Dr. Bill Schindler: Why You Should Eat Bugs, Which Plants Can Kill You, & The Importance Of Nose-To-Tail Nutrition (Part 2) | MMP #335
Download MP3Do we head up? Let's do it. We'll fight. Yeah. Yep.
Speaker 2:I'm curious. If you think that we're gonna get healthier, what role do you think meat plays in that?
Speaker 3:I think it's the only way. I do think though and and I know it was a great question. Is Americans gonna get healthier the next 50 years? I I
Speaker 1:Bill, have you done any research into, like, the 7th day Adventist church connection to the Blue Zones?
Speaker 3:No. Except just the kind of stuff like Marty Kendall and those have talked about, but no.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I heard that a few years ago that that church actually bought the Blue Zones. Like, they they own that comp whatever company created the documentary, they own it. And so for anyone that doesn't know about that church, it's literally where John Harvey Kellogg came from where they essentially believe that, you know, eating meat eats you makes you unpure. And so, like, sex and masturbation and all these urges are unpure, so you should be eating foods that take that urge away, which is how Kellogg's was ultimately created.
Speaker 1:And, you know, a lot of the research that I've that Harry and I have come across, was it Belinda Fecky that we had on the podcast?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:She's uncovered so much history around the 7th day Adventist church, essentially being, like, the kingmaker of, like, the standard American diet in the United States. And they're Fecky,
Speaker 3:that's what I meant. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm already Yeah. It's fascinating. And there's someone like you who's like, let me go see this for myself and actually go to a blue zone. And you're saying full autonomy over their meals, incredibly animal intensive. They're getting basically zone 2 cardio in every day because they're just walking hills, and they have that community and that connection as well, which is such an important piece.
Speaker 1:Like, I've even had meals that aren't that good, but because I'm eating it with Harry or our friends, like, feels nourishing even if the food might not be, like, strict carnival or meat based or something like that.
Speaker 3:And that's exactly what I'm talking about. And it's that it's that space in the middle where I think full nourishment really can come from, and that's where it's found. The the thing we need to remember is it's never one thing. Now if you're deficient in something, it's one thing can make all the difference. Right?
Speaker 3:We we know this. Like, pellagra niacin, like, we we we know that's the case. But for, you know, trying to look at things like longevity, for example, or true metabolic health, it isn't one thing. You know, this one thing isn't gonna make or break it. It is, you know, things, first of all, small things that happen incrementally over time that are a consistent part of your life, but it's it's it's that entire package.
Speaker 3:And we are really unique, weird creatures as as humans. And we we need when we so first off, I think one of the most important things, simplified things we can think about every time we eat in order to nourish ourselves properly, the one thing we need to do, and I might have said this last time and I wholeheartedly believe it, is if all you do is make sure that at every meal, you get up from the table feeling better than from when you sat down, you're you're headed in the right direction. I mean, it's such a simple thing, but, I mean, really, if that's what you but but the way you achieve that is by nourishing food, the right context, the right people, the right time, all of those things go on fall into place. That's nourishment for for a human. It's it's it's we're different than than every other animal.
Speaker 3:And that's where some of these conversations were. It really starts to borderline orthorexia. And and it's on both sides. It's on the animal side animal base, and it's on the plant based side too. It's those I I I at least think true nourishment happens in a space where there's balance and there's grace, and there's there's that space for improvement, certainly, but that understanding that I'm doing the best that I can.
Speaker 3:And and, you know, one of the things that I I love about, some of Sean's baker Baker's message is, you know, we we you know, I saw you last weekend at the What Good Shall I Do? Conference. Amazing conference. Regenerative farming is exactly the direction we need to be moving in. Some people can't afford it.
Speaker 3:And Sean Baker gives people that just by saying it, gives people that space to say, if all I can do is afford a McDonald's hamburger patty, then that's better than the alternative. Right? And and and I I we need to be able to have that conversation, and all of us need to be able to be in that same conversation.
Speaker 2:When you look at the modern American diet, what do you think most people are missing, when it comes to their perception of, like, what the proper human diet looks like?
Speaker 3:What are we missing? I I there's a couple things. It doesn't have to be one thing, does it? No. Okay.
Speaker 3:The dangers of improperly processed plants are huge. So it's bigger for people that are, you know, obviously plant based, but it's still important for those of us who are even animal based, but including some some plants in our diets. I think it's very dangerous for people in the keto world who are relying on, you know, sort of fake versions of food that you normally would have in it. So everything from some of the fake sugars, but things like almond flour, which I think is one of the most terrible things on the planet. But the dangers of plants is is important, but also the power of food processing, the proper processing, like I mentioned, is important.
