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A big thanks to Jill Winger for having me as a guest on her podcast, “Old Fashioned on Purpose.”
Jill is a modern-day homesteader and mentor to aspiring homesteaders. Her podcast digs into topics like breaking away from modern consumerism, growing your own food, and becoming reacquainted with the lost art of self-sufficiency. As a homesteader, Jill knows first-hand how important cattle are to human health and the health of the land. She recently invited me to be a guest on her show to talk about Sacred Cow. During our conversation, we get into:
- What’s driving the growing sentiment against meat
- Global policies against beef
- Carbon tunnel vision
- The role of cows in the carbon cycle
- Cows and small town America
- The problem with “less meat, better meat”
- Why the “red meat is bad for you” argument is flawed
- What can you do?
If you loved this conversation, then be sure to check out Jill’s work on The Prairie Homestead. She empowers people with the tools and knowledge to become less reliant on big box stores and learn how to homestead. And it’s not just for country dwellers. Jill has tips for people with only a window sill and a dream!
Resources:
Jill’s Book: The Prairie Homestead Cookbook
Connect with Jill:
Website: The Prairie Homestead
Instagram: @jill.winger
Podcast: Old Fashioned on Purpose
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.
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.
A big thanks to the sponsor of today’s show, LMNT. Do you often suffer from headaches, muscle cramps, fatigue, or sleeplessness? It could be from an electrolyte deficiency, and drinking plain water may not be enough to replenish lost electrolytes. LMNT is a drink mix that has everything you need and nothing you don’t – no artificial ingredients, food coloring, gluten, fillers, or sugar!
Now LMNT comes in Chocolate Medley, which includes Mint Chocolate, Chocolate Caramel, and Chocolate Salt. It’s great mixed with warm water, or check out my Chocolate Matcha Mint Latte for a healthy winter beverage perfect for cold-weather sipping. To give this new flavor a try, visit sustainabledish.com/LMNTchocolate and get yours while supplies last.
Quotes:
“So not everywhere wants to be a forest. A lot of people think, well, we just need to plant more trees, but that’s not true.” – Diana Rodgers, RD
“Wyoming would be worthless without the cattle to convert that grass into protein.” – Jill Winger
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.
(Patreon Ad) Diana Rodgers, RD
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 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.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Hey, everyone, Diana here. And as you might know, I’ve been traveling a ton and doing a lot of speaking for the Global Food Justice Alliance. So for today, I’m releasing a show I recorded for another expert, which I thought you’d enjoy. Thanks so much, and enjoy the show.
Jill Winger
Hey, friends, welcome back to the Old Fashioned on Purpose podcast. So today’s interview is one I have been excited about for a while. I think we’ve actually been trying to schedule it since last spring. But this guest and I both have really busy schedules. And we just couldn’t make it work until now. But it’s going to be very worth the wait. Because this is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart, and is also one that’s becoming much more in the public eye as of late. So I am so excited to have with me today Diana Rodgers. She is a real food nutritionist who lives on a working farm. And she speaks internationally about the intersection of optimal human nutrition and environmental sustainability. She is also the creator of the Sustainable Dish podcast and the co-author of the film and book that you might have seen – Sacred Cow. It’s fantastic. I cannot wait to talk more about this. But welcome. Diana.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Yeah. And I guess maybe one of the things that’s changed, in addition to this growing anti-meat narrative globally, is that I no longer live on a farm.
Jill Winger
Oh, no, I should have checked my bio.
Diana Rodgers, RD
No, it’s okay. It’s all right. I haven’t been super public about it. But it’s no big deal. And, yeah, so it was a huge transition, actually, as you might imagine, like going from a farm to being divorced from my farmer husband during COVID. But now, it’s just like, things are shifting so much with work and with the world and everything. And my kids are about to go off to college. I’ve one that’s 16 and the other is 18. And yes, like, everything’s done.
Jill Winger
That is a big shift. I think COVID did that for a lot of people. Obvi… I mean, obviously, it was a change for all of us. But there was a lot of those upheavals that happened. I know with a lot of friends and family as well. So yeah, yeah. All right. Well, I’m just gonna dive in, because I have lots to ask you. I’m so excited.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Please do.
Jill Winger
My first question is more of a one that kind of from the angle of a fellow content creator and author. How much pushback have you gotten for this book? Like, has it? How has it been to be the creator, or the co-creator of this book? And that the film that went with it?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Well, I can tell you, I mean, I used to work for National Public Radio, and none of my colleagues would cover this book. You know, we sold enough books to get on the New York Times bestseller list – didn’t happen. There was a little bit of a debacle with Amazon not ordering the number of books that were pre-ordered. And so they didn’t ship even though the sales were there. So that was a little frustrating. New York Times wouldn’t run anything. So it’s been really interesting. I feel like it’s definitely a groundbreaking book. And it’s rooted in actual science. Like, it’s not like an opinion piece or something. But unfortunately, you know, being pro-meat, and pro-livestock is a very like political act these days. And I definitely feel like there’s just been a lot of pushback and challenging people’s worldviews and conceptions about meat is definitely something that is, right now in this climate very taboo.
