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Brett Ender and Harrison Gray are co-hosts of The Meat Mafia Podcast. Through their platform, they aim to address fundamental problems in our food and healthcare system. Their message is simple: eat real foods, buy locally, and cook your own meals.
Like most in the health space, Brett and Harrison faced personal health challenges that led them to real food nutrition. As part of their health journey, Brett and Harrison advocate for including animal-based foods as a part of a health-restoring diet.
The Meat Mafia Podcast features guest interviews with people in many sectors, including restaurant owners, farmers and ranchers, healthcare practitioners, and thought leaders. Their show is entertaining and insightful, and these guys have the ability to distill the complicated topic of nutrition into useful information.
Brett and Harrison are on the show today with my co-host James Connolly to share some of the things they have learned while creating and growing their audience. Listen in as the guys chat about a wide range of topics like:
- How James connected with The Meat Mafia guys
- What advice would you give your 20-year-old self?
- The podcasting road trip
- Creating your own opportunities
- Accepting death as part of life
- How Brett found the carnivore diet
- Being open to talking about health
- The positive impact of podcasts
- What’s in the future for The Meat Mafia Podcast
Resources:
Will Harris of White Oak Pastures
Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms
Chris Bell documentary: Bigger, Stronger, Faster
Sustainable Dish Episode 228: Peter Goodman
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization by David Montgomery
What Your Food Ate: How to Restore Our Land and Reclaim Our Health by David Montgomery
Pluck – organ-based seasoning
Connect with The Meat Mafia:
Podcast: The Meat Mafia Podcast
Instagram: @themeatmafiapodcast
Twitter: @CarniClemenza | @MrSollozzo | @themeatmafiapod
Substack: The Meat Mafia Podcast
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.
For the month of February, running a free community blood sugar challenge. You’ll learn how to use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to guide your food choices, plus a free ebook and access to live Zoom calls.
I’m also partnering with Levels to offer two free months when you sign up as a member to get the CGM without a prescription. Just visit sustainabledish.com/bloodsugar to sign up.
And if you are listening to this after our challenge has ended, you can still get access to my blood sugar challenge ebook and the recorded Zoom calls, plus the special offer from Levels.
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.
(Blood Sugar Challenge Ad) Diana Rodgers, RD
Hey Everyone. I’m really excited to let you know about the free community blood sugar challenge that I am running for the month of February for my followers. You’ll learn how to use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to find out how food impacts your individual body so that you can make the best choices when it comes to your diet. It was a complete game changer for me, and I recommend CGMs to all of my nutrition clients. I’m partnering with Levels to offer two free months when you sign up as a member to get the CGM without a prescription. You just need to visit sustainabledish.com/bloodsugar – all one word – and enter your email to get the free ebook, access to the live Zoom calls, and this special offer from Levels. And if you are listening to this after our challenge has ended, you can still get access to my blood sugar challenge ebook and the recorded Zoom calls, plus the special offer from Levels. Learning about how food impacts your blood sugar is valuable information we all should know. Visit sustainabledish.com/bloodsugar to sign up.
James Connolly
Hey, guys, what’s going on? I actually really wanted to kind of think of this episode… And most of the people that I tend to interview are people that have recent books that have just come out or like a scientist who I think is adding, you know, a lot of nuance to a lot of the arguments about meat or meat consumption, or environmentalism or anything like that. One of the strangest parts about like, kind of interviewing people that I consider friends is that it’s more nerve-racking for me to actually just try to have a conversation with you guys. And I’ve gotten to know you only through like an interview on your podcast, and just back and forth that we’ve had over, I don’t know, maybe the course of like a year at this point. But you know, I’d have been listening to your podcasts a lot lately, just in preparation for this. So I thought it’d be kind of fun to just sit down and like fireside chat, and kind of talk about the origin of where I found you guys. The interesting part about it was you kind of came out of nowhere. Everybody who has been in this fight has been in this fight for a very long time, or at least in our radar, because we were working on the film for a very long time. So a lot of the lightning that was coming out of a lot of scientists and activists and people in academics who were fighting for meat, we all kind of got to know each other very quickly. And then lo and behold, we get this like group of two dudes who kind of just show up out of nowhere. And they’re like distilling all of these arguments down to some pretty like amazing content, and building this incredible platform to kind of talk about this stuff. And then from that, you in essence, went from that space, to then building a cooperative environment where you’re actually like building networks, within that environment of ranchers, of ideologues, of people who are like, you know, good scientific thinkers, and activists and building this whole sort of cooperative. And I’m like, just sitting in awe from like, the initial start from when I found you guys. So introductions: this is The Meat Mafia Podcast, you know. This is Brett and Harrison. Why don’t you do… kind of I want to kind of start out in a different way today. And so like having gotten to know some of the part of the origin story of who you guys are, the degree of knowledge that you’ve accumulated in the people that you’ve talked to… I almost like want to do kind of a thought experiment where, like, all right, say you’re on that South Carolina Amtrak train that’s been stuck there for 37 hours. And lo and behold, you meet your 20-year-old self or your like your teenage self, and you have the time and the space to go and like, open their… break open their world and build something for them. Like how do you start that conversation? Like, what do you bring into that? And like, who is that person that you’re kind of talking to?
Harrison Gray
It’s a great convo. And honestly, this is the sort of stuff that gives me like chills, because I love thinking about these types of things. And just like perspective that you can lend to yourself five years ago, and like, Brett and I were actually hanging out outside last night, and we were like, kind of feel like we like found our fit, like what we’re supposed to be doing, which is a great feeling. Having, you know, just 12 months ago not even started the podcast. So like, I mean, just like looking backwards through the lens of our podcasts, like we’ve had so many amazing conversations over the past year with so many great people, like you were saying, across like a lot of different mediums. And I think it’s taught us a lot about like, where our passions really lie. And all that was born out of like us just kind of acting and trying to like scratch the itch of like, wanting to break away from these prior lives that we had, which is like, you know, we both have corporate backgrounds, and found ourselves moving towards this more entrepreneurial path, but it like didn’t happen overnight. And one of the things that like we’ve recently been talking about a lot is like, it feels like our perception of time and like the compounding effort that we’ve put in is now like shortened every inch that we’re putting in we’re getting more out of so like I think if I were stuck on a train with my younger self, I feel like things like really do just like push you in the direction that they’re supposed to. Like, I don’t think, Brett or myself, I don’t want to speak for anybody. But I feel like Brett or myself, like wouldn’t necessarily have had as much fuel or firepower to run it this as hard as we have, if we hadn’t have like gone through that period of like, working something that we didn’t love and like our heart wasn’t invested in. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that. But it was like, we kind of had to, like go through that to like, come to this realization of like, oh, yeah, this is what we want to do. And I think we’ve realized that over the past year of recording, like 136 separate episodes of the podcast in a short period of time, like having cool conversations, like, Man, this is like what we want to do.
Brett Ender
Yeah, I would say, James, this podcast is special for the both of us. And I was going to ask you, do you remember how you and I connected? How the three of us got connected? I’m curious if you remember, because it’s a podcast when you came on?
James Connolly
Yeah, Kellogg baby.
