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Anya Fernald: Regenerative Farming and the Art of Cooking Meat | Lex Fridman Podcast #203


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The following is a conversation with Anya Fernald,
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cofounder of Belcampo Farms,
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that was founded with the purpose to create meat
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that's good for people, the planet, and the animals,
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specifically treating their animals as ethically as possible.
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In this, she sought to revolutionize the meat industry
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from the inside out.
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She's also a scholar and practitioner
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of regenerative agriculture,
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and she's a chef who has appeared many times
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as a judge on Iron Chef.
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Plus, she has one of my favorite food related Instagrams.
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On top of that, she's also a longtime friend
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of Andrew Huberman, which is how we first got connected.
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Quick mention of our sponsors,
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Gala Games, Athletic Greens, Four Sigmatic,
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and Fundrise.
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Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
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As a side note, let me say that I got the chance to visit
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and spend a few days with Anya
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at Belcampo Farms in Northern California.
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I met many animals there, from cows to pigs,
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and saw the amazing land on which they grazed.
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I butchered meat, I watched Anya cook many amazing meals,
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I ate raw meat and cooked meat,
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and spent long hours at the bonfire talking with friends
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and listening to the sounds of nature.
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I hiked, swam in a cold mountain lake,
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and slept in a tent underneath the stars.
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It was an amazing eye opening experience,
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especially in my first ever visit to a slaughterhouse.
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The term slaughterhouse is haunting in itself.
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The animals I met lived a great life,
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but in the end, they were slaughtered,
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in the most ethical way possible,
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but slaughtered nevertheless.
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Seeing animals with whom just the day before
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I made a connection be converted to meat
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that I then consumed was deeply honest to me.
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This ethical farm, Belcampo,
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represents less than 1% of animals raised
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in the United States.
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The rest is factory farmed.
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I could not escape the thought
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of the 40 to 50 billion animals worldwide
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raised in terrible conditions on these factory farms.
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I've spent most of my life thinking about
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and being in contact with human suffering,
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but the landscape of suffering
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in the minds of conscious beings
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is much larger than humans.
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I must admit that I still am haunted
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by human suffering more than animal suffering.
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Perhaps I will one day see the wrong
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in me drawing such a line.
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Either way, the visit to Belcampo Farms
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made me realize that I have not thought deeply enough
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about the ethics of my choices
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and the choices of human civilization
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with respect to animals.
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And more importantly, I have not thought
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or learned enough about large scale solutions
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to alleviate animal suffering.
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Belcampo is paving the way on this
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and is the reason I wanted to show my support
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for their and Anya's efforts in regenerative farming
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and ethical treatment of animals.
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This is the Lex Friedman podcast
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and here is my conversation with Anya Fernald.
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If you're watching the video version of this
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and are asking yourself why we're in nature right now,
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there's actually a beautiful mountain in the background.
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There's an incredible vast landscape.
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There's a farm.
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We're sitting behind a table and nevertheless,
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I'm wearing a suit and tie amidst nature.
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We're at the beautiful Belcampo Farms.
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We're going to talk about that,
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this incredible place you have here,
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but you cooked some meat yesterday.
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It tasted delicious.
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So I'd love to talk about just the science
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and art of cooking first.
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You as a chef, when you think of cooking,
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is it a science or is it an art?
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Art and service together, probably.
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Art to me because it's about creating something of beauty
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and being responsive and creating something
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that's expression of creativity and love.
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Cooking also has a very strong element of service
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and it doesn't mean necessarily service to another person,
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but like service to health, wellness, environment.
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There's an element of supporting through food
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in how I approach cooking.
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So it's bigger than just like how the ingredients
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come together to form a taste.
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It's the whole pipeline.
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Like the fact that there's a lot of work
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that went into bringing the ingredients together
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and then giving you the ability to make the meal
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and then who gets to consume the meal and the whole thing.
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And you see that as service as opposed to just the taste.
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Yeah, I also think of food as one of the key ways
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that we interact with our environment, right?
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It's the part of our environment
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that goes inside us most visibly, right?
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Of course, we interact with our environment.
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We could have skin creams that have certain things in them
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or our clothes can then be absorbed.
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There's things in the air.
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There's our water and there's food, right?
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It's like how we're engaging in the world.
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Physiologically, it's the most significant way
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we engage in our environment.
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We're extracting resources, calories, energy
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from the environment in various ways
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in order to preserve our bodies.
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There's also so many feedback loops
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that I don't think we know the beginning of
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that our bodies are picking up on around nutrients,
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available nutrients, immune response.
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Like there's deep levels of sensory evaluation
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that lead to health and alertness and wellness.
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You hear about this a lot with babies that, you know,
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if there's a risk of an infection
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that a mom's breast milk will help the baby
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develop a resistance, like there's this way
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that our bodies can tune into health
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and can't extrapolate from that in any specific way,
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but think about that as an example of the many ways
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in which our bodies are reading available nutrients and food
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to signal other aspects of wellness and health.
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That said, the final product of cooking is,
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when done well, is really delicious.
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And what we ate yesterday was really delicious.
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So that aspect of it, bringing the ingredients together
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in a way that tastes delicious,
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do you see that as a science or art?
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That's the art of it.
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I mean, the art is like creating temptation
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and indulgence and giving people pause,
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you know, like creating experience that's like so sensual.
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And like, I love that about when I make something
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really simple and beautiful and delicious
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the way that, like there's that moment of silence
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at the table.
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And that to me is the moment of art, like appreciation.
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What about the buildup?
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I mean, we got to watch you make the stuff over a fire.
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So the calmness of the air, I mean, that's an experience.
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We don't often get to see that experience of the preparation.
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It's the anticipation, like you said.
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Maybe that's the most delicious part of a meal
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is the anticipation of it.
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That's something that I'm glad you bring up
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because it's an element that with eating so many
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of our meals, like out of a bag and you know,
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the instance where you start to eat the meals
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when the delivery shows up and you might smell something
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when you open the bag, right?
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And no judgment on that.
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That's something I do too, right?
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But that does take away a whole element
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of surprise and delight.
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And also I think of your body's ability to prepare for it.
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You know, you think about our most common memories
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of childhood for those of us who grew up in homes
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with parents who cooked is smell of things cooking.
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And it's not the eating of it.
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It's the smell of things cooking.
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So why is that so memorable?
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It's an anticipatory piece of food.
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That's what you remember about your experiences of food
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is the moment of like sweet anticipation
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of this great sensual experience.
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It's gonna be really gratifying on these emotional
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and physical levels.
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So I think we're also resonating on those memories
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because it's like, it's an experience of food
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where the sensuality of it is kind of extended.
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So it's a long kind of arc of buildup
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and then you're eating it and it's amazing.
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Then you're enjoying it and your body feels good.
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So all those pieces together,
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it's a much more memorable experience
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than just grabbing the cookie out of a bag, right?
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So look at our own and just revisit in your mind
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like the memories of food, the most compelling ones.
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It's the smell and then the experience
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and then sometimes how one felt, right?
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Yeah, and the people involved with the smell.
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So like somehow it's all tied in together
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whether it's family or people close to you
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or even if it's just chefs.
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There's something about the personality of the human
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involved in making the food
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that kind of sticks with you in the memory.
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And for me, I recently did a 72 hour fast
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and there's a kind of sadness after you eat
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that it's over.
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I think the most delicious part was the,
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I went to the grocery store and just actually walking around
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and looking at food with like everything looked delicious.
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Even like the crappiest stuff looked delicious
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and I missed that.
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I really enjoyed that anticipation
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and then I picked out the meal.
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I went home and I cooked it
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and the whole thing took, I don't know,
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maybe two, three hours, like the whole process.
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And that was the most delicious part
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and the first taste of course.
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And then after it was over, there's a bit of a sadness
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because the part I remember is the buildup, the anticipation
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and then once you eat, it's over.
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We kind of focus on the destination
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but it's the whole journey.
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The whole like, even if you go to a restaurant,
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it's the conversations leading up to the meal
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and the first taste of the meal.
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That's where the joy is.
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And if you get to watch the making of that meal,
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that's incredible.
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That's where the smell, the visual,
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how the ingredients come together
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and especially as we were looking over the fire,
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like watching it, the fire play with the raw meat
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and over time bring out the colors, bring out the,
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I don't know, like you can visually associate the flavor,
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you know, how it becomes a little bit burnt on the outside,
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you know, it has a crispiness to it,
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it starts to gain that crispiness
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and immediately your past memories
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of the delicious crispiness of various foods you've eaten
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are somehow mapped into your,
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immediately you start to taste it visually.
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I don't know, yeah, that experience is magical.
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It's, and of course, maybe it's the Russian thing
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but I'm almost like saddened when it's over.
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I think fasting is gaining in popularity
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because we're having to relearn the importance
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of being hungry in anticipation and delight.
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Yeah.
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We have such a fear of hunger
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and that's really functional in evolution, right?
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But we have this deep fear of hunger
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and part of the great American experience has been
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that we don't have to be afraid of hunger at all
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because there's food everywhere and it's really cheap.
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In all that abundance, we've lost this edge of hunger
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and we don't let ourselves get hungry.
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And that's one thing that I learned
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in part of my journey as a cook and chef has been,
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you know, moving abroad was the first time
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when I lived out of the US,
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was the first time that I regularly experienced hunger
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because the time between meals was really long
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and that was just what everybody did.
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And so I was hungry for two hours before lunch.
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And that was the first time in my life
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that there hadn't just been readily available snacks.
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So I wonder if the intermittent fasting
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and part of the popularity around it,
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I'm sure there's all these amazing metabolic things
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that are happening, but also people might also feel better
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because they're really anticipating and enjoying food.
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And then if you look at the feelings of fullness,
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there's a really interesting thing that happens
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when you cook and your sense of fullness,
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which is if you cook and you're hungry,
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the experience of being around the food,
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smelling it, touching it, sampling it,
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you'll take your hunger down by 40%.
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And this is my own observation.
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But as, I mean, we've all had the experience
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of cooking Thanksgiving and the cook
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never kind of wants to eat that much Thanksgiving.
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That's an extreme experience.
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But when you really dive in and you're cooking
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for a few hours and you're smelling
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and smelling and smelling,
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it totally changes your threshold of satiety and fullness
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because of other sensory things that are happening.
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And for those of us looking to maintain weight
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and something to consider in this is that cooking
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is also part of what your appetite,
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when you're hungry, what are you hungry for, right?
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So we tend to think about calories, but when you're hungry,
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you might also be hungrier for a wider range of things.
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And it might be smells, it might be stopping.
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There's other elements and that's something,
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I think as a cook, that it's powerful to explore
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and be with and observe how your hunger changes
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when you're cooking.
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Well, let me ask the romantic question.
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When did you first fall in love with cooking?
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Me falling in love with cooking
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was about solving a problem in my family.
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And it had to do with my mom feeling very anxious
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about cooking and overwhelmed frequently
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when it came to meals.
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And I'm naturally very good at juggling a lot of things.
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And it was just something I could dive in and help
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and help my dad, who I'm very, very close to.
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So it was a very functional role where I would see
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this kind of crescendo of anxiety around meal times
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as a kid and would be able to dive in and solve things.
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And I also loved women who cooked.
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Like my father's mother was a great cook.
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She was, I remember her telling me as a kid,
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I was asking her about church and why she went to church.
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And she's like, I mostly go to church
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because I get to cook for the potlucks.
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And so there was an openness around that,
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but she just loved to cook for people
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and there was this real tenderness
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and expression of that love.
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So seeing women in my life who had this real tenderness
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and love that they shared through food
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and then also being able in my own home
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to kind of pitch in and add value
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and help my mom and dad was really powerful for me.
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Cause I felt like I had a superpower.
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I felt like, oh man, I just made this stressful thing
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go away.
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That was huge.
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It's kind of interesting.
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I don't know if you can comment on,
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especially for me growing up in Russia,
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it's probably true in a lot of cultures,
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maybe every culture.
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That food, and especially like in a family,
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the mother that cooks is the source of love
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and like ties the family together.
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It creates events where everyone comes together.
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It's one of the only chances of togetherness.
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The thing that bonds a family is like dinner
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or food, eating together.
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00:14:51.120
And I don't know what to do with that.
link |
00:14:53.080
It ties up with like dieting and so on.
link |
00:14:55.720
When I was on stricter diets,
link |
00:14:57.120
especially competing and cutting weight and stuff,
link |
00:14:59.320
it felt like I was almost like losing opportunity
link |
00:15:02.680
to connect with friends and family.
link |
00:15:04.560
It's interesting.
link |
00:15:05.800
It's almost like cultures,
link |
00:15:08.720
we cannot fully experience love and family without eating.
link |
00:15:12.400
And on the flip side of that,
link |
00:15:13.800
eating enables us to experience love and family.
link |
00:15:17.680
I don't know what to do with that.
link |
00:15:19.200
It's a tough one.
link |
00:15:20.040
Cause there's lots of layers around kind of gender roles
link |
00:15:23.480
and families changing and things.
link |
00:15:26.440
I'd say I agree around the alienation
link |
00:15:29.440
and I've done carnivore diet
link |
00:15:31.120
and I've tried some of these extreme protocols.
link |
00:15:32.800
And I too, I suffered from loneliness.
link |
00:15:35.480
It was like doing carnivore
link |
00:15:37.160
and not being able to eat what my kids ate
link |
00:15:40.640
and talk about it at the same time.
link |
00:15:42.240
Those pieces are real.
link |
00:15:44.120
And I wonder with all of these diets,
link |
00:15:47.280
if that structure is actually helping
link |
00:15:50.200
or just taking away from people's
link |
00:15:52.040
kind of sensual understanding.
link |
00:15:54.200
But I think that there's some rigor
link |
00:15:55.720
around that that helps people discover
link |
00:15:57.280
what's good for them by eliminating
link |
00:15:59.680
and then growing towards more intuitive food
link |
00:16:02.400
is a good evolution from that base.
link |
00:16:05.320
I love to cook for people.
link |
00:16:08.960
I love to pay attention to their way of being
link |
00:16:13.680
and read what they'd like to eat.
link |
00:16:15.760
And it's my purest way of love.
link |
00:16:18.800
And that's for everybody in my life.
link |
00:16:20.720
I actually love to cook for people I love.
link |
00:16:23.640
I would struggle to be putting out food all the time.
link |
00:16:27.560
It's like something for me, it's a real act of caretaking.
link |
00:16:30.520
So I definitely have that in my makeup.
link |
00:16:33.400
And I definitely notice in times of real stress,
link |
00:16:41.480
that's the piece that drops off.
link |
00:16:43.720
And it's like, if I'm unable to care for myself,
link |
00:16:45.560
I have a hard time cooking.
link |
00:16:46.920
So for me, it's very emotional.
link |
00:16:48.400
It's very connected to love.
link |
00:16:51.000
And individualistic.
link |
00:16:52.880
So like focused on the particular individual.
link |
00:16:55.640
It's almost like a journey of understanding
link |
00:16:58.040
what that person is excited about
link |
00:17:00.200
in the landscape of flavors.
link |
00:17:02.760
Like figuring that person out, what they like,
link |
00:17:05.040
what they love to eat.
link |
00:17:06.760
Yeah, I see cooking from, I mostly cook for myself.
link |
00:17:10.400
So I see that as almost, this is gonna be like
link |
00:17:14.080
the worst term, but like an act of self love.
link |
00:17:17.360
Uh huh.
link |
00:17:20.200
This is gonna be clipped out.
link |
00:17:21.640
But that like, it's almost an exploration
link |
00:17:25.640
of like what brings me joy.
link |
00:17:27.960
And it's surprising, because I usually don't share,
link |
00:17:29.760
because the things that bring me joy
link |
00:17:32.640
are the simplest ingredients.
link |
00:17:34.160
Like I'm one of those people,
link |
00:17:36.400
I don't know if you can psychoanalyze me,
link |
00:17:38.080
because you also like basic ingredients.
link |
00:17:40.840
I like a single ingredient to ingredients,
link |
00:17:43.600
because I feel like I can deeply appreciate
link |
00:17:45.520
the particular ingredient then.
link |
00:17:47.360
I get easily distracted.
link |
00:17:49.440
You know, people who are really good listening to music,
link |
00:17:51.360
they can hear a piece of music,
link |
00:17:52.960
and in their mind, extract the different layers,
link |
00:17:55.680
and enjoy different layers at a time.
link |
00:17:57.640
Like the bass, the drums, the different layering
link |
00:18:00.440
of the piano, the beats, and all that kind of stuff.
link |
00:18:02.760
That's what it means to truly enjoy music,
link |
00:18:04.880
to listen to a piece over and over.
link |
00:18:06.680
Like almost like as a scholar.
link |
00:18:08.560
In that same way for food, I just can't do more
link |
00:18:10.640
than like three, because then it's just,
link |
00:18:13.280
I have to give in to the chaos of it, I guess.
link |
00:18:15.840
But when it's just a basic ingredient,
link |
00:18:17.600
like just meat, or just a vegetable, like basic grilled
link |
00:18:22.000
without sauces, without any of that,
link |
00:18:24.320
that I've discovered is what brings me a lot of joy.
link |
00:18:27.280
But that's boring to a lot of people.
