September! We’re launching the biggest Sustainavore community yet and I’d love for you to be a part of it. If you’re ready to reclaim your best health, recover from chronic health issues and learn how real food, grown in a sustainable way can heal your body and the planet, head over to sustainavore.com and sign up now. You’ll get instant access to the entire course, tons of extra bonus material, and to my years of experience as a dietitian condensed into easy-to-follow modules. Plus, interact with me and a huge community of people just like you. I hope to see you at sustainavore.com.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I’ve got Robb back on the show, and all of a sudden, Robb, your video is now as soon as I hit record – your video is super clear and crisp and perfect.
Robb Wolf
Probably four or five of my neighbors turned off their streaming devices or whatever. And so I’m getting better bandwidth or something. I don’t know.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So yeah, well, actually, and then as soon as you started talking, you got kind of funky, so for the folks that are – I do offer the full video for people who are part of the Patreon for Global Food Justice. So you know…
Robb Wolf
My apologies. I have worse internet in Montana than you – it is literally the worst internet between North Central and South America, like no joke. You can’t go anywhere and have worse internet than where I am. Some of the signal – I’m on DSL – some of the signal is being carried over copper wire that was hung in 1895.
Robb Wolf
So mice playing telephone, right?
Robb Wolf
So my apologies in advance. But I’m not particularly good to look at anyway. So if I’m all pixelated, it’s good. We’ll just think about like a Sybil Shepherd like soft focus thing like Moonlighting or something like that.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And actually, I am actually not at my normal place because they decided to jackhammer the entire parking lot next to my house, which is pretty big. So I’m going to grab one of these supplements, my friend Ayla, who is a fellow dietitian, and I actually I used to share an office with her. I pinged her this morning, asking her if I could record she said, “Of course, no problem anytime.” So I’m just going to give her a free ad for her supplement Full Well, which is a prenatal supplement and she has it for both men and women. So she has this male prenatal that promotes sperm health and reproductive health for men with antioxidants. And she is such a stickler for quality anyway, so I’m very grateful to Ayla, and if you want to have a baby check out Full Well. So there’s my little thanks to Ayla.
Robb Wolf
I like it. You know what’s funny is the only time I’ve heard the name Ayla is as the main protagonist in Clan of the Cave Bear.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Ah, you know, someone else told me that that’s where the name came from. It sounds a little bit like Ira.
Robb Wolf
Right.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Or what is it? What was the name of the girl from the Golden Compass?
Robb Wolf
Oh gosh,
Diana Rodgers, RD
Ira. Isn’t it?
Robb Wolf
Oh, yeah.Yeah, yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Who I know someone who had a girl named that, and it was after the book.
Robb Wolf
Okay. Okay.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. Anyway. So, happy summer. What are the girls up to? What’s new in Montana?
Robb Wolf
The girls have taken up archery. So I got them hooked up with some compound bows. And both of them are quite good at it, and they really enjoy it. We have one of our friends who’s a jujitsu coach. He’s also an archery expert. He and his wife both are Will and Amanda Allen. And they have two kids about the same ages as Zoe and Sagan. And we’ve been getting together as a group and doing some archery, and I got an archery set up too. I’ve been pretty good at like traditional archery. In the past, I had no idea how to do the whole like modern compound bow with a release and all this stuff. And so that’s been a new gig for me, but they’re really geeked out on that. They’ve been swimming and paddleboarding in the backyard. But we do have swimmers itch in our lake. And so every once in a while, they come in, and they look like they have like monkeypox or something like that. So yeah, that’s been interesting.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I can’t wait to come back out. I loved archery as a kid, it was one of my favorite things.
Robb Wolf
They will be ready to put you through the paces like they’re getting good. Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, my kids have been surfing like a lot. But they’re, you know what, there hasn’t been a ton of really good swell here. And Anson has informed me it’s because there hasn’t been enough rain in the Sahara. And so the sand is blowing off the Sahara and onto the ocean and preventing hurricanes from forming off the coast of Africa. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds like a likely story. And then I looked it up, and it was actually true.
Robb Wolf
Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So it’s affecting… it’s affecting all the East Coast surfers here.