Jill Winger
Yeah, and just, I don’t… I’m in my second book writing process right now and just reacquainting myself with a publishing industry. And the whole time, you know, it’s just interesting to gatekeepers, and it’s Yeah, freedom of expression and creativity. But you got to stay within the boxes and your book doesn’t stay within the boxes, which is why I love it so much, and which is why those of you listening, you guys are kind of anti, you know, establishment folks like me, you’re gonna really like it. But that brings me to my next question. Why are we seeing such a huge anti-meat, and especially anti-beef push right now, and I’ve always been aware of it in the periphery. We had the hardcore vegans or the PETA people, but all of a sudden, maybe since COVID, no maybe it started before that, but it feels like oh my gosh, just in our faces. 24/7 Why are we why the shift?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, so the, you know, the animal rights movement has been slowly brewing for a while and you know, their main thing was less suffering, no suffering. And of course, I’m for that too, like less suffering. But there is no “no suffering” option in food production, as you know, because all life has to come from death in some way. So, the difference today is that there’s a lot of profits happening in Silicon Valley, from these alt-meat companies. And they are sort of using people who, you know, is a lot of people that are unfamiliar with how meat is produced, or how food is produced overall. They feel guilty about animals dying, they’re concerned about climate change, they are worried about their heart health and cancer risk. And it’s just this perfect storm of don’t kill beautiful animals. I don’t want to kill the planet, and I don’t want to kill myself. And so I’m going to eat a Beyond Burger. And that is like a perfect package. So you know, where butter was vilified many years ago, and then vindicated on the cover of Time Magazine, for being bad for our health. Now we’ve got climate change, and killing beautiful animals, right. So it’s like this trifecta of evil that cattle represent.
Jill Winger
Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to keep track of how many angles they have on their prongs of, well, you know, it’s bad, it’s gonna kill you because of your heart health. And then it’s also hurting the environment, it’s also hurting… it’s like they have this multi prong approach of, it’s bad. And it’s kind of hard to decipher that. I think, especially if you’re not familiar with farming or ranching or the cattle industry, it’s really hard to sort through that. And I understand why a lot of people are being drawn to the Beyond Burgers because it feels like such a simple alternative. Or at least how they’re portraying as such.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I know. And, you know, the thing is, is they can’t win on nutrition. Beyond burger like, it’s just straight up the biology’s not equivalent. They’ve learned that the pure ethical argument doesn’t necessarily work, you need some kind of pseudoscience to pull in there to, like, justify it, you know, and so they… but then in the environmental argument, they can’t win on ecosystem function. They can’t win on water on, you know, improving soil health, they can’t win on any of that because their products are made from chemical, industrial monocrop agriculture, which compared to cattle ranching, of any form, they just can’t win, right. But what they can win on is people not understanding what carbon cycles are. And so the carbon emissions argument is the one right now. And I’ve seen that, you know, as you mentioned, I’ve been all over the place. So, in the last year, I’ve been to Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, and all over the UK. And there are some pretty wacky policies being made right now that are really hurting farmers. And it’s all based on people not understanding biogenic carbon cycles and wanting to reduce emissions at all costs. And that is 100% being driven by the alt-meat.
Jill Winger
So even worldwide, they’re pushing that agenda outside of the United States?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh yes. I can give you examples. I mean, in New Zealand, which is like pure, they don’t really do feedlot finishing. So it’s purely pasture-based. Farmers are being incentivized by the government to plant… to take their land out of farm production, and plant trees to offset the carbon emissions from cattle grazing. It makes no sense. And I know it makes no sense to you. But it makes sense to all politicians in New Zealand making these policies and grasslands are better sinks anyway, then forests, so and these trees are gonna get harvested anyway, right? So like, one day, they’re gonna be harvested and they’re not even planting native species. They’re planning like these monocrop, you know, pine, it makes no sense. And then in other parts of the world, in the UK, large corporations like airlines are buying farmland taking it out of farm production for the carbon credit. In Ireland, they’re looking at culling about a million cattle, which it’s going to again be for the emissions but it doesn’t mean demand is going to go down for meat and it just means that the business is going to go to New Zealand or Brazil, but it’s going to put all these Irish farmers out of work. So it’s really just so unfortunate what I’m seeing everywhere. And it’s again, just all based on just the wrong interpretation of like how nature works.