Speaker 3:And I'll I'll give you maybe just a couple examples, but, this is a small one, but I think it's a good poster child. When when Instant Pot first came out, they, Instant Pot is a great great kitchen tool. It's great. But one of the things they were boasting about was that they're it's such a good pressure cooker that you don't have to soak the beans. You could just take dried kidney beans, put them in the water, put them in the pressure cooker, and you could get out something with a very similar texture than if you went to all that work of letting it soak overnight.
Speaker 3:The reality is beans need to be soaked and cooked. One doesn't do it. Soaking and cooking together are the only way to properly detoxify them, and it's very dangerous to just skip one of those steps. So so that's very important. Nostomolyzing maze is very important.
Speaker 3:Putting grains through either sprouting or or, sourdough process is crucial to making sure that they're safe enough for us to eat, and then we can derive nutrition from it. Anyone eating kidney beans that haven't been processed properly is very dangerous. But, any one of those other things by itself isn't necessarily a very big deal. But that was the mainstay of our diets for a very long time. Like, if we had vegetables in, they were processed properly.
Speaker 3:Right? Things in the plants world were processed properly. And the fact that none of them, for many of us, are being processed properly, that also is is a cumulative effect to the issues. And I also believe that, to bring it to the to the animals, I also believe that there's not enough of us taking in a whole animal approach to our meat. And the ramifications of that, like we started to talk about earlier, are huge from a nutritional perspective.
Speaker 3:So the the the part of the half of the animal that we're not eating is not only, more nutritious, but it has a larger diversity of nutrients in it than just the meat does. So from a nutritional perspective, that's very important. But as well from that, ethical perspective, from the sustainability perspective, from the economical perspective, all of these things, the connected perspective, all of those things come into play. And I really believe for for those of us, you know, we're all like minded in this room, for those of us who are really pushing, the idea that animals are an important part of our diet, I think need to jump on that wagon because if we don't, there's a piece of the conversation that's missing and it's hard to defend. It is very hard to get up here and say, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:I get the most incredible regenerative rib eye I can get, and I eat rib eyes every single night. And also and be able to defend that from all the ways that it can be attacked. And if we're really gonna push that whole agenda forward, I love rib eyes, but I think consuming that entire animal is an easier place Yeah. To defend the attacks that are coming at, you know, at us.
Speaker 1:What is your reaction to just meat being the scapegoat for metabolic disease understanding, you know, your evolutionary relationship and research with food? You you had mentioned that we've been hunting and consuming animals for about 2,300,000 years. The statistic now is that that I found heard from Sacred Cows that the average American consumes less than 2 ounces of red meat a day, yet 63% of our ultra processed calories. 63% of all calories are in the form of ultra processed foods. So it's very interesting to me that red meat is the scapegoat, understanding those statistics, and I'd love to get your reaction on that.
Speaker 3:Well, it it's it's ridiculous. I mean, I I I don't even know how to answer that because that whole that being a scapegoat is is so incredibly insane. It's hard to tell from an archaeological perspective how much meat was in the diet. Right? I mean, we can tell something's been butchered.
Speaker 3:We can tell an an in many cases, an animal's been killed. We can there's a lot of things that we can tell. But to be able to say, meat made this much of a percentage in the in the past of of a diet is a very difficult thing. I I would suggest impossible thing to to, ascertain. So to start to answer that question then, I would say the best evidence I have then is by looking at the living traditional groups that I've had access to.
Speaker 3:And in every one of those cases, animals were center stage no matter where we were. Mhmm. No matter what climate we were in, no matter what the resource base was where people were. I mean, it was animals. And I know it's sort of cliche, and and and it and it's kinda funny when Sean Baker and others talk about it, but like, nobody painted pictures of plants on cave walls.
Speaker 3:Right? There is, by way, and I know I wanna talk about it later, there are some examples of bugs being painted on cave walls. But but, yeah, but, I mean, it's it's the center. You don't you don't sit around a campfire and tell a story about the the roots you pulled up. You sit around the campfire and talk talk about the hunt.
Speaker 3:Animals I I am 100% convinced animals were the center of our diets for 1000000 of years. I'm equally convinced that we included plants in almost all cases throughout that entire time. It wasn't the center stage, but we have been eating plants, for for that for the entirety of that as well. And if you I haven't dove into the, medical literature as much as somebody like, say, Anthony Chaffee has. His his recent stuff he was talking about with heart attacks and when they I don't know if you saw that was fascinating.