link |
00:18:30.040
So I usually have to be kind of private about that joy.
link |
00:18:33.760
So, but that's mine, so yeah, I figured that out.
link |
00:18:36.200
I guess as a chef, you have to figure that out
link |
00:18:38.960
about everybody that you care for.
link |
00:18:41.880
Well, also for you, you're very interested in things,
link |
00:18:46.880
and interested in things being done well
link |
00:18:50.120
and appreciating them.
link |
00:18:50.960
So the single ingredient also allows you to control
link |
00:18:53.720
for perfection in cooking that,
link |
00:18:55.400
which is probably really appealing to you.
link |
00:18:58.280
And I think sometimes I see people also in the beginning
link |
00:19:01.760
of their journey of culinary trying to do too many things.
link |
00:19:05.280
So there's another piece too, that you'll notice,
link |
00:19:08.280
if you recall last night, I grilled us a salad,
link |
00:19:11.200
and then I did all those pieces separately.
link |
00:19:13.520
And that's something in general to be really attentive of
link |
00:19:16.240
when you're building flavor,
link |
00:19:17.680
to make sure you pay attention to every piece separately.
link |
00:19:23.000
The idea that you can, okay,
link |
00:19:24.720
with a soup or something or a stew, there's workarounds,
link |
00:19:27.520
but like to make a great dish
link |
00:19:29.280
that's got four or five vegetables in it,
link |
00:19:31.480
cook them all separately to their optimal deliciousness
link |
00:19:35.320
and then combine them.
link |
00:19:36.640
So that's another way to approach that,
link |
00:19:38.280
is that you may also be able to look
link |
00:19:39.640
at the different ingredients separately
link |
00:19:41.360
and still have that sense of understanding of it.
link |
00:19:44.520
But there's too often that we're layering together
link |
00:19:47.280
like four or five things and then cooking them all at once
link |
00:19:50.680
and then surprise that it's not delicious.
link |
00:19:52.520
Cause you can't really optimize on multiple variables
link |
00:19:56.040
at the same time for peak awesomeness.
link |
00:19:58.720
And that's actually, the number one way you see this
link |
00:20:01.200
is roasting a whole chicken, which is a really difficult,
link |
00:20:03.800
it's the simplest dish, but it's very difficult
link |
00:20:05.720
because you have the breast meat, which is bigger chunks.
link |
00:20:08.640
They cook faster.
link |
00:20:09.600
You have the thighs and drums,
link |
00:20:11.440
which are smaller and they cook slower.
link |
00:20:14.200
To optimize that and pay attention to it
link |
00:20:16.120
and do it all right,
link |
00:20:17.240
you're actually solving for different outcomes.
link |
00:20:19.440
So there's one example, but oftentimes food
link |
00:20:22.480
is less delicious with multiple ingredients at the start
link |
00:20:25.360
because we're not able to pay attention
link |
00:20:27.440
to how each one needs to end up.
link |
00:20:29.760
So there's a way to parse that apart
link |
00:20:31.560
and achieve a better outcome.
link |
00:20:33.840
I don't know if you've seen Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
link |
00:20:36.240
It's a documentary about, yeah.
link |
00:20:39.240
So there's an obsession that that particular,
link |
00:20:43.200
first of all, set of humans,
link |
00:20:46.480
but also the particular cuisine
link |
00:20:50.320
that focused on the basics of the ingredients.
link |
00:20:53.720
What do you think of that kind of trying to achieve mastery
link |
00:20:56.560
through repeating the making of the same meal
link |
00:21:00.120
over and over and over for like decades?
link |
00:21:02.840
Like, do you find beauty in that journey towards mastery
link |
00:21:06.200
or do you think it should be always an exploration
link |
00:21:09.560
to where you're always trying things,
link |
00:21:11.200
you're always kind of injecting new flavors,
link |
00:21:14.560
new experiences, all that kind of stuff?
link |
00:21:17.800
I think you have to decide on a palette.
link |
00:21:19.480
You know, if we're talking about an art,
link |
00:21:20.960
it's equivalent to saying, am I a sculptor or a painter?
link |
00:21:24.120
That, the sushi lexicon thing,
link |
00:21:26.560
that's a very, very narrow, small canvas
link |
00:21:28.880
that you're painting on.
link |
00:21:30.080
And that is a beautiful road, right?
link |
00:21:32.080
There's a beauty and a perfection to that.
link |
00:21:34.760
It's like, I mean, there's many things culturally
link |
00:21:36.680
around that that you could extrapolate
link |
00:21:38.440
for specifically for Japan.
link |
00:21:40.520
But I encourage people on the journey in food
link |
00:21:44.400
to choose like kind of a language
link |
00:21:47.480
that they're working within.
link |
00:21:49.280
And if you wanna step out of that occasionally
link |
00:21:51.280
and have one or two dishes,
link |
00:21:52.960
but if you wanna get mastery with food,
link |
00:21:55.240
you probably aren't gonna be able to get more than say,
link |
00:21:58.440
20 ingredients that you use regularly
link |
00:22:00.560
that you really understand.
link |
00:22:02.400
And so we often see, you know, I see the American pantry,
link |
00:22:06.600
it's got tons of sauces and tons of spices
link |
00:22:08.720
and tons of spice blends.
link |
00:22:10.560
And then really people only use just a couple of things.
link |
00:22:13.880
And the idea that you can sort of splash out
link |
00:22:15.600
and do Korean one night and then tacos the next night,
link |
00:22:17.760
you can absolutely, but to get in a regular cadence
link |
00:22:20.680
of specific ingredients,
link |
00:22:21.640
you're probably gonna get more mastery with that sooner.
link |
00:22:24.880
And I think as much as you can do
link |
00:22:27.040
to get an understanding of the basics around salt and acid
link |
00:22:30.840
and understand your palette,
link |
00:22:31.880
like for me, it's lemon and usually sherry vinegar, right?
link |
00:22:34.520
So that's my acid palette.
link |
00:22:35.880
And my fat palates, you know, suet and butter, olive oil.
link |
00:22:39.160
So you can sort of choose your language,
link |
00:22:40.760
what you're painting with,
link |
00:22:42.320
but I wouldn't splash out and say, do I use sesame oil?
link |
00:22:44.360
Yeah, every once in a while,
link |
00:22:45.520
but that's not part of my base palette, right?
link |
00:22:48.440
Can you say again what your fat palette is?
link |
00:22:50.800
It'd be butter, suet and olive oil.
link |
00:22:53.680
And olive oil, so not, why olive oil?
link |
00:22:56.640
Is it your roots in Italy?
link |
00:22:58.280
I like the flavor for finish
link |
00:22:59.800
because of the bitterness that it adds.
link |
00:23:02.160
So I like the bitter and acid contrast on meat
link |
00:23:05.720
and vegetables, which is mostly what I eat.
link |
00:23:07.640
And so I love that way that the bitterness
link |
00:23:11.000
and astringency complements
link |
00:23:12.800
and allows the flavors to come out.
link |
00:23:14.280
What do you think about coconut oil?
link |
00:23:16.240
I recently discovered that there's a, I don't know,
link |
00:23:19.720
there's a sweetness or there's something to it
link |
00:23:21.880
that I really enjoy, maybe because it's new.
link |
00:23:27.040
It's good with heat.
link |
00:23:29.120
And I really love it for some reason.
link |
00:23:31.000
As a chef, do you ever try it?
link |
00:23:33.680
What do you think about it?
link |
00:23:34.520
I like it in coffee.
link |
00:23:35.800
I like it as a treat a little bit.
link |
00:23:37.960
I find the flavor a little bit challenging in foods.
link |
00:23:41.400
I also find that it's difficult
link |
00:23:46.000
on the quality of that ingredient.
link |
00:23:48.160
So I've found often that I buy a high quality coconut oil
link |
00:23:51.280
and there's rancidity in it.
link |
00:23:53.080
And I don't totally know why.
link |
00:23:54.160
I think it's just the cold chain
link |
00:23:55.480
and how that product's packaged.
link |
00:23:57.280
So I've had some issues with product quality in that.
link |
00:24:00.080
But for me, it's a little bit too much sweetness
link |
00:24:03.080
in my foods, but then again,
link |
00:24:05.040
I don't cook in like a Southeast Asian palette.
link |
00:24:07.080
I try to not have much sweetness in my foods in general.
link |
00:24:09.000
So I, just because of the palette that I like to cook with.
link |
00:24:12.040
So for me, coconut's got a little bit too much
link |
00:24:14.120
of those high notes and earthiness,
link |
00:24:15.960
which is a nice combination, but it's more like a treat.
link |
00:24:18.320
Yeah, it is almost like a treat.
link |
00:24:19.640
It has a flavor of its own that almost stands on its own.
link |
00:24:23.560
Like I could probably just eat coconut.
link |
00:24:27.360
That's probably the only oil I could enjoy by itself.
link |
00:24:29.480
It sounds weird to say,
link |
00:24:30.360
but it feels like fat is often a thing
link |
00:24:33.360
that enriches the flavor of something else.
link |
00:24:35.520
Coconut can almost stand on its own.
link |
00:24:37.360
You might also be responding to that.
link |
00:24:39.000
It's a complex flavor.
link |
00:24:40.720
So there's also, there's an analogous,
link |
00:24:44.400
you know, if you look at butter, for example,
link |
00:24:46.560
a lot of the butter that we eat in the US
link |
00:24:48.400
is just sweet cream butter.
link |
00:24:50.280
It's not cultured.
link |
00:24:51.400
If you explore like a cultured fermented butter,
link |
00:24:55.440
maybe a grass milk, grass fed and finished butter,
link |
00:24:58.160
you're gonna get a ton more complexity.
link |
00:25:00.480
And so you may also just be responding
link |
00:25:02.760
to having fats with more flavor,
link |
00:25:05.040
which is the journey in the US
link |
00:25:09.120
has been towards refined foods that are very neutral.
link |
00:25:12.760
And then you have to combine more of them
link |
00:25:14.680
to make things taste like things.
link |
00:25:17.320
And so if you're coming from a background
link |
00:25:19.960
of using mostly just generic butter
link |
00:25:21.960
or let's say canola oil to cook with,
link |
00:25:23.640
those are very neutral oils.
link |
00:25:25.280
So you can also take some of your favorite fats
link |
00:25:27.680
and look for versions of them that are more flavorful.
link |
00:25:30.040
I mean, I love olive oil as a treat in a spoon.
link |
00:25:33.320
Really?
link |
00:25:34.160
Like a good California extra virgin olive oil.
link |
00:25:35.400
I'll just like have it as,
link |
00:25:36.240
I'll eat a piece of butter as a treat.
link |
00:25:37.760
Yeah.
link |
00:25:38.600
That's like, or butter with salt on it.
link |
00:25:40.000
Like good fats can, all of them can be,
link |
00:25:43.120
if they're minimally processed
link |
00:25:44.600
and they're fabulous and it's so delicious, right?
link |
00:25:47.720
But there are things that you have to like look for
link |
00:25:49.960
a version of them that's got that full palette of flavor.
link |
00:25:53.120
Well, for me also the flavors are inextricably tied
link |
00:25:56.720
to the memories I've had with those flavors.
link |
00:25:58.720
So for better or worse,
link |
00:26:01.920
back when I used to eat a lot of ice cream,
link |
00:26:04.200
I for some reason had a lot of pleasant experience
link |
00:26:06.240
with coconut ice cream.
link |
00:26:07.440
So that particular flavor just permeates
link |
00:26:10.440
throughout my life now.
link |
00:26:11.360
Like I'm stuck with it for better or worse
link |
00:26:14.080
as a flavor that brings up pleasant memories.
link |
00:26:17.440
And as I have a few such flavors,
link |
00:26:19.640
I have such relationship with all kinds of meat too.
link |
00:26:22.560
Like it's just so many pleasant memories and that's it.
link |
00:26:26.160
Like you're almost tasting the memories.
link |
00:26:28.960
And that there's no way to separate the flavor
link |
00:26:33.160
from the memories, I suppose.
link |
00:26:34.560
And that's a powerful thing.
link |
00:26:35.920
What's your favorite meal to cook?
link |
00:26:39.080
I'll roast a couple of chickens
link |
00:26:41.480
and then I'll poach them, like I'll boil them
link |
00:26:44.760
and let it cool down.
link |
00:26:45.600
It's a complicated one.
link |
00:26:47.320
I'll let them cool down.
link |
00:26:48.800
I'll pull all the meat off, put the bones back into the pot
link |
00:26:51.720
and then cook that for like three or four hours
link |
00:26:54.960
and then add in like shiitake mushrooms
link |
00:26:57.160
and all the chicken meat.
link |
00:26:58.800
And I'll throw in a bottle of white wine
link |
00:27:01.280
into the stock as well, a bunch of thyme and garlic.
link |
00:27:04.640
And I love it because it's the way the house smells.
link |
00:27:09.840
It's very laborious.
link |
00:27:10.960
It's soothing for me to spend time picking apart meat
link |
00:27:14.000
and chopping things up.
link |
00:27:14.920
There's like a lot of manuality around it.
link |
00:27:17.640
So I'd say from a personal, like, I mean,
link |
00:27:19.360
I love grilling a steak and doing those things as well,
link |
00:27:21.040
but there's something about making a stock from scratch
link |
00:27:24.560
and the way it smells, the way I feel,
link |
00:27:26.760
the time it takes, the kind of checking in on it
link |
00:27:29.760
that I really, really love.
link |
00:27:31.380
There's many things I love to make
link |
00:27:33.240
that I don't even love to eat.
link |
00:27:35.440
I think you see this a lot in like baking and bakers,
link |
00:27:38.160
people who bake a ton and they love the process of it,
link |
00:27:40.880
even if they don't eat that many baked goods.
link |
00:27:42.640
So anything for me that's really like enjoyable
link |
00:27:45.360
is typically things like making cinnamon buns.
link |
00:27:47.280
I don't eat very many cinnamon buns,
link |
00:27:48.640
but I love making them because it takes all the sort
link |
00:27:51.080
of like futzing around and taking your time and watching it
link |
00:27:54.160
and the way it smells, the way the house smells.
link |
00:27:56.360
All of that stuff is like,
link |
00:27:57.880
it's like almost like a meditative exercise for me.
link |
00:28:01.360
Is there a science, is there an art to cooking meat well
link |
00:28:04.440
and the different kinds of meats?
link |
00:28:05.960
Is there something you can convert it towards
link |
00:28:09.480
in to say ideas, how to bring out the best of it
link |
00:28:15.560
out of what particular meat,
link |
00:28:17.420
whatever steak we're talking about,
link |
00:28:18.440
whatever beef we're talking about?
link |
00:28:20.360
Is there something that can be said?
link |
00:28:21.800
The basic approach to cooking any type of meat
link |
00:28:27.440
beyond the artistry of it is pretty scientific.
link |
00:28:30.500
And it's what type of muscle is it in the animal
link |
00:28:35.160
and what's the surface area to volume ratio?
link |
00:28:38.700
Okay, so let's look at those two questions.
link |
00:28:40.720
So the first piece is what's the type of muscle
link |
00:28:44.080
in the animal?
link |
00:28:44.920
What's the functionality?
link |
00:28:46.300
You don't necessarily need to know that to evaluate it,
link |
00:28:49.160
but you need to understand, is it a tender muscle
link |
00:28:51.520
that's not used very frequently in the animal?
link |
00:28:53.640
Or is it a big load bearing muscle
link |
00:28:55.200
that gets a lot of action, like the cheek, right?
link |
00:28:57.340
Or the shin or those pieces?
link |
00:29:00.360
The muscles like those along the spinal cord
link |
00:29:04.200
that make up rib eyes and New York steaks and things,
link |
00:29:06.560
those aren't very exercised.
link |
00:29:08.200
They're right next to the spinal cord.
link |
00:29:10.160
Spinal cord's doing most of the work there.
link |
00:29:11.680
They're kind of like stabilizing muscles
link |
00:29:13.720
around this big functional piece of skeletal structure
link |
00:29:17.640
in the animal.
link |
00:29:19.320
Other muscles, like the ones around the diaphragm
link |
00:29:21.720
with the flat iron steaks and skirt steaks and things,
link |
00:29:23.720
those are really functional muscles
link |
00:29:25.640
that are doing a ton and moving.
link |
00:29:27.340
And if they're moving a lot, what happens?
link |
00:29:30.400
Well, functionally, they've got lots of muscle sheaths
link |
00:29:34.080
because muscles that move frequently
link |
00:29:36.000
have to do a lot of like complex contraction.
link |
00:29:39.320
That's why there's, in the cheek, for example,
link |
00:29:43.020
there's tons of visible fiber
link |
00:29:45.020
of like collagenous connective tissue.
link |
00:29:47.320
That connective tissue is everything in how the meat cooks
link |
00:29:52.860
because connective tissue doesn't respond to high heat
link |
00:29:56.700
with becoming more tender.
link |
00:29:58.220
Muscles do, right?
link |
00:29:59.260
They can get a sear on them.
link |
00:30:00.100
You can cut them and eat them.
link |
00:30:01.300
The collagenous tissue will glom up and get really tough.