Jill Winger
So then Ireland they’re literally culling or proposing to cull a million cattle just to cut like the burping and the methane or what is that… what they’re that is contrived, what they’re saying.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, right. Because what happens in these like emissions…, like each country has an emission score basically, and because Ireland produces so much dairy and beef, Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions are really high because of so much livestock being there. So the only way they can really make a significant dent is by getting rid of them. But that doesn’t take into account the consumption that’s happening all over the EU from, you know, they’re benefiting from it, but they don’t get sort of the tax of the carbon. But then countries that produce oil, for example, they don’t get penalized for the emissions because it’s not actually being burned in like Saudi Arabia. It’s being burned in other places. And so it makes no sense at all. It’s called territorial emissions. But that’s what’s going on. And everyone’s just so… I call it carbon tunnel vision, like all they can think about is carbon, carbon, carbon. But if we really want to reduce all the carbon, then we should just all just end our lives right now, right? Kill all the life in the ocean. And I mean, like, really, it makes no sense at all. And meat is nutritionally one of the most perfect foods for humans. Their impact on the environment, as you know, is critical and important. I mean, cattle raised on pasture is the best thing for pasture. You can’t have a healthy grassland without healthy cattle on it.
Jill Winger
Can you explain to those listening, because I know before I… well, before I read your book, before I really started educating myself, I kind of knew that cows were important for grass. And I kind of knew there was a relation to carbon, but I didn’t really understand why. Especially when people started talking about the burps that are always in the headlines. And I’m like, why? What is? Why is this in the conversation? And can you explain in the natural order of things, how rumen incent herbivores help us with that carbon cycle and what role the grassland plays in that?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. And it might help folks to, you know, I have an illustration in my book, which is like kind of a dense sciency book, but we did try to write it for regular people to just understand. So I feel like we tried to put a little conversation in there. But the film does a really good job, too. We have an animation of this graphic. And on my Instagram, at sustainable dish, we also post it there. But if you think about fossil fuels, they are mining deep in the earth’s core for ancient dead stuff. That’s what fossil fuels are. And they’re in the process of extracting that and burning it, they’re actually injecting brand new CO2 and methane into our atmosphere, and it’s mostly CO2. And that lasts about 1000 years. And we can see that the rise in CO2 levels in our atmosphere directly ties into the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of burning of fossil fuels through mostly transportation. In the case of cattle, it’s a completely different story. Because yes, they’re burping out methane as part of their digestive process. But it gets recycled very quickly, it only lasts about 10 years and the atmosphere before it breaks down into H2O, water, and CO2, which the plants are taking up again. So they release O2, oxygen, which is what we breathe, and then the carbon, the “C” becomes the grass, becomes the roots gets fed underground to all the microbes, keeps the healthy soil alive, up to about 40% of it, gets sequestered in the soil through decomposition and building of new soil. And then the cattle eat that grass again, and the whole cycle happens again. So it all gets turned over. In the case of fossil fuels, it doesn’t… it’s actually just brand new pollution into our atmosphere. So they should be looked at in very different ways.
Jill Winger
That make sense. And surely earning I don’t know, I don’t know the numbers. Do we have more… at least do the projections say that we have more cattle and ruminants now than we would have had, you know, when the buffalo were at their heyday?
Diana Rodgers, RD
You know, I was actually going to… that was going to be my next thing that I was going to say. So we’re right in sync. But yeah, in North America, we don’t have more cattle than we did before. We got rid of all the bison and other native elk and other ruminant animals that we had in North America. So we don’t have more net methane, emitting livestock or animals in general. We just got rid of the bison and got rid of all the other like natural wildlife, but cattle are actually performing the same ecosystem functions that the bison did. So we didn’t… we didn’t get such a fertile breadbasket in the Midwest from nothing. Like it was from bison grazing on that land. They were tall prairies before. And grasslands have to have grazing animals on them in order to be healthy ecosystems and The Audubon Society has learned this now. And they partner with cattle ranchers for what they call bird-friendly grazing, because they’ve noticed that with all the corn and soy that’s being produced all over the country, we’ve lost insects, we’ve lost food for all the migrating birds, and we’re losing our bird populations, right. But in the case of healthy grasslands, it actually is habitat for lots and lots of wild species. So it’s a very different landscape when you go to a grassland where there’s, you know, beef cattle grazing, but there’s also like it’s teeming with insects and birds and all kinds of wildlife.