Speaker 3:No. But it it it animals have been in our diets forever. The entire animal's been in our diet for 2,000,000 years, and it is only a recent phenomenon that we started taking the, animals out of our diets, taking the fat out of our meat, taking the organs out of our animals and of our plates.
Speaker 2:So we asked you before we hit record here whether or not you thought Americans are gonna be healthier, sicker 50 years from now. And I'm curious. If you think that we're gonna get healthier, what role do you think meat plays in that? Like, do you think meat can be part of the cure going forward in terms of reversing some of these chronic diseases that so many people are dealing with and obesity and autoimmune issues that just seem to be so so much more prevalent today than prior?
Speaker 3:I I I think it's the only way. I don't think it it can be part of it. I think it's the only way that that it's gonna happen. I do think though, and and I know it was a great question, is is are Americans Americans gonna get healthier in the next 50 years? I I don't know.
Speaker 3:I do know that I'm excited because there's so many amazing voices in this space right now doing wonderful things and educating people and inspiring people and empowering people that I think we're headed in the right direction for for for that. I in order to do it though, and this is really important, I we have to find commonalities. Like, I the only way that we're gonna be able to get to a place like that is if we can put a full blown carnivore and a vegan at a table together and have a conversation. And believe it or not, and I'm convinced of this, and I know a lot of people listening to this probably just shut it off, but, and I apologize if I did that. We have we share more in common with a thoughtful vegan than we think.
Speaker 3:I mean, most most of the people that are make that I know that are making decisions to have a plant based diet are doing it for very good reasons. I don't agree with how they're applying it, but you cannot attack the way the reason that they're doing it, or at least many of them. Right? So whether they wanna be nourished, whether they wanna be ethical, whether they wanna be sustainable, hell, those are the same three things that are important to me. We're just applying it differently.
Speaker 3:And if we keep we're fighting so many things in this world right now. I mean, the the basic thing that should be nourishing us should be a thing that draws us all together, that we need to get together and have those conversations. Keto folks should be talking to sourdough bakers. I'm convinced of this. You know, carnivore folks should be talking to I mean, I I it's the only way it's gonna happen, and I know it sounds like a stretch.
Speaker 3:But remember, I started this with, I should have never started this restaurant, or we we we should never started this restaurant. It's never gonna work. It is working. And those are the conversations we need to have, because there's pluses and minuses to all of it. And there's things that we haven't considered probably in the carnivore world and things we haven't considered in the keto world that, you know, we we can learn from one another.
Speaker 3:And I don't mean we need to get to the place where we're convincing somebody else of something. That's not the point, and I don't think there's any reason to do that. I mean, the message you guys have is strong, and if somebody's not ready for that message, it doesn't matter. Right? They have to be ready to receive that message.
Speaker 3:The place that we can get where we give each other the space to do what we need to do and not stop one another from doing something else is where we need to get to in order to in order to be healthier. I am convinced that it is once we can break down that barrier that's keeping an animal we shouldn't even talk about these terms, animal and plant based worlds apart, that we can get to a place where, hey. You know what? Maybe there's something that the vegetarians and vegans haven't considered. I'll give you a quick quick example.
Speaker 3:And I know it sounds crazy, but but this is a this is a working example, and I might have said this last time. I taught at Washington College for 15 years, and every fall, I ran a class. It was a primitive technology and experimental archaeology class. And throughout the the 13 weeks of the semester, I taught the students a whole bunch of different primitive technologies, and we used them to create a meal. Now, there was other things that we learned and did, but the reality was I I love to end things with a meal, especially one that we've all built together.
Speaker 3:So one week, we made still one that we've all built together. So one week, we made stone very basic stone tools, and the next week, I brought a whole bunch of deer that everybody butchered with their tools. And then, obviously, that meat ended up as a part
Speaker 2:of the meal at the
Speaker 3:end. But every single semester, and we're talking about 18, 19, 20, 21 year old, students, and every single semester, I'd have at least 1 vegetarian, if not a vegan or several vegans in the class. And it's great. And I told them, and I wholeheartedly meant this, look, you need to be there. The purpose of this activity is to show this tool that has been helped make us human has been in use over 3 and a half 1000000 years how effective it actually is.
Speaker 3:I don't need you to touch the deer. I don't need you to cut into the deer, but I need you to be there. And I promise you will not and I meant it. You will not get marked down. You just need to be there.
Speaker 3:And they knew I meant it. There was never once when I didn't get a student in that class elbow deep inside of that deer. And in some cases, the people that were plant based were most engaged into it. I mean, partly because I, you know, some of the kids in class were already hunters and things it wasn't a big deal for them, them, but so engaged. And I gave them a safe space to explore and learn something, and they were very interested in animal rights.