link |
00:30:04.820
So you either have to liquefy it
link |
00:30:06.380
with really low, slow heat with moisture, right?
link |
00:30:10.940
Or you have to barely cook it.
link |
00:30:12.620
And so that's the major piece.
link |
00:30:15.020
So that's the question of like,
link |
00:30:15.860
why wouldn't you just throw a brisket on the grill?
link |
00:30:18.220
Okay?
link |
00:30:19.060
It's not about the fat.
link |
00:30:19.900
You can cut the fat out.
link |
00:30:20.740
The reason you're not gonna throw a brisket on the grill
link |
00:30:22.500
and cook it hot and fast
link |
00:30:23.340
is it's got too much collagenous connective tissue in it.
link |
00:30:25.980
Those are these giant muscles that have all this collagen
link |
00:30:28.860
and these fibers and tendons in them effectively.
link |
00:30:31.220
So you're never gonna be able to just cook that up
link |
00:30:33.580
hot and fast.
link |
00:30:35.180
So that's the first piece.
link |
00:30:36.020
It's like, where's this muscle in the architecture
link |
00:30:38.660
of the animal?
link |
00:30:39.500
And then what does that mean for what's going on
link |
00:30:42.300
in the muscle?
link |
00:30:43.140
And that's actually more important than fat content.
link |
00:30:46.820
We get really kind of,
link |
00:30:48.020
we pay a lot of attention to fat content in muscles.
link |
00:30:50.540
You can make a steak tender
link |
00:30:51.780
if it doesn't have a ton of fat in it.
link |
00:30:53.140
It actually has more to do if there's collagenous
link |
00:30:55.660
and connective tissue in it.
link |
00:30:58.020
That's fascinating.
link |
00:30:58.860
I never even thought about that.
link |
00:30:59.900
I just, I thought it kind of universal.
link |
00:31:04.180
I mean, it adds to the texture of the meat,
link |
00:31:06.900
the chewiness of the meat.
link |
00:31:08.620
But you're saying it's also adds to how the meat is cooked.
link |
00:31:12.620
How heat, how it reacts to heat,
link |
00:31:15.060
how the entirety of the meat reacts to heat.
link |
00:31:17.540
And the fat is not as important to that as the collagen.
link |
00:31:20.900
The fat will make the flavor more delicious, right?
link |
00:31:23.180
Like it'll add unctuousness and mouthfeel
link |
00:31:25.420
and things like that.
link |
00:31:26.220
But all the connective tissue in meat
link |
00:31:28.940
and in some of the cuts,
link |
00:31:29.940
like that we ate at a skirt steak last night,
link |
00:31:31.540
you could see a web of that collagen sheath on the outside.
link |
00:31:35.220
On a ribeye, that same collagen sheath is this big.
link |
00:31:37.580
There's only one.
link |
00:31:38.420
It goes around the outside, okay?
link |
00:31:39.260
Cause it's just that muscle, there's one large muscle fiber.
link |
00:31:42.900
So that specific, it's a myelin sheath, right?
link |
00:31:46.900
That material needs moisture
link |
00:31:48.900
and low and slow heat to become tender.
link |
00:31:51.540
The other side of that is that when it becomes tender,
link |
00:31:54.020
it liquefies and it adds all this beautiful
link |
00:31:56.820
gelatinous consistency.
link |
00:31:58.540
That's what bone broth is.
link |
00:31:59.660
That's why like a slow cooked pork shoulder is so delicious.
link |
00:32:03.980
It's not that it's full of all that fat.
link |
00:32:05.780
That fat's also great.
link |
00:32:06.620
But a lot of that mouthfeel comes from that really
link |
00:32:09.540
beautiful dissolved collagen.
link |
00:32:12.540
So when you're looking at like,
link |
00:32:13.380
how do I understand how I'm gonna cook a piece of meat?
link |
00:32:15.620
That first fork in the road is,
link |
00:32:17.540
how is this gonna respond to heat?
link |
00:32:20.140
And what's the appropriate cooking technique?
link |
00:32:23.220
Then the second piece is that surface area to volume ratio.
link |
00:32:27.300
And that's important because the heat is gonna impact
link |
00:32:30.500
the meat through the surfaces of the meat
link |
00:32:32.900
that are in contact with the heat.
link |
00:32:34.620
So if I have a steak that's three inches thick,
link |
00:32:39.620
I'm gonna cook it extremely differently from a steak
link |
00:32:42.700
that's a half inch thick or three quarters of an inch thick.
link |
00:32:46.300
And that's the major, and that's the truth.
link |
00:32:48.180
If I have a piece of pork shoulder that's cut into cubes
link |
00:32:51.780
versus having a whole pork shoulder,
link |
00:32:53.860
that surface area to volume ratio,
link |
00:32:55.420
that's gonna totally change how I cook it.
link |
00:32:58.060
And same things like pot roast and a beef stew
link |
00:33:01.620
would be the same cut of meat, right?
link |
00:33:03.620
But how I cook them is gonna change
link |
00:33:05.500
based on the surface area to volume.
link |
00:33:06.820
Because you've gotta let moisture and heat
link |
00:33:08.940
work its way into the center of the meat.
link |
00:33:11.140
And that's gonna be determined by the amount of surface
link |
00:33:13.620
of the meat that's in contact with whatever cooking liquid
link |
00:33:16.020
or heat you've got.
link |
00:33:17.100
Is there different sources of heat to play with?
link |
00:33:19.740
Like a big flame versus a small,
link |
00:33:23.060
or maybe even like almost no flame,
link |
00:33:25.860
like over coals, all that kind of stuff.
link |
00:33:27.420
Is there some science to the source of heat
link |
00:33:30.900
in how it plays with the meat?
link |
00:33:32.740
Well, there's indirect heat and direct heat.
link |
00:33:35.340
And that really is mostly about temperature
link |
00:33:39.420
in more than actual, I mean, smoke is important as well
link |
00:33:43.060
that can permeate, but really the smoke
link |
00:33:44.580
doesn't go into the center of most cuts that you barbecue.
link |
00:33:46.740
It'll come in like the smoke ring.
link |
00:33:48.180
It's a maximum like half an inch on the outside,
link |
00:33:52.220
maybe a little bit deeper on a really long, slow cook.
link |
00:33:54.620
So they, but the smoke, that does create a ton of flavor
link |
00:33:58.300
on the surface of the meat.
link |
00:33:59.820
But that's, so the indirect allows you to have
link |
00:34:02.300
smoke contacting it and then a very,
link |
00:34:04.660
very low and slow heat.
link |
00:34:06.260
And what that does is indirect heat will be low
link |
00:34:11.820
and slow enough that the center of the meat will get warm
link |
00:34:15.460
at the same time as the exterior of the meat.
link |
00:34:17.580
And it'll all cook equally and all get equally tender.
link |
00:34:22.180
If you go very hot and fast,
link |
00:34:23.460
you risk the interior of the meat not getting right.
link |
00:34:26.580
You kind of create a shell on the, on it.
link |
00:34:28.860
And you slow down the interior of the meat,
link |
00:34:30.660
which you actually want to do with something
link |
00:34:32.020
like a steak where you want to keep it rare on the inside.
link |
00:34:35.340
So it's really indirect versus direct.
link |
00:34:37.380
Then once you get into direct heat, right,
link |
00:34:39.380
look at in that category, there's wood, charcoal, gas,
link |
00:34:43.780
right, that's about it.
link |
00:34:44.900
And those are meaningfully different.
link |
00:34:47.420
They're meaningfully different.
link |
00:34:48.700
Charcoal and wood, that's more of,
link |
00:34:50.740
there's more poetry and wood.
link |
00:34:52.340
There's a little bit more flavor,
link |
00:34:54.300
not functionally very different,
link |
00:34:56.100
but gas versus charcoal wood is very different.
link |
00:34:59.220
And that's because of the actual scent of the,
link |
00:35:02.260
of the cook, right, the scent of the flavor.
link |
00:35:04.540
And then there's a,
link |
00:35:06.900
I think an evenness of heat distribution
link |
00:35:09.300
that comes off of charcoal that's different from gas,
link |
00:35:11.980
because no matter how awesome your gas grill is,
link |
00:35:13.780
you do have hotter and cooler spots.
link |
00:35:16.380
So gas grills are typically,
link |
00:35:18.020
you can kind of control for that
link |
00:35:19.460
if you just are going really hot and fast,
link |
00:35:21.620
which is why gas grills are fine
link |
00:35:22.980
if you're just like throwing that steak on,
link |
00:35:24.500
get a hard sear on it, those burgers put a crust on it.
link |
00:35:26.660
Gas is fabulous for that.
link |
00:35:27.780
It's perfect.
link |
00:35:28.780
When you're doing things that do better
link |
00:35:30.740
with a low and slow cook,
link |
00:35:33.220
like let's say a whole tenderloin or chicken thigh,
link |
00:35:36.540
that's going to be a little bit less elegant on gas
link |
00:35:39.980
than on charcoal versus wood.
link |
00:35:41.540
So when you have more,
link |
00:35:42.380
more kind of nuance in the low, slow cook
link |
00:35:44.980
over the natural fuels.
link |
00:35:46.580
Talking about like smoke and flame and charcoal versus gas,
link |
00:35:52.100
it also adds to the experience and the smell
link |
00:35:54.740
and the whole thing of the cooking,
link |
00:35:57.660
like versus just like the taste it creates.
link |
00:36:00.020
There's a certain experience too,
link |
00:36:01.420
like when there's a bit of smoke,
link |
00:36:03.140
maybe I don't know what the chemistry of it is,
link |
00:36:04.660
but I feel like with smoke,
link |
00:36:05.940
the smell is distributed more effectively.
link |
00:36:07.980
I don't know if that's true,
link |
00:36:08.820
but there's a smell and a visual aspect to the experience
link |
00:36:13.820
that's almost enriched with a bit of smoke
link |
00:36:15.900
or like an open flame.
link |
00:36:18.980
Like if you can see the flame, there's magic to that.
link |
00:36:21.540
And it goes to the experience piece
link |
00:36:23.300
that we were talking about before.
link |
00:36:24.140
We were talking exactly about that,
link |
00:36:25.940
like the nuance and the beauty of like that long, slow cook
link |
00:36:29.500
and your house smelling like something.
link |
00:36:31.220
Why do people freak out about barbecue?
link |
00:36:33.220
Yeah.
link |
00:36:34.180
Why?
link |
00:36:35.020
Because you go in and it smells bomb.
link |
00:36:36.460
It smells so good.
link |
00:36:38.140
It smells like heaven, right?
link |
00:36:39.660
It smells fatty and delicious and the smells everywhere
link |
00:36:42.900
and everyone's smelling the same smell.
link |
00:36:44.540
So there's like this collective experience.
link |
00:36:46.860
It's incredible.
link |
00:36:47.980
That's, I mean, I think that's why barbecue
link |
00:36:49.980
is so sticky for people.
link |
00:36:52.300
It's like so yummy
link |
00:36:53.700
and you get this huge like anticipatory thing about it.
link |
00:36:56.620
It's like, cause it smells incredible.
link |
00:36:58.700
What was that incredible grill that we used yesterday?
link |
00:37:00.780
What is that about?
link |
00:37:01.620
That's called a Sea Island Forge.
link |
00:37:03.220
It's a wood fire grill that's inspired
link |
00:37:05.660
by like a South American style of cooking.
link |
00:37:07.700
So it's like, it's big.
link |
00:37:08.780
It has also the things with the crank.
link |
00:37:11.500
It allows you to control the distance from the flame.
link |
00:37:13.940
It's awesome.
link |
00:37:14.780
It's really key with the wood fire.
link |
00:37:15.860
So when we evolved from cooking over wood to charcoal,
link |
00:37:20.380
right, when that became more popular,
link |
00:37:22.940
the reason that we did that is that allowed us
link |
00:37:25.300
to skip the whole part of making our own charcoal, right?
link |
00:37:28.620
So when you're cooking over wood,
link |
00:37:29.940
all you're doing is making your own charcoal.
link |
00:37:32.100
You don't ever cook over wood with the red fire.
link |
00:37:34.860
Like we don't like throw a steak on
link |
00:37:36.740
when the flames are orange and leaping up
link |
00:37:38.540
because you're just gonna get, you know,
link |
00:37:40.180
carbons like char all over your meat.
link |
00:37:42.500
So you're, when you're cooking over wood,
link |
00:37:44.020
you first cook down the wood,
link |
00:37:45.500
you create the coal base, the natural coal base,
link |
00:37:48.220
and then you cook over that.
link |
00:37:49.420
So you saw yesterday, I built my fire,
link |
00:37:50.980
I let it burn down, added some fresh wood
link |
00:37:52.660
so I could reinforce my coals with new coals coming in.
link |
00:37:56.180
But then I was actually cooking over the embers.
link |
00:38:00.060
You shorten that cycle with charcoal, it's more efficient.
link |
00:38:04.340
But what you lose is that whole cycle of, you know,
link |
00:38:07.380
that really beautiful experience of smelling.
link |
00:38:10.500
Now, if you're cooking on a Traeger,
link |
00:38:12.100
you're gonna get awesome smoke smell.
link |
00:38:13.500
You know, like there's plenty of ways to do this.
link |
00:38:15.820
It doesn't always have to be wood fire.
link |
00:38:17.020
And I love all the different ways, right?
link |
00:38:19.820
But I really like the experience of the campfire.
link |
00:38:23.460
And I love that kind of just like sitting by it,
link |
00:38:25.300
building it, having to take the time.
link |
00:38:26.740
I like building the fire, going inside,
link |
00:38:28.620
preparing all my meats, bringing them out, cooking them.
link |
00:38:31.140
That whole experience start to finish
link |
00:38:33.060
is really just like something that it's my favorite.
link |
00:38:36.180
It's my favorite way to spend time, you know?
link |
00:38:38.620
So I think, and why is that?
link |
00:38:40.060
Is the food that different than cooking it
link |
00:38:41.700
in a more conventional grill?
link |
00:38:43.500
Probably not, you know, like in a pure experience.
link |
00:38:45.980
But I think the actual experience is super memorable
link |
00:38:48.860
because you are outside, you are still in your role.
link |
00:38:51.340
You're enjoying this, you know, you're just taking in,
link |
00:38:54.660
you're watching, you're anticipating.
link |
00:38:56.700
I love that whole experience.
link |
00:38:58.740
Does the origin of the meat itself make a difference?
link |
00:39:03.580
So we're here at Belcampo Farms
link |
00:39:05.580
and we'll, maybe you could talk about what your vision,
link |
00:39:10.220
your dream is in terms of like food,
link |
00:39:14.580
in terms of where food comes from,
link |
00:39:16.820
where meat comes from, but food broadly,
link |
00:39:19.140
and how that affects the entirety of the culinary journey.
link |
00:39:25.180
On the question of where does it come from
link |
00:39:27.380
and does that matter, I'd say the way that meat is raised
link |
00:39:31.780
is massively important for flavor and for how it cooks.
link |
00:39:36.420
I think most cooks who try cooking grass fed
link |
00:39:41.940
versus corn fed, that's the first moment
link |
00:39:44.460
where they realize that, right?
link |
00:39:45.860
Where corn fed meat cooks much more slowly,
link |
00:39:48.900
it's got bigger veins of fat that slow the heat transfer
link |
00:39:53.020
throughout the muscle of the animal,
link |
00:39:54.980
compared to grass fed, which is leaner,
link |
00:39:56.580
heat moves through it more quickly,
link |
00:39:58.300
those steaks will cook much, much faster.
link |
00:40:00.220
So there's very kind of technical reasons why,
link |
00:40:03.660
how meat is raised that we're aware of.
link |
00:40:07.220
And there's other things that I've noticed,
link |
00:40:09.620
like that slower growing poultry
link |
00:40:13.620
has a very, very different musculature and fiber to it
link |
00:40:16.740
than fast growing poultry, that's confinement animals.
link |
00:40:19.940
It's just, it has to do with the way
link |
00:40:21.820
that the muscles are built.
link |
00:40:22.780
They tend to be finer and thinner and more tender
link |
00:40:26.060
and a little bit more susceptible to heat.
link |
00:40:28.020
So the character of the meat's radically different.
link |
00:40:32.300
It's also much more flavorful
link |
00:40:34.020
when it's grown more naturally.
link |
00:40:35.700
And I think some of the reliance in the US
link |
00:40:39.260
on like sugary sauces and lots of salts
link |
00:40:42.220
and flavors and things like that's actually based
link |
00:40:45.860
on having the broadly available meat out there
link |
00:40:50.020
is pretty low on flavor.
link |
00:40:51.660
And so we're adding in a lot to compensate for that.
link |
00:40:54.420
So to your point of like enjoying things very simply
link |
00:40:57.900
and with like salt and nothing else,
link |
00:41:01.620
like the more flavorful that product is,
link |
00:41:03.620
I think the more people will find that enjoyable.
link |
00:41:06.540
Let's paint a vision.
link |
00:41:08.260
I mean, you're a visionary.
link |
00:41:09.420
You have a vision to have basically meat in every store
link |
00:41:14.940
that comes from a farm like Belcampo
link |
00:41:19.180
that's basically doing regenerative farming.
link |
00:41:22.340
How do we get there?