Jill Winger
So the argument of, you know, well, we get rid of the cattle that we all eat lab meat, and then we just leave the grasslands behind a glass wall and just look at them. That’s not going to work because we need the action of the animals to keep things thriving, in essence.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Definitely, so not everywhere wants to be a forest, a lot of people think, well, we just need to plant more trees. But that’s not true. There’s a lot of ecosystems that are much healthier as prairies, savannas, and right, so but there’s this perception that well, we got rid of all the trees, and so we need to bring all the trees back. And only forested areas are healthy areas. But that’s not true at all. And this idea that we need to just conserve it and not touch it is also really wrong. Because if that grass just grows, and there’s nothing to chew it and break it down through their guts and poop it out the other end, it’s just going to grow. And then what happens to your lawn, it just kind of turns brown and lays over and dies, right. And that’s why everyone has to go back out there with aerators, and fertilizers and everything to kind of keep that lawn green. Well, cattle can do the same thing. When they’re chewing on the grass, it’s the same as cutting the grass, and it actually stimulates the roots to die back, which is part of the process of then regenerating and growing deeper roots again in the future. And that’s how you build soil is through the die back and come back of the roots. And so when the grass is not grazed and just lies down and oxidizes, the roots die and the plants die. So you actually need to have it chomped on, mowed, and then pooped out the other end spread around as manure. Cattle are also peeing all over the place, which is moving water all over. So you don’t have to like irrigate all the time. You can just have cattle on that grass, and it actually holds the moisture better when it’s healthy soil.
Jill Winger
Absolutely, yes. I have seen that. What I came across that statistic, maybe it was in your book maybe was somewhere else I can’t remember. And it basically said that the amount of of emissions that we get from rotting and wasted food is higher than that that is produced by animal agriculture in the United States. Is that true? Or did I remember that incorrectly?
Diana Rodgers, RD
So I don’t know the exact emissions difference if… Well, here’s an interesting thing that I recently learned is that for every pound of plant-based protein, you have four pounds of waste. That’s pretty incredible, right? So let’s picture soybean protein powder, you have all those soybean hulls, and the plant fibers and all that kind of stuff. So we can either put that in a pile and let it emit methane and just kind of break down slowly. Or we can feed it to a cow, in addition to its ration on a feedlot and upcycle that into, again, the most perfect food for humans. And that’s why I’m not like completely anti-feedlot beef. So, I advocate for regenerative agriculture and for healthy grazing systems and everything. But I also see a place for feedlot beef because it’s actually upcycling. It’s not like 100% corn that they’re eating when they’re on a feedlot. They’re getting this balanced mix. And a lot of what they’re getting has no other use in our food system. And we can’t feed it to chickens or pigs because they’re monogastric. And so they can’t eat that fiber stuff. But we can feed it to cattle. And it’s really the only use we have for that. And so they can take cottonseed hulls and soy hulls and all the leftover junk from the ethanol industry – corn husks, and they can turn that into meat, which is amazing. And so it’s actually quite an efficient process. And I know people think oh, but feedlots are such miserable, horrible, horrible places. That’s three months of the animal’s life that they’re there. 85% of our total beef herd right now in America is grazing on land that we can’t crop, right? And so that’s pretty amazing to a lot of people don’t realize that, you know, if we take the cows away, it doesn’t mean we just have more space for soy protein. We don’t and so in range land areas, probably like Wyoming I’m imagining. A lot of that is is not suitable for cropping. They call it non-arable, but you can graze it. And so it’s a perfect use of that land.
Jill Winger
Yeah. We’re absolutely in that position here. It isn’t a monumental effort to grow vegetables or even trees, like trees are unnatural here to a certain extent, and I have some trees in my yard, but I have to work really, really hard to get them to grow. But what grows is grass and the cattle – like this is cattle country. And when I think about you know, even if you wanted to turn this into grain, commercial monocrop grain production, like you couldn’t do it. There’s not enough water and there’s farmers with pivots for like, different things in there kind of scattered around, but there’s always that question of, there’s just not enough water. And so Wyoming would be, or a lot of Wyoming would be worthless without the cattle to convert that grass into protein.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and the vilification of cattle also means the destruction of rural economies because farming is the backbone of rural America. And what I see now when I drive down, I mean, Georgia is a really good example. I’m doing a workshop at White Oak Pastures next week, actually. And it’s in the poorest county of the whole country. And the town, Bluffton, Georgia, where Will Harris lives was completely like… all the farming, like, there’s not much left, right. And you see that I mean, a lot of people can relate to just driving through like any town USA. And it’s all now like big box stores, all the mom and pop stores are gone. And so you definitely can find a Walmart or a Cracker Barrel, or, you know, any one of these like, olive gardens, right? I mean, they’re just everywhere, absolutely everywhere. And it’s really sad that small business owners are being pushed out. And it really has to do with the fall of farming with the fall of animal agriculture and the consolidation of dairy and beef and everything else.
