The Meat Mafia Podcast

All right, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the meat mafia podcast. On today's episode, we are doing a blast from the past. This is a mafia moments where we go back. And unpack. An episode that we've done in the past, and we pull some of the best nuggets from some of these episodes. So on today's episode, we hit on the founder of a company called crowd health and Brett and I are huge fans of what crowd health is doing. Mostly from the perspective of really disrupting the health insurance space.

And if you're not familiar with health insurance, which. I have to say, I am a novice myself, but. The system of our entire health care industry. Is built on the back of how we pay for and how we actually are able to afford the coverage and the costs of some of these health. Events that happened in our lives.

Some of the, the. The costs that we incur through prescriptions and other medical procedures that. We're quite frankly needed, but. When it comes to actually removing some of the fluff that exists within the health insurance space. No, one's really talking about how much. These costs are actually inflated.

And so in this episode, you actually hear. From Andy himself talking about the problem that he's trying to solve, which is essentially. A lot of these costs are being inflated through health insurance, and he's creating a model of health care coverage. It's not, it is proudly not health insurance. This is a crowdsourcing model of healthcare, which. Allows people to pay in cash. They pay up front in cash and it allows them to actually reduce their healthcare costs.

Um, and, and the model is really interesting because it's actually a community based approach to health care coverage. Where you are put into a community that helps you cover some of these health insurance or healthcare costs. So this is a great episode, I think, in this 30 minute clip, you'll hear a lot about. Crown health, which is an amazing business, but you also hear Andy's perspective. On what's actually going wrong in the health insurance industry.

You guys enjoy this episode. Go check out the full episode with Andy on episode two 40 of the meat mafia podcast.

So without further ado. Andy Schoonover.

Yeah. And And why we're so much less expensive is because your health insurance plan will pay $6,000 for a colonoscopy. Yeah. Whereas we've got people in Austin who are all over the country actually, who will do it from between 800 and 1500, depending upon the location. Yeah. So, you know, it's like, why would you pay six, six grand when you could pay, you know, a thousand?

Like, that's the benefit of crowd health. And the kicker with you guys, too, is the cash component, right? Of just paying them up front. So the doctor's office is like, well, now I don't have to negotiate with the insurance company for months. I can just get the cash. And it's, how much cheaper is it if you're paying cash?

I mean, for the little bills, you know, it's 30%. For the big bills, it's like 50 or 60%. It's huge. Yeah. And so that's, that's kind of the whole point. So a couple things is why the costs are so much lower. One is, when you pay in cash, you rip out all the administrative costs. So for every doctor, there's three billing people in that office.

So if you go to the cardiology office, every doctor you have three billing people to bill health insurance. Super expensive to do. So, versus showing up with a credit card and just paying it. Which you get, what, a percent and a half or something like that of credit card fees, you know, with a debit card. Um, so you rip that out.

The second part is As we were talking about in the beginning, we got a tribe of people who are just healthy, you know, and so we don't get tons of illnesses every month on Twitter. You guys probably see this. We very transparently say, Hey, here's all the health events that were crowdfunded by type. So, and it's always, uh, injuries like mountain biking, face plants, like You know, um, or scooter faceplants as it was a couple of months ago.

Um, Oh yeah. Shout out. Um, or pregnancies. Right. Because we're in our thirties and you know, people are just get pregnant. It is what it is. Um, and so I was like, man, I'm, I'm down for helping people. with pregnancies and like just bad stuff happening when you're active. Yeah. I have no problem if I, I'm not doing this, but if crowd health asked me for an extra a hundred bucks today because somebody got in a really bad accident, falling down a mountain biking, I'm like, hell yeah, I'm going to help that person.

You know, like I would way prefer to do that than send it to United healthcare, you know, um, so there's that humanity of that. That's just really I think really powerful. Yeah. You, um, you said the word cost before when you were talking about health insurance, like the, just the cost of health insurance. Yeah. And it made me think about like, what is the cost of health insurance?

That people don't see like there's the price tag of, you know, paying 1500 for Cobra, but then there's actually like the big cost, which is, you know, there is no free lunch. Maybe you are paying zero when you get to the counter, but we see the inflation going like crazy when it comes to health care. So curious to just hear your opinion and perspective on that.