Robb Wolf
So that’s one of those funny things where it’s like, is that good? Is that bad? You know it’s, yeah, it’s funny.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. Well, yeah, but I’m sure there’s – I mean, it’s been extra sharky here in the North East. I’m sure there’s all kinds of ramifications we just don’t know anything about. Right? You know, because the currents aren’t happening the way they should be or whatever. All right, well, let’s, let’s get into what some like current events. You sent me an article that I skimmed really quickly. And why don’t you? Why don’t you go for that?
Robb Wolf
Yeah, let me pull that up. It’s from a guy, Matthew Crawford, who he’s a really brilliant person. And he has done a ton of work in, say, like, unpacking the COVID topic, and he, but the title of his thing is, “How Much did Hollywood Know about the Pandemic Ahead of Time,” and I would say that it maybe ventures into a little bit of some conspiracy stuff, although, as time has gone on, it seems like a lot of things that were conspiracy are somewhat less conspiracy-esque now. But what was interesting is he talked about James Cameron, who’s this, you know, famous filmmaker, Avatar, and some, you know, host of other films, and also a huge advocate for fake meat, you know, plant-based diet, the whole nine yards. And it’s interesting how, even though his main point in this article is digging into a pretty interesting case that at least some very powerful people in Hollywood and within the political scene might have had a sense that this pandemic was on the horizon before the rest of us were aware of it. But he mentioned that James Cameron’s involvement in kind of the anti-meat scene. He talked about Cameron, buying huge tracts of land in New Zealand and trying to run these things 100% Animal-free. And they failed, epically. Because he also wanted to run them organically. And so he got into this stuck thing of, do I go catch fish out of the ocean and turn them into a pulp and put that on the land? Or do I do haber bosch methods – synthetic chemical fertilizer, which is what most of the world does? Or do I do something wacky, like have ruminant animals involved with this thing? And he eventually, and this is very similar to the former vegan family that you almost got full interviews from about their story of starting a farm and then realizing, oh, we need animals. And then when they needed animals, maybe they should eat the animals because it’s a way of like managing the whole process. But James Cameron now is in this interesting scenario, in which he’s constantly defending the application of these animals that he has on this land. And he’s like, “Well, it’s just a transitional thing. I just need to use them until the land is restored, and then we’ll get rid of them.” Which I don’t know how they’re gonna get rid of them. And then, of course, you know, once the land is restored, it’s that way forever, you know, you never, it’s not a dynamic process that we need to keep reinvesting in or anything like that. But it was, it’s interesting to me, and again, like, I’m probably going to going to piss off or alienate half of the people that listen to you. But there’s interesting overlap in these discussions around like, climate change, food sovereignty, COVID. Like, there’s just some; we’ve talked about this a little bit. And you don’t have to look that far, like World Economic Forum websites where some challenging social justice topics have been woven in, you know, seamlessly into climate change woven, seamlessly into COVID. And these three things just being inseparable and oftentimes written about as if they are all one in the same entity. So it’s just kind of interesting that Matthew Crawford, I didn’t know that any of this regenerative ag stuff was on his radar at all. He’s never really written about it. He’s written on a lot of different topics. But he mentioned just this James Cameron story, and so I pinged you the link to that. I think it’s worth a read. And if people want to ignore the second two-thirds of the article because it gets into some of this, like, what did Hollywood know before, then that’s fine. Ignore that if you want to. But I think it’s really interesting, too, that we have this person like James Cameron, where you had a piece the other day that was talking about this wealthy group of folks that are trying to take productive farmland off the ranch land offline and like rewild it. It’s like children running something, and sometimes children come up with some really amazing ideas. And sometimes it’s an absolute show, you know. Like we’re teaching our kids how to cook and how to repair some things and stuff like that. And they do a wonderful job most of the time. And every once in a while, they do things that are, you know, they could cost you life and limb, if you don’t intervene and make them aware of like, “hey, there’s a bunch of other stuff to consider here.” And it’s interesting that they’re some of the wealthiest, best-connected people in the world are tackling these global food issues with an infantilized view of the world. You know, we’re, I think we’re going to talk about good old George here in a little bit. And I don’t even know… like, I should be jumping up and down screaming and angry and upset and trying to come across a little bit more credible than that. But it’s really concerning. Nikki and I – one other thing that I’ll ping you a link to – Nikki’s been getting into, like the crypto scene, and has been following it for a couple of years. And she follows a podcast called Bankless. So like, no bank – Bankless
Diana Rodgers, RD
Bankless got it.