Jill Winger
Yeah absolutely. I see that here in our area where I mean, the people who are here still making it are ranchers. But there’s a lot less than there used to be around the turn of the century, even just looking at old newspapers, you can see where they had like creameries here and all sorts of places where people were bringing butter and meat and milk. And now that’s all gone because we just… everyone drives to the store and gets those things. And the ranchers were there was dozens of them. Now, there’s just a few big ones who bought up everybody else. So it changes a lot.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. When I interviewed Dr. Allen Williams for my film, he was saying that in his county in Mississippi, there used to be 500 small dairy farms. And now there’s not one. There’s not one. Yeah. But one of the great things is with you know, the resurgence of, you know, some of these new, more hands on farming techniques like what I’ve seen at White Oak pastures. He now you know, converted the old mercantile store that was completely broken down. It is now like white oak pastures heartbeat of the town. Everyone eats lunch there, there’s a restaurant. His office is the old jail house, he took the old church that nobody was using and turned it into an education center. He has provided so many jobs for so many people. And it’s really this like a live vibrant heartbeat, again, of this portion of the US that was completely dying.
Jill Winger
It’s bringing it back. I love that.
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Jill Winger
So you mentioned feedlots. And I, that doesn’t make sense when you think of it like that, like if we’re going to be producing the grains and the soy, we might as well be putting those waste products to use versus letting them rot in a pile. And that brings me to the question of grass-fed meats or grass-finished meats versus green finished. And that was a part of the book that really surprised me. So can you kind of give the rundown for the audience because I know we have a lot. I mean, I love grass, the grass finish, that’s what we raise and sell. And I know a lot of my audience is the same. What’s your thoughts on the science say about that?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. So listen, I did not want or even think that this was going to be the answer. And I just… I see a place now for feedlot finished beef in our food system. It’s affordable. It’s using food waste in upcycling it into great food that’s going to feed a lot of people and I’m a dietitian and a mother. I can’t believe what’s happening like in the New York City public schools, right with like Vegan Fridays, Meatless Mondays, that is not science based at all and 70% of those kids are nutritionally insecure. And so now we’ve got them going home to you know, food deserts on the weekends and we’re going to take meat away on Mondays and Fridays like that was the healthiest part. That burger patty even if it was feedlot finished or whatever, that was still the healthiest part of that the school lunch. You know when you look at like just the roll and the bag of chips and you know chocolate milk that they had to go with it, right? So and…
Jill Winger
That part of your book is not so I eat a lot… I don’t mean to cut you off.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Go ahead.
Jill Winger
Oh, that part of your book where you did bring up that nutritionally insecure population, how much it is hurting them because they’re getting the brunt of oh, just eat more potato chips, eat more bread, just eat more rolls, like it’s killing them. It’s… we’re really hurting them. And it’s all off of this policy that’s making the elites kind of feel better, but it’s really hurting them. I’d never thought about that way before I read the book.
Diana Rodgers, RD
That’s why I really don’t like this message of “less meat better meat” because less than what? What happens when people eat less meat? As a dietitian, I’m actually very pro-protein and think that people need to be eating more protein because when you eat more protein, especially animal source protein, regardless of its feedlot or grass finish, you’re gonna eat less of everything else because you’re gonna feel more full. So I’m hoping what your listeners are hearing is that it shouldn’t be well, I couldn’t find a grass fed steaks, we ate a bagel. Yeah, right, or a bag of chips or something like that, or a bar. You know, do the best you can. If you want to do… if you want to support your local farmer, and you don’t have a lot of money, go for some organ meats or some you know, maybe ground instead that’s cheaper. But if you’re just in the grocery store, and you’re debating between chicken, pork or beef, and there’s no grass fed to be found, beef is still the best choice of those three. And here’s why. It’s 30% more nutritious than chicken. And those chickens and pigs raised industrially, are 100% indoors, eating only grain their whole life, right? That cow that was finished on a feedlot still started at a calf cow operation probably in Wyoming or Montana, only spent about three months on being finished on a feedlot and they could still walk around. They weren’t like caged up, like the conditions that you really see in chicken and pork. And they are upcycling food that doesn’t compete with us for nutrition into the most nutrient dense food you can eat. Okay, so now we get to is grass fed better than feedlot finished? And I looked at all of the existing research. And what I found was not significantly. And people say, “Well, it’s the omegas.” And when you really look at the profile of fats, like in a steak, what you see is that, um, I don’t know, is this a video podcast or?
Jill Winger
Surprise!
Diana Rodgers, RD
Okay, so I’m holding up my my hand. I’m holding up my hand, like, let’s say this, my, the circle of my hand is all the fats like a like a pie chart, right? Almost 50/50 is saturated to monounsaturated. And so Omegas are polyunsaturated, it is like the tiniest little sliver of the pie chart when it comes to the total fats in a steak. And so twice as much omega three would still be like two hairs of the pie chart. Right? So it’s like saying that two pennies is twice as much money as one penny, but it’s still like, I’m not going to I’m not going to go after two pennies to get my money for the day.