Yeah, I mean, I think that, um, yeah. We as a culture have a high time preference generally, right? So it's like, we're going to be satisfied now and not have to worry about it now, even though it bites us in the ass later, right? So what I was mentioning before was like when people throw down their insurance card, like I don't have to take care of it now, but I'm going to get something in the mail in the next month called the explanation of benefits, where you will have no idea what it is.

What it means, right? Um, you know, I was, I may have mentioned this to you guys last time, but I have a buddy that I went to Stanford with who was, I think, number one or number two in my class is like, there's one thing that makes me feel like an idiot. And that's Yeah, right. Like super smart guy still can't figure out what, what health insurance is.

Right. And so there's a whole bunch of steps in between that you go to the, the doctor or the ER or whatever, to the explanation of benefits that creates just incredible amounts of costs, you know, and one is the primary one is this billing. So, uh, doctors have to fight with health insurance plans to get paid.

Then they don't get paid. If they agreed to get paid. You know, the insurance plan agrees to pay them, they have to wait three months for it. So there's a time value of money and, you know, waiting and then include in that all the broker costs, like all of those costs of actually buying health insurance. If you can rip that out, you're ripping out 50 percent of the costs right there by just, just administration.

Which is crazy, right? And so, when people look at crowd health, and it's like, oh, it's just too, too good to, too good to be true. I'm like, look, if you can rip out 50 percent of the cost by just paying in cash, you get, there's your difference right there. And then add to it, we just gotta help with your group of people that have opted in.

It, it doesn't, it's not, shouldn't be shocking that we're so much less expensive than your health insurance. I don't know if I answered your question perfectly. Yeah. That was, that's, that's the thing. That's why our model works. You rip out all those costs. A statistic that I keep going back to is that I think 83 percent of Americans that are pre diabetic don't actually know that they're pre diabetic, which is incredibly concerning.

Yeah, it's, it's an insane 83%. So I've been thinking a lot about just continuous glucose monitors, CGMs in general, just how effective it is. Like Harry and I both use it, have a ton of success. You have too. And my initial thought process is like, Why would a, why would a healthcare company or an insurance company not want to pay for someone to get a CGM if they're not diabetic?

Because my initial thought would be like, wouldn't they save a ton of money by doing this? But I'm just curious, like, why would they not be incentivized to want to pay for something like that? They probably would. I mean, it's a slippery slope a little bit with healthcare. Because you want to pay for all of these things, but then you start paying for them in the beginning.

Price goes up as because you lose the market forces, right? So let's talk about, um, Car insurance, right? Like, why doesn't car insurance pay for oil and tires and things like that, right? We have to pay for them, and therefore our car insurance is less, but we have to go and, you know, pay for the tires. But getting tires on your car is not that expensive.

I can go to Jiffy Lube and get, you know, the 29. 99 or whatever it is, you know, oil change. Um, any time, because the market forces are there. It pushes the prices down once you get an entity paying for it and you're not paying for it directly, prices go up. I mean that you lose the market forces of that.

And so what I'm trying to do is saying, listen, let's try to get the costs of crowd health down as low as possible. Keep driving down costs. Let's not pay for more. Let's pay for less, right? Let's drive those costs down. So if you're saving 200 bucks a month, um, or three or four, and oftentimes, you know, a thousand, then you can go and use that money for whatever You want yes, right and if you are personally responsible for your health care not me the health insurance plan.

Yeah, right I'm not a health insurance plan, but I'm talking as if I was a health insurance plan Not me. I'm not responsible for your health. You're responsible for your health You should go and get the stuff that you'd feel like you need to take care of your body. Mm hmm, right? Um, and so that's where I'm like, man, I think we just have a backwards people who are like, why don't you pay for this for me?

And why don't you pay for this for me? I'm like, no, no, no. Let us drive down the cost and, and fund as little as possible. So you can go get whatever you want that you think is going to make you healthier. Yeah. Like that to me is just like a change in mindset. Um, you know, a few years ago, um, There was a, I think it was Obamacare, that they forced people to pay for, or they forced health plans to pay for, um, birth control.

Birth control was wickedly inexpensive before that happened, and the inflation on birth control over the last seven or eight years has been astronomical. Really? Like, now these, some of these health plans are paying a couple hundred bucks a month for people to be on birth control. And you're like, this is like a 2 pill.