Robb Wolf
Okay, yeah. And they interviewed a guy who is the former CEO of Coinbase. Balaji, I think, is his first name, and he has a book out that is actually free; you can buy it, or you can get a free version of the book online. And it’s called The Network State. And it basically makes the case that we could, as disastrous as the world looks right now, there could be this possibility that embracing the ability of cryptocurrencies and the organization of different groups around the world, that we could form basically, nation states that exist both online and in reality, and basically made the case that this is a legitimate opportunity for kind of displacing the oligarchy that is controlling global food systems, global financial systems, and whatnot. And so I’ll ping you a link to that. And it’s a really entertaining, interesting podcast to listen to just as a baseline. And although they don’t talk about food sovereignty or global food systems, clearly the folks that listen to you, they’re aware of that, and I think that you could see where this type of stuff would plug in. And I think it presents a legitimate repo state or opportunity to battle back against these systems – like decentralizing knowledge, having sovereignty within our local environments around the way that we want to live our lives and feed ourselves and all that type of stuff. And also just an amazingly rapid way of discovering best practices, like, you know, we’ve kind of discovered that a lot of science is captured by industry. And, you know, it’s, that’s just kind of a fact, whether we’re talking about nutritional guidelines, and now more at the level of, you know, ruminant animals are the most injurious, you know, element to climate change and whatnot. You can find lots and lots of peer-reviewed literature that seems to suggest stuff like that. But then when you dig into it, there’s lots of conflicts of interest, lots of difficult, you know, things to really parse out there. And I think he presents a model of a way forward with that.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Wow. My brain was just… all my neurons are firing in so many different directions when you’re just talking there. And I just keep thinking about how critical people can be when you question anything and that just should be the scientific process. And, yeah, I mean, you know, and it’s funny because so this flows really nicely into this George Monbiot article and my frustrations with him. And like you, people were pinging this to me, and I’m like, really again, and they’re like, “What do you think?” And I’m like, “do you actually… are you wondering what I think?” Like, didn’t you read the book, and don’t you know what I think and why do I have to, like come up with a response again to this delusion of George Monbiot? Like he is delusional. And it’s funny, because also at the same time, I am rereading this book, which I’m sure you’ve read: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, and right in on page seven, he starts talking about just how people, there’s just too much out there for them to do their own research on right. And there’s so many so much information just being thrown around. And so, at some point, we, for lots of things, we have to rely on experts unless we have a personal stake in the game. And so I think that’s why people are giving this guy George the microphone because he seems like an expert. But the scary scary thing is he’s not even close to any level of an expert in anything that he’s writing about. And so he’s just a journalist with a lot of really wacky ideologies. Yeah. So I think we’ve just lost the ability to even have basic common sense. And people just don’t, they can’t even look at it and be like, “Hmm, what could be the unintended consequences of eliminating all livestock? Like, what might that look like?” And so I, you know, part of me is just really sad for humanity that we’re even at this point where somebody like this is even getting the floor. But then also, I feel like, there’s got to be more than just you and me and James Connolly and Frederic Leroy. There’s gotta be more than us that are out there thinking that this is absolutely delusion. So I’ll just quickly go through… Oh, go ahead.
Robb Wolf
Yeah, just really quickly on that, like this guy, Matthew Crawford, I didn’t know that this sustainable topic with sustainability topic and kind of a worldview, similar to ours, was on his radar at all. And it absolutely is, you know, he just hasn’t dug into it and written about it to any significant degree. But it is a constant battle, and *bleep* show to deal with this. But I do think that there are more people out there questioning this idea. It’s just all of the money, all of media, all of social media, all of the field goods kind of stack up with what George puts forward. You know, this idea that if we just do away with animals, and we rebuild everything, and we just reintroduce a bunch of apex predators, that the world is going to be great. And maybe some elements of that are appropriate. Maybe some of that is appropriate in some places, but it does that make sense globally? And can we talk about any of the unintended consequences? Because this stuff has been tried in different places. And so we have natural experiments where we can see well, okay, this thing was a disaster because of XYZ and whatnot. But I’ll shut up now and let you jump into that.