Jill Winger
Yeah, right.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So you would still need to eat eight pounds of grass fed beef to get the same omega threes, you would get in a three ounce piece of salmon. So yes, in some studies, we did see more omega threes. But it’s like saying organic carrots are a better source of protein. No one’s eating carrots for protein. They’re eating carrots for other reasons, right? And so to say, Well, only the grass fed beef for the omega threes is like not really an argument. There’s some new research coming out talking about polyphenols and other compounds. And it does look like you know, the more diverse the forage, the more interesting kind of compounds that these animals have in their meat. And that’s fascinating. I still think though, one, we don’t know what like the daily requirement is of polyphenols. So it’s hard to say well, you’re gonna get you know, 500% of your daily requirement of whatever this compound is that we don’t really know much about. And I still like when I look at the overall American population with 60% of our calories coming from ultra processed garbage. I’m just trying to get people to eat real food, like just go to get some carrots they don’t have… and no doctor would ever say only eat organic carrots or don’t eat carrots. Right? It would say like yeah, choose organic if you can find it, if it’s good, you know, definitely do that. But otherwise, it’s okay to just like eat a salad to like it doesn’t have to be 100% organic all the time. That’s the same message that I have with meat. So you know, if you have access and you have the money, please support the rancher that is up the street from you doing great praactices, but if you’re a single mom working in a city, can’t make it to the farmers market, really trying to just make sure your kids get the nutrition they need. There are vital nutrients in that steak that you cannot get or are very hard to get from plants, like iron and B12. And we know that food insecure kids do better when they have meat. So that’s the solution for that.
Jill Winger
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think that’s I hope that’s really reassuring for a lot of people. Because I think there is that, especially in the homesteading world or than the whole food world like, has to be grass finished. And I mean, I love grass finish, we sell grass finish, I think it’s amazing. But if you can’t afford that, then at least eat like you said eat beef versus a bagel or potato chips. It’s going to be better for you in the long run. And really, I mean better for the environment, too, right? Because the potato chips and the bagels or the monoculture mass produced fossil fuel crops. So just even feedlot beef is going to be more sustainable, even if it’s not grass finished, right?
Diana Rodgers, RD
I’ve really come around like even since researching the book because I definitely used to be like eat grass-fed for omegas. And I think it it kind of I had to check my own worldviews and biases and everything because you know, you want something to be true. And you hear it so much. And I go to Weston A. Price conferences, and I like I just wanted it to be the right thing. And it is the right thing. But there’s also just more complexity and nuance to the story than I knew about initially. Interestingly, grass fed dairy is significantly better. And that’s because there’s more fat to begin with in dairy. Like when you eat a steak, it’s mostly protein, right? And the differences are in the fats. But people don’t really eat like tallow by the spoonfuls. Most people I know don’t, right. But when it comes to dairy, and cheese, and yogurt, and all that kind of stuff, there is a lot more fat percentage than protein when you’re eating it. And it does make a difference in dairy. It makes a difference also in eggs, there’s a lot of fat in eggs.
Jill Winger
So would it be omegas in dairy and eggs and that we’re talking about that would be coming through? Or is it a different part of the fat?
Diana Rodgers, RD
It’s omegas. Yep, it’s omegas. And it’s also more fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin K too in the case of dairy. So you’re just getting more healthy stuff, basically. But yeah, it’s mostly the omegas that you would see the difference in. So I do encourage people to if they can justify the extra cost for those pastured eggs to get them and to try to get the grass-fed dairy when they can.
Jill Winger
That’s good to know. It helps to prioritize I think, and those things, yeah. When the budgets tight, too. Okay, so we know that we’ve kind of balanced out this idea of how beef can help the environment. What about the people who are like, okay, that’s nice, but it’s still going to give you heart disease and cancer. Right, you know, good old red meat is bad for you argument.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Well, that’s the easiest argument to win because it’s just not. So the science is pretty clear that, you know, those studies that are vilifying meat are not randomized control trials. They’re not experiments where they take, you know, one population of people and put them in a metabolic ward and make them eat one diet, and then a whole other group for 30 years and follow them and the only difference is steak, and they’ve locked them up for 30 years and like that, you know, that’s just not what’s happening. So what these studies are, you know, they might look at a group like the Seventh Day Adventists, right, who are largely vegetarian. So they might look at Seventh Day Adventists compared to a typical American, right. Seventh Day Adventists don’t smoke or drink. They have a strong sense of community. There’s like all kinds of other stuff going on in the Seventh Day Adventist community in addition to the fact that they don’t eat meat right compared to Joe Sixpack American who you know, doesn’t exercise a lot. I mean, your typical vegetarian exercises more take supplements eats fresh fruits and vegetables like all the other things that you and I probably advocate for just from a lifestyle healthy lifestyle perspective. So when they adjust for all those, they find no difference at all. And there was one study that looked at health food store shoppers, so therefore it’s like kind of a you know, adjusting for similar lifestyle with people who shop at a health food store. And what they found is absolutely no difference at all between being an omnivore and being a vegetarian.