link |
00:41:24.140
It's about a network of smaller producers
link |
00:41:27.380
working together with shared values.
link |
00:41:31.180
And it's true that there's a limit on regenerative farming
link |
00:41:36.180
in that it requires more human knowledge.
link |
00:41:39.980
So regenerative farming is more difficult to scale
link |
00:41:44.620
in a single operation.
link |
00:41:46.140
It'd be really challenging to have a regenerative farm
link |
00:41:48.140
that was like 200,000 acres
link |
00:41:50.140
because of the amount of manpower needed to pay attention.
link |
00:41:53.460
Can you first, and I apologize to interrupt,
link |
00:41:55.540
but can you say what is regenerative farming?
link |
00:41:58.740
Sure.
link |
00:41:59.740
So if you're looking at scaling regenerative farming,
link |
00:42:04.740
it's a traditional system of agriculture.
link |
00:42:07.180
Regenerative farming is how we used to farm.
link |
00:42:10.780
We used to farm with an eye towards the longterm.
link |
00:42:15.300
You might be on the Friedman farm thinking about your heirs
link |
00:42:19.060
five generations from now farming that same land.
link |
00:42:22.900
Are you gonna leave that land nutritionally empty?
link |
00:42:26.300
No, it's a longterm thinking.
link |
00:42:28.980
Also in traditional ag, you don't have inputs.
link |
00:42:32.500
That are very convenient. You can put some chicken manure on,
link |
00:42:35.740
but you can't spray or dump something that massively
link |
00:42:40.100
increases the growing potential of the land.
link |
00:42:45.300
That was not available until the past 60 years.
link |
00:42:49.580
So regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming
link |
00:42:54.980
where you're increasing soil fertility through your farming.
link |
00:42:58.620
You increase soil fertility by feeding the soil.
link |
00:43:02.460
You feed the soil through carbon.
link |
00:43:06.380
That's why regenerative farming is better
link |
00:43:08.100
for the environment.
link |
00:43:08.940
It sequesters carbon and puts carbon into the soil.
link |
00:43:12.980
Now it's interesting.
link |
00:43:14.620
Plants need carbon and put it into the soil
link |
00:43:18.620
when they're going through growth.
link |
00:43:21.460
So if you have a beautiful field of grass
link |
00:43:23.620
that's just waving in the wind,
link |
00:43:25.220
that's where you're gonna get the most
link |
00:43:26.620
of the carbon that's going into the soil.
link |
00:43:28.820
That's not sequestering as much carbon
link |
00:43:30.740
as plants that have been damaged and are regrowing.
link |
00:43:34.620
Plants that have been damaged and are regrowing
link |
00:43:36.420
are repairing and they're doing that
link |
00:43:38.580
by drawing down carbon as one of the nutrients
link |
00:43:41.340
that feeds them.
link |
00:43:43.140
To damage the plants effectively,
link |
00:43:45.300
that's what we're doing with regenerative grazing.
link |
00:43:49.300
So the cows or, you know, lambs or whatever out there,
link |
00:43:53.700
they're eating and taking the grass down
link |
00:43:57.540
and that then cause a regrowth cycle
link |
00:43:59.700
that sequesters carbon.
link |
00:44:01.180
Wow.
link |
00:44:02.020
There's a limit to it.
link |
00:44:02.860
There's an edge,
link |
00:44:03.700
because if those plants are so damaged
link |
00:44:05.780
that they can't regrow,
link |
00:44:07.180
then it turns into a dirt patch
link |
00:44:08.620
and that doesn't sequester any carbon.
link |
00:44:10.220
So it's a balance.
link |
00:44:11.220
How do you find that balance?
link |
00:44:13.300
That has to do with like the frequency
link |
00:44:15.860
and the scale of the grazing essentially?
link |
00:44:18.020
Exactly.
link |
00:44:19.460
And so you have to find the right balance
link |
00:44:20.860
and that connects to both the grass.
link |
00:44:24.340
I mean, is the ultimately the focus here
link |
00:44:27.100
is on the life cycle of whatever is grazing,
link |
00:44:30.100
whether it's cows or lambs or so on?
link |
00:44:32.740
That's why the scalability question.
link |
00:44:34.540
So all that stuff that I just talked about,
link |
00:44:37.220
like think about all the actions that that requires.
link |
00:44:39.740
Somebody's out there looking and paying attention
link |
00:44:42.500
and understanding how far the grass is,
link |
00:44:45.540
remembering what happened in that field last year.
link |
00:44:47.980
There's a huge human intelligence need
link |
00:44:50.380
and human kind of availability of attention.
link |
00:44:55.820
Now, industrial farming has done a great job
link |
00:44:58.820
at de skilling agriculture.
link |
00:45:03.180
Industrial farming has taken agriculture
link |
00:45:05.020
from being art science to being entry level employment.
link |
00:45:10.980
Yeah.
link |
00:45:11.820
So that's the limiting factor on regen
link |
00:45:13.740
and that's why I think...
link |
00:45:14.580
It's a human intelligence piece.
link |
00:45:15.900
Exactly.
link |
00:45:16.820
I gotta ask,
link |
00:45:18.100
I don't know if you think about this kind of stuff.
link |
00:45:19.540
I mentioned to you offline
link |
00:45:20.540
that I spent a bit of time with some robots
link |
00:45:23.020
and Boston Dynamics.
link |
00:45:24.100
Do you think there's a way
link |
00:45:25.180
to use artificial intelligence to help?
link |
00:45:27.620
So data collection,
link |
00:45:29.100
so automating some of the things that makes humans special,
link |
00:45:33.820
make some of that decision,
link |
00:45:34.940
some of that memory that's then utilized,
link |
00:45:36.600
converges to knowledge to make decisions
link |
00:45:38.380
about the crops and so on.
link |
00:45:39.980
Is there a way AI can help?
link |
00:45:41.940
Do you think?
link |
00:45:42.760
Totally.
link |
00:45:43.600
I mean, that would be incredible.
link |
00:45:45.780
That's one of the ingredients
link |
00:45:47.180
that could help with the regenerative farming.
link |
00:45:48.620
A number of discrete decision points
link |
00:45:50.940
that could completely be automated as well
link |
00:45:54.740
in order to supplement and work with somebody,
link |
00:45:56.700
like a farmer in managing it,
link |
00:45:58.660
about the performance on land.
link |
00:46:01.300
And a bit of that's being done right now
link |
00:46:02.660
with some aerial mapping,
link |
00:46:04.820
but that type of AI would be huge in this.
link |
00:46:07.900
I mean, there's estimates that if the damage
link |
00:46:11.780
and underutilized rangeland in the world
link |
00:46:14.100
was converted to regenerative agriculture
link |
00:46:15.900
somewhere between like 20 and 40% of the world's carbon
link |
00:46:19.300
could be sequestered.
link |
00:46:20.620
So there's a huge potential.
link |
00:46:22.480
The problem is cultural.
link |
00:46:26.660
We've like lost the generational thread of knowledge
link |
00:46:29.660
about how to do this.
link |
00:46:30.740
It's kind of been two generations
link |
00:46:31.900
that haven't farmed this way.
link |
00:46:34.140
Also the science around it is limited
link |
00:46:38.020
by the scale and longevity.
link |
00:46:40.460
So the data collection around regenerative farming
link |
00:46:43.060
is also limited by the fact it's kind of piecemeal.
link |
00:46:45.980
There's small operations that are doing it.
link |
00:46:48.040
They're learning and developing as they go,
link |
00:46:50.160
and they haven't been documenting it
link |
00:46:51.620
and doing it for too long.
link |
00:46:53.460
Is the ethical treatment of animals
link |
00:46:55.780
a part of regenerative farming?
link |
00:46:58.760
So in the way you do things at Belcampo,
link |
00:47:01.620
that's a huge part.
link |
00:47:03.820
Is that necessarily part of the life cycle?
link |
00:47:05.700
So like the things that you're trying to measure
link |
00:47:08.100
is like the way, like not damaging the land too much,
link |
00:47:13.980
make sure that the sort of the land
link |
00:47:16.420
is constantly healthy and is producing,
link |
00:47:17.980
and then the grazing process,
link |
00:47:20.340
and also the carbon piece,
link |
00:47:22.300
the fact that it's a carbon neutral or something like that.
link |
00:47:25.760
I mean, are all of those pieces of the regenerative farming
link |
00:47:28.780
or is this an extra part to your vision
link |
00:47:31.500
that you're thinking about?
link |
00:47:32.340
It's all implicit and regenerative.
link |
00:47:34.140
I call it out separately because we are certified humane,
link |
00:47:37.380
which is another layer of welfare
link |
00:47:38.860
that has to do with density and a couple other things.
link |
00:47:41.600
But regenerative, I mean, think about it.
link |
00:47:44.060
If you're a cow and you're in a regenerative operation
link |
00:47:46.020
where the whole life cycle of the pasture
link |
00:47:49.140
means that you only eat the top six inches of the grass,
link |
00:47:52.540
and then when there's whatever, a couple inches left,
link |
00:47:54.460
then that field is left dormant.
link |
00:47:56.360
That's a better experience, right?
link |
00:47:58.060
So just think about it kind of functionally that way.
link |
00:48:00.100
Well, grazing period is a better experience, right?
link |
00:48:02.820
And that's not what's done in,
link |
00:48:05.560
I mean, that's the grass fed piece, right?
link |
00:48:06.980
That's the other piece with certified organics, amazing.
link |
00:48:12.300
There's plenty of certifications
link |
00:48:14.620
that grass fed and finished is also great,
link |
00:48:17.500
but there are workarounds for those.
link |
00:48:19.140
You can have certified organic feedlots.
link |
00:48:21.300
You can have grass fed and finished,
link |
00:48:22.760
which is an animal fed a grass seed pellet.
link |
00:48:26.860
Those aren't things that we do here, right?
link |
00:48:29.020
And regenerative captures that.
link |
00:48:30.800
Because if you're, it's like anything,
link |
00:48:32.660
you're isolating these very specific certifications,
link |
00:48:35.540
it doesn't have a holistic approach.
link |
00:48:37.580
Regenerative though, unfortunately, isn't certified yet.
link |
00:48:40.220
We've gotten USDA approval to use that word
link |
00:48:42.760
based on our carbon sequestration data,
link |
00:48:45.140
but it's not a regulated term.
link |
00:48:47.780
So that's kind of the mix right now
link |
00:48:49.540
is to figure out how to document it.
link |
00:48:51.540
And it's not totally clear what it means
link |
00:48:53.780
like for pigs and chickens, which are omnivores.
link |
00:48:56.700
It's very clear for ruminants,
link |
00:48:58.140
which are animals that have a rumen that eat grass.
link |
00:49:01.020
For omnivores, which is like what we are,
link |
00:49:03.500
they eat primarily grain in farming operations,
link |
00:49:05.980
and that's a little bit more complex.
link |
00:49:07.740
So it's kind of a moving landscape,
link |
00:49:09.380
but regenerative as a word is the better definition
link |
00:49:13.820
of the whole life cycle approach
link |
00:49:15.320
of letting animals and nature work together.
link |
00:49:18.060
Is it true that it's possible to have a farm
link |
00:49:20.880
that doesn't produce, sort of is carbon neutral?
link |
00:49:25.300
We have been third party verified
link |
00:49:28.540
to be carbon impact negative.
link |
00:49:31.060
So Belcampo's 25,000 acres and the animals here,
link |
00:49:36.300
all of the carbon, including from our shipping
link |
00:49:38.620
on our mail order is all offset
link |
00:49:40.860
by the amount of grazing that's happening.
link |
00:49:43.300
Also that encompasses our partner farms.
link |
00:49:45.100
We buy a number of live animals in from other partner farms.
link |
00:49:49.040
That's their impacts also incorporated in that.
link |
00:49:51.060
I mean, first of all, that's incredible.
link |
00:49:52.900
And second of all, is that possible to scale?
link |
00:49:55.100
I don't see why it isn't.
link |
00:49:57.460
I mean, it's complex to scale,
link |
00:50:00.580
but I mean, we're putting people on the moon
link |
00:50:02.540
and you have a robotic dog.
link |
00:50:04.780
I mean.
link |
00:50:05.620
But that's less about scale, that's more about innovation.
link |
00:50:09.940
So like in many ways what Belcampo has done
link |
00:50:12.660
is innovative at a small scale.
link |
00:50:14.460
The question is whether that innovation can be scaled.
link |
00:50:16.460
That's where I feel like we in the industry need more help.
link |
00:50:20.100
You know, the AI piece, the intelligence,
link |
00:50:23.140
the thinking about ways to do things differently
link |
00:50:27.500
is where we need more support.
link |
00:50:29.220
And I think it's been a, you know,
link |
00:50:31.460
a kind of a swing in the past couple of years
link |
00:50:37.100
where it's like meat's a mess, it's terrible.
link |
00:50:40.620
So let's ditch meat and opt for these hyper process,
link |
00:50:44.180
you know, plant based solutions.
link |
00:50:46.580
And I am saying there's a way to make meat
link |
00:50:50.540
a part of the solution.
link |
00:50:52.460
And it's gonna mean eating less of it.
link |
00:50:54.580
It's gonna mean paying more for it.
link |
00:50:56.100
It's gonna mean that the farming systems
link |
00:50:57.460
are more complicated.
link |
00:50:59.000
It's not the easiest path,
link |
00:51:00.580
but I think in the long term it's the better path.
link |
00:51:03.200
And it's also better for human health.
link |
00:51:05.340
Can you comment on the certified humane piece?
link |
00:51:07.860
So how do you run a farm?
link |
00:51:11.220
Like what does it mean to raise an animal
link |
00:51:13.980
from the beginning of its life to the end of its life
link |
00:51:17.020
in a way that's ethical, that's humane?
link |
00:51:18.980
I think the first piece you need to just be comfortable with
link |
00:51:22.740
is that making an animal into meat, you know,
link |
00:51:27.000
is something that you're comfortable with.
link |
00:51:28.620
Cause I think that's the biggest question, right?
link |
00:51:30.820
And so certified humane actually goes all the way through
link |
00:51:34.180
the death of the animal,
link |
00:51:35.360
how it's killed and handled at processing.
link |
00:51:37.540
So I put that out there just to say,
link |
00:51:39.580
well, this is all about producing an animal to die for meat.
link |
00:51:43.700
And that's not necessarily,
link |
00:51:45.300
that's something people struggle with with the word humane.
link |
00:51:47.340
And I understand that.
link |
00:51:48.180
Like I have space and empathy for that.
link |
00:51:49.780
It's a complicated decision.
link |
00:51:51.740
And when you have to be comfortable with at the outset
link |
00:51:53.700
to say, this is an animal that's gonna die to feed me.
link |
00:51:56.240
Yeah, so we should pause on that
link |
00:51:58.100
cause I actually just the two days ago read a paper
link |
00:52:01.940
that argued that, you know,
link |
00:52:03.980
the killing of an animal period cannot be humane.
link |
00:52:06.660
So it's impossible.
link |
00:52:07.740
And so, and that's an argument just like you're saying
link |
00:52:10.580
we could make, but if we now on the table kind of
link |
00:52:15.780
take as a starting point, the idea that
link |
00:52:20.380
it's possible to kill an animal for food in an ethical way,
link |
00:52:24.020
if we take that as a starting point.
link |
00:52:25.780
So we won't argue about that.
link |
00:52:27.360
It is worth arguing about it elsewhere.
link |
00:52:29.500
And it probably will.
link |
00:52:30.720
I will probably talk to a few vegan folks
link |
00:52:33.180
and we'll talk about the vegan diet.
link |
00:52:35.200
I'm fascinated by it as well.
link |
00:52:36.580
So I'm torn in the whole thing.
link |
00:52:37.980
But if we just take that as a starting point,
link |
00:52:41.060
what then is an ethical humane way to treat an animal?
link |
00:52:45.300
I look at ethical humane animal treatment
link |
00:52:48.240
as the major phases of life.
link |
00:52:51.340
So conception, birth and mothering,
link |
00:52:55.920
diet, those are kind of the major touch points of life.
link |
00:53:01.000
So what we're looking at is evolutionary approach,
link |
00:53:07.760
which means is the animal eating
link |
00:53:09.480
what it evolved to eat primarily?
link |
00:53:12.340
Is the animal primarily outdoors,
link |
00:53:15.480
which is how all animals evolved,
link |
00:53:18.140
given when the climate's appropriate for it.
link |
00:53:20.160
There's certain times when you can't have animals
link |
00:53:22.520
fully outdoors, like here on our ranch,
link |
00:53:24.360
we have had issues with cold weather and things.
link |
00:53:28.320
But so if you have appropriate weather conditions,
link |
00:53:31.840
does the animal outdoors?
link |
00:53:33.600
Is the animal able to nurture and engage with its young?
link |
00:53:37.080
Those are the kind of key touch points,
link |
00:53:38.680
but it's really the birth of it.
link |
00:53:40.560
Let me start this one from the scratch.