Speaker 3:They were very interested in animal suffering. They're very interested in all of those things. And it was the first time they had access, visceral access to, you know, to to connecting at that level, and they dove in. Literally dove in. And that's the kind of space we need to create in if we're gonna be healthier in 50 years.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I think regenerative agriculture can be a bridge too. I know a lot of, I probably know, like, 10 former vegans that did the diet for a set period of time, maybe a longer duration, and just, like, felt those nutrient deficiencies in their blood work Mhmm. Was showing that in their functional medical met medical doctor was telling them that they need to incorporate meat. So they're like, alright. Well, if I'm gonna eat meat, I might as well get it from her, you know, the most regenerative ethical source that I can.
Speaker 1:They eat those foods. They feel amazing. They go out to the farm. They realize that these animals are living these amazing, happy, healthy lives. They're regenerating the soil.
Speaker 1:It's providing for the local economy. And they were they were actually closer than we realized with the plant based diet because you see a lot of crossover from people that are plant based and carnivore where it's like their heart is both in the right direction. It's just the the disagreement over, like, the right micronutrients. But to your point, it's like, if you can get them in the same room, I think people would realize that there's so much more in common than they realize. And these arguments between carnivores versus people that are animal based versus people that are, you know, pescatarian, etcetera.
Speaker 1:In the 300 episodes that Harry and I have done the show, we've realized that there are so many different approaches that have worked for people. The one commonality is that meat is just the centerpiece to a lot of these people that really are thriving. And then the rest of what you of all you wanna do with your diet, I it comes down to experimentation and you taking autonomy over your own diet and lifestyle.
Speaker 3:A 100%. And I also think yeah. Their gender farming is is a huge piece. You're absolutely right. And I also think, you know, some people are very dead set.
Speaker 3:Whether it's carnivore or plant, but whatever it is, they're very dead set. And no matter what you say, they're not gonna gonna change their mind for themselves. But I do think when you start bringing in conversations about how to feed your kids or how to feed your family, sometimes minds can get opened up. So, you know, e even if the best that we can do is to show somebody who's on a fully plant based diet that kids, especially when they're very, very young, require the right kind of nutrition, and you're not gonna get that from a plant based diet. That even if the result of that conversation the conversation in the safe space is that they're starting off their kids, you know, with a with a with a great chance of life with the right kind of nutrition.
Speaker 3:That's that's a huge win. That's powerful. Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:One of the
Speaker 2:things that you mentioned you wanted to talk about was the insects. And I think you caught me off guard personally the first time you brought it up on the podcast because I was like, oh, wow. I didn't realize Bill was actually, like, thinking about this and saying that it's actually a part of the human diet. So I'm curious just to get your perspective as we talk about finding common ground, because this is a controversial one.
Speaker 3:It's a controversial one, and it shouldn't be. So this is the same. We have these arguments. Not we. People in the food space have these arguments because of these kind of artificial, groups that we put these conversations in, and then all of a sudden we draw a line in the sand, and if you're this you're this, then you it it they're silly.
Speaker 3:And bugs is a great example. If you want to be if your if your goal is to eat an ancestrally appropriate diet, it must include bugs. Bugs have been in our diets for 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of years before meat did. Bugs have been in our diet for 1,000,000 of years before meat made it into our diet. And that made it into our diet a million and a half years before the entire animal made it into our diet.
Speaker 3:And the entirety of this time, bugs continued to be in our diet. And they continue to be in the diet of traditional groups around the world today. So the artificial sort of I forget what it's called in the argument world. Sure, what's his name will tell us, a straw man or whatever, but, we've set up the wrong argument. And then all of a sudden, we're arguing with it.
Speaker 3:It's it's not a meat or bug conversation. It should be a, you know, a meat and bug conversation. It I'm not suggesting that we should give up our meat and eat bugs. What I'm suggesting is if truly, if you if you dig deep and you're like, okay, I really want an ancestrally appropriate diet. What are the most nutrient dense bioavailable foods that have been in my diet for the entirety of the time that humans have been on the planet and our ancestors have been on the diet for 1000000 of years?
Speaker 3:Then it's meat, organs, and bugs. And sure, if you you're gonna come to me and say, my choice is either bugs or meat. Well, I'm I'm gonna pick meat. Mhmm. But again, we've we've created this weird argument.
Speaker 3:It's not bugs or meat. It's bugs and meat. The reality is bugs are incredibly nourishing. They're incredibly nutrient dense. They're bioavailable, not as much as liver, but they are bioavailable.