Brett Ender
So I wrote a thread on Twitter. And I think the header was John or Kellogg’s wants you to stop having sex. Here’s why. It was an informational thread, tip classic headers some type of header that we would do, and I think you would comment that on it. And basically, were like, this is a good, really good thread. But the history of John Harvey Kellogg is so much more than you even understand. There’s so much more sickness that had gone on behind the scenes. And so I clicked on your profile, and I was like, holy *beep*, it’s James Connolly producer of Sacred Cow, which is a massive influence on both of us. So number one, that was really cool. And then you and I jumped on a call shortly after that. I was living in San Diego, I was still working a corporate job. And we – Harry and I had just started writing on Twitter. We had literally recorded two episodes of the podcast when you and I had connected, James. And we had no idea what this whole thing was going to turn into. But we just knew that it felt right. It felt really good. And people were starting to resonate with the message, you were one of the first guests that we had on. So now to kind of like, turn the tables and be on your show, when you’re someone that’s had a massive influence on us in the work, that Diana has done. It’s pretty cool. And it’s pretty special to be honest with you. But it’s cool to start off with that.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, it’s like this unspoken feedback loop. Because I feel like having you on our show early on, like gave us this confidence. Like, oh, wow, we just had the producer of Sacred Cow on our show. Like, let’s keep going like, who knows where this could go. So it’s like, it’s really cool. Just like, we really appreciate like, even just like you coming on our show. And then like the effect of that just built, like building over time, like building confidence in yourself over time. Like, yeah, there’s a lot of traction here. We can keep going with it. It’s pretty cool.
James Connolly
Yeah, I watch you guys come from afar sometimes. And you’re like, you’ll reach out to your Twitter community, like, does anybody know Michael Chandler, and I’m like, what? And then, you know, a week later, you’re sitting down and having a conversation with them. And for people that don’t know Michael Chandler is a total UFC badass, like, absolutely stunning fighter, just one of the most dynamic, amazing guys. And you know, every time he says… as he walks into the cage, you know, that he’s giving 100%. And it’s just building this like whole, you know, family and lifestyle and mindset and all of that stuff. And you guys are just sitting there across from him and I’m like how do you guys do that?
Brett Ender
You’re playing James, it’s like, that’s the really cool thing about the internet is how it’s the ultimate double-edged sword where it can be this like massive consumption model. But also, it can connect you with some of the most amazing people like I would say, you know, not… over 90% of our guests have just come from organic relationships and connections that have been formed on Twitter. And we really do live in this generation where you have a device that can allow you to connect with anyone, anytime, anywhere. And for us, I think we’ve always just believed that, you know, we can do the things that we set our mind to. And the reason why I’m saying that is we went on a road trip back for Christmas. So I’m from New Jersey, Harry’s from DC. We’re living in Austin right now. So we’re like, Okay, well, we’re going to road trip back home. Let’s do a podcasting roadshow. So we can hit up a bunch of really cool guests, people that we look up to, so we went, we saw Will Harris of White Oak Pastures. We saw Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms. We hit up a regenerative farm – Counterculture Farms in the Dallas area. We just kind of made our way up and we knew that we were going to be passing through Nashville. And we had seen that Chandler had been posting some things about the carnivore diet and more things about nutrition and the food pyramid. And we said well, why don’t we just try and reach out to him for the hell of it and see what happens. So we messaged him on Twitter and then we shot him a DM on Instagram. And he was responded and up till like the day before we recorded with him we didn’t actually know if he was going to come on because he’s got a million and a half followers and obviously isn’t really reading DMS. And then last minute was like, let’s book it, I’m in. I’ll come on at 10am And we’re like, holy*beep*, we just looked at each other. We’re like, holy*beep*, we have Chandler coming on the podcast, and just you don’t know what can happen. It’s special. What were you going to say?
Harrison Gray
I was just gonna say to like, I’m one of these people who like looks back and like, feels like there’s like some… it’s just so many weird coincidences, right, like, so we had a speaking event in September, where we didn’t get to record with Will Harris, which we were like, this is such a loss, like we just missed out on recording with Will Harris live. And then we were like, let’s create our own destiny here and see if we can come back to White Oak Pastures sometime in December when we’re going home for Christmas. And then like that whole trip was, you know, based around Will Harris, but then we were like, where else can we stop along the way? So it’s kind of like, yeah, just turning that, that moment of like, man, we really just missed out on an opportunity that was really, really poor form on our part. And then just seeing how it unfolded into an opportunity to speak with one of our idols, Michael Chandler. It’s like, it was just really cool.
James Connolly
Yeah, my team for Death in the Garden on our next film, ended up I could not get there. I could not get to Belgium. But they sat down and interviewed Frederic Leroy for, I don’t know, like three hours, three and a half hours, just like tried to pull as much content out of that as possible. And then they went out to dinner with him afterwards. And that was like another four hours of like, you know, Frederic over wine. And they were like, Oh, my God, if we just recorded just kept this rolling, like you get to just solve the whole like, problem, you know, the whole global like war on meat altogether. Yeah, that’s a lot of the conversations we’ve had is like, you know, over wine or over meals, like being able to sit down and have and really sort of break apart people’s narratives. Because like talking to your 20-year-old self, you’d be like, alright, well, I’m gonna sit down with this UFC fighter who’s at the top of his game, who, you know, his cardio, like off the charts. But then I want to sit down and talk about soil science for four and a half hours. Like me explain that to your 20-year-old self?
Brett Ender
Yeah, well, it’s interesting, because when I was 20 years old, I was definitely consuming a lot of podcasts. But I was definitely in that typical college mindset of like, I wasn’t being mindful of what I was putting in my body. I was drinking all the time, I was just starting to get sick with ulcerative colitis, which is kind of how part of the genesis story of how this whole thing got started. But I don’t think I had competence in myself as a creator, I was just thinking to myself, Oh, I love consuming these shows, and I’m learning a lot about it. But I don’t know, what would I even specialize in? What do I really know? And I think that’s something Harry and I went through when we first started The Meat Mafia, earlier this year was like, okay, like, are we really qualified to be speaking about this stuff? And it’s, of course you are, it’s like, you’ve had your own anecdotal experiences, you’ve done the 10,000 hours of research for yourselves. You’ve tried carnivore, you’ve tried these different things with red meat, you have a simplified approach to nutrition that works. And if it works for you, why not at least share it with the world in your way, and just see if it resonates with someone. So the whole point of saying that is like to your point, James, like, I wish younger people or the 20-year-old version of yourself understood that just because you’re an ex…, you’re not an expert at something that’s okay. You can be an enthusiast. And so much good could come from you just trying to share those gifts or, you know, create a piece of content like I imagine if we had started eight years ago, where we would be now it would probably be unfathomable, and not that I would do anything different the exact path happened the way that it was supposed to. But I hope that younger people understand that message. And I hope that people lean into podcasting and creating online and you know, it can be such an amazing thing.
James Connolly
Yeah, I remember reading a book, like years and years ago, it’s John Ratey’s book called Go Wild. And he created this program called Spark. What it tried to do is incorporate physical fitness into educational curricula. And so if you had somebody who was not doing well at math, you would have gym before the math test. And so they functionally like put physical fitness as an addendum to the educational experience because they knew that the school would do better and the schools that he actually worked with the pilot studies for it, were performing, you know, some of the top schools in the world in terms of academic testing, by just changing this one thing. But he wrote this book called Go Wild and he tells us one story about this girl who had undiagnosed… it was celiac disease for years. And I still remember this story where she, like, woke up, she had a two-year-old child and she couldn’t even get to… she knew she had to eat something because she was so calorically deprived because of celiac. But she crawled to her refrigerator, opened up her refrigerator and tried to get something in her mouth. And every single time she went to the doctor, the doctor was like, Well, what can you digest and she was like SlimFast, shakes, and mashed potatoes. And he was like, Well, that’s what you eat for the rest of your life. And so like, you look at the, you know, the medical experiences of a lot of people who have been dealing with chronic illness for a very long time, they almost have to be their own advocates. They have to be their own enthusiast for their own health journey. And it’s so difficult for people because we grew up within this realm that always looks to authority, and authority supposed to know better, but your personal journey through ulcerative colitis, or, you know, all of that stuff like that is… man, that’s like a PhD, just trying to sort of figure out like how you’re going to live the rest of your life, you know.