link |
00:53:43.560
Okay, so when I'm looking at,
link |
00:53:45.400
or when I consider what's humane,
link |
00:53:47.120
setting aside the death part,
link |
00:53:48.920
I look at the evolutionary diet,
link |
00:53:51.480
access to the outdoors,
link |
00:53:55.240
and ideally spending the majority of its life outdoors,
link |
00:53:59.500
low density, so animals spread out,
link |
00:54:03.160
and engagement with young, social interactions,
link |
00:54:07.320
and that's all kind of simplistic.
link |
00:54:08.160
Social interaction is a cool one.
link |
00:54:09.600
I mean, I also read an article that like,
link |
00:54:12.200
cows, for example, have social, like they have friends.
link |
00:54:16.560
Yeah, yeah.
link |
00:54:17.960
That's fascinating.
link |
00:54:18.800
I mean, that piece with the young,
link |
00:54:20.640
social interaction with young,
link |
00:54:21.700
social interaction with each other,
link |
00:54:23.600
that at a basic level,
link |
00:54:25.400
I'm sure that interaction is not as rich as humans,
link |
00:54:28.080
but that piece seems to be part of the humane picture.
link |
00:54:31.680
And you said also, just a quick comment,
link |
00:54:34.280
evolutionary diet, meaning the diet
link |
00:54:37.520
that they were evolved to have.
link |
00:54:40.120
And that's pretty simple.
link |
00:54:41.700
You can look at the physiology of the animal
link |
00:54:43.960
and figure that out.
link |
00:54:45.180
So ruminant species are lamb, goats, and beef,
link |
00:54:48.680
and they have five stomachs.
link |
00:54:50.980
They evolved eating really low calorie, high fiber foods.
link |
00:54:55.200
That's why they've got all the stomachs.
link |
00:54:56.720
They need a lot of processing.
link |
00:54:58.000
You or I were to eat grass, we die in a week, right?
link |
00:55:00.920
Our physiology can't handle it.
link |
00:55:02.580
Cows were built and evolved to eat this very low calorie,
link |
00:55:05.920
very high fiber, very low density food.
link |
00:55:08.800
And they walk around slowly,
link |
00:55:10.760
they're moving constantly and they're eating it.
link |
00:55:13.500
When we put them on a corn fed diet,
link |
00:55:15.760
that's the opposite of their evolutionary diet
link |
00:55:17.840
and their systems really struggle with it.
link |
00:55:19.880
Now, pigs and chickens are different.
link |
00:55:22.260
Pigs and chickens are omnivores
link |
00:55:24.720
and pigs will happily eat chickens, for example.
link |
00:55:30.620
Our pigs on the farm will hunt and kill rattlesnakes
link |
00:55:33.520
and eat them.
link |
00:55:37.520
They enjoy all of it.
link |
00:55:39.360
They're omnivores.
link |
00:55:40.680
So that you often see,
link |
00:55:42.040
and I've seen people try to raise like a grass fed chicken
link |
00:55:45.240
and that doesn't exist.
link |
00:55:46.880
I mean, they need a higher, omnivores eat everything.
link |
00:55:50.000
They're what's called monogastric.
link |
00:55:51.400
They got one stomach
link |
00:55:53.080
and that one stomach needs higher density nutrients.
link |
00:55:56.320
So in the case of chicken,
link |
00:55:58.360
if you're to do, look back in American history
link |
00:56:02.200
and in the 1950s, it took,
link |
00:56:04.080
commercial chickens took like 54 weeks
link |
00:56:05.920
to come to full weight.
link |
00:56:07.680
Now it's two and a half weeks in confinement farming
link |
00:56:10.540
on our systems, it's like eight to 10 weeks typically.
link |
00:56:14.160
So it's a very,
link |
00:56:15.280
you have to give them some amount of nutrient density,
link |
00:56:17.680
but there's the idea that no grain,
link |
00:56:20.640
because that's a misinformation
link |
00:56:22.760
for any type of commercial operation,
link |
00:56:25.200
free range, regenerative, pastured, everything,
link |
00:56:27.500
you're gonna have to have a grain feed to get any type of,
link |
00:56:30.440
it's actually, I think for the case of chickens,
link |
00:56:32.320
unless you're in a place with like tons of natural seeds
link |
00:56:34.460
and grubs and worms and stuff to eat,
link |
00:56:36.640
really challenging for the chicken.
link |
00:56:38.420
So you gotta give them some high density,
link |
00:56:40.040
high calorie food different from that.
link |
00:56:41.680
That's the evolutionary diet is a really key thing.
link |
00:56:44.600
That's the fundamental thing for health.
link |
00:56:46.680
And it's also interesting
link |
00:56:47.640
because the evolutionary diet ties to human health.
link |
00:56:51.120
I've looked at the nutritional analysis
link |
00:56:52.720
on all of our products and it's,
link |
00:56:55.840
the evolutionary diet is for the case of beef and lamb
link |
00:57:01.440
gets their omega three to six ratios,
link |
00:57:03.880
the same as wild game.
link |
00:57:06.640
So it's not like beef is really radically different
link |
00:57:08.640
from elk, a ruminant species, right?
link |
00:57:11.500
If you feed beef an evolutionary diet,
link |
00:57:14.560
their nutritional profile is the same as wild meat.
link |
00:57:16.680
There's a wild ruminant.
link |
00:57:18.160
I got a chance to witness Neuralink,
link |
00:57:20.380
I don't know if you're familiar with that company,
link |
00:57:21.880
the brain computer interfaces.
link |
00:57:23.880
And they have, I got a chance to see in person
link |
00:57:27.320
just a bunch of pigs who had Neuralink chips implanted
link |
00:57:30.760
and taken out.
link |
00:57:31.800
Those pigs are so happy with life.
link |
00:57:34.040
I don't know, I've never seen a happier animal.
link |
00:57:36.240
I mean, cause they get to eat,
link |
00:57:39.360
cause you were mentioning sort of diets and stuff.
link |
00:57:42.520
Pigs seem to love a lot of stuff.
link |
00:57:45.080
They're easily made to be happy.
link |
00:57:47.400
I don't know if you can comment on your thoughts
link |
00:57:51.200
of exploring the capacity of the pig mind
link |
00:57:59.480
through some of this testing with Neuralink,
link |
00:58:01.520
whether that's exciting to you,
link |
00:58:02.840
whether maybe on the humane side,
link |
00:58:04.160
it's a little bit concerning,
link |
00:58:07.480
if there's something to be said on sort of like,
link |
00:58:10.180
yeah, I don't know if it's even the ethical side,
link |
00:58:14.380
but just because of your connection to meat
link |
00:58:16.860
and to nature and understanding these living beings.
link |
00:58:21.180
Well, pigs are incredibly intelligent.
link |
00:58:22.900
So I'm not surprised that they're a subject matter
link |
00:58:24.540
for Neuralink.
link |
00:58:25.980
They're smarter than dogs
link |
00:58:26.900
and they're empathetic and emotional.
link |
00:58:29.660
And we'll go look at our pigs afterwards and see,
link |
00:58:33.060
but they're kind of like joyful and exuberant
link |
00:58:36.260
when they're in good health.
link |
00:58:37.900
And so that makes sense.
link |
00:58:41.120
I'm interested and open.
link |
00:58:43.720
I feel that the kind of bleeding edge agriculture movement
link |
00:58:50.780
that I'm on the edge of in some ways,
link |
00:58:53.280
we're a larger operator,
link |
00:58:54.280
but we as a movement have to get into the game.
link |
00:58:59.260
We have to move forward in a way that allows us to scale
link |
00:59:01.940
if we wanna be viable.
link |
00:59:03.740
So I think there has to be openness to how that can happen.
link |
00:59:06.740
And I also think there needs to be more thoughtful
link |
00:59:09.500
and noisy data about how regenerative ranching
link |
00:59:13.820
can sequester carbon.
link |
00:59:15.460
I mean, thousands of American ranches
link |
00:59:18.700
are selling carbon credits right now.
link |
00:59:20.740
The data is that valid.
link |
00:59:21.860
And they're not selling carbon credits from like grassland
link |
00:59:24.620
that just got a fence around it.
link |
00:59:26.340
They're selling carbon credits for verified data
link |
00:59:28.140
from animals assisting in carbon sequestration, right?
link |
00:59:31.460
So there's got to be a way to get the tech community involved
link |
00:59:35.620
in ways to help regenerative agriculture scale.
link |
00:59:38.460
In different creative ways.
link |
00:59:39.780
And actually, that'd be interesting
link |
00:59:41.220
if like Neuralink somehow has,
link |
00:59:43.220
and especially because Elon Musk is involved
link |
00:59:45.180
and Kimball Musk has his whole effort and appreciation
link |
00:59:48.880
of regenerative agriculture
link |
00:59:51.080
that I wonder if Neuralink has a role to play,
link |
00:59:54.940
like exploring the neurobiology of the animal,
link |
00:59:59.720
if that somehow will create innovations
link |
01:00:01.620
that lead to improved scaling of regenerative agriculture.
link |
01:00:08.340
That'd be interesting.
link |
01:00:09.180
But you're saying you should be open
link |
01:00:10.200
to all those possibilities.
link |
01:00:11.040
I don't think, I don't know the landscape to know what.
link |
01:00:13.900
But my sense is that it's very hard.
link |
01:00:17.020
It's very hard.
link |
01:00:17.840
And our farming operation to scale,
link |
01:00:19.940
it's been incredibly complex and challenging.
link |
01:00:22.240
We now work with partner farms.
link |
01:00:24.380
I see their operations, they're incredibly complex.
link |
01:00:27.180
You know, it just seems like there's got to be a way
link |
01:00:28.920
to make some of these things simpler and easier
link |
01:00:31.860
to share information.
link |
01:00:32.860
Yeah.
link |
01:00:33.960
I don't know what that answer is.
link |
01:00:36.060
You know what would be cool
link |
01:00:37.220
is if we can understand deeper ways
link |
01:00:39.720
to measure the happiness of an animal.
link |
01:00:42.900
Because then we can optimize,
link |
01:00:44.500
like certified humane could be literally
link |
01:00:47.180
an optimization problem.
link |
01:00:48.180
Just make sure, as opposed to kind of using our,
link |
01:00:51.500
projecting our own human values,
link |
01:00:53.560
actually measuring what the animal is happy doing.
link |
01:00:56.140
That could be, so understanding the pig brain
link |
01:00:58.720
might help us understand pig happiness
link |
01:01:00.860
and reframe what it means for a happy animal.
link |
01:01:04.540
And then maybe it's a lot easier to make a happy animal,
link |
01:01:07.100
to make the animal happy than we think.
link |
01:01:09.860
And it might have to do with a variety of delicious food
link |
01:01:12.140
in the case of the pig.
link |
01:01:13.700
Is there something you could say about grass fed meat?
link |
01:01:16.380
Is it all, just out of my own sort of curiosity,
link |
01:01:18.940
whenever people say sort of grass fed meat
link |
01:01:21.620
is better for you,
link |
01:01:22.460
are all grass fed meat made the same?
link |
01:01:24.940
Is there different like,
link |
01:01:26.180
it's like the word organic.
link |
01:01:29.400
Is there a lot of variety within that?
link |
01:01:31.640
Like the way Belcampo does it,
link |
01:01:32.800
will the others do it?
link |
01:01:34.160
Just more color if you could add to this whole word
link |
01:01:38.360
and what it means.
link |
01:01:39.200
Grass fed beef has been on grass its entire life.
link |
01:01:43.160
And you wanna look for the words 100% grass fed
link |
01:01:45.340
or grass fed and finished.
link |
01:01:47.320
Now, the challenge with feeding beef grass its whole life
link |
01:01:52.320
is that it gains weight more slowly.
link |
01:01:57.560
Although beef didn't evolve,
link |
01:01:59.240
eating corn and things, it can eat them.
link |
01:02:02.560
And in eating them, it gains weight more rapidly
link |
01:02:05.920
and has like a version of like an inflammatory response.
link |
01:02:10.680
If you actually look inside the rumen of the animal
link |
01:02:14.000
inside the stomach,
link |
01:02:14.840
it's like black and shiny inside compared to grass fed
link |
01:02:18.040
animals like greens, smells like compost.
link |
01:02:20.240
So the animals themselves, their whole physiology
link |
01:02:22.480
is damaged by that food,
link |
01:02:24.560
but they also gain weight really quickly
link |
01:02:26.480
and they put on a lot of fats.
link |
01:02:27.680
Like if you or me were to eat a bunch of processed food
link |
01:02:30.400
compared to eating a bunch of greens,
link |
01:02:32.120
it's the same impact, you're gonna blow up.
link |
01:02:34.720
So the problem for grass fed
link |
01:02:37.080
is getting the animals to gain weight.
link |
01:02:39.880
They're getting a ton of exercise,
link |
01:02:41.560
they're eating really clean, right?
link |
01:02:43.440
And they're super chill.
link |
01:02:45.320
So that's different from the animals that are kept still
link |
01:02:49.240
eating really nutrient dense foods
link |
01:02:52.200
and under a ton of stress, which is a confinement animal.
link |
01:02:56.520
So are all grass fed meats created the same?
link |
01:02:59.280
The diet, yeah, nutritional profile broadly,
link |
01:03:02.640
but the length of time that the animal lives
link |
01:03:05.560
is extremely important for the flavor of the meat.
link |
01:03:10.200
We're taking our beef to 24 to 26 months,
link |
01:03:14.560
conventional is around 18 months.
link |
01:03:16.560
So I'm always looking,
link |
01:03:18.360
and if you're evaluating grass fed animals,
link |
01:03:20.080
you wanna get animals that are typically
link |
01:03:22.360
allowed to live for longer
link |
01:03:23.640
because their flavor is gonna be better,
link |
01:03:24.960
there's gonna be a bit more fat
link |
01:03:26.600
and their omega ratios also vary very differently.
link |
01:03:32.000
And I've seen omega ratios,
link |
01:03:34.040
in our firm everywhere from one to three to one to one,
link |
01:03:37.480
ideal is one to one game is typically one to one
link |
01:03:39.800
or one to two omega three to sixes.
link |
01:03:42.000
But in operations where you don't have year round grass,
link |
01:03:44.800
it's more complicated, you know, you're feeding hay
link |
01:03:46.720
and you don't get that three to six ratio.
link |
01:03:48.720
Omega threes come from green grass,
link |
01:03:51.640
they're the fat in greens.
link |
01:03:53.720
And so they're scarce and costly, right?
link |
01:03:56.760
So you can have grass fed and finished animals
link |
01:03:59.320
that don't have that perfect ratio
link |
01:04:00.480
because maybe they're in a climate or for whatever reasons,
link |
01:04:02.800
we've had to do it too, during the droughts do hay finishing,
link |
01:04:05.560
it's not optimal, it changes the ratio a bit.
link |
01:04:07.560
So there's a little bit of variance within it.
link |
01:04:10.160
I'd say though, the variance is a little bit higher
link |
01:04:14.000
the variance within grass fed is still small
link |
01:04:18.480
compared to the variance between conventional
link |
01:04:20.480
and grass fed, right?
link |
01:04:21.880
So there's definitely things to look for within it,
link |
01:04:24.520
but the real difference is between those two.
link |
01:04:27.800
Also thing to notice is that it's not a verified word, okay?
link |
01:04:33.080
So grass fed means animals that have been on grass
link |
01:04:37.320
at some point in their life.
link |
01:04:40.560
The way the cattle industry is in the US,
link |
01:04:43.920
there's segmentation.
link |
01:04:46.280
So there's cow calf operations,
link |
01:04:49.080
then those calves get sold to stocker operations
link |
01:04:52.080
which raised animals in their teens basically,
link |
01:04:54.320
and then those get sold to feed lots.
link |
01:04:56.720
And so those three phases,
link |
01:04:58.800
that first phase of the cow calf is always on grass.
link |
01:05:02.480
It's mother cows and mom cows are amazing.
link |
01:05:04.680
They can thrive on anything
link |
01:05:06.560
and still put all their nutrients into their baby
link |
01:05:08.440
and their babies will be healthy.
link |
01:05:09.720
So you never are putting mother cows
link |
01:05:11.120
on really premium pasture.
link |
01:05:12.760
So it's usually just kind of like okay pasture,
link |
01:05:15.160
dirty lot, if you ever see kind of like,
link |
01:05:17.080
scrubly lots with lots of cows and calves on,
link |
01:05:19.320
that's a cow calf operation.
link |
01:05:20.720
So there's also a loophole, unfortunately,
link |
01:05:24.000
where people use the term grass fed,
link |
01:05:26.280
and they're actually referring to animals
link |
01:05:27.680
that at some point in their life had grass,
link |
01:05:29.180
but that might be pretty far in the rear view mirror.
link |
01:05:31.480
So you need to look at that grass fed and finished
link |
01:05:34.720
or grass fed 100%.
link |
01:05:36.640
That ratio of omega three to sixes,
link |
01:05:38.440
it changes in like a week on grain.
link |
01:05:41.080
So it's radically different.
link |
01:05:42.120
Unfortunately, it's the same thing for you and me.
link |
01:05:43.920
You can eat clean for a month,
link |
01:05:45.280
you eat junk for three days, you're garbage, right?
link |
01:05:48.000
It's not like you can just like coast on that, right?
link |
01:05:50.160
We know what that's like.
link |
01:05:51.000
Same thing for animals, our physiology changes.