Like, why, why is this happening? So, anytime you put it into the health insurance, you know, um, realm, that inflates. And so I'm like, no, no, let's take as much of it out. You can pay for it yourself. And you don't want to pay for somebody else's, you know, CGM. Like, if you want a CGM, get a CGM. Yeah. Um. I think that's just better.

By the way, these CGMs are a perfect example. Like, why are CGMs so expensive? CGMs levels, I think, was like 200 bucks or something a month. Why is it so expensive? It's so expensive is because health insurance plans are the CGM, the manufacturer, the Dexcom's manufacturer, the CGM's primary customer. And so they're getting 200 a month from health insurance plans, so they can't offer it for less.

And To, you know, us because that health insurance plans come back and say, well, hold on a second. If you can give it to Harry for 75, why would, you know, you charge us 200. Yeah. Right. So it's inflated. It won't come down. There's gotta be another CGM that's created out there. That's not the one cell to the health health insurance plans because they'll bite themselves in the ass.

Dexcom 99 percent of the revenue comes from health insurance. So they can't undercut it. I mean, that would be, Yeah. And how much is that little thing that you hammer into the site? That's probably, I don't know, a few bucks, a couple of bucks. Yeah. That's a business that's waiting to get disrupted. I was short that immediately.

But then you have the government intervention on this, right? Where the government wants to say the CGMs should be FDA regulated. And so there's this regulatory capture by these big CGM companies. Let's say, Oh, well, I got the big FDA study that shows that it can, it works. And so, you know, they've captured all that, like I said, a regulatory capture is, is brutal in that space.

That should be a 25 a month. System. Yeah. And everybody should have one. Yeah. The benefits of it are amazing. We're talking about making people more informed, like you said, at the beginning of the podcast, like it's the information that people don't have and there's no better information than. Just throwing a CGM on seeing how your body's reacting, your blood sugar's reacting to the food that you're putting in your body.

Like, I know you and I both benefited massively from just tracking that. Yeah. And, and seeing how we feel, seeing the number on the screen. Like, how is that reacting and what are my energy levels at? And, um, yeah, I think it's, it's actually like the perfect, one of the many tools out there that I get excited about.

Just in terms of like unlocking this idea of taking more personal ownership over your health like think about like the oral ring Another great example like a whoop or some sort of heart rate monitor You know levels garments all these things are great And I don't, I think you need them like transitionally, like as you're transitioning from not understanding where your health is at to getting more in touch and building intuition.

But the other thing, which is a little more old schools, like just labs, like I'm all about, like I tell people you should get labs at least once a year, you know, and, and we've, you know, through crowd health, I can get a full set of labs for. I mean everything under a hundred bucks. Well, you know, and you go to any lab now or whatever that, you know, it's probably four or 500 bucks.

So you can get them for, Really inexpensive. Yeah, you know that tells you a lot. I mean it at least gives you a starting point All right. We're taking a short break to bring you this mind blowing statistic Did you know that 18. 3 percent of our US GDP is currently being spent on health care costs? That's over four trillion dollars per year that we spend on health care That's why we're so excited to partner with our friends at CrowdHealth who are truly working to solve this problem.

We've been using their service for over a year now and want to be able to share it with you because it's that great. It's a crowdfunded, community focused approach to health care that will save your hard earned cash the next time you visit the doctor. Go check them out at www. crowdhealth. com. And use code MEATMAFIA to get a 99 monthly rate for your first six months of service.

Yeah, we've worn a lot of wearables, whether it was like the Garmin, the Whoop, the Oura Ring, the CGM. I feel like out of anything that I've worn, the CGM for me was the most impactful. I think, and I'm trying to figure out why that is. I think there's just something about the real time feedback and actually seeing the graph.

The accountability a little bit? Yeah. Like you, it's almost like a Big Brother effect. Like you know the CGM is like, Yeah. But I think I know for me, it was like, I, I, I don't want to look at it after I had something I knew I shouldn't have had. You're like, you're like, Oh man, I have to look at this, you know?