Brett Ender
It’s amazing. We’re… Harry and I were talking about this yesterday because we… I think I was mentioning to you, we went back home for the holidays, we both visit our parents, then we came back out to the ranch in Bastrop, which is a town right outside of Austin. That’s where we’ve been living. And we’ve just kind of you know, we were recapping everything that happened in 2022. We were talking about 2023 goals. And even just with like the origin of the show, the origin of the show kind of stem from these events that you would consider to be like a red light, that actually turned out to be a green light. So, you know, when I was 21, and I got diagnosed with colitis, and I’m *beep* blood 20 times a day, and you’re getting on medication, you think of that as a red light. But through that process, it actually taught me that the body is capable of healing, if I nourish it with great foods, if I take care of myself, if I meditate and practice mindfulness to mitigate stress, and it’s ultimately proved that the body is this incredible healing machine. And unfortunately, a lot of the modern diseases that we’re suffering from as a society, it’s because we’re not fueling ourselves with the right food. So a lot of our mission is like how do we teach people what those foods are incorrect, the narrative and what the right foods are, actually are that we’re supposed to be eating. But a lot of that stemmed from these red light events, like, even Harry and I’ll let you tell it like, you know, kind of gaining weight during COVID. But then that forces you to take inventory of the food that you’re putting into your system, like now, a couple red light events that turn out to be green lights down the road.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, I feel like adding to that too. Like, James, you talked about, like always looking to authority for, like some sort of direction. And I think one thing that we try to preach on the show is like, we don’t want to, like replace just another authority, we want to like, make people feel comfortable thinking for themselves and building out their own intuition. So like one of the things we talk about all the time, it’s like, experiment, like we’ve lost this idea of like self-exper…, and like, I’m speaking in generalizations. But like, for a lot of people, I feel like self-experimentation just gives you the feedback you need to either continue the course or go a different direction. And like, if you don’t develop that strength of like being able to one, acquire the knowledge you need to make decisions, or to change direction, like you really just become very susceptible to just like kind of following the path. And, you know, that’s not, clearly, it’s not always a healthy path given like where we are kind of as, like a race or a species in terms of health.
James Connolly
Right? Yeah, I was thinking about that a lot when I was listening to a conversation and Harry that you were having, but one of the books that I was reading recently was talking, he said, the definition of health used to be the absence of disease. And that’s such a, like poor definition. So like, by every metric and standard error, you were probably fitter than you know had every single advantage going for you because, you know, like you’re working in finance, you obviously have the money to spend on food. You know, you had your part of physical culture, you played baseball, you had all of that stuff, but you recognize because you were actually in tune with your own body, that when it started to fail that there was a, like a cutting off point where you’re like, No, I need to sort of figure this out and change.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, and I feel like that like this kind of speaks on like a theme that might be like a quiet theme of our show it’s like it’s all connected, where like you know, I did have all the resources to be really healthy and by I mean by all accounts, I was still healthy person but like working a job that like wasn’t like your heart’s totally in this, like this is your life’s mission. And you’re sitting in an environment that isn’t perfect like it makes you start to act – it’s kind of like out of my mind like I was acting out of like a almost like a different innate character like sitting in a desk, eating Doritos, eating Oreos like that was so, it contrasted a lot with like, who I was in college, which was like, willing to experiment with paleo, eating healthy, but then you just start, like slowly going down a different path. And sometimes it’s easy to just to, like go down that path and not even realize it. And so I think like COVID, kind of, like snapped me out of it just gave me like, a moment in time where I had like, hours back in my day to be like, okay, not commuting anymore, not going to the same environment in the cubicle. Now I have more time to cook, maybe get a little more sleep, make my like, exercises very consistent. And like, within a few weeks, I built the momentum to be like, okay, like, I was literally just like going down a bad feedback loop of like habits and patterns that like probably wouldn’t have corrected itself as quickly as it did if like, COVID didn’t happen. But I think like that wake up moment happened. And I was like, Okay, I’m back. Like, I feel good again. I feel like an athlete again. And like, that was like one of those moments in life where it’s like, I’ll never let that feeling go. Like, I need to always remember this moment, because, like, I want to be a healthy person. And just, like, continue to have this habit. So yeah, it’s I mean, I think turning your health around is like, I mean, it’s hard, but I, it’s just such a positive event that like seeps into everything else in life, like, we wouldn’t be doing the show, if both of us didn’t find ways to get healthier on our own. And, like, start to, like, build that foundation.
James Connolly
Yeah, and, you know, I think one of the things about being in New York or being into, you know, if you’re you guys were in major urban cities, especially when you’re working in jobs that say you’re, you have a law degree, and everybody else is working 70 hours a week, so you’re trying to work 72, every single aspect of that without a COVID break, you probably would have just continued doing what we as social animals would do, and just keep on doing this thing that you’re doing, and just like, and that becomes your kind of cultural norm. And then next thing, you know, it’s like a decade has gone by and you’re like, holy *beep*.
Harrison Gray
I feel like a lot of my decisions, like after I kind of had that lightbulb moment where a lot of like, hard breaks, like hard splits like quitting a job. If I had been continuing to go into the office, I definitely would have just found another job in finance, in real estate. And just, you know, seeing if that was like better. And like, I think I was just willing at that point to, like, make a heartbreak and be like look, you can always come back to this if you really want to, but like, go see if there’s something else out there for you. I think a lot of that confidence and like, ability to make that decision was built in that time period of like getting healthier.
James Connolly
Yeah. And so what, like, where are you guys now? Because it seems like you’re in this constant state of awe. Like you’re doing field… hard field harvest, like you’re, you’re breaking down animals, you’re going into places where like, you’re doing workshops on you know… are you have you started getting into hunting yet? Like, where are you going? What’s the experience that you’re doing now?