link |
01:05:52.720
Food's the number one way we interact with our environment.
link |
01:05:55.200
And our body changes really rapidly and dramatically.
link |
01:05:58.160
So we know Belcampo and just the way
link |
01:06:01.480
sort of this regenerative farming approach of Belcampo
link |
01:06:04.520
and the sort of high humane is good for the land,
link |
01:06:07.560
is good for the animal.
link |
01:06:09.780
Can you comment on ways it's good for the human
link |
01:06:12.600
that eats the meat?
link |
01:06:14.200
Is this meat better for you?
link |
01:06:16.680
Yes, and this is where they kind of focus on the joy
link |
01:06:21.360
and animals doing yoga and all this sort of like
link |
01:06:23.420
cynical stuff about this type of agriculture.
link |
01:06:27.780
So just like set that aside,
link |
01:06:30.280
it really is better for your health.
link |
01:06:32.760
It's got a better fat ratio, it's less inflammatory,
link |
01:06:35.680
it's got higher protein, it's just better product.
link |
01:06:39.440
In the case of beef, it's lower in fat
link |
01:06:43.000
and that fat has a better quality and it's higher
link |
01:06:45.400
in poultry and pork, it's also higher in protein.
link |
01:06:47.260
So all the nutritionals are better.
link |
01:06:49.000
It's got higher density of vitamins,
link |
01:06:50.480
it's got higher density of minerals.
link |
01:06:52.280
And none of this stuff is radically different than,
link |
01:06:55.360
it's not like the product is black and white,
link |
01:06:59.200
but every metric meaningfully is better
link |
01:07:02.640
in the right direction across the board.
link |
01:07:05.000
So why wouldn't you?
link |
01:07:06.840
I hesitate to take anecdotal evidence
link |
01:07:10.920
as like final scientific conclusions,
link |
01:07:13.000
but it does seem I've eaten quite a bit
link |
01:07:15.140
of belcampo meat, for example,
link |
01:07:16.600
and it's just my body seems to respond,
link |
01:07:19.580
like it's less bothered by it.
link |
01:07:22.460
Meaning like less inflamed, I just feel better.
link |
01:07:25.800
Because I mostly eat a meat diet
link |
01:07:28.260
and it does seem to be a little bit of a difference
link |
01:07:30.840
what kind of meat I eat, where it comes from.
link |
01:07:34.040
I don't know if that's my own psychology also.
link |
01:07:37.260
I mean, there is an aspect to like,
link |
01:07:39.180
when you know that the meat came from a good place
link |
01:07:42.060
and all the ways we've defined good,
link |
01:07:45.120
you feel better about it.
link |
01:07:46.880
And that has an effect, like decreased stress.
link |
01:07:49.480
So I'm a huge believer in that,
link |
01:07:50.840
like outside of just nutrition,
link |
01:07:53.240
how you feel about the whole experience is a huge impact.
link |
01:07:55.740
But it does feel like the meat itself
link |
01:07:58.720
is actually just leading to less inflammation for me
link |
01:08:01.320
or like less, like the bloated feeling
link |
01:08:04.920
and all those negative effects that could come with meat
link |
01:08:07.560
versus like certain other ground beef that I eat,
link |
01:08:10.480
like store bought chicken breast or steak,
link |
01:08:15.340
all those kinds of things.
link |
01:08:16.440
My body's a little bit more,
link |
01:08:19.220
works a little bit harder to process that food,
link |
01:08:21.140
it feels like.
link |
01:08:21.980
I don't know if there's science to that,
link |
01:08:23.040
but sort of anecdotally, that seems to be the case.
link |
01:08:25.360
Omega sixes are a big part of that,
link |
01:08:26.920
for in the case of the beef.
link |
01:08:27.760
You eat a lot of beef, you love beef.
link |
01:08:29.840
And so in a conventional beef product,
link |
01:08:33.000
it's a one to 30 ratio of omega threes to sixes.
link |
01:08:36.680
And sometimes one to 20, one to 30,
link |
01:08:39.440
but that's the wrong direction.
link |
01:08:41.400
In our beef, it's as low as one to one.
link |
01:08:45.320
So that and the omega sixes are what's part of inflammation.
link |
01:08:50.120
Now, the magic in animals
link |
01:08:52.460
is that they're incredibly efficient processors.
link |
01:08:55.000
And in the same way that the body can process
link |
01:09:02.160
and take out tons of things that are toxic
link |
01:09:04.160
out of the environment,
link |
01:09:05.000
I mean, animals bodies can do that too.
link |
01:09:06.640
So the beauty of meat is that it can be pretty clean.
link |
01:09:09.880
Things like Roundup and stuff don't end up in the meat.
link |
01:09:12.600
When we have antibiotics in our meat,
link |
01:09:14.800
we're not worried about getting like tetracycline
link |
01:09:16.840
from the chicken breast.
link |
01:09:18.420
What we're worried about
link |
01:09:19.400
is the workers getting tetracycline,
link |
01:09:21.600
the chicken growing faster than it should,
link |
01:09:23.280
the meat being chewier and not as high quality.
link |
01:09:26.320
But the actual antibiotics don't,
link |
01:09:28.120
the animals great at filtering that, right?
link |
01:09:30.280
They get that out.
link |
01:09:31.120
So you have to think about meat not as like contamination
link |
01:09:34.720
of like, oh, there's gonna be some of that garbage
link |
01:09:36.320
they used in the farming in my meat,
link |
01:09:39.600
but it's the more subtle things.
link |
01:09:41.080
It's the fat ratio, it's the protein density.
link |
01:09:43.720
And there's also just, I think in my experience,
link |
01:09:48.440
there's just more complex flavor
link |
01:09:50.580
and things that taste more complex.
link |
01:09:52.520
This is, science backs this up, they fill you up faster.
link |
01:09:56.840
So if you're looking to limit,
link |
01:09:59.000
to eat for fullness and, but not eat as many calories,
link |
01:10:03.400
more complex foods are the way to do that.
link |
01:10:06.380
And that hit, you hit your satiety,
link |
01:10:08.920
help you hit that satiety.
link |
01:10:10.140
So things like, I mean, all the key amino acids
link |
01:10:13.600
that help you feel full, mostly from meat, right?
link |
01:10:16.440
So those are, that's part of it, like it,
link |
01:10:17.800
but all meats have those.
link |
01:10:19.080
Then there's other kind of micronutrients
link |
01:10:20.800
and things around that complex flavor
link |
01:10:21.960
that help you feel full faster.
link |
01:10:25.000
Forgive me for this question,
link |
01:10:26.520
but it is kind of an interesting one
link |
01:10:28.120
that people are curious about.
link |
01:10:30.020
What does it feel like to be a,
link |
01:10:33.680
or what does it take to be a woman CEO of a meat company?
link |
01:10:38.120
I mean, you're no longer CEO of Belcampo,
link |
01:10:39.960
but you did, you ran, you cofounded Belcampo,
link |
01:10:42.800
you ran it for many, many years.
link |
01:10:45.640
Is there something that you could say
link |
01:10:48.600
in terms of challenges associated with that?
link |
01:10:51.220
And how did you personally overcome it?
link |
01:10:54.320
So to be a female running a meat and livestock operation,
link |
01:10:59.480
it felt very alone, a lot, you know, for a long time.
link |
01:11:04.960
I felt very, like everybody waiting for me to fail
link |
01:11:11.600
or watching and assuming that I was like,
link |
01:11:14.520
just good at marketing or whatever else.
link |
01:11:17.240
And so it's taken me a while to not internalize that.
link |
01:11:27.480
I think the only reason I'm here
link |
01:11:31.200
is we have our own supply chain in Slaughterhouse.
link |
01:11:34.920
And I think had I really been playing
link |
01:11:36.320
in the broader meat industry,
link |
01:11:37.320
it would have been a shorter journey.
link |
01:11:38.780
You know, it would have been very hard
link |
01:11:40.040
to make it even get to this phase.
link |
01:11:42.440
But I do, you know, I think the mission is my life's work.
link |
01:11:54.560
The mission of cleaner ingredients that tastes so amazing.
link |
01:11:59.920
You don't need to do too much to them.
link |
01:12:02.400
You know, I like creating food
link |
01:12:04.720
that's in support of good health.
link |
01:12:07.680
And then secondary to that, it's the environment,
link |
01:12:10.080
but I want healthy food to be a joy to eat, right?
link |
01:12:13.600
And that's, you know, creating innovation in the space
link |
01:12:20.840
for this company has been about building a brand
link |
01:12:23.980
that people understand and is transparent
link |
01:12:26.240
and that people believe in in an industry
link |
01:12:28.560
that's broadly perceived of as pretty corrupt.
link |
01:12:30.800
So those are things I feel enormously proud of.
link |
01:12:33.560
So you focused on the mission and the pushback,
link |
01:12:37.280
all the mess of the industry.
link |
01:12:40.920
You try not to internalize it,
link |
01:12:42.120
trying not to let it affect you and focus on the mission.
link |
01:12:44.200
You know, and it's in the joy of it
link |
01:12:46.220
and the part where it's gotten fun for me
link |
01:12:49.280
has been returning to what I love about it.
link |
01:12:51.760
And I've only had the privilege
link |
01:12:53.100
of doing that pretty recently.
link |
01:12:55.800
So I think for me personally, you know, starting,
link |
01:12:58.880
I host these events on the farm called Meat Camps,
link |
01:13:01.880
where I cook and teach people to cook
link |
01:13:03.720
and, you know, taste and talk about flavor
link |
01:13:06.400
and all the like sensual aspects of it that are my fire.
link |
01:13:10.320
Like, thank goodness I did that stuff
link |
01:13:12.080
because otherwise it was just such a beating.
link |
01:13:14.400
You know, so there were parts of it
link |
01:13:15.440
where I got to feed my fire.
link |
01:13:17.200
And then now in the, you know, the past year,
link |
01:13:19.600
since resigning, I've been, I do all the recipe development.
link |
01:13:22.200
I shoot all the content.
link |
01:13:23.600
I, you know, taste product.
link |
01:13:25.020
I'm developing all of our new products.
link |
01:13:26.840
I launched our meatballs.
link |
01:13:27.840
I'm just about to launch our chicken meatballs,
link |
01:13:29.660
doing a high protein bone broth.
link |
01:13:31.480
Like those are, that's why I did this
link |
01:13:34.160
was to be able to build this great product
link |
01:13:36.680
that I could build on.
link |
01:13:37.960
So I'm kind of at that place now,
link |
01:13:40.160
but it's taken a lot longer.
link |
01:13:41.360
And I think, you know, looking at the landscape
link |
01:13:43.960
of what to do in food, this is definitely,
link |
01:13:48.400
we tackled the most complicated problem.
link |
01:13:52.920
That I can imagine, you know, I did it like
link |
01:13:55.660
in the most old fashioned way, right?
link |
01:13:57.640
So it's been super complex.
link |
01:13:59.520
And then I also look at it and I'm like, yeah,
link |
01:14:00.880
and it's been messy and it's gonna continue to be hard,
link |
01:14:03.720
but I'm proud of having tackled the hard problems.
link |
01:14:07.080
So the hard problem here is not
link |
01:14:08.560
in the space of technologies.
link |
01:14:10.560
It's in the space of bringing something
link |
01:14:13.680
that we've done for a long, long time in our human history
link |
01:14:17.400
and scaling it in the face
link |
01:14:21.160
of all the other economic pressures.
link |
01:14:24.400
Like doing so successfully,
link |
01:14:25.980
also communicating to the rest of the world
link |
01:14:27.760
that this is a powerful solution.
link |
01:14:29.600
So inspiring the rest of the world that regenerative farming,
link |
01:14:32.360
like running a company in this kind of way
link |
01:14:34.960
that's humane for animals, good for the land,
link |
01:14:38.120
good for people, even if it costs,
link |
01:14:41.100
like if there's an increased cost to the meat,
link |
01:14:44.040
even if that, if you have a broader vision
link |
01:14:46.120
that means eating less meat overall,
link |
01:14:48.920
that that is like inspiring the world
link |
01:14:52.240
that this is a future we want.
link |
01:14:54.640
And just taking that on and getting that done.
link |
01:14:58.800
Got a chance to eat a little bit of cheese,
link |
01:15:00.980
which is a good opportunity
link |
01:15:03.680
to talk about your experience in Italy.
link |
01:15:06.400
You spent some time, or as south of Europe,
link |
01:15:08.720
I'm not sure if it was Italy.
link |
01:15:09.920
Yeah, I lived in Italy, but.
link |
01:15:11.440
And there's cheese involved, right?
link |
01:15:14.760
Like what did you take away from that experience,
link |
01:15:18.860
both as a chef and as a human being?
link |
01:15:21.600
I moved to Europe right after my early 20s
link |
01:15:25.540
and I worked as a cheese maker.
link |
01:15:27.560
And I lived in really small rural farms
link |
01:15:32.520
in the countryside.
link |
01:15:34.920
And I got up early and milked animals, made cheese.
link |
01:15:39.400
And I got to live in a traditional agricultural society
link |
01:15:44.680
and learn how they ate.
link |
01:15:48.360
So it shaped me as a cook
link |
01:15:50.520
because it was a chance to have incredible ingredients,
link |
01:15:55.520
learn how to cook very simple food.
link |
01:15:58.000
I had been immersed in thought
link |
01:15:59.640
that I wanted to be like a chefy chef, right?
link |
01:16:02.760
Because I love food and I love cooking
link |
01:16:04.240
and I was just drawn to that world.
link |
01:16:06.880
But I don't like the experience
link |
01:16:09.880
of that sort of like fancy food experience
link |
01:16:11.440
is not what is exciting for me about it.
link |
01:16:15.400
So I loved working in that environment
link |
01:16:18.960
because I got to eat lunches and dinners
link |
01:16:21.880
and everything with the farm that I lived in.
link |
01:16:24.720
The farm that I lived on
link |
01:16:26.400
and just very traditional, simple way to eat.
link |
01:16:31.080
The other piece of it is I went to high school in the 90s,
link |
01:16:34.760
child of like the low fat generation, right?
link |
01:16:37.720
And it was just really liberating and amazing
link |
01:16:40.500
to eat tons of super fatty foods
link |
01:16:43.920
and olive oil all over the place
link |
01:16:46.680
and bleak slabs of bread and salami
link |
01:16:48.800
and being this like vibrant health,
link |
01:16:50.580
like be leaner, you know, happy, no skin stuff,
link |
01:16:55.320
you know, stop getting split ends.
link |
01:16:57.680
Like I stopped having flaky nails,
link |
01:16:59.360
like just stuff that had bothered me my whole life,
link |
01:17:02.220
including like just moodiness.
link |
01:17:04.400
And that all just changed.
link |
01:17:05.960
And granted, I was also like living on a farm in Italy
link |
01:17:08.520
and getting up with the sunlight.
link |
01:17:10.500
And like there were lots of great aspects of my life as well
link |
01:17:14.440
that happened in that time.
link |
01:17:15.600
But I was just immersed in this diet
link |
01:17:18.280
that I realized like, man, this is so simple.
link |
01:17:20.520
And I also loved that I had like, you know,
link |
01:17:23.600
you'd have dinner and it was just like some ricotta cheese
link |
01:17:26.520
with some olive oil, some bread
link |
01:17:27.880
and like a bowl of fava beans.
link |
01:17:30.960
It's like, that's dinner.
link |
01:17:32.400
And it kind of broke down my assumptions too
link |
01:17:34.640
about like dinner always has to be this, you know,
link |
01:17:37.200
a protein and a vegetable and, you know,
link |
01:17:38.880
being more fluid and more seasonal was exciting for me.
link |
01:17:43.400
So I just learned kind of a lot about paying attention
link |
01:17:46.840
to food, simple preparation
link |
01:17:49.640
and the vibrancy of health that I personally experienced
link |
01:17:54.980
kind of made me double down on that.
link |
01:17:58.120
Our mutual friend, Andrew Huberman,
link |
01:18:01.360
mentioned something offline to me
link |
01:18:02.880
about something involving the mob.
link |
01:18:06.020
Oh yeah.
link |
01:18:06.860
Is there something you could share or is this,
link |
01:18:09.040
or are people going to hurt if you share this?
link |
01:18:11.960
It's far enough in the rear view mirror.
link |
01:18:13.600
I mean, I was hired by this group in Sicily on,
link |
01:18:18.600
and this is, you know, I was all of like 21 years old
link |
01:18:23.640
and to get a permit to work there,
link |
01:18:26.040
you have to show that you have a competency
link |
01:18:28.000
that nobody else in Italy has.
link |
01:18:30.060
And that competency for Anya Fernald at the time
link |
01:18:32.520
was cheese expert.
link |
01:18:33.840
So it was like, stupid American girl being like,
link |
01:18:36.840
going to the consulate.
link |
01:18:37.840
So I already knew that it was like,
link |
01:18:38.920
there was something wobbly about this organization,
link |
01:18:41.020
but I wanted to work for them.
link |
01:18:42.720
And my boss from that time did end up in federal prison
link |
01:18:47.720
for corruption many years later, embezzlement primarily.
link |
01:18:53.280
But, so I was definitely in an environment
link |
01:18:56.000
that was answering to multiple masters.