Speaker 3:And whether we wanna hear it or not, they are incredibly sustainable to farm. And those are some major markers in my mind for how I should be select now, I I don't eat a whole lot of bugs. We do. We serve bugs at the restaurant. We make these cricket, organic, crickets were raised for for human consumption at this great farm in Canada called Ntomo Farms, and we make these kind of protein bombs that are wonderful with raw honey.
Speaker 3:They're fantastic. And we do a couple of events that have insects in them. I don't eat a lot of bugs, but I don't dismiss them because of some other agenda. Bugs are something we should really consider. And if you're grossed out about it I know some people, oh my god.
Speaker 3:I'm not eating bugs. I could do the line. First of all, you just cherry picked an ancestral thing. Like, you literally, by saying no bugs, you just artificially, based on your modern perceptions of food and comfort and all of this, artificially just dismiss something that's been on our diet for 1000000 of years, and literally, whether you wanna believe it or not, helped create your ancestors as humans. You're here in part, in a major part, because we ate a ton of bugs in the past.
Speaker 3:But if this helps, one of the things we have to tell people when they when they buy our our our, anything we make out of out of insects is if you're allergic to shellfish, you're probably gonna be allergic to this. It's the same chitin. And and if you think about it, you look at crabs, you look at lobsters, they are insects in the ocean. We're just talking about land insects here. So again, we made this weird distinction.
Speaker 3:I'm I'll pay a lot of money for lobster, but don't put a cricket in front of me and all of a sudden you're taking away my meat. It's it's a weird conversation. Weird argument.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of nuance to it. Right? Because it's like it's probably triggering to people that think that they're following an ancestral diet. And it's like, no, you're eating the most bioavailable foods, but if you actually wanna be fully ancestral
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:This is actually what we were eating. It was bugs and beef. Yeah. Just making sure beef and bugs.
Speaker 3:Beef and bugs. I like that. Yeah. And and and and I'm not again, I'm not telling anybody, please. I'm not the message isn't go out and eat a whole lot of bugs, or you're not gonna be healthy if you don't eat bugs.
Speaker 3:The the message is is one of, again, giving each other the space to really have a conversation and stop setting up these you know, you can still be Instagram famous if you don't, you know, poo poo on somebody else. Like, it it is possible and, or create these really weird arguments and then all of a sudden draw a line. It is a weird argument. This is a great example of somebody set up an argument that suggested by eating bugs, we're not allowed to eat meat any longer, and that's not what the conversation should be. And I'm not saying that everybody needs to eat bugs, but if you do wanna do it, I can tell you there are ways of preparing them that are incredibly delicious, and to me, it was a really great mental exercise for as much as for some people, eating a bite of liver is a huge step.
Speaker 3:Right? But for those of us who have taken that step, right, eating spleen or liver or kidney and realized not only the benefit of it, but, the, you know, the, coolness of being able to, you know, being able to take that step mentally to do it, this is another great example of something that we can do.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Any other bug recipes you like? Is there a way to make it in, like, a soup or something like that that tastes Yeah.
Speaker 3:If anybody it's kinda like pluck, for example. Yeah. You know, pluck is a great way, you know, pluck seasoning is a great way. James Breyer is a really good friend of mine, to take organ meats and get them into our diets without that huge mental leap, at least immediately. Because it's it's delicious and it's the spice all the seasoning is great.
Speaker 3:A lot of insects, especially crickets and mealworms, are getting ground up into powder and can get put into all sorts of things very, very easily. Into shakes, it can get if you're baking with it, you can bake with it. You could do a lot of different things, with the powder. And you don't have necessarily that ick factor of, you know, pulling a wing out of your tooth or something. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Something like
Speaker 2:that. Yeah. I I just think the bug conversation is easily dismissed. And it's kind of a meme, I feel like, online with, like, they want you to eat the bugs. So the fact that you're bold enough to actually just bring this conversation in the forefront speaks to, I think, your intellectual honesty and just ability to, like, approach these things from a place of, just like true integrity.
Speaker 2:And, I think, you know, that's something that not a whole lot of people, can say. So
Speaker 3:Well, thank you.
Speaker 2:You know, I I think, you know, most people are out there probably just saying the things that get them most popular as you kind of alluded to. So You
Speaker 3:know, a really good friend of mine, Steve Watts, is one of my mentors. He, unfortunately passed a few years ago, but he was the guy that was responsible for making everything in the movie Cast Away. He's amazing. A great primitive technologist, great teacher, great mentor. But he told me once that, he really believes in in the in the power of fire.