Brett Ender
I think it’s just everything is just been a really natural evolution. Like we started off small, just writing on Twitter, just to see, you know, how do people resonate with some of the stuff that we’re putting out there and people resonated really nicely with it. And people were wanting to come to awake to the food that we’re putting in our system, which was really encouraging. So then we said, Okay, well, I think the next medium that makes sense is let’s start a podcast because we’re not experts. We’re enthusiast. But there are so many awesome experts that we’ve come across that have taught us, let’s go ask them the conversations that we want to have. So we’ve kind of we’ve gone down the podcasting rabbit hole, and like Harry had mentioned, you know, it’s been 135 episodes since March 1. That was when we when we launched the show. And I think since then, has been trying to lean in on these interesting experiences that can teach us as much as possible so like, going to a few bison harvests at Roam Ranch in Fredericksburg. Like, you know, we’re both guys that want to hunt. We’ve never hunted before, like you had mentioned James, I was living in New York, Harry was living in Boston, huge urban cities. I didn’t grow up hunting, I didn’t have that appreciation for death or really where my food came from. Even when I went carnivore in 2019, I really just started buying steak and beef from the local grocery store. So you pick it up in a package, but you don’t really think about where that animal comes from, or you kind of want to just block it out of your mind. The team at Roam Ranch in Fredericksburg they do such a good job of curating these experiences where you’re paying to go to the event and you’re actually watching the bison die and be harvested so you watch it get shot, you watch it get butchered. They put you in a circle and pass the bullet around and you literally say a prayer over the bullet and inject some energy into it. And it’s just a completely different experience. Like I remember, Harry had gone to the first bison harvest And they sent him back with a bunch of the liver and the heart from the animal that had been put down. And we just looked at each other. And we’re like, I can’t believe that the organs of this animal, are from an animal that was alive, like less than 24 hours ago. Like it was just, it was just a different mindset than I’d ever had about food before. But I think for both of us, it’s, you know, if we’re going to push, you know, carnivore animal-based diets, like how do we get closer to the rancher or closer to the hunt, just get closer to that overall food process, and really where it comes from?
James Connolly
Yeah, and I think that that, in that way, is the gateway to like a greater understanding of, you know, the wood, Maron and Diana and I talk a lot – a lot is civilization, like, what it is, and you know, where it came from, and how it’s built around all of these different edifices that I don’t necessarily want to belong to, right. So when you talk about a lot of, you know, in some ways, the way that modern medicine will treat the symptoms, instead of the illness, psychology will treat the symptoms instead of the illness, you know, it sort of build this relationship with the world, where you’re not constantly trying to, like remove yourself from the idea that something dies for you, for you to eat. It’s almost kind of a weird, spiritual journey that kind of started like, you end up kind of going on. And then you want to study more about, like, all the aspects of that.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, I think it’s like this idea of like, thinking about things from first principles, and like, trying to figure out the why behind everything. And I think like food has kind of been our lens to figuring that way of thinking out, but it’s like, so applicable across like, all different things, like relationships, like, you know, building a business, like, why are things working, the way they’re working is like, it really does kind of, like enforce that. First Principles thinking and, and like, I don’t know, like, yeah, why society functions the way it does. It’s like that, I mean, that’s an endless conversation, like trying to figure out the understanding of that. So yeah,
James Connolly
Yeah, I mean, you almost have to be an anthropologist, kind of studying human species at this point, right? Because you’re like, you know, the World Health Organization will tell you that sunlight is, is a carcinogen, that dirt, you know, like, there, you’ll see multiple reports on dirt. And now it’s equally good for you and also bad for you as well. Being spending time out in nature can be equally good for you, and also dangerous and, you know, you get all of these different sort of aspects and perspectives on the world. And so much of it really has to do with a denial of death, right in so many different ways. So when you’re holding that heart in your hands, you can’t ignore that anymore, right? You go into a supermarket, you see packaged foodstuffs that look like you know, it’ll never look like a chicken. It doesn’t have the feed on it anymore. The head is gone, the feathers and all of that stuff and you’re like, the supermarket’s are like the church of Denial of Death in so many different ways.
Brett Ender
100% of it and that’s what you guys do such a did such a nice job of on Sacred Cow is addressing this concept of death and taking the morality out of it and actually interviewing farmers and ranchers that are the most closely associated with death out of anyone. And just giving it that unbiased perspective and letting them speak to it. I think unfortunately, what we’re finding is, you know, on the side of veganism, there’s just this denial that death exists, and like there’s this ability to escape death, which we just fundamentally don’t believe to be true.
Harrison Gray
It’s like, one of the few objective truths out there. Right.
James Connolly
Yeah, totally. I’ll tell you the first time I met Diana, it was at Paleo FX. And she was, she had a few placards up. I think she was speaking there. But she had a few placards up she was just standing there. She was working on a documentary film, originally was called Kale versus Cow. And so we ended up kind of changing it. But one of the things that I remember the most about that conversation was that she said that it’s so many ranchers that she talks to won’t eat the meat that they grow and raise because they’re so afraid of cardiovascular disease, and they’re so afraid of the health implications because they’ve absorbed it from the environment for a very long time. So they were growing food that they didn’t think that they had the right to eat anymore. And that’s really stuck with me them, and it’s like a six-year-old story, but it’s like, we were like we have to do something about that.
Brett Ender
Yeah, my version of that story, James is when I first went carnivore in 2019. I was working a tech sales job in New York City and so like, you know, being attacked surrounded by a lot of engineers, and we had a shared kitchen space. And so I first got carnivore and I was making very basic dishes and bringing them into the office so you know cooking up ground beef or cooking up chicken thighs, chopping up steak, things like that. And by going carnivore, I’m effectively like reverse… seeing all the symptoms with my stomach, my bleeding is going away, my stomach feels better, my anxiety is going away, my skin is getting better. I’m seeing all these incredible benefits. And I’m doing you know marathons and triathlons and I’m probably the healthiest person in the office objectively. And I was having these engineers that are like a lot of them being like 30-40 pounds overweight, that are eating pizza for lunch and drinking Soylent, and they’re looking at me and like, Dude, you’re gonna like die of a heart attack. Like, what do you mean? You’re just eating steak. And I’m just thinking about my, I was just thinking, I’m like, these are some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. They have PhDs from MIT, they’ve gone to Harvard, they’re engineers, yet they have no idea about what to eat. They have zero clue about nutrition. And we’ve just kind of like, normalize these things that shouldn’t be normalized. And unfortunately, like red meat has just become an unfortunate scapegoat in the whole process.
James Connolly
Yeah, and, you know, I think a lot of the people who push back on the narrative on red meat specifically, were engineers as well, right? So they look at the looked at it in the mechanistic side of it and said, Wait a second, something’s not adding up here was a Dave Feldman, who started experimenting on himself because he was like, Well, you know, we measure cholesterol one day a year, and annual physical, this is probably a variable measure that has any number of different properties that are happening, whether it’s poor sleep, or poor nutrition, or too much of this or too much sugar. He said, Well, why don’t I just measure my cholesterol over a long period of time, and just pay for that, just get it every couple of weeks and see what that looks like. And you just find the variability for this thing that is supposed to be a measure of, of who you are, how you are, the prevalence of chances of getting cardiac disease. He’s like, this is all over the charts. You know, so these, a lot of the engineers are the ones who kind of like mechanistically, tried to sort of break it down and say, Wait a second, maybe some of this doesn’t necessarily make sense.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, it’s, it’s almost like the perfect person, like an outsider from the medical community, but still has that like, very process-oriented brain logically jumped through every hurdle to be like, Wait, like, this isn’t adding up? This system doesn’t make sense.
James Connolly
Yeah. And, you know, I think, in some ways, the medical community like, oh, you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at this old experiments where they would, who is it? Ancel Keyes did one of the original starvation experiments. Yeah, so he took a number of conscientious objectors during World War Two. And he said, well, listen, you know, you’re not willing to, you have a ideological reaction to fighting. But would you do something that would actually help with the cause. And he took a number of these young men and, in essence, kind of starved them over a long… I don’t remember how long the period was, but enough to the point where they were like, the huge psychological reactions. They used to look at, like, recipe catalogs, and like, that was their porn. This is looking at pictures of food, but the medical community would never pass, or allow that to happen nowadays. And so what we see now are, like these weird sort of mechanistic experiments done with people where they talk about the effect of say, you know, soybean oil on a three week experiments on college students, you know, or avocados on, you know, physical performance, and you’re like, why do we keep on doing this? It’s these ridiculous arguments that you’re constantly seeing all the time. You’ll see an NBC News chocolate is associated with this are, you know, associated with that, and you look in, you dive into those experiments, and you’re like, this was done over a period of like, two weeks, with normally healthy people. And then you took one measurement and extrapolated enormous amounts of data from that. And, you know, expectations from that.