link |
01:18:59.320
That's a nice way to put it.
link |
01:19:01.580
It was, I couldn't have asked for a better way
link |
01:19:04.680
to kind of get with life and understand
link |
01:19:07.840
how things happen in the world though.
link |
01:19:09.800
You know, of learning as somebody who tends
link |
01:19:13.800
to be super direct and not very subtle,
link |
01:19:17.560
it was amazing to be in this world
link |
01:19:19.120
where like everybody communicates in multiple levels.
link |
01:19:22.120
Like we're going to lunch with my boss,
link |
01:19:24.900
with somebody we're gonna do a business deal with
link |
01:19:26.560
and by the, they ordered a glass of wine
link |
01:19:30.440
and with that order communicated like, disappointment.
link |
01:19:35.120
Because that, the father of the person
link |
01:19:36.720
who had made that wine had offended that other guys.
link |
01:19:39.800
I like that level of stuff, like nothing happened directly.
link |
01:19:42.360
I'm like, what are we talking about afterwards?
link |
01:19:43.440
I'm like, what happened that lunch?
link |
01:19:44.380
It's like, oh, I just, you know,
link |
01:19:45.620
I told him this by ordering that, whatever.
link |
01:19:47.760
You know, that kind of thing.
link |
01:19:48.600
So understand that there's different ways of communicating.
link |
01:19:52.160
But it was also, you know, it was interesting to see.
link |
01:19:56.880
And I think I, you know, it's kind of the struggle
link |
01:19:58.680
that I've lived again and again in my life.
link |
01:20:01.040
Fundamentally, what we were doing in that operation
link |
01:20:03.600
was there's a very traditional cheese
link |
01:20:05.920
called the Raguzano cheese in Southeastern Sicily
link |
01:20:08.720
where I lived, Ragusa.
link |
01:20:09.720
And it was about scaling that operation.
link |
01:20:12.080
So it was European Union money
link |
01:20:14.280
that my boss was also unfortunately using for other things.
link |
01:20:16.360
But fundamentally it was to take that,
link |
01:20:19.720
this type of very small scale cheese,
link |
01:20:21.520
get them exported, help them scale.
link |
01:20:22.840
And we did it.
link |
01:20:23.680
And it was really challenging.
link |
01:20:24.760
And I learned a lot about the safety issues
link |
01:20:27.160
and collaboration issues
link |
01:20:28.960
and creating groups of farmers for scale.
link |
01:20:31.240
So it's kind of been doing the same thing again and again.
link |
01:20:34.720
But Sicily, it, you know,
link |
01:20:37.640
it was also just the first place
link |
01:20:39.260
where I would regularly forage for food.
link |
01:20:44.440
Yeah.
link |
01:20:45.280
You know, like there I'd go to friends houses
link |
01:20:48.360
and we'd like go out and pick nettles
link |
01:20:50.480
or go out and pick wild asparagus.
link |
01:20:52.080
So every season there were stuff that you'd be gathering.
link |
01:20:54.160
And that was just part of how you lived.
link |
01:20:55.920
And it was part of your health.
link |
01:20:57.520
So that was, I just learned a ton in that time
link |
01:21:00.380
about like simple eating and really that healthy food,
link |
01:21:05.380
the simpler it is, the better, right?
link |
01:21:08.380
Like this sort of sense that healthy food
link |
01:21:10.280
isn't in a tiny package, granola bar,
link |
01:21:12.040
lots of labels, lots of powders.
link |
01:21:13.360
It's like the more simple, essential,
link |
01:21:14.760
closer to the land can actually lead to optimal health.
link |
01:21:17.120
You've learned to appreciate the simplicity of food,
link |
01:21:19.520
the beauty within the simplicity.
link |
01:21:22.920
I think it's because it was the first time
link |
01:21:23.760
that I had amazing food quality.
link |
01:21:28.280
Okay.
link |
01:21:29.120
Cause in the, where I grew up,
link |
01:21:31.200
there wasn't that food quality.
link |
01:21:32.800
Like I had some stuff from my garden and things
link |
01:21:36.960
that were great, but that's the kind of place
link |
01:21:38.600
where when artichokes in season,
link |
01:21:39.800
all of a sudden there's guys selling artichokes
link |
01:21:42.700
on their bicycles in the street
link |
01:21:44.520
and they're just fresh picked and you'd get that one thing
link |
01:21:47.000
or the torpedo onions or they like,
link |
01:21:48.760
so there's a seasonality and celebration of things
link |
01:21:50.680
in their peak moment.
link |
01:21:51.860
And you would just have that one thing.
link |
01:21:53.920
And that was the first time I'd ever eaten in that way.
link |
01:21:56.800
You were a judge several times on Iron Chef.
link |
01:22:00.400
How do you judge a good meal, like what your own,
link |
01:22:05.080
other people's, like what rating system is good?
link |
01:22:09.920
I mean, I go on experience and think about how many
link |
01:22:11.800
of your like most memorable, fantastic meals
link |
01:22:13.920
are like three star Michelin meals.
link |
01:22:16.280
It's more about the experience, right?
link |
01:22:17.960
It's more about that slow down, who are you with?
link |
01:22:20.620
And some of our best meals are like the most simple things.
link |
01:22:23.680
So Iron Chef, those were fun experiences.
link |
01:22:28.080
It's a lot of sous vide though.
link |
01:22:29.600
It's a lot of sauces.
link |
01:22:31.200
It's a lot of powders.
link |
01:22:32.580
I mean, it's kind of like magic food.
link |
01:22:34.280
So that's not, I mean, it's incredible
link |
01:22:37.000
to watch it as science, but I don't know
link |
01:22:39.440
if those are my most memorable meals.
link |
01:22:41.440
So the experience is how you judge a good meal.
link |
01:22:44.160
For you personally, if you were a judge
link |
01:22:45.800
of the entirety of the human experience
link |
01:22:48.320
in terms of the culinary journey,
link |
01:22:50.660
that would be like the people you're eating with,
link |
01:22:53.160
the environment, like how you feel,
link |
01:22:56.560
the journey, the building up to that meal, the whole thing.
link |
01:22:59.680
You can't separate it out.
link |
01:23:00.680
When I was learning as an apprentice cheese maker in Greece,
link |
01:23:06.800
one of the best meals of my life
link |
01:23:08.160
is like a bowl of cold sheep milk yogurt
link |
01:23:10.840
with like a crust of cold fat on top.
link |
01:23:13.080
So like the way that these fatty,
link |
01:23:15.000
sheep milk can have double the percentage
link |
01:23:17.240
of fat than cow milk.
link |
01:23:18.440
So like there's the yogurt and then there's this crust
link |
01:23:20.400
of fat and then they pour the fresh honey over the top
link |
01:23:23.540
and you just eat like this bowl of probably top five meals
link |
01:23:27.680
of my life, right?
link |
01:23:29.460
I mean, that's the simplicity, it's just the best thing.
link |
01:23:31.920
And it was the fact that it's in Terracotta
link |
01:23:33.520
and I'd had this amazing day
link |
01:23:34.840
and all of these things come together,
link |
01:23:36.780
but I still remember that feeling.
link |
01:23:38.000
And I think most of us have those like really great
link |
01:23:40.780
sensual memories of food and they're not about necessarily
link |
01:23:45.480
that one fancy over the top restaurant or something.
link |
01:23:49.440
It's really about the cold context of enjoyment.
link |
01:23:52.680
Maybe you can help me with something.
link |
01:23:54.480
So I think Offline said that we're both introverts a bit,
link |
01:23:58.440
but I certainly find joy in repetition.
link |
01:24:04.400
So I kind of hide away as an introvert
link |
01:24:07.080
and eat the same thing over and over and over again.
link |
01:24:09.840
But at the same time, I had this conversation
link |
01:24:11.920
with Tyler Cohen, who's an economist,
link |
01:24:14.160
but he's also a food critic.
link |
01:24:15.960
He writes these incredible posts about different foods.
link |
01:24:19.580
And we had this conversation about
link |
01:24:23.520
what his last meal would be.
link |
01:24:24.920
If he had to choose, like what is the best meal
link |
01:24:26.840
he's ever eaten that he would want to eat?
link |
01:24:29.740
And he had a good answer about it.
link |
01:24:31.160
It had to do with experience, I think.
link |
01:24:33.000
For him, it was a particular Mexican restaurant
link |
01:24:35.380
and it had in Mexico because of the ingredients,
link |
01:24:37.680
because of the experience, because of the work it took
link |
01:24:40.000
to get there and all those kinds of things.
link |
01:24:42.120
But it also made me realize, like when I was going home
link |
01:24:44.720
after that conversation, that I couldn't answer
link |
01:24:47.800
that question myself, like what is the best meal
link |
01:24:50.560
I've ever eaten?
link |
01:24:51.600
Because I really haven't experienced much.
link |
01:24:54.680
And so it almost was like a challenge to myself.
link |
01:24:58.020
Like I feel like I should journey out a little bit more
link |
01:25:00.920
in this life and try stuff.
link |
01:25:03.680
And to try to see like what is the best meal
link |
01:25:07.780
for me in the world?
link |
01:25:09.820
You know, like both the experience and the taste, right?
link |
01:25:13.440
So I was kind of wondering, first I'd love to ask you
link |
01:25:16.100
like what your last meal would be
link |
01:25:18.140
or what is the greatest meal you've ever eaten?
link |
01:25:20.880
But also, and you're still very young,
link |
01:25:23.400
and so there's still more experiences to be had, right?
link |
01:25:28.340
And for me, like how do you go about finding
link |
01:25:31.480
the best meal in the world?
link |
01:25:34.040
Is there a device you could give essentially?
link |
01:25:38.460
There's that sense of anticipation, right?
link |
01:25:42.320
So if it's the best meal, I'd say for you,
link |
01:25:46.920
it would need to be on the heels of something
link |
01:25:49.700
where you'd pushed yourself with a fast
link |
01:25:52.240
or with an athletic event, right?
link |
01:25:54.040
Or something like you would be coming into it
link |
01:25:56.460
with a sense of anticipation because of deprivation.
link |
01:25:59.200
You'd be hungry for it in a bigger sense of the word,
link |
01:26:01.560
like hungry for deep nutrition on your soul level
link |
01:26:04.140
as well as your belly.
link |
01:26:05.460
So I'd say that you'd have to think about it
link |
01:26:06.880
as a phase of things, like multiple things.
link |
01:26:09.980
And then I also think, you love meat, you love cheese.
link |
01:26:14.240
You have to have some things that come together, right?
link |
01:26:16.760
Like there's gotta be some specific elements
link |
01:26:19.160
of just your favorite flavors in that.
link |
01:26:21.720
But there could be flavors yet to be discovered.
link |
01:26:23.520
That's a whole other thing because I just emotionally
link |
01:26:28.120
and physically feel good on meat,
link |
01:26:29.660
but that doesn't mean like maybe like a rice based dish,
link |
01:26:34.620
like sushi or something like that,
link |
01:26:36.760
or Indian cuisine where it's like sauces
link |
01:26:39.400
and the breads and whatever.
link |
01:26:40.840
I love that stuff too.
link |
01:26:42.120
So we're not talking about like a meal is an experience
link |
01:26:46.460
that could be like a one night stand,
link |
01:26:49.640
but with a piece of food, right?
link |
01:26:52.400
It could be a totally different
link |
01:26:53.880
than what actually makes you feel good
link |
01:26:56.040
when you eat it every day.
link |
01:26:57.360
Yeah, absolutely.
link |
01:26:58.520
Completely, completely analogous.
link |
01:27:00.420
I get that.
link |
01:27:01.260
I mean, you also though, there's elements of comfort
link |
01:27:03.160
and love and those different pieces for you.
link |
01:27:05.400
But I think you gotta look at like,
link |
01:27:07.720
where would you go somewhere?
link |
01:27:09.640
Like would you go to a place where you could hike in Japan
link |
01:27:13.240
and then end up in a little place where you eat something?
link |
01:27:15.720
That's where I would think you were gonna have
link |
01:27:17.160
that magic moment.
link |
01:27:18.600
Maybe someplace you go to Mongolia
link |
01:27:20.120
and you're in a really extreme environment
link |
01:27:22.500
for three or four days,
link |
01:27:23.400
and then you come back and you're in a farm
link |
01:27:25.700
and you get something on the table that's a surprise
link |
01:27:27.720
and you're hungry.
link |
01:27:28.560
Like that's gonna be the moment where you're gonna explode
link |
01:27:32.040
in the instance of like the culinary level
link |
01:27:34.940
for Alexa levels up, right?
link |
01:27:36.560
That's the journey for you.
link |
01:27:37.560
But it has to be, I think from understanding you,
link |
01:27:39.960
like a combination of that pushing yourself anticipation
link |
01:27:44.600
and something about the, exactly, and the environment.
link |
01:27:47.920
Well, I definitely, definitely,
link |
01:27:50.240
like some fasting is part of a great meal for me.
link |
01:27:53.400
So like 24 hours is like the minimum.
link |
01:27:56.640
You're more sensitive to the richness of any experience
link |
01:28:01.000
for me when I fast 24 hours.
link |
01:28:04.880
And so that's a requirement.
link |
01:28:06.400
For a good meal is 24 hour fast, I think.
link |
01:28:10.120
It's just like you're able to taste,
link |
01:28:11.640
I don't know, maybe it's psychological,
link |
01:28:13.120
but you're able to disassemble the various flavors
link |
01:28:17.600
in a meal as simple as like even a chicken breast.
link |
01:28:20.320
There's all kinds of flavors going on.
link |
01:28:22.100
Because like when you cook a chicken breast,
link |
01:28:24.280
there's like the outside, the inside.
link |
01:28:26.900
I mean, the volume of the meat tastes different
link |
01:28:29.340
as you eat like the different fibers.
link |
01:28:31.680
And you can like tell all those differences as you're eating
link |
01:28:34.640
when you're fasting, and you can appreciate that.
link |
01:28:37.520
And of course, you're right,
link |
01:28:38.760
part of the journey is important.
link |
01:28:40.640
It makes me think like whether restaurants
link |
01:28:42.880
is the right place to explore or what.
link |
01:28:45.840
I'm envisioning it on a farm for you.
link |
01:28:47.960
And I'm envisioning it in a place
link |
01:28:49.280
that's like really into ag and food.
link |
01:28:51.920
You know, like even a place like Romania.
link |
01:28:54.040
You know, like they have incredible farms, right?
link |
01:28:56.300
Where it's not gonna get any like fancy restaurants there,
link |
01:28:58.840
but you're probably gonna have some amazing little cheeses
link |
01:29:02.360
and cured meats, and you might go to some, you know,
link |
01:29:04.800
have some experience and end up in a place
link |
01:29:06.400
with like four things on the plate
link |
01:29:07.600
and each of them blows your mind.
link |
01:29:09.120
You know, like, or Japan is another place like that.
link |
01:29:12.000
I think Vietnam, Laos, like, I mean, those are countries
link |
01:29:14.560
where there's like these incredible niche ingredients
link |
01:29:16.600
and this essentialism around food.
link |
01:29:18.960
That's fascinating.
link |
01:29:19.800
Or maybe it's in Russia with Putin.
link |
01:29:21.800
That might be the best meal in the world.
link |
01:29:23.240
With him on the farm.
link |
01:29:24.080
Yeah, that'd be, it's hard to reproduce that.
link |
01:29:27.640
If that is in fact a good meal, it'd be, you know,
link |
01:29:29.920
it's hard to get them out to the farm,
link |
01:29:32.400
but maybe one time they'd be the best meal.
link |
01:29:34.760
What about you?
link |
01:29:35.720
For me, like it's the ingredients that I associate
link |
01:29:39.840
with like indulgence, like be fresh bread
link |
01:29:42.280
with like my favorite cultured butter on it,
link |
01:29:44.520
be food of my childhood.
link |
01:29:46.360
I grew up in Oregon.
link |
01:29:47.320
We always had salmon and I smoked salmon or salmon eggs,
link |
01:29:50.440
like really good salmon eggs.
link |
01:29:51.740
I love cheese.
link |
01:29:52.580
I love goat cheese.
link |
01:29:53.420
I love all kinds of cheese.
link |
01:29:54.380
There'd be cheese.
link |
01:29:55.440
I love meat, obviously.
link |
01:29:56.560
I'm imagining it's sort of like an abundance
link |
01:29:59.040
of like 10 things I love.
link |
01:30:00.200
It's not a dish.
link |
01:30:01.040
You know, it's like all the yummy things.
link |
01:30:02.040
All of your indulgences on the same plate, yeah.
link |
01:30:04.840
And there isn't like, for me, there's not like a big cake
link |
01:30:07.040
or something super like that.
link |
01:30:08.080
It's like really yummy things that I love,
link |
01:30:10.880
like really fresh, crusty, delicious bread that's warm
link |
01:30:13.520
and it's got a bunch of butter on it
link |
01:30:14.760
and I can put some salt on it and eat a big slab of that.
link |
01:30:17.280
That's just, that's where I'm at.
link |
01:30:19.300
That's funny.
link |
01:30:20.140
And so meat to you is not like one of those indulgences?