Diana Rodgers, RD
No, totally. And yeah, it just seems like if you… if you don’t go along with the consensus of, you know, we all need to have our carbon credits checked so that we, you know, if we – let’s drive electric cars that might shut down if we’ve driven too far that week or something like that. I mean, I was just talking about that on the podcast with Charlie Arnott, the regenerative farmer in Australia, who brought up a lot of this. And so you know, wherever you land on it, it’s just important to take a deep look at it and not just get out on the river in your inner tube with everybody else and just float along, right? Okay, so George wrote an article in The Guardian talking about how the most dangerous farm products are organic pastured beef and lamb. And I was so mad last night that I actually spent a couple hours just banging out a blog post that I’m still just going to tweak a little bit. I sent it over to you, Robb. So you read it and give me some feedback. And I appreciate that. So I’m just going to kind of hit the main points of it. But it again, just I get how people want… people feel uncomfortable about how meat is raised. They are uncomfortable that animals are being raised specifically to die. I mean, even Bill Caicos and I gotten a huge Twitter fight about that not too long ago. Even though he’s pro protein for nutrition, he still says it’s wrong to raise animals to eat them. But he wouldn’t go further in the discussion with me about how there is no no-death situation, you know, that stuff. And so, George has no background at all in agriculture, formally or learned experience. And he tells everybody that the only way forward is to eliminate all livestock production. And the reason he’s specifically going after organic and pasture fed, of course, is because this is the biggest threat to his argument, right? And he also has no background at all in human nutrition. And so he claims in his latest book that he’s got this sort of biological goo that can be made magically out of the elements with no inputs, and it’s going to be equivalent to meat, although there’s never been a study on it. And we all need to be eating this stuff instead of animal-source proteins and that it there’s no fear at all that this could be co-opted by a centralized person. I don’t know if we’re just gonna go into every little village everywhere and just like give them all these little magical factories that must run on no energy and require no inputs and then magically just like spit out this perfect protein that I don’t know how it’s going to have B12 in it. None of this makes any sense at all. But this is his solution. And yet, then he goes, and he bashes Allan Savory for not being able to prove that regenerative grazing actually does improve the ecosystem where there has been multiple papers showing that. And so in the blog post, I actually cite one paper that was done. It was a systematic review of 154 articles. It’s called, “An Economic Valuation of Federal and Private Grazing Land Ecosystem Services Supported by Beef Cattle Ranching in the United States.” And the quote from this: “We estimate the economic value of this land used to be 17.5 billion for wildlife recreation, 3.8 billion for forage production, 3.2 billion for other ecosystem services related to the conservation of biodiversity, a combined total of 24.5 billion ecosystem services from federal range lands in 16 Western States accounted for 35% of total value ecosystem services per beef cow. And per kilogram of retail beef were estimated to be $1,043 per cow, or $2.74 per kilogram. And this wasn’t just one, this is a review. So and meanwhile, George is citing a study from 1994, saying that grazing lands in western America are contributing to the decline of wildlife. So, you know, if he wants to be critical of something, that’s great, but he can’t just cherry-pick one study from 1994. You know, there are, I did look up the rules for ethical journalism. And this breaks all of them, not to mention that The Guardian only takes money from anti-meat groups for editorial, which should be completely not okay. And the first should thing…
Robb Wolf
It should at least be disclosed at a minimum. Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. It’s disclosed on other pages but not here. Right. Um, and then he goes on and on to blame ranchers only for the loss of large predators, saying that, you know, the US government is going out and trying to get rid of predators for ranchers, but not mentioning that, you know, there’s also a lot of humans that live in rural America that probably don’t want, you know, excess grizzly bears and other predators around while their kids are waiting for a school bus and things like that. It’s not just ranchers that don’t want predators around. And then he goes on to say that, you know, there is a rewilding farm called Knepp in England, but it only produces 54 kilograms of meat per hectacre. But I’ve been to Knepp, and meat production is not their primary focus. This is a 3000 acre estate that is doing a rewilding experiment. Not a full-on…
Robb Wolf
Commercial enterprise. Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Production. Yeah. That’s his only reference to a regenerative farm. And then he just goes on and on to say, well, it’s more methane without talking about the fact that biogenic carbon cycle should be looked at very differently. And so just on and on and on, and he never addresses anything about nutrients, about the harms of arable agriculture, you know. So yes, there’s antibiotic resistance is an issue within livestock production, not all livestock production, but in the management of some of it, but there’s also massive ecosystem destruction happening with monocropping that he is not providing the context for.