Brett Ender
Yeah, it’s almost like that’s a really important point, you know, hopefully you could teach society to like, look at these sound bites, or these percentages, or these studies, like, you know, just don’t take them at face value, and be willing to go a little bit deeper, whether it’s like pro-red meat or anti-red meat, and really understand, you know, who is conducting this study? Who is funding the study? Is it an observational study, how, you know, understanding the data, like all these different factors that really play into it, I think that that’s something that I’ve definitely learned. I’ve gone on my own nutritional journey because, you know, I remember going before I went carnivore, for the first time, I had all the old misconceptions that anyone else has had that it’s going to, you know, increase my LDL cholesterol is terrible for you, it’s inflammatory, when in fact, running towards those animal products was the best thing that I had ever done for my health. And we’re, you know, every single day we get DMs from people and connect with people that have had, you know, very similar experiences by returning to those foods.
James Connolly
So was the Joe Rogan interview the Shawn Baker, one the one that kind of because that was… when did you find that?
Brett Ender
It was two parts. Alright, so I had, I was a huge fan of the documentary, Bigger, Stronger, Faster when I was younger by Chris Bell. And so I followed Chris on Instagram for a long time and knew that he had always struggled with his weight. You know, he was a shorter guy, but he was, you know, always decently overweight. And then I had seen a picture of him, I think sometime in like 2018 or 2019. And he had looked completely different, like he looked like he had lost 50 pounds. And he started posting about this carnivore diet that he was following, you know, eating all red meat, eating all animal products. And I was like, This is the craziest that I’ve ever heard. And he had posted about Dr. Baker. Oh, that’s interesting. And you know, Dr. Baker, obviously, he’s an absolute moose. He’s like, 6’5″, jacked, or, you know, emergency surgeon, was a veteran. And I was like, Alright, he’s been on Joe Rogan’s podcast, I’ve listened to his Joe Rogan podcast. And I was just very surprised at how non-dogmatic and how simplified his approach to nutrition was. To the point where I think he said during the interview, he’s like, look, eating all animal products for me works now. It might not work in the future, and I’m open to that. But you know, right now, I feel better than I’ve ever felt my entire life and that stuck with me. And then he had also started talking about how a lot of patients that had had autoimmune diseases were having incredible benefits from switching to an all-meat removal diet, and it specifically mentioned IBS, Crohn’s, and Colitis. So for me, I’m like, Okay, I’m on a drug in medication that’s costing $50,000 per infusion every eight weeks that I’m dependent on, why would I not try and experiment with the food that I’m putting in my system to see if I can maybe heal my body and have similar success? So, you know, it all kind of stemmed from me just leaning into being able to connect with these amazing people on social media. That proved to me that healing was possible. And that was all around 2019.
James Connolly
That’s, I mean, it’s pretty stunning. The story I listened to on Kate Cavinaugh’s podcast, just when you run the numbers on the medications and how long you’re on it, you’re like, Oh, my God, you’re full…
Brett Ender
And that’s just for for people with colitis, and like these, you know, people are… I was on a drug called Remicade, and Remicade is an immunosuppressant that treats a ton of other autoimmune diseases. So you think about the fact that there are 25 million people, God only knows how many different types of medications and immunosuppressants there are. That cost is frickin astronomical, let alone the cost of insulin and all these other medications for these modern diseases that we’ve effectively created. It’s like, you just run the numbers and it’s mind boggling.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, it’s interesting to like, I remember when Brett told me he got off medication we were running in Boston. And like, I didn’t even really realize that he was on medication or like really sick to begin with. So like, from an outsider’s perspective, I’ve found it very interesting that I mean, this type of like, IBS, Crohn’s, Colitis, a lot of these chronic diseases are something that people just like, obviously don’t want to talk about, like, they’re embarrassed by it. And then like, you know, as I’ve, like, gotten to hear Brett’s story, more like putting myself in his shoes more and more. It’s like, jeez, can you imagine being like, on a date and like having like, a flare up? Like, that’s the most embarrassing situation you can like envision? So for me, it’s like, how do we get people talking about this comfortably? And like understanding that, like, there are other ways out of this and like, thankfully, there’s a world where, like, maybe there are alternatives to expensive pharmaceutical drugs.
James Connolly
Yeah, guys don’t talk about that stuff.
Brett Ender
Yeah, totally. I don’t know. It’s like, you want to feel like you’re masculine. But like, I remember being 21 when I got sick, and I was going out on dates, and there were girls that thought that I had a coke addiction because I’m going to the bathroom like four or five times, Jesus. But it’s like, it’s a very interesting feeling to be like, I’m a grown man. And I feel like I’m capable yet I can’t even control the most basic human function of going to the bathroom. It’s a really strange thing. And it’s unfortunate because part of the issue with things like IBS and Crohn’s and colitis is we don’t proactively talk about it. We just hold it in, we keep it in, and then by the time we actually go to the doctor, or we get rushed to the hospital, it’s already too late. We’re in a full-blown flare-up, and then you’re on the hook of the medical system, or you need to be on some drug to stay in remission.
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James Connolly
Yeah, I was listening to a comedian last night, and he was talking about his father when got COVID ended up in the hospital, never told anybody. And so when he finally got out, he called up and he was like, Hey, I got COVID. I was in the hospital and was like, what? He didn’t tell anybody. Yeah. And then he was like, yeah, no, it was fine. I was in and out. He was like, How long were you there? He was like, oh, five days. You’re like what? And he’s part of that other generation, like my father’s generation, which just would have died instead of like, being embarrassed and talking about it, you know? Yeah, I mean, it is, you know, it is interesting, because I do find like the health journey is the way to get into this conversation. You know, I think for the, for a lot of people, a podcast is a good way to kind of get into this because you’re hearing, you’re not part of a conversation, but you’re listening in on a conversation. And so you can hear people’s experiences in the world. And then you can say, alright, well, how do I associate that with my own experience? Like, what am I doing wrong? Am I living, you know, am I like working to live? Or if I’m living to work? Can I figure out a way to kind of hack the system in a way that brings me joy and brings me community and all of the stuff that people actually no, like, the things that paleo didn’t talk about, when it became so highly focused on diet was like, how much of you know hunter-gatherer existence was sort of based upon an ideology of like, have a group of people who, like had like-minded pursuits, who that looked out for each other, you know, and sort of building community around that? You know, I think I think for men, like the percentage of men who have close personal friends who they talk to over 40 is like, nothing. In America, there’s very few men who can actually even just talk about, like, any of the stuff that is happening to them. And there’s a huge sacrifice to that I think the male community doesn’t necessarily talk about all that much.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, there’s so much power in this idea of mentorship and just like, thinking back, even just like a few decades, like maybe when your grandparents might have been living in your home with you into like a later age. Like, I think about the power of having a connection with the generations prior to me. And it’s like, it gives me so much perspective in the world. And I like having that throughout your life, like whether someone who’s older, walked a different path and like, done different things. It’s so important. And yeah, I just I feel like a lot of like, echoing what you’re saying, so many guys just don’t have those outlets. So these podcasts, like I feel like Joe Rogan is like the de facto father to a lot of like, lost 20-year-olds.