Jill Winger
Oh interesting. Okay. Yeah. Which I mean… man, basic science. Like I teach my kids that we’re doing experiments you have to pick one factor and isolate it for you on variable and that’s how you okay so we didn’t do that. Interesting. I’ve noticed… well, I’m not carnivore, but I have a lot of friends who are following the carnivore diet and it just interesting to see especially for those with really, with like the autoimmune issues and things like that how much they’re clearing up by eating more meat heavy diet. It’s quite fascinating. Like I said, we eat, we’re not carnivore, but we do try to I’m always like telling my kids protein, protein, protein. And it’s amazing how much different we feel. Like, I feel like I mean, that’s just sort of, you know, my anecdotal evidence. But I noticed that.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I feel best when I get like 140 grams of protein a day, which is way more than anyone who comes to me for my nutrition practice eats, and it’s hard to get that much, but I feel really amazing what to do.
Jill Winger
And when I don’t get it, it’s weird because I don’t… I don’t crave things at night, like I don’t really do a lot of potato chips. But if I don’t get enough protein during the day, eight o’clock comes around, and I get this insatiable craving for potato chips and crap like carbs, like bad carbs. And I’m like, fascinating. So yeah, it’s interesting.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and some people crave those and other people crave sweet stuff, it really depends on like, there’s… I’m definitely a salty potato chip kind of person. And so I try not to even like have them in my house. But sometimes, you know, I have teenagers, like I mentioned earlier. And so sometimes they make their way in whether I bought them or not. But other people will crave like ice cream and sweet candies and things like that, too. And a lot of those cravings go away when you’ve met your total protein. And that’s this protein leverage hypothesis. So this idea that we all have this protein threshold that we have to meet throughout the day. And if we don’t meet it, by the end of the day, we’re still looking for any way of possibly getting as much protein as possible. And that ends up being weird cravings for foods.
Jill Winger
That are not as good for us. Been there done that more than once. So, okay, one argument that I hear come up a lot with the whole beef subject is they go cool, cool. That’s nice that you’re doing regenerative farming, but that won’t feed the world. And we have a hunger crisis. So how, how do we address that?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yes. So hunger is a political and food distribution issue is not a food production issue. We are producing more than enough food for everybody. It’s just not getting into everybody’s hands. And those are very complicated reasons why. It has nothing to do with food production. So that’s a number one. But secondly, I in the book, I do go through the numbers, and we do have the land, it seems, to grass finish all of our cattle. So as I mentioned before, almost all of our cattle is grass-fed, they just are spending the last three months of their life on feedlots. So do we have the land in the US to take those last three months? And they would have to live a little longer? Because they would need extra time? Because that’s one of the magics of feedlots right is that it like, finishes them so quickly. But yes, there are benefits to regenerative agriculture in that it actually makes the land more productive. You can actually increase the, what they call the carrying capacity, or the number of animals you can have on a piece of land because the soil is so healthy, and it’s actually producing such more diverse, healthy, you know, grasses and other and other plants that are on that land. So that’s one. So it’s just more productive to their cropland. So farmers are being paid to keep their land fallow. So we could be grazing that. And we can also do intercropping grazing, like after you plow harvest the corn, for example, instead of plowing it, you can actually just move grazing animals in and they can graze the rest of that, fertilize it and turn it into protein. So that’s an amazing thing. And also ethanol, we need to stop with ethanol. So we’re burning fossil fuels to grow renewable, it just makes no sense at all. So we need to stop with this excessive corn production. And instead just grazing animals on that land,
Jill Winger
How much of our corn crop in North America is going towards ethanol versus other human food or animal food?
Diana Rodgers, RD
It’s a large percent of… I can’t remember off the top my head. I know I have the number in the book. So I don’t know. But it’s a shocking I feel like it’s about 30% Like, don’t quote me on that. It’s in the book.
Jill Winger
So with the current farm paradigm, this using so much so many fossil fuels and tilling the soil and damaging the soil structure and the soil nutrients, and then we’re pouring more fertilizers on it with that current modern model, which we all I mean, everyone we’re taught that’s normal, and this is how we do things now. How much longer can I keep going? Because I feel like when people are coming after beef, they’re acting like this is just the alternative that is just the way it is and the way it will be But can this keep itself propped up indefinitely?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. So there are people that say that, you know, we only have 60 harvests left and according to the United Nations, and I actually, when I was researching the book, I wanted to find the source of that, like, exactly where’s their evidence for this. And so, I went back, and I looked, and I actually found out that it is a quote from an employee of the United Nations. And she said it kind of off the cuff at a conference to somebody, like, we only have 60 harvests left, like not, like in this sort of official stance with like, actual data. So whether or not it’s 60, or 50, or 100, it’s not much longer. And, you know, there’s been books written about civilizations that have farmed themselves to death because they’ve ruined all the soil. We are definitely headed in that direction, too.