link |
01:30:24.480
Oh, definitely.
link |
01:30:25.320
There'd definitely be steak there too.
link |
01:30:26.400
I'm just imagining not like there isn't a specific dish.
link |
01:30:28.440
It's like eight or 10 things, right?
link |
01:30:30.440
It's the fresh bread.
link |
01:30:31.960
It's something like fishy, yummy,
link |
01:30:34.000
probably be really good fresh berries too.
link |
01:30:36.900
There'd be a steak or a pork chop
link |
01:30:38.960
or something like meaty and delicious and savory.
link |
01:30:42.480
There'd be some cheese,
link |
01:30:43.640
just a bunch of different things that I love to eat
link |
01:30:46.160
that like all kind of check boxes for me
link |
01:30:48.040
is probably what would make me happiest.
link |
01:30:49.660
I'm afraid of variety.
link |
01:30:51.680
I like the focus when you can just,
link |
01:30:53.620
this is all you have,
link |
01:30:54.460
the scarcity of just this is the one ingredient
link |
01:30:57.640
and really appreciating it or maybe one thing,
link |
01:31:01.760
like one full complex flavor, whatever the heck that is.
link |
01:31:06.040
It's like the distraction,
link |
01:31:08.440
the serial dating nature of having a bunch of things
link |
01:31:11.560
on a plate is, yeah,
link |
01:31:15.000
for some reason that prevents me
link |
01:31:16.860
from fully enjoying any one of them.
link |
01:31:19.280
I don't know why that is.
link |
01:31:20.800
The more healthy way to do it is the variety.
link |
01:31:23.160
Your way is the healthier way to do it.
link |
01:31:25.840
Is alcohol involved?
link |
01:31:27.600
I don't drink very much.
link |
01:31:29.120
I like red wine, but I just don't really,
link |
01:31:32.760
I love red wine with good food.
link |
01:31:37.680
I also cofounded a rum business that's an organic rum,
link |
01:31:41.560
so I love that product,
link |
01:31:42.760
but that's not, for me,
link |
01:31:44.160
it's like I'm more interested in the food, I'd say.
link |
01:31:49.160
Is there some connection between your chef life,
link |
01:31:52.780
cooking and music?
link |
01:31:54.540
Does this music have a role in the experience?
link |
01:31:57.200
I love artistic expression,
link |
01:31:59.400
and that's always had a role in my life
link |
01:32:02.120
in the same way I love to paint and draw
link |
01:32:03.520
and all the different things.
link |
01:32:05.880
I was a professional musician when I lived in Sicily,
link |
01:32:09.040
by definition, technicality,
link |
01:32:10.600
because I played in the municipal band.
link |
01:32:14.840
So I would march around the town with all the funerals.
link |
01:32:19.400
I get like 50 euro every time I'd march in a funeral
link |
01:32:22.340
playing my oboe, so it's given me,
link |
01:32:24.280
I like that because I like to,
link |
01:32:25.720
like you were talking about going to farms,
link |
01:32:27.000
like what I quested for was experience and connection,
link |
01:32:30.840
in places where I could learn things.
link |
01:32:32.680
That's been the through line of my learning journey.
link |
01:32:34.720
I've learned things and sought knowledge
link |
01:32:36.880
that I can't get in any conventional learning environment,
link |
01:32:40.000
and so what are the tools that let me do that?
link |
01:32:42.100
It was like being adaptable and comfortable
link |
01:32:45.600
in different cultures,
link |
01:32:46.440
but also having common ground points
link |
01:32:48.400
that allow you to connect with people,
link |
01:32:51.320
so music's one of those things.
link |
01:32:52.740
So I love music, but I also,
link |
01:32:56.400
there's any number of enjoy of food,
link |
01:32:57.800
being able to pitch in and help in the kitchen,
link |
01:33:00.480
you know, like cards,
link |
01:33:01.480
like those are when you're dealing with
link |
01:33:02.640
getting into like farming communities and stuff,
link |
01:33:04.680
that stuff really helps, right?
link |
01:33:06.360
So I basically have cultivated tools
link |
01:33:08.380
that let me drop into places where I can learn,
link |
01:33:11.400
and so those are all kind of a piece.
link |
01:33:14.160
Those are just tools to get in there.
link |
01:33:15.920
That said, we did listen to Justin Bieber earlier today.
link |
01:33:19.000
I need to get more into him.
link |
01:33:20.280
I need to understand the full complexity of the Biebs.
link |
01:33:23.560
You're trying to achieve what hunting stands for,
link |
01:33:25.560
but at a much larger scale,
link |
01:33:27.480
which is what kind of Belcampo stands for,
link |
01:33:29.560
but what are your thoughts on hunting as a source of meat?
link |
01:33:32.480
It's amazing, 100% pro hunting.
link |
01:33:35.960
I think the reason that hunting flips the switch
link |
01:33:39.080
for so many people is because it's the first thing
link |
01:33:42.000
they've had clean meat in their lives.
link |
01:33:46.080
Okay, so I think that the hunter's journey,
link |
01:33:48.720
when people get so turned on by hunting,
link |
01:33:51.120
they're just like, oh my God, I'm never going back.
link |
01:33:53.840
I'm saying that's great if you've got access to that,
link |
01:33:56.240
or if you know the guy who'll give you the backstrap,
link |
01:33:57.800
awesome, but that's not achievable for most of us,
link |
01:34:02.640
and I do think that talking to hunters
link |
01:34:04.980
about their experiences, what they love about it,
link |
01:34:07.120
many of them are just outdoors,
link |
01:34:09.000
and I say that because most of them are men,
link |
01:34:10.080
but most of them love the outdoors aspect of it
link |
01:34:11.760
and being out in the wild,
link |
01:34:14.160
but a lot of them, it's because of how they feel
link |
01:34:15.920
when they eat the meat, and it's because they're eating,
link |
01:34:18.480
I mean, 99% of meat in America is made a very specific way,
link |
01:34:22.120
and it's in a way that is pretty inflammatory,
link |
01:34:25.800
not incredibly delicious, and when you're on that extreme,
link |
01:34:30.200
and then you toggle to having
link |
01:34:32.240
this totally different style of product,
link |
01:34:34.280
it feels radically different in your body,
link |
01:34:36.180
so of course you're like, I'll never go back.
link |
01:34:38.420
So when I talk about us being on that spectrum,
link |
01:34:40.640
it's like, well, it's, hunted meat's,
link |
01:34:42.640
I mean, I can never on any commercial operation
link |
01:34:45.760
create the variety of the biodiversity of species
link |
01:34:49.560
that an elk gets when it's wandering around of its own,
link |
01:34:53.120
I mean, there's no way you can do that on a farm,
link |
01:34:55.340
so there's always gonna be that extra five or 10%
link |
01:34:58.720
that those wild animals are gonna have,
link |
01:35:00.880
and those wild animals also fast for longer,
link |
01:35:02.700
so they go through periods of starvation,
link |
01:35:04.360
and that creates an even slower growth for musculature
link |
01:35:07.760
that's gonna create even more unique flavor
link |
01:35:10.800
and characteristics, so that's why there's that extra
link |
01:35:14.220
in the hunted meat, but you can come a lot closer
link |
01:35:18.080
with regenerative traditional farming
link |
01:35:19.880
to that flavor and health
link |
01:35:21.960
than with any other type of farming I know,
link |
01:35:24.000
so that's where I see it on the spectrum.
link |
01:35:25.560
I love that people are getting excited about game,
link |
01:35:29.700
because it's better for your health,
link |
01:35:33.680
it's got all the same characteristics
link |
01:35:35.920
as regenerative farmed meat,
link |
01:35:37.480
and it gets people turned on to simple, delicious food.
link |
01:35:41.280
You know, you shouldn't have to cover food
link |
01:35:44.640
with sauce that's got corn syrup and soy,
link |
01:35:48.560
a bunch of junk in it to make it palatable.
link |
01:35:51.240
If you gotta put sauce on your food,
link |
01:35:52.560
you need to look at your ingredients.
link |
01:35:54.680
You need to revisit what you're starting from,
link |
01:35:57.000
because if you have to put a bunch of things
link |
01:35:59.740
to mask flavor onto anything you're eating,
link |
01:36:02.860
you're trying to basically fool your palate
link |
01:36:04.840
into doing what's not best for your body.
link |
01:36:07.200
We're trying to tell our palates,
link |
01:36:08.800
like, just make it through this plate
link |
01:36:10.120
so you can get the calories in,
link |
01:36:12.020
and we're masking the fact
link |
01:36:13.320
that we don't actually find it very appetizing.
link |
01:36:15.600
So we're kind of teaching ourselves
link |
01:36:17.360
to overcome our instinct with food.
link |
01:36:21.440
We're saying, here's this kind of bland base substrate,
link |
01:36:24.240
not very interesting, I'm not like sparking to it.
link |
01:36:27.280
Awesome, put sugar and salt on it.
link |
01:36:29.400
This up the hyperprocess flavor profile.
link |
01:36:31.440
Great, done.
link |
01:36:32.600
And then you're sparked to it.
link |
01:36:34.380
That's a very short road,
link |
01:36:35.960
and that's, I think, a lot of the health problems
link |
01:36:37.560
we have now is because we're masking flavors
link |
01:36:41.200
and basically trying to get ourselves
link |
01:36:43.080
to move down this path of the same way
link |
01:36:44.600
we behave around all hyperprocess foods.
link |
01:36:46.880
And that gets us into a mess with our health.
link |
01:36:49.220
So if we can get things like game
link |
01:36:51.420
where people love the flavor out of the gate,
link |
01:36:53.760
but it's natural, simple, mentally processed,
link |
01:36:55.720
that's a win.
link |
01:36:56.600
Yeah, it reverses that hyperprocessing trend
link |
01:37:01.400
that we're on as a human species.
link |
01:37:03.940
And that's the promise of regenerative farming,
link |
01:37:07.080
that's the promise of hunting.
link |
01:37:08.160
Obviously, the former can be scaled,
link |
01:37:10.800
the hunting, I think, cannot be scaled, right?
link |
01:37:14.080
But in many ways, the hunting inspires the world
link |
01:37:17.760
that this is the right way to eat.
link |
01:37:19.520
Yes.
link |
01:37:20.440
And that naturally leads to then
link |
01:37:25.360
the humane farming, regenerative farming idea,
link |
01:37:28.720
which is this idea that hunting represents.
link |
01:37:31.880
How do you scale that?
link |
01:37:33.040
Well, if you look at, we're talking about
link |
01:37:35.560
people use this sort of marketing language
link |
01:37:37.260
of happy cows or that kind of thing.
link |
01:37:39.680
You're talking about the happiest animals,
link |
01:37:40.840
it's wild animals, right?
link |
01:37:42.160
So if you wonder why these practices are good,
link |
01:37:45.400
talk to hunters.
link |
01:37:46.440
You're talking about animals that have lived
link |
01:37:47.960
in their evolutionary capacity, right?
link |
01:37:50.120
Who have played their role in the ecosystem,
link |
01:37:51.500
who've lived their meaning of life, right?
link |
01:37:54.400
And that's a very powerfully different kind of role
link |
01:37:58.480
than livestock production.
link |
01:38:00.680
So I think if we can make our livestock production
link |
01:38:02.960
as similar to wild as possible,
link |
01:38:05.480
then we're a lot of steps closer.
link |
01:38:07.560
So you said the animals are happiest in the wild
link |
01:38:10.480
and that's where they find meaning.
link |
01:38:12.560
What about us, the human animal?
link |
01:38:14.960
What's the meaning for us, do you think?
link |
01:38:17.880
You've monitored the life cycle of a lot of living beings.
link |
01:38:21.920
You ever look in the mirror and think like,
link |
01:38:23.960
why the hell are we humans here?
link |
01:38:27.180
I mean, thriving, reducing suffering, creating goodness.
link |
01:38:32.320
I mean, those are the things I see in animals behavior.
link |
01:38:36.240
They're mostly interested in reducing suffering
link |
01:38:39.880
and nurturing, right?
link |
01:38:42.960
Those are the things that I think evolutionarily.
link |
01:38:45.400
And we humans are just clever
link |
01:38:46.760
and we wanna be able to try to do that
link |
01:38:48.680
at a bigger and bigger scale.
link |
01:38:51.820
As much as possible, reduce the suffering in the world.
link |
01:38:55.260
And somehow that alleviates us of our own suffering.
link |
01:38:58.560
That's the Russian thing, life is suffering
link |
01:39:01.040
and somehow helping others alleviates it
link |
01:39:03.880
and come up with creative solutions to do that.
link |
01:39:07.440
That's really interesting.
link |
01:39:11.120
It's almost consciousness is the thing
link |
01:39:14.400
that led to suffering, but it also led
link |
01:39:17.480
to the desire to alleviate the suffering.
link |
01:39:19.920
It's a feedback loop.
link |
01:39:23.220
Consciousness creates suffering
link |
01:39:24.560
and the desire to alleviate it.
link |
01:39:27.540
Is there yet a pretty nonlinear life?
link |
01:39:30.300
Your parents were professors.
link |
01:39:32.080
You have done a lot of sort of incredible things
link |
01:39:36.660
that many would say kind of like,
link |
01:39:38.820
how the hell are you gonna get this done?
link |
01:39:40.620
Is there advice you can give to young people today,
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like high school, college, about how to do,
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how to live a similarly nonlinear crazy life
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and accomplish, be as successful as you have been
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about whether it's just their career or life in general?
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The greatest gifts I've been given
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have come from pursuing curiosity.
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Just trying to understand the thing you're curious about
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and allowing yourself to be curious about it
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and just going with it.
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And also pursuing things that are like deeply joyful for me.
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Not what society wants, but you just personally,
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just on your own, you're happy that you did it.
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And that's something that in the times
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when I strayed from that, my life has been harder.
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So it's fundamentally, what are we on earth to do?
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To live and thrive.
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And so pursuing things that are curious
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and satisfying and interesting and joyful
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and allow me to grow.
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So I made a number of choices to do things
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that were more complicated and not considered cool
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at the time.
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Although now it's cool to work on farms.
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It wasn't when I started my career in animal agriculture.
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And it was like, but just deeply interesting to me.
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And I felt like there was just lots to learn.
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And so that's been the path for me
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is like going for something that's curious and hard
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and sticking with it and being open to it.
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And growing elements that give me joy through that.
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So I also, for people who are starting out
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in their careers and want to do something different too,
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it's like, get out of your comfort.
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Go to a place that you've got something to learn from
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and let it teach you that.
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And you'll get beat up.
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Like I got beat up by that experience.
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Like it was really hard.
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I laugh about now working in Sicily for,
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and the funny experiences I had there, but it was hard.
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I was lonely and cried a lot.
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It was stressful.
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It was like, it was hard.
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It was really hard.
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And when you're inside of it,
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you didn't know how it's going to turn out.
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You didn't know it's going to turn out well.
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And I'm like, why didn't I get a job doing something
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that all my friends are doing?
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And I didn't speak the language yet.
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I had to learn foreign language and learn how to function.
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And it was very lonely and very challenging,
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but then that's where my resilience started to grow.
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So the things I learned, they helped me grow.
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So the things I learned there ended up just being
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about resilience and understanding the language
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of subtlety in meaning.
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So that's something that's carried me through my life.
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But it was a curiosity about cheese making
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and about like just living in a village that was there.
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I'm like, wouldn't it be amazing
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to just live in a really rural village.
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And you just went with it.
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And I just like, this seems incredible
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and have a place where you can,
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the people seem interesting, the food seems good.
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And let's just like try this and see what I can learn.
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And that like putting yourself out of your comfort zone
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in a place where you have a chance to learn
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and grow is the secret.
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Because it's, you grow through discomfort.
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People think that you grow when you get
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into this environment where everything's
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like kind of sailing along,
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but like growth actually comes through pain.
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It's like growth comes from being cut down
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and beat down and having to regrow and double down.
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And so that kind of opportunity,
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you have to seek it out.
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You have to put yourself in the line of fire a bit.
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If the situation sucks,
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it's a sign that you might be doing something right
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in the sense that you're on the path
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at the end of which you'll be a better person
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if you allow yourself to grow in that way.
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Like as opposed to resisting it,
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just going along with the journey and persevering.
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And that ended us up in this incredible place.
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This whole conversation, I'll probably overlay a video.
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I'm looking at a gorgeous mountain
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and it's an incredible farm.
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Thank you so much for a meal yesterday.
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That was incredible.
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The cheese, the fish eggs,
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just everything about this place.
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Looking up, you can see the stars.
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The stars at night are beautiful
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and there's a peacefulness to it.
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I had a pretty hard week actually,
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just emotionally in many ways.
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And just coming here, it's immediately,
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so much of it is lifted.
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So I really deeply appreciate Anya
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that you would invite me here
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and that you have this conversation.
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This was really awesome.
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So thank you so much.
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Thank you.
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01:44:19.600
Thanks for listening to this conversation
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with Anya Fernald and thank you to Gala Games,
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01:44:24.440
Athletic Greens, Four Sigmatic and Fundrise.
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01:44:28.600
Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
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01:44:32.080
And now let me leave you with some words
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from the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.
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Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
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Thank you for listening.
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I hope to see you next time.