James Connolly
Yeah, I would say that, yeah. And so he was the first podcast I ever listened to. I was visiting a buddy who had moved out to Seattle, and we went to go hiking. We had this eight-hour hike that we had planned on doing. And he was like, Hey, we’re just gonna listen to this podcast. And it was, in all honesty was the first time I had heard an adult and Joe’s an adult as much as anybody else is. But it was the first time I had ever… so I’m a father, I had three kids at this point, I’m going, I think I actually only had two kids at this point. And I’m like, holding on to some idea of fatherhood. Right? I’m holding on to it, like, in some sort of weird way, like that… you just, you know, imbibed from culture in every single way. And now you have this guy, who’s on there who’s just talking about getting high. And like, you know, just like, who built this entire franchises entire empire on just, you know, having conversations with people. And one of the things I found really interesting was like, alright, well, what is adult it? Like? What is the difference between, like, being an adult, and you know, who this guy is? And it finally broke me through? It’s a lot of that stuff. And I was like, What am I doing? You know, like, I always had, like, a very specific set of rules for how to treat the children when they went wrong. And I was like, Why do I do that? Like, I’m just repeating patterns that unconsciously that I had been doing for a long time. So I always have like, a kind of warm space in my heart for Joe, because he was, you know, he would just like, have these conversations and just talk about, like, you know, all the stuff that guys would normally talk about, you know,
Brett Ender
Yeah, you think about the I mean, it would be insane to even try and calculate just the amount of breakthroughs that he’s led to, you know, for men or women or like, just encourage a different pattern of behavior or expose you to a different guests, like you’re talking about him, changing the way that you thought about fatherhood and being an adult. And like, you know, I think about for me, him introducing me to Dr. Baker, and the first time I ever heard Robb Wolf was on his show. And I think the probably the three of us can point to all these different conversations that Joe has had or guests that he’s had on that I’ve really challenged the way that we think it’s just really interesting to think about in a value that can actually be gained from being willing to like, listen in on these conversations, and then you absorb all the knowledge, the years of knowledge accumulated by the two or three people that are engaging in that podcast. It’s like, we’ve never been exposed to that anytime in history before.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, it’s gonna be cool to like, look back In a number of years and be able to see like, just looking at all these conversations that he’s had and like, I just think the guy has had such a positive impact on so many people, but he has this like, amazing skill set, where he’s like, open but has like, I feel like he does have like some pretty firmly held beliefs. So it’s like this dichotomy and in a person like he, it almost is like two personalities within one that lets people like, speak to all their different curiosities, but he’s like, willing to push back on things. Yeah, it’s really unique skill.
James Connolly
Yeah, I think when Wim Hof told him that you couldn’t get knocked out if you had done his type of breathing, Joe was like… it’s not exactly the way Wim Hof said it. But Joe was like, What are you talking about?
Brett Ender
But it’s important, though, to like be willing to listen to a show where the host is willing to push back on certain ideologies of the guests. And it’s something that we think a lot about too now is we were very curious, we do have some firmly held beliefs. But like, I think there have been a few times where I’ve had guests that have come on. And I’ve afterwards I’m like, should I, could I have challenged that person more. It’s an interesting position, just to be a host of something like that.
James Connolly
Yeah, I just recently did a podcast episode with Peter Goodman, who is a New York Times reporter, who specifically wrote… he’s been to Davos, the meeting of billionaires in Switzerland. He’s been there like 12 times. And he’s righteously angry about the amount of influence that these guys have had on the world. And so I was able to kind of get them on the podcast, and he sat down for about an hour to kind of talk about it. The book is brilliant. But he, at one point, he said something to the effect of well, he was like, I know, people go very quickly to conspiracy theories. And I just don’t want to necessarily go there. And, like, part of me was like, kind of want to push. Like I was like, but at this point, it’s an open conspiracy. Like you, what we have is something that looks banal, right? Like, they’re not eating babies, and, you know, boiling up like young virgin women or anything like that, to get it their brains so that they can live forever, nor are they lizard-headed people. But it’s an open conspiracy to say that these are the people who actually run our world. And they get to decide what our future looks like. And so I kind of wanted to push back in on that. And I was like, you know, you’re so kind to actually come on the podcast to just talk about his stuff. But yeah, you do have this opportunity.
Harrison Gray
Sometimes such a delicate balance, like, not being like being like, politely, pushy. It’s like, how do I get this person to address maybe like something that I don’t agree with, but also not be rude and like, piss them off?
James Connolly
Yeah, I mean, with time, I think the thing about Joe is he’s gotten presidential candidates, this is on for five hours. Like what at what point? Do you ever get that? You can’t, like you can’t live in your own bull*beep* for five hours, you’re going to talk about things that Joe wants you to talk about, which I just find this is pretty intense.
Brett Ender
Yeah and I probably learn a lot from the people that will refuse to go on his show, which I think tells a lot because you know, I think we’re all thinking, Okay, well, what do you have to hide? Or what do you not want people to know about you? If you’re not willing to just go have a long-form conversation? Why do I always need to see you speaking on a 45-second clip on Fox or CNN or something like that? It’s almost been like the ultimate source of truth and knowledge and like a lie detector for people.
James Connolly
So have you guys gotten a lot of pushback in the social media from people who disagree with you?
Harrison Gray
I’ve seen it’s come about sporadically and not frequently, which is interesting. I’m curious to see if it continues that way. Like we definitely have gotten pushback, but it really…
James Connolly
Not coordinated?
Harrison Gray
Yeah, no, it hasn’t felt like coordinated or anything. Like I think that we’ve maybe flown under the radar for a little while or just haven’t haven’t been as pointed about certain things. But there definitely have been moments where we’ve gotten pushback, like PETA was saying stuff, like WHO was commenting on your stuff at one point. So like, that’s always fun. But yeah, nothing too crazy. I don’t know if you agree with that.
Brett Ender
Yeah, I would say that. Yeah, we haven’t had anything too contentious. I mean, it was interesting. The other day, I posted a video of myself at Target, just walking through just like the advertising perspective of Oatly and just what you know how these new big food companies are really run like technology companies, and they know how to window dress the label to the point where it’s like a billboard but then if you go to the back to the ingredient lists, that’s really the source of truth and we’ve almost been brainwashed into living in a world where we think that this like oat milk alternative is healthier than, you know, raw milk from a local farmer, and that somehow ended up filtering into the vegan algorithm. It ended up getting like 2 million impressions, but the sheer amount of just like negativity and people telling me to kill myself and all this stuff. And also just like misconstruing the video, like people thought that I was being paid off by big dairy to promote that, oh, yeah, that’s where it’s like, all I’m trying to do is just promote us just to realize that, like, these are what some of these companies are doing when you’re going to buy your beverage or the food that you’re going to consume. So I thought it was really interesting just to see that. That was probably the most negativity we’ve ever gotten. But it was like just a good piece of learning, just to understand where the other side is coming from.