So it kept me from eating a lot of crap that I probably would have eaten otherwise. And, and, you know, if, if Donnie would have done it for my, our little thing and had a beef burrito, you know, or this McChicken, like you would have seen the blood sugar spike through the, through the, uh, ceiling. And then if you can get people to understand, okay, that is what's causing you to gain weight.

Like if there's a one to one kind of, you know, correlation there, um, for people to understand, I think people would start being like, okay, I understand now that a McChicken sandwich probably is not our bean burrito or forget what it is. Cheesy beef burrito. I think it was, um, is just not good for my health.

Um, Maybe off topic a little bit, but my previous company, we were one of the first telehealth visits, um, ever done in the state of Texas. So this was back when it was dial up the video. All right, so we had these little These little phones that you would dial up, you would be able to see the video is super scratchy and whatever, but we were focused on folks with diabetes in the Rio Grande Valley.

And so we would call them, uh, every week and we say, take your blood sugar. And so we have this whole, you know, log of blood sugars. And we said, okay, it was all Hispanic. And so we said, okay, this week take, you know, have, First was like, don't eat tortillas with your meals, and they look at you like you're, like, Satan.

Yes. Like, I have had three tortillas with every meal since I was five years old. Like, don't tell me that I, you know, They're like, okay, but this is impacting your blood sugar. And they're like, no it's not, it's not sugar. And we're like, okay. So, we had them take their blood sugar, You know, every day, three tortillas per meal and then track it.

And the next week they did two tortillas per meal and the next week is one tortilla per meal. And then the next week it was, you know, one tortilla every other meal. And they actually saw their blood sugars come down as a result of that. And they, they realized there's a, you know, a, a direct impact on the amount of tortillas they had with their blood sugar.

But before that, they had no idea that tortillas was impacting their blood sugar because it wasn't. sugar, right? And they just didn't understand the fact that, you know, these flour tortillas were, you know, getting converted into whatever it is, glucose. And then your blood sugars would spike. And so education, I think is just a really important part of it.

And so the CGM for me was educational because there were some things that popped my blood sugar and I didn't, really expect them to. Yeah. Right. And there's things that didn't pop my blood sugar that I had expected. And so you're like, okay, you know, or having protein before you have a little bit of carbs, you know, totally leveled out, you know, your blood sugars as opposed to, you know, spiked it.

And so things like that, you just learn that you're like, man, like if everybody knew this information, um, these metabolic disease, which is, you know, insulin resistance in essence is the number one. You know, factor for, you know, diabetes and heart failure and all these things. And it's like, man, if we could get people metabolically healthy, we would stop having to talk about, you know, LDL cholesterol.

Yeah. Yeah. Zaladino said on his, on his Instagram today, he's like, I've got super high cholesterol. And he's like, but I'm metabolically healthy. You don't see people who are metabolically healthy, who have high cholesterol, die of heart attacks. It just doesn't happen. It is a terrible predictor. You know, so yeah, so as you start learning these things, you're like, wow, my one brain just almost explodes with, with new knowledge.

So just outsource so much of our thinking around health to other people. Like the responsibility of just even like what we put in our mouth, you know, Fewer people have gardens. It used to be like 50 percent of people in the 1950s had gardens. Now it's like less than 1%. Like we're just not connected with our food, our health and all of it is just plays into this massive narrative of like, we get very myopic around the science of like cholesterol and not understanding just like, you know, if you're someone who looks like Paul Saladino, I don't think you even really need to be totally worried about.

Cholesterol at all. Yeah, totally. That's that's totally right. I do get a little bit worried with his content, the transition that he's made from carnivore to the animal-based diet. Yeah. Because I do worry that there are people that are overweight or not metabolically healthy and just being like, oh, I can have as much like fruit or raw milk or sugar.

Honey is I want not understanding the sugar content that are in those products. And I just feel like that. I think the lower carb approach is just the most effective thing for a lot of people that are trying to get their waist size. Yeah. I, I've, I have noticed that as of late too. And I'm kind of like, Ooh, like, yeah, that's a slippery slope.

Cause I could eat fruit all day long. Yeah. And you mean, Honey? You're saying I can have, you know, take a big spoonful of honey? I tried that once. I don't know if it was Saladino or somebody else that was like, oh yeah, you know, if you have, you know, raw honey, it doesn't impact your blood sugars. It's like, yeah, you know, took off, you know, is that one 40 before?