Robb Wolf
And it’s almost like we did a book and film that addressed all of that, but it’s uh, yeah…
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Ready to take your support for a nutritious, sustainable and equitable food systems, the next level? Join my Global Food Justice Alliance community on Patreon and have access to ad-free podcasts, exclusive videos, and a discussion community plus so much more. Go to sustainable dish.com/join to support my work, and thank you.
Robb Wolf
I forget who the guy’s name was. I ended up in a pretty good Twitter back and forth with a guy I think his name’s Robert, something, and he’s kind of a representative for some outfit that’s like soil for something, and they’re very…
Diana Rodgers, RD
The Soil Association in the UK is quite ironically are…
Robb Wolf
Not fans of regenerative agriculture.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yes, they’re very anti-livestock. Yeah,
Robb Wolf
So I am blanking on this guy’s name. I have a whole folder on him now because I’m gonna I have a series of blog posts about this guy, but he’s never bothered to read our book. Not that that’s the singular source on things, but it’s at least it, I would argue it’s kind of like, currently it’s the… if you want to address the regenerative ag counterpoint, it’s kind of the thing, you know. And he was completely unaware of any of the points that we had made, the cases that we had made. And it was this weird Groundhog’s Day thing where it’s like, I understand the position that you’re putting forward really well because I’ve written a counterpoint to it, and you are completely unaware of any of these other, you know, biogenic carbon, carbon cycling, soil/carbon capture, water capture, you know, on and on, and on – all the many myriad layers of these the systems that we’ve talked about, and it is maddening, but I think that this is where it’s a, it’s a bit of a chop wood carry water deal, like we just… George is probably going to write ten more of these articles throughout the course of his career, and we’ll just have to do ten more counterpoints, and you know, for the folks listening, this is where folks do listen, like, and also just the economics of these things do end up bearing themselves out. Like a number of the fast food chains are now not carrying the, you know, like Impossible Burger and Beyond Burger and stuff like that, because nobody wanted it ended up not being of interest broadly to the public and whatnot. So I think that that’s just a piece of this thing, but the understanding the deeper kind of ecosystem story, and I didn’t – have you mentioned 1491 to the folks that follow you? The book 1491?
Diana Rodgers, RD
I think we have a little excerpt from it in Sacred Cow. Yeah.
Robb Wolf
Yeah. It’s a great book because some of this rewilding stuff is – it’s infantilized fairy tale dreaming about what the natural world is or was, and the Amazon rainforest is a great example. It was a massively stewarded and cultivated area, you know, and it appears to have been managed and stewarded and turned into effectively a food forest with a whole host of inputs, including animal inputs, for potentially multiple millennia, and then with the implosion of the Central American, South American civilizations after European contact, it kind of went wild. But the Amazon rainforest hasn’t really been wild since maybe 30,000 years ago, like we keep pushing back the date of when humans ended up making it here. And I just saw something the other day that put some of the earliest New World human habitation like 30 or 35,000 years ago. So it’s, again, it’s not to say that we want to ruin every patch of dirt and make it untenable, but just because it’s important to understand what we’re trying to get out of this stuff. And we want places that are beautiful, we do want to protect as much ecosystem diversity as we can – we make that case in the book, you know, with Grass World and that ironically, the monocrop state is the more dangerous, far from equilibrium you know, non-equilibrium, thermodynamic state because it only takes one or two tweaks to that system for the whole thing to collapse to say nothing of erosion of topsoil and other extenuating circumstances. But this is, again, an infantilized view of what the world is, is probably the biggest thing that we’re fighting here, ironically.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. And the colonialism of other cultures through your own moral dilemmas that you’re having with the livestock system, right? So telling other people that they’re not allowed to eat meat because you don’t like it. Right and not accepting the fact that for the vast majority of humans, we just… most people don’t have the access to the right variety of fresh fruits and vegetables and supplements to put together something that might resemble a healthy, well-planned vegetarian or vegan diet.