James Connolly
Yeah, I do think I have had as many conversations as possible on Twitter. And I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not my best person on Twitter. Just something about that algorithm just sets you off. It is funny to me when you think about it because really like the dialogue is between maybe like 40-45 people, right? In all of the sort of infighting and cross-pollination of different ideas and negative feedback, and all of that stuff is really like maybe 23 on one side, 23 on the other. For the most part, like what what I think you guys have been able to do is actually bring in a larger audience of people who don’t necessarily understand one that there is an argument, right? Because that for us was Sacred Cow was like, the argument is so skewed in this one direction that it seems like this is inevitable. And so we’re like, we have to create a film that’s going to bring some sort of balance to the forest, in a way, but like you’re bringing in people, like one of the things that alright, in a better statement, you’re able to get people involved in the fitness industry, who care about nutrition to also then care about where their food is coming from, and the places and the people who are making that food. And I congratulate you for that, because that is a hard pull, right? You know, the fitness industry has its own sphere. And that sphere is really hard to kind of knock into, you guys have done a bang-up job of like actually bringing people into that.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, we appreciate the compliment. And I think it’s like kind of one of the benefits of being a two-headed monster and having like a range of interests. And like also, like participating in a lot of the fitness worlds like we both are endurance athletes and have done some Ironman events. So like, we connect with that community on a different level, like through the endurance sports, but then they’re like, interested in what we do, and we can kind of like, warmly introduce them to the ideas that we talked about. So I think that that’s kind of been how that’s I don’t know if you would agree with that. But like, we’ve been able to kind of like Kayak across a few different mediums where it’s like, you know, just by interest in being able to speak to different topics that were maybe not equally passionate about, but have like, no more depth knowledge and certain things like I think maybe like I take a little bit more to like something like the soil health stuff. And Brett is probably a little bit more focused on like the fitness stuff. So it’s like, I think that there’s a nice balance there where we can penetrate these different areas and kind of like bring it all together.
Brett Ender
Yeah, I would say to that point, James, a win for us was we had on Robin Switzer on the podcast who was running KetoCon in Austin. And I think that, you know, it’ll, it’ll effectively replace Paleo FX as like the largest alternative health conference in the US over the next couple of years. And we had an amazing conversation with her. And we were able to convince her to start incorporating some sessions during KetoCon around food sourcing and regenerative agriculture and things like that. So you know, this April, at KetoCon, we’re gonna get to lead a panel for them on regenerative agriculture, and bring in a couple of our colleagues and friends that are first generation ranchers, and just try and teach people about where their food comes from, and food sourcing and buying beef in bulk and incorporating different cuts of meat. And we you know, we want to really be the bridge between fitness and nutrition, soil health connecting with your local farmer because all these things need to be connected and not separate, like a world where instead of someone going carnivore, they’re buying their meat from ShopRite. But instead they’re trying to go to their local farmer to buy their meat when they’re starting a carnivore diet. Like that would be a huge goal and a great win.
James Connolly
So yeah, I mean, I think it’s currently reading, you know, David Montgomery. Yeah, Harry, you might not say… his previous book was Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, and he kind of talks about like, how the Roman Empire fell and how a number of different empires fell because they didn’t take care of the soil. His new book is… actually want to get the title right. So I’ll look it up. it’s What your Food Ate. Yeah. And so he’s going into, like he’s telling this one story about how they had these farms that this experiment was started in the late 30s in England. And he had three separate plots that were deeded to them. One was organic, it was animal manure and compost that was added. The other one was mixed use was petrochemicals and chemical fertilizers, plus manure. And then the third one was just the NPK fertilizers that were added. And they just noticed, like the nutritional content just kept on going down. Even when you had the manure with the fertilizers. They’d noticed that because the fertilizers were there, the uptake in nutrition was actually lower. And so it goes into this kind of like, understanding that I think a lot of regenerative agriculture is kind of talking about, it’s like, their grass farmers, because it matters what those animals are eating. And if they’re eating the right foods, then the uptake in nutrition, like there is still a lot of minerals, and iron, and zinc, and folate, and all of these different things that are in the ground that can’t be accessed unless we actually build topsoil, and the organic compounds that provide life for that soil, then the plants themselves can’t access all of that stuff into their roots. And so therefore, you’re eating foods that are like or are nutritionally depleted to begin with, and they talk about like the levels of iron, and in beef going down over the past 50 or 60 years. So like even within communities that are eating meat, what we’re finding is you’re just not getting the same sources that you used to. And so like regen ag, I know you can you guys can probably taste the difference, right? You can taste the difference when you’re like, you’re on a plot of land that is dynamic that has like insects that has all of that stuff. And then you go and cook a ribeye from there, and it’s purple, and you could taste the ground. Or you could actually taste the soil. It’s pretty amazing.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, definitely. And I think one of the things that popped in my mind when you’re speaking is, we were on this road trip that we went on, we were lucky enough to speak with Will Harris who owns White Oak Pastures, like one of the legends in the regenerative ag space. And he popped us in his jeep after we had the conversation. And like he was in his element, and we were driving through the herd. And he started pointing out this mineral tray that he had laid out for his cows. And he started to explain to us that he lays that mineral tray out there so that the cows will go and take whatever minerals they need. And if they consume too much of you know a certain mineral through their desecration and like going to the bathroom, they’ll actually remineralize the soil based on like, what they’re eating what they’re taking from that mineral because those minerals aren’t just going to come out of nowhere. Like it’s just interesting, hearing him say that and like hearing his story about how he like came to think of like doing that to help the soil, which then like makes the grass more nutritious for the next round of cattle that are going to be feeding off that grass. Like, it’s just like kind of like he’s like reengineering backwards nature through a mechanism of nature’s just goes cool.
James Connolly
Yeah, I do think the barrier for change for a lot of this stuff, especially with the regen ag, isn’t that high, like convincing people to move over to a plant-only diet is a really hard pull, right. And you just think of like, the number of years starting all the way back in the 70s the saturated fat argument the you know, the red meat is bad for you argument that has been close to 50 years in the making. For the most part, people did adhere to it. But it’s just so much harder to get people to conceptualize the idea of going completely plant-only. And so like making this argument that you could like replenish the landscape, replenish the world, build back biodiversity, build back an ecosystem that actually looks like nature that mimics nature, and then also feed people nutritious food that looks like real food. Isn’t that hard of a poll, right? Like you have to you do have to pull people out of their city mindset. You know, and that’s hard, right? Even documentaries are hard. Like I have 90 minutes to make an argument for a documentary. They’re getting them out of that mindset, but like convincing them to build a world where they actually like sit down and nourish their families do all that stuff. Like shouldn’t be that much of a hill to climb.
Brett Ender
It shouldn’t be but unfortunately it’s like we’re combating against to your point 50 to 60 years of misinformation around you know, LDL cholesterol, saturated fat, red meat, even just the concept of eating for convenience and nuking a meal and sitting down and scarfing your meal at your desk or something like that, and not digesting it properly, like that’s the opposite of nourishment versus what you’re talking about of like, actually being really intentional about sourcing your protein from, you know, a regenerative farm that does things the right way. And then you learn a new recipe and you cook those ingredients with love. And for people that you love and share the meal with people that you love. Like that’s, true nourishment is so much more than just food itself. It’s the practices of how the food was raised. And also, what are you going to do with the food to prepare for the people that you love? It’s like this whole process, we were saying this to one of our guests yesterday, one of our buddies, his girlfriend is from Argentina. So she cooks with like a ton of, you know, flavors and spices and things like that. So she made these incredible burgers like two summers ago where she mixed in ground beef with lamb and threw some really good quality onions and garlic and parsley and olive oil in there. And just like prepared it in such an incredible way that even though it was eating the carbs from the bun, like we felt good after we were eating it. And I know it’s Hokey Pokey, but like frickin made with love and care and attention. And you know, you absorb that. And you can feel that with the food that you’re eating.