Speaker 3:He said, you know, for up until recent times, every major decision around the world was made around a fire. I think it's pretty powerful. I would further that and say almost every meaningful conversation in our lives happens around the table. Mhmm. It happens around a meal.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's that's what humans do differently with food. The way that we share food, the way that we celebrate it, and that, you know, the the image of a meal means things, the value of the meal, the convert all of those things, to me, when I think about what it really means to be human, it's it's what happens around a table with nourishing food, great people, and the space to have real conversations. That's where learning all of those things take place. And that I I I really love that question, that 50 year question. I keep coming back to it in my head as we're talking, and I want to be able to have that space and help create that space where we're all sitting down at the table and having real conversations.
Speaker 3:No judgment. None of it. I mean, even even when I said it. I mean, to be honest, I said, you know, vegans and carnivores and all this, I'm coming from a plant or an animal based position are you know, we need to come together and understand we're all doing these things for the same reasons, or most of us are at least. Right?
Speaker 3:But I I I even said it with, maybe one day they're gonna learn, you know, the how important animals. And so I'm I'm even coming to it biased, and I shouldn't be. But having that kind of a conversation is where we need to get to because we're not gonna do any good fighting the way the way that we're fighting. And then when it gets then when you start, you know, coming down and and and then there's there's infighting in the keto world and there's infighting, oh, that's absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 2:It's crazy. All just about, like, what should we be eating to make us healthy. And one of the things that you said about the blue zones that stood out to me was the kindness aspect because you you talked about them living longer because they're kinder to each other, and there's something about the table that forces people to show up and, you know, you mentioned all the different components of the meal. So they're relying on each other. They're communicating with each other.
Speaker 2:They're contributing. Those are all aspects of kindness, ways to communicate kindness without actually, you know, complimenting somebody. It's, like, genuine. Like, I'm gonna bring you food to your house, and we're gonna share this meal together. Like, is there
Speaker 3:And I'm gonna nourish you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Is there a way to be kinder? I don't I'm not sure.
Speaker 3:I don't think there is. And and you know what? That's really funny because we we're we've lost so much of that in our modern Western world now. Right? We don't we don't have that sort of thing, and and we I think we replace it with things like Christmas gifts and, you know, but that's that's meaningful.
Speaker 3:That is here. I'm this is going into your body. This is going to nourish you. And so as much as the conversation around that table is and the hugs and the all the all the rest of it, and on top of it, and I know this is maybe starting to get a little bit silly, not silly isn't the right word, but maybe this minutiae, but it's very important. There's a lot of things being shared at that table.
Speaker 3:There's looks and glances and parenting and conversations and, you know, all of the correcting one another, all all of these things, sharing information, and we're sharing microbes. I mean, we're literally hands are touching, we're touching food. All of that stuff goes into creating, to me, the healthiest situation in the entire world. And I will also say we have been all over the world in areas where sometimes we had a translator, sometimes we didn't, and sometimes when I was in Bolivia and Peru when I was in Bolivia, we were with an Aymara family, and I speak that much Spanish. And you know what?
Speaker 3:They spoke about that much Spanish too because they spoke Aymara, and there was no translator. And but the ability to connect over food is universal. I mean, it is a human thing. And sitting down and having that meal, it doesn't matter what language you speak. It is it is so incredibly beautiful and powerful.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah. Communication is so much more than just words. It's warmth. It's body language.
Speaker 1:It's like this shared thing that comes from breaking bread and cutting steak with people that you care about too. You know? And the opposite of this is pressing a button on your phone, ordering DoorDash, getting some industrial ingredients and industrial oils delivered, and then eating by yourself. So I think when you think the next 50 years, it's like there's the DoorDash gateway, and then there's, like, this connective nourishing experience as well. And I think it's possible, man.
Speaker 1:It's like my my litmus my litmus test is always my friends in the northeast, like, how interested are they in the stuff that we're talking about. Mhmm. And I'm getting we're getting incredible interest from our friends back home where, like, I remember making some of these changes in 2019. People thought I was insane. Where now they're like, hey.
Speaker 1:We're what's a great farm in New Jersey that I could get meat from or milk from, or what recommendations do you have on beef tallow? And that's just my litmus test for, I think, the tide is turning and just more conversations like this will just push that push the movement forward, and hopefully, eventually, podcasts like this don't even need to be necessary.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But I love them.
Speaker 2:We love them.
Speaker 3:We'll we'll do them for fun. We'll do them better. But, yeah, let me just say one thing about we I've seen at the restaurant too, which is very, very cool. So many people in the restaurant world are are worried about taste, and they should be. Taste and texture and presentation.