Robb Wolf
Right. Yeah, I think your Monbiot rebuttal is fantastic, and it’s I know it’s frustrating, particularly for you because you’re like the really the pointy end of the spear on this thing. Like, when we have more and more – as we look to an expert on this topic, it’s kind of like oh, that’s Diana, you know, and so it’s a fair amount of pressure and a lot of work to be done. But I’m a little more optimistic about this stuff than what I was even a couple of years ago. I feel like the tensity of the narrative is ramping up, if anything, but it also – people were kind of seeing through the *bleep*. And it’s kind of interesting, now, even, there’s a whole movement afoot on social media. It’s like, who has been de-platformed about this thing, you know, and there’s a couple of different topics that are in there. And one of them is actually the kind of food sovereignty regenerative ag thing. Who’s been deplatformed about this because that’s the person I want to follow. And so it’s become this badge of honor, if you can rile folks up enough to be deplatformed and end up, you know, scuttling around on, like, substack, or something like that. So there is a growing group of people that they’re recognizing that if you don’t make the cut within the mainstream distribution channels that you’re probably the real deal. You are, in fact, the person that they want to talk to. And then you’ve got your… the other group of people that they only have on Fox News, they only have on CNBC, anything that goes counter to those points, like they’re never going to hear it, never going to listen to it. But I think that there’s a remarkably malleable group of people in the middle that are interested in this stuff. They’ve been getting beat over the head with this narrative. But I think they’re also seeing how, when you start weaving these narratives together, you know, climate change, kind of squirrely social justice stuff, COVID. And then if you start seeing cracks in one facet of that narrative, I think the power of doing that is that you can just like potentially crush people because these are all really hot button, you know, potentially socially isolating topics, because if you push back, you potentially can be deplatformed. But we are starting to see workarounds with that, and also finding people that they’re like, “Oh, if this person got deplatformed for standing up about some of this, maybe they -that’s somebody I doubly want to listen to and follow and kind of think about their message,
Diana Rodgers, RD
You know, I am seeing a lot less of the message, “less meat, better meat,” and people are starting to, thank God, listen to, you know, I don’t know if it’s just from the stuff that you and I have written in Sacred Cow and have been pushing out. But people are understanding that there is a food equity, kind of ethical dilemma to telling people who can’t access the 1% regenerative meat that is deemed holy and okay, to tell these folks that they have to eat, you know, what is it only organic beans and rice? Or like, what else are they supposed to do? Right? Um, and I’m on, and I think you probably are on to these, these email listservs, where it’s like, sort of like you get to see industry funding that’s going towards, you know, different and to, oh, my gosh, I probably get them two to three times a week of, you know, this Israeli company that’s coming up with a fake seafood, you know, a million dollars, and this other one in Europe just got another $15 billion, you know, like, so much money is going into all these fake meats, but I’m starting to see little holes coming through, like, Beyond Meat, you know, stocks are not performing, their profits are not performing the way that they’ve been promising. They’re getting dropped from fast food places. They got caught lying about the protein content of their products. And then what’s going on with the Global Burden of Disease study that we talked a little bit about on Rogen. But that’s going to be the next thing that’s going to really come out to is like, Oh, well, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded Global Burden of Disease Study, which all of a sudden is telling people that the tolerable risk exposure level of red meat is zero, right? Nothing, and no evidence to back it up completely not following The Lancet’s own, whatever code of ethics or papers. So that’s going to be a hot topic. I’m actually going out to Sacramento, probably right about when this airs to the World Butcher’s Challenge, and we’re going to have a special meeting there for the societal role of meat, which is the prelude to this meat summit that I’m going to be the nutrition Chair of in Dublin in October, where we’re going to be publishing a white paper on meat, and it’s going to be focusing on nutrition environments and economics/livelihoods. And I’m really, really excited that this is all now getting elevated to a more academic and global level because it needs to be, and we need to have people stop kind of squabbling about, “well, you know, I do regenerative, and only my meat is good.” And you know, I’m just done with that. That’s my little rant.