Yeah. I was like, I'm not sure that's totally accurate and I'm fairly metabolically healthy. I think of the five, I'm good on four of the, you know, metrics. Um, so yeah, it's weird. Yeah. The approach that Harry had makes a lot of sense of like in the, Developing that intuition around your food, going lower carb, getting yourself into great metabolic health, and then developing that intuition of like, you know, experiment with some fruit and some honey and see how it is on your CGM or see how you feel over time.

And then maybe you pull those things back or you incorporate them. But it's like just going from off the couch to, okay, I'm gonna eat all meat and then a bunch of fruit and a bunch of sugar. It's like, I just feel like that's not the right bridge method for a lot of people that are trying to lose weight.

I think there's a, um, there's a, I don't know if this is a word, like a dogmatism, like a kind of a dogmatic view of some of these things'll Allow it. Yeah. Huh? I said we'll allow it dogmatism. Yeah. I think I word it up. Um, and I'm, I'm a little bit hesitant on that too, you know, but I, I think Veia, you guys know Ave, right?

Yeah. Um, who I really enjoy. Um, he was talking on, on the podcast, uh, a, a few months ago about like, if you are poor, economically poor. Like, you can't go and buy, you know, a nice 100 steak. Like, you just can't do it. Like, you shouldn't be doing it. And so he's like, if you are metabolically unhealthy, you should not go and have a big bowl of ice cream.

Yeah. Right? If, on the other hand, if you are not poor, if you're, you know, wealthy, yeah, for sure, go and have a, enjoy a 100 steak once in a while. Like, you know, if you're metabolically healthy, yeah. Then if you want to have a thing of ice cream once in a while, go have a thing of ice cream once in a while.

It's not that big of a deal. Um, and so like, I like that perspective where if we get so dogmatic about like, we can only have this. And if you don't have this, then you know, you're in deep, I mean, it's just, I was like, ah, that just doesn't resonate with, with me. Um, I mean, I totally appreciate people who are totally carnivore and won't have anything else.

It doesn't work for me. Uh, yeah. And I think, man, there's some joy in sometimes having a big bowl of vanilla ice cream. Yeah. A lot of times, I think about like how much mental strain we put on just thinking about the foods that we're supposed to be eating. I'm like, like, it shouldn't be, like, the perfect place to be is where you're not even thinking about it.

You just, you live your life, you make decisions that make, that support your health. They're not like, You're not like constantly on this, like stressed out. Oh, I'm dieting. I need to be worried about the food I'm putting in my body. I'm fear based. Like that is the, that is the worst approach to being healthy is having a fear based approach to nutrition.

You should be thinking about nutrition from a place of abundance. Like, Oh yeah, I'll go have the ice cream. Like it's a high quality ice cream. Sure. Yeah. Go for it. Like, yeah, my kids love pizza. So I have pizza with them on Friday nights. It's just, what do we do? You know, it's like, They're gonna remember when they grow up.

Yes, they had pizza on Friday nights Like that's our family tradition and I don't have seven pieces of pizza. I might have a couple pieces of pizza, right? Yeah, it's like pizza Why not go and have some of those joys in life? I think God gave us those taste buds of joy to really enjoy what he's given us Yeah, pizza and ice cream or some of those just don't have it every day Yeah, you know and if you're metabolically healthy go ahead and do it if you're not metabolically healthy Then you shouldn't probably go and do it.

Yeah, that should be the incentive to go get metabolically healthy and everybody almost without exception. There's some few exceptions, but almost everybody has the ability to get metabolically healthy. There are very few people that are so far off the The, the path that they can't get back, you know, um, so that's, that's the hope in all of this.

It's one of the coolest things about metabolic health that Harry and I talk about is that, um, it's one of the fairest pursuits ever where it's like, you know, you try and play football or baseball or something like that. You could work as hard as you, as you possibly can. There might just be someone that's more talented that beats you out.

That treats their body like shit, but they're just more talented than you where it's like fitness, metabolic health. If you put in the reps and do the right things, like anyone can get the dream body or the dream health outcome that they're looking for too. Um, and I love what you said too, around like, I think a lot of people that follow our content that meet us just for whatever reason, I think that we're carnivore all year round.