James Connolly
Yeah, I want to go back to one of the quotes that Dr. Tro made, because I think he’s equally angry on Twitter and doctor. But he’s like, he had a quote from one of his clients. And he was like, you had somebody who has been on keto for only a few months, like I think was like four or five months, and was like, my god, I’m not hungry all the time. Now I’m just eating, and he has a very simplistic recipe and what you eat, right? He’s not throwing in enormous amounts of like different ingredients, and you’re constantly sourcing materials from all over the place. He’s actually just very simple recipes, like, in his clients were like I am, like I’m starving all the time. That’s why I’m grazing. That’s why I’m eating. That’s why I like the bowl of M&Ms that the you know, the secretary puts out of the office. It’s something that I like, can’t walk past. Because you’re starving. You know, and I think that that is one of the bigger problems is like we have, we have a culture that you know, talks about blood sugar in a way that makes it sound like you’re gonna pass out if you’re not constantly nourished with calories. And so I do think that the thing that happens with a lot of people who do start to eat this way, is that they can actually go and take a 12 hour flight without eating without being hangry and charge in the cockpit because they couldn’t get a cocktail. Right? Yeah, it does take a while to get kind of get people like revved up into this in a way. But like, you know, even if you look at Twitter trending, was in Veganuary barely even trended at all this January. Right? So yeah, carnivore diet was trending, Organuary… I don’t think it showed up. But that’s still a long haul.
Harrison Gray
Maybe next year, yeah,
James Connolly
Maybe next year. But you know, people are looking into it. They’re just citing in January, that this might be something you kind of move forward on, you know, and look at it doesn’t work for me, like a carnivore doesn’t work for me like it… I actually eat vegetables and love them and all of that stuff. But it’s still a meat-heavy diet. Because what else am I going to fill it with? You know?
Brett Ender
Yeah, but even getting to that point, we’ve been talking about this a lot. I think you had mentioned like you were you were asking us about the progression of this show. I think when we started, we came pretty hot out of the gate being a little bit more dogmatic about carnivore and animal-based diets, which is really the wrong thing, the wrong approach if we want to actually have impact and change. If you’re fighting around whether or not you should eat vegetables or fruit, that’s just the completely wrong argument that should be having like for us now we’ve changed our tune. If you’re eating real foods, and our definition of real food is meat, fish, eggs, dairy, if you can tolerate it, fruits, vegetables sourced intentionally, you’re going to feel incredible, look amazing, and live the quality of life that you want. And that’s something that we’re spending a lot of time thinking about is like how do we actually change people’s minds and open them up to what real nutrition actually is? Because, you know, 70% of us are overweight or obese. It’s like we’ve normalized disease. So I don’t know it’s just… you just reminded me that when you were talking about the vegetables and how carnivore doesn’t work for you like that, that’s totally okay. But you’re still eating real foods. And that’s all we care about.
James Connolly
Yeah, yeah. And I do think that there’s a lot of room for movement and talking about like, when it when I eat for myself, because I’m pretty Spartan diet in comparison with the rest of my family. I have a zero-waste diet. I don’t throw anything out. Right. So it’s like that ribeye. If I don’t finish it, then the next meal, it’s going to be gone. You know, like anything that I’m making, eating the entirety of it, and I’m not what I’m not doing. So what I do is I shop for nutrient density. And because I’m constantly shopping for nutrient density, that I’m not looking for variety to fill in those gaps. And I think that’s kind of an important thing that needs to be kind of talked about more with this diet is that you’re not going to be spending, you know, like, you know, hundreds of dollars to buy like this, that and whatever to kind of fill in some sort of weird aspect ratio of like, I might be low on you know, vitamin C, so I need to buy a bushel of this or so like, you’re, you’re, you’re looking into these things in a very different way. And food waste is a huge problem.
Harrison Gray
Totally, and you just kind of reminded me of two conversations that we’ve had one was with Joel Salatin, and we’ve talked to him twice. And he mentioned both times the food waste conversation, it’s like 40 to 50% of the food that we grow and raise goes to waste. Like that’s such a inefficient thing for such a base layer function in society, like creating food, like that’s such an inefficient model. Like if we could reduce food waste, that would be such a win in terms of just like how we’re allocating our resources as a society. And then the other conversation you reminded me of was, we had a conversation yesterday with the founder of a company called Pluck. And it’s organ-based salts. So he blends different organs into this salt seasoning. He’s an ex-chef. And he’s just a really interesting guy. He was… it was a great conversation. And he was just talking about this idea of nutrient density and like eating the right quality protein. And it’s like, I think it’s so important, like, kind of moving away, like calories are important, but like moving away from the calorie model and starting to, or like at least having the idea that like vitamins and minerals from real whole food sources, is more important than like looking at just calories in calories out, because you can feel satiated if you have all those vitamins and minerals that you need.
James Connolly
Yeah, we’re still we’re stuffed and starved in many different ways. Yeah. So tell me like you guys, what are you working on next? What’s like, what’s the, you know? You got any, like hidden stuff? You’re? You didn’t mention it. You did mention a documentary at one point.
Brett Ender
Yeah, I think that …I think that that’s still definitely a long-term goal. I think 2023 for us as the year of like, just continuing to do more of what we’re really good at. And we have so much fun doing the show. We love having interesting conversations. We love connecting with new people. And we’d love to think about different ways to make the show as digestible as possible so people can really take into what we’re talking about. So I think for 2023, it’s been a lot of investing in the show. So you know, me moving from San Diego to Austin so we can be under the same roof. So we can do more in person episodes in studio, have great guests come in, have the compounding interest of us being under the same roof and always sharing ideas. I think that that’s, that’s really exciting to us. And we’re hoping that we can just really improve the quality of the show for our guests by taking that to the next level. But I think down the road, we’ve obviously thought about you know, Can you make the podcast a little bit more informative? Can you turn it into a documentary, or a longer form piece of content that kind of contains the way that we think about nutrition and health and maybe we can leverage all these incredible guests and topics that we’ve learned about into a longer form documentary, but I don’t know if I’m missing anything. But from my perspective, it’s just like, you know, we just want to be heads down and put the best show out that we possibly can for people.
Harrison Gray
Yeah, the only thing I was gonna add is, I think what excites us about what we’re doing is like this idea of building community, and like, our show started entirely virtually. So like the first like 80 or, like 90 episodes, were basically all done virtually. And, like that’s very, like challenging to like really get a good message across and I think that there’s something to having in-person events that you can bring people together who have shared interest or curious you know, maybe they bring a friend they get introduced to new ideas and like see the realness of like these guys behind the screen. And so like we want to do like an in-person podcast set up like fairly regularly in Austin and just have great conversations with people and start building this just like idea of community around eating real foods and having these types of conversations. That’s just one of the things I would add.
James Connolly
Cool. Yeah, I mean, well, thank you guys so much for coming on, man. And it’s always a good conversation. I love your enthusiasm and where you’re taking all the work and diving into all of these different you know, stories and storylines. It’s pretty cool. You know what I mean?
Harrison Gray
We appreciate the support. It means the world.
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.