Robb Wolf
No, I like it. I like it. I mean, this was a lot of the discussion that I had with this guy back and forth on Twitter that, you know, if you can eat meat that is only raised on clover, and like, you’ve got that setup, great, good for you. Like, that’s fantastic. But if we’re really talking about a global food system that has minimal impact on the environment, like I think we talked about this a little bit like supply chain issues, war in Ukraine, all of a sudden, synthetic chemical fertilizer became super expensive. And these people who usually have these huge ponds of, you know, manure that they’re not entirely sure what to do with – those people were booked out like 18 months going forward of people buying that to be able to use it. And so there are these… that’s kind of similar to, well, if we have an ethanol industry, maybe we should feed the leftovers of the ethanol industry into our animal system instead of composting it or landfilling it, but then that’s not technically like pastured meat, but it’s still good food, and it’s biodynamic. And it’s closed loop. And, you know, it’s all these beneficial things. And people are consistently making perfection the antithesis of good enough. I guess a little bit of finger-wagging. We have people in the regenerative scene that have infantilized the idea around regenerative meat just as badly as George has done a round, you know, that all meat is bad. And that there, you know, there’s, we just need to rebuild the planet. And that’s it.
Diana Rodgers, RD
It’s either one extreme or the other. Right? And yeah, you’re right. I mean, if we’re going to have all this extra sugarcane in Brazil, should we be? What are we going to deal with the leftovers from that process? And ironically, with the changes in climate and more droughts, if grass isn’t growing in a certain area, how are you going to feed the cattle?
Robb Wolf
Right. Right. We need to be dynamic and not have these rules that make it impossible to respond to the way that things change.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Robb, what’s going on? What’s coming up new for you, your groups? Everything going well?
Robb Wolf
Everything’s motoring along. LMNT is doing really well. And we have some cool stuff going on with that and actually getting a little bit of dipping our toe into supporting some regenerative type stuff. But it’s, I can’t say much about that right now. Like, it’s all very much like back channel. But we’re starting to exert some leverage in those directions. And, I mean, honestly, like it, you’ve been through this gig, like my girls are 8 and 10 now, and so I feel like they’re hitting this age where my presence is more important than any other thing I can do. And so I’ve been really, really selective about the time that I spend online and just trying to be really good about when I weigh in on something, hopefully, it has maximum impact. And I’ve thought through it and all that type of stuff. So I mean, it’s just kind of rinse, lather, repeat for me, but everything’s good. You know, we’re very lucky. Everything’s going well; northern Montana in the summer is awesome. So we’re just kind of drinking it all in and enjoying it. The mornings are getting a little bit chilly. And so we’re just getting this tiny little hint of fall in the air and looking forward to that. But that’s it. Yeah, it’s all we’ve got going on.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I think this is my first summer that I haven’t been to Montana in quite some time, so I’m overdue.
Robb Wolf
Yep, you are. You are.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And actually, you’re overdue for a little vacation, and I’ll come watch the girls.
Robb Wolf
Okay, we’ll do that. We’ll do that. They ask about you constantly, so that’ll be an easy sell.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Good. Yeah, I am over here to kind of try to do the same thing. I’ve accrued a waitlist of round over 200 people at this point wanting to work with me one-on-one. So I’m trying to figure out how best to serve all of them. Do we do groups? Do I start working with some health coaches? So we’re kind of looking into that still have the Sustainavore course going, and we’re doing a big push for September. Really try to get some community action going on in there. And I know you’ve had some success with community on your end. So that’s why I’m really excited about pushing that forward. Yeah, it also, again, with my time just trying to be as effective as possible. I’ve been doing a lot more with Global Food Justice. And yeah, more on that to come soon. But I’m excited about some upcoming projects with that.
Robb Wolf
Right on well, people like George are keeping us relevant. If we just win this thing, then we’d have to figure out something else to do so, I guess, thank you, George, for making us relevant and important in this world. So yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much. Have a great weekend, Robb, and it was nice to talk to you as always.
Robb Wolf
Good catching up. Talk to you soon.
Diana Rodgers, RD
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