Jill Winger
Yeah, it’s concerning. Also, it feels like there is such a when say, easy alternative, but a logical alternative, that is just a matter of education. How else can we wrap this up? How else can people like me or the podcast listeners? What can we do to help this? I mean, if we can’t, if they can’t, if someone can’t raise steer in their backyard, what other steps can they take to not only make sure their family has better quality food, but also just help with soil regeneration? And just that general awareness?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. So in the back of the book, Sacred Cow, we do have, like, what can you do? And you know, the first is, you know, eat, be sustainable and take care of your own health. Right. So don’t be a burden on our healthcare system. And it’s funny, because, you know, we saw people who weren’t as healthy really suffer a lot more from COVID than other people. And I’m not saying that, that it’s their fault or anything like that. But if you’re not overweight, and metabolically broken, it’s sort of like you’re not doing American right, right? Like the food landscape we have in this country is horrific. And so if you’re not one of these wackos like us that are, you know, really into natural foods and like making stuff from scratch, like that’s a radical thing. But if you’re not radical, you’re broken. And that’s, it’s not their fault, right, they’re being taught that that’s normal, and it’s not normal. And so, so we have kind of a nutrition plan that you can follow that basically is, you know, eat less processed foods, kind of like a 30-day challenge. And then you know, 80/20, like live in the real world, but like the majority of your life, you really do need to be kind of a radical person. And then we have other things you can do as far as keeping yourself out of debt, living within your means just not, you know, the whole consumerism thing. And then supporting farmers, supporting just regional food systems in general, and trying to like get away from the centralized food systems. And then I started a nonprofit called the Global Food Justice Alliance where I am… that’s funding me to go around the world and speak at all these conferences and tell these governments like in New Zealand: this is crazy, you should not be taking farmland out of production and planting trees here, this makes no sense. So I’ve been flying around the world, I’m about to… Well, I have White Oak Pastures coming up. And then after that, I’ll be in Dublin for the International Meat Summit, where we’re going to be putting together a paper, a series of scientific papers that are going to be published in Animal Frontiers in 2023. And it’s going to be the definitive science on a nutrition environment, ethics and economics livelihoods.
Jill Winger
Fantastic.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So, I’m really excited about that. So people can join my patreon – Global Food Justice, or, you know, support me through that website. And that really kind of the only one that’s pushing back. There’s a few other academics that are out there speaking about this kind of stuff. But, you know, everyone else just seems to be completely sold on this bandwagon of less meat for the planet, more processed garbage, fake foods, and they’re just buying it. And nobody’s… I feel like I need like, an Earth-sized megaphone to, like, shake everybody out of this mindset and let them know that they’re going down the wrong path.
Jill Winger
Well, I for one, am grateful that you’re doing it. I know it takes a lot of bravery, because to go against the flow and being the lone voice in the wilderness. So thank you for putting yourself out there. I know you get a lot of criticism, but we need people like you who are willing to put themselves out there to get the truth and get the science to the masses because they’re not hearing the truth. So Global Food Justice Alliance is… we’ll send people there. You have a podcast too, right? Sustainable Dish podcast. Is that still going?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yep. Yep, Sustainable Dish podcast. Yeah.
Jill Winger
And then Diana also is Sustainable Dish on Instagram, too, right?
Diana Rodgers, RD
That’s right. And then they can Yeah, if they want, the book it’s available everywhere: Sacred Cow. And then the film, the best place to find it is probably Amazon. Or if you have one of those Smart TVs you can just say “Sacred Cow.”
Jill Winger
Fancy. My kid showed me how to do that. And it just like shows up. I type it in like old school. I do technology. I don’t do it anymore. But yeah, we watched it with the kids. It was excellent. Yeah. So good. Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Jill Winger
This was fantastic. Thank you for answering all my questions. And yeah, I wish you so much success in the next few months as you’re flying and traveling and spreading the good news. So keep it up.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thank you. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thanks so much for listening to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. If you liked the show, please leave a review on iTunes. And if you’d like to support the work I’m doing on Patreon, please visit sustainabledish.com/join. As a Patreon subscriber, you’ll get access to ad-free podcasts, plus exclusive video podcasts, never before seen interviews, and a discussion community. Go to sustainabledish.com/join, and thank you for your support.