Speaker 3:Those are important elements in food. And when we started this restaurant, we did we did it literally, logistically the way that it all happened, happened fairly quickly, and we didn't know what the hell we were doing. So we just literally took my book, and that was the basis for the all the recipes in it. And I wasn't maybe naively, but it ended up being right. I wasn't concerned about taste.
Speaker 3:I wasn't concerned about I I was concerned. I was dead set focused on I wanna put the most nourishing food possible on the table. I mean, I was worried about taste, but that wasn't my goal. That was kind of the the side thing. And I said, I'm gonna put the most nourishing food possible on the table.
Speaker 3:That's exactly what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna make sure it's the safest, most bioavailable, period. That was it. And what was and and I said people are gonna come because they realize it's the most nourishing food that they can get. And they came, but they didn't come for that. Out of, you know, 80% of the people came because they were interested in what the new restaurant in town was, but then they stayed and kept coming because the food was good, and they felt good after it.
Speaker 3:And many of our customers, we didn't realize it till months, in some cases, years later, that they had no idea. Maybe we didn't do a great job of advertising, but they had no idea the health benefits of the food that they were eating. It just and it should make sense. The most nourishing food possible should also, just by default, be the most delicious and satiating food that we can put into our mouths. Because, I mean, we're hardwired through all this have millions of years of evolution to, enjoy.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's it's one of our defense mechanisms. We should be enjoying and eating more of the food that makes us makes us healthier. And and it really, really worked.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say, Mark Schatzker has a a book called The Dorito Effect.
Speaker 3:I love that book.
Speaker 2:Nutritional wisdom is exactly what you're just talking about. I think that a lot of people, when you get on the industrial processed food merry-go-round, you lose that nutritional wisdom and your your taste buds are completely hijacked. But once you start eating an ancestral consistent diet, your taste buds are actually starting to tell you more and more about what you should and shouldn't be eating.
Speaker 3:Yep. And and the the satiation, all of it. Like, that whole idea I said earlier, I I want every one of our customers to get up feeling better than when they came in. And, actually, we're gonna put something on the door. You know, when you walk back through these doors, you're gonna feel better than you do right now or something silly.
Speaker 3:Christina said it was silly, so we didn't do it. But, but I mean it not only in food, but in that entire context that they experience when they come in. They should feel better in every sense, after they've gotten up and and and leave leave the restaurant. And that same thing for every table we sit down to.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's really this rewiring of negative programming that you're giving up something to eat healthy in the form of taste. Mhmm. And, I always go back to the chef, Marco Pierre White, who won to he won 23 Michelin Stars in England. He trained Gordon Ramsay.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And he did a talk at Oxford, like, 5 years ago, and one of the students asked him, you know, what makes a great chef? And the first thing he said was that great chefs understand that mother nature is the true artist. So this is a guy that's one of the best chefs of all time, and it's like, and you look at the recipes that he puts on YouTube, they're just very, very simple dishes, just single ingredients, minimal spices, and there's a way to to make to cook that and make it taste absolutely delicious too.
Speaker 3:You know, 2 things come to mind when you say that's so important. One is, oh, we're really good friends with a fantastic, coffee roaster in Easton Maryland, Rise Up. And one of the owners, Noah Kegley, is a great friend of ours. And he told me a story a couple years ago. 1 of his coffee roasters they they it's a great company.
Speaker 3:They go to every farm they source from. They talk to the people picking the bean. Every they're fantastic. But there was this one farm, I forgot where it was, but supposedly, the grower was very, very famous, and they were so lucky to get this guy's coffee beans to come in to roast. And their head roaster was about to pee himself that he had access to these beans, but then the guy the the farmer was coming to visit.
Speaker 3:And, the roaster was so excited and the farmer walks in and, you know, the the roaster was all nervous and, you know, talking to him and so excited. And the farmer looks at me, he says, how long does it take you to roast these beans? And he says, I forget what it was. 8 minutes. I said, alright.
Speaker 3:It took me 3 years to grow and I'll screw it up. Like and and I mean, we we think about the role of the of the roaster or of the chef, and they're very important roles. But the everything that went in before it is incredibly important. And I guess to do the coffee beans correctly, I I don't know much about it, but it took 3 years of hard work to end up with those beans, and then this guy's gonna make or break it in an 8 minute roast. And so that's very powerful.