And it's like, I think it's an amazing tool to really develop that intuition around the food that you're putting into your system. There's also this argument to be make that, that, uh, Actually eating pizza with your girls on a Friday night might actually be really healthy for you, too, because of like, you know, the endorphins that you're releasing and the, I think it's a very healthy experience, too.

And like you said, dude, that's There's an emotional component of that. Definitely. Our relationship with stress in life is so backwards, like, having a pizza with your kids is probably the biggest de stressor you could possibly have. Whereas like, you know, there's so many other things that we do on a day to day basis that are worse for our health that add to the stress levels, um, that like, yeah, a little bit of like joy food with your kids are great people.

Yeah. It's like medicine. Same thing with alcohol. Like, I don't drink alcohol other than on vacation. Yeah. You know, and it's just my preference, like, I don't feel good, I don't sleep good, I don't judge anybody else for drinking alcohol. I just love having, you know, a good, you know, beverage with my wife, you know, on vacation, sitting by the pool, overlooking the beach, like, that's my joy.

Yeah. I don't need it every single day. Yeah. You know, I don't need it every weekend. I don't, it just doesn't make me feel good, but I'm not going to judge people. Yeah. So let's not be dogmatic about it. You find what works for you. And as long as you're staying within a metabolic health range, then you do you, as they say.

Um, so it's, it's, I, that's the only thing when I've gotten into this kind of food, uh, you know, conversation over the last couple of years that I found that I didn't like is just the dogmatic approach to some of this stuff. You know, like I don't want to have to look at every single little ingredient on every single thing that I eat.

It's just like, guys, like I understand, like I try to avoid seed oils. We don't have seed oils in my house. You know, once in a while, I'm going to have something with a little canola oil. it. I'm not gonna worry about it. You know, like I'm not gonna freak out about it. Um, where some people are like, Oh my God, I can't believe that you did that.

You know, like guys, like it's okay. Like, I think our bodies are a little bit more resilient and having a little bit of canola oil once in a while. But, you know, you shouldn't be having it every day. Like, you shouldn't be having it every salad dressing that you have. You shouldn't be having every processed food.

Like, stay away from it. But once in a while, it's not that big of a deal. Like, let's not be super dogmatic about it. I'm not going to keel over and die. That far. Yeah, it's like when I travel. In the Austin airport, I'm basically like the best option I can probably get is like the steak salad from taco deli.

Yeah And I know for a fact that they're definitely putting some type of canola oil blend in the salad dressing But i'm not going to stress out about it because it's like my macros are still fairly good And it's one meal out of the 21 14 to 21 meals. I'm eating this week like this like insane aversion to seed oils.

And that's something we talked about. We had Jason Carp on from Hugh kitchen and it's like, there's so much validity to the anti seed oil movement, but there's also this camp of people that are basically single handedly pigeonholing seed oils for like the entire metabolic health crisis. And that's also not right either being so extreme.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. I told you, let's, let's take down the extremism because I don't think extremism really captures the heart of the most, you know, if we, if we, if we do a little bit more pragmatism, I think we'd have a much better job of getting people to a healthier spot. Yeah. You know, like I, somebody said on, I don't know, it was Twitter or Instagram, but maybe it was one of you, maybe it was one of you guys.

It was, it said something like, look, uh, a pound of ground beef in a grocery store. is a hell of a lot better than a bag of Doritos. Like, that pound of ground beef may not be perfect. It may not be raised the way we want it to be raised, or whatever, but it sure as hell is better than a bag of Doritos. Like, let's focus on making steps to improve, as opposed to like, being so dogmatic and like, you cannot have anything from the grocery store.

It's like, Yeah, people are trying to do their best here, you know, yeah, it's good. It's good to have the extremists like put like leading the way towards this idea of like we can fix a lot of these problems if we start to Attack these issues with a little bit more diligence and like thoughtfulness, but the fact is it's gonna take decades to unwind the decades of Problems that were created through bad guidelines Incentives are broken And now our consumer behaviors are very attached to those sorts of things where it's like, yeah, pizza is cheap and like people loaded with seed oils.

It's going to take people a long time to educate themselves and get off the, uh, the merry go round of just like, yeah, the food that's out there is poison. And it's formulated to