Speaker 3:But I will but it not I don't wanna take anything away also from the power of what happens in the kitchen. So probably one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done in the kitchen was the week before COVID hit, I was in, I was in Brazil at a at a speaking at a conference, and I don't know if you guys ever watched Chef's Table, but the first season, Alex Italo, who's one of my favorite chefs, it was his conference and he asked me to go. He's actually on the board of our of our nonprofit, but this is well before that. And he has a great a couple great restaurants, but he he had the speakers come to his really, really, really Dom, d o m is is the restaurant restaurant. And he he asked me ahead of time, he said, can you come in and maybe show my team how to make the stone tools?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So I go into at the time, the best restaurant I've ever been in my life. We went in there early. I'm in the kit I'm literally in the kitchen of the best restaurant I've ever been in my life, and I'm I'm squatting down with a rock in my hand and and and and and showing all these chefs how to make stone tool. And then I and then and I had each one of them do it.
Speaker 3:And I'm like, this is and I told them at the end, I said, you need to make sure that they realize that they're not just making food. Like, they are doing what what our ancestors have been doing for 1000000 of years and taking a raw ingredient and using it to putting it through a process to nourish somebody. To I mean, how how what more important thing can you actually be doing? They're doing that in this kitchen. They're not just making it pretty.
Speaker 3:They're not just making it taste good. They have the power to transform a raw ingredient into something that our bodies can make incredible use of, and it all started with that tool. And I thought that was really, really cool. I have a great picture of everybody with their little tools Wow. Putting out.
Speaker 1:That's incredible.
Speaker 2:Well, we can't wait to get up to Modern City Kitchen soon because based on everything that you've talked about, 25 employees, amazing culture, just the experiences you've had traveling and being able to bring some of that stuff into your guys' restaurant, like, I can only imagine how good it is.
Speaker 3:Well, I
Speaker 2:can't wait for that.
Speaker 1:Can you put us on the payroll for a week?
Speaker 2:You don't have to pay us anything. And, Nolan, like Yeah. We're there.
Speaker 3:Well, listen. That's a I I want everybody to know know 2 things I wanna mention very quickly. One is, anybody who's coming, we do have options. I mean, if you wanna eat strictly carnivore, you wanna eat strictly you you can absolutely get that there. But the main thing that we do is that we take familiar food and make make it as nourishing as it can possibly be.
Speaker 3:So if you want the most nourishing pizza you've ever had in your life, you know, come because we'll give you pizza. So if you're coming and, again, you're hardcore and you're not only gonna eat pork rinds and bacon, then that's fine, and we have it for you. But if you are, you know, if you're of that mindset that, hey, you know, every now and then, I can take a step outside of that particular viewpoint and and maybe try something else, arts is the place to do it because I guarantee you we made it as safe and nourishing as it can be, and we made it with a hell of a lot of love. So we do pizzas. We do tacos.
Speaker 3:We do sandwiches. We do soup. We do all of those things as well, but it's all made in house, and it's all made according to our principles. So it'd be a 100% wild, long fermented sourdough crust. We make all the salami.
Speaker 3:We make the pepperoni. We make all the cheese from local milk. It's a wood fired pizza, and it so I can't wait to serve. So that's number 1. Number 2 is we just started a program, an internship program where people can come and spend a day.
Speaker 3:Well, we we like it to be at least a week, but, for as as long as they they wanna come for. So, you guys come, we we got you covered. You're in the nursery. Absolutely. But, if anybody if anybody watching this is interested, please give me a shout.
Speaker 3:We actually we have a woman coming Friday from Ohio for a month. We have a woman after her coming for 3 weeks. And the great thing is, you you can do all of it. You could focus on sourdough and just make sourdough bread, or you can focus on butchering and just butcher, or you can do a little bit of all of it and fermenting vegetables and make cheese and butcher and, you know, do do do all those pieces. So we we consider ourselves at 2 things, a teaching kitchen and also, you know, in in the, literary world now, there's open source, you know, open source access to these peer reviewed articles and things like this.
Speaker 3:We consider ourselves an open source kitchen. We we love to make food for people, but our mission is to empower people to make that food for themselves and their families in their own home.
Speaker 2:So if
Speaker 3:there's a recipe or a technique or something somebody wants, it's it's wide open and that that's it's yours. So, yeah, we'd love to have you. Any thought.
Speaker 1:We're we're gonna we're gonna set that up for sure, man. But, we just believe in your message so much. That's why we were so excited to have you on for this episode. So thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for the work that you do leading by example, and, just very grateful to call you a friend, and we've learned a lot from you, man.
Speaker 1:So appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Well, likewise. It's a it's an honor to be on your podcast. Thank you. Thanks, Paul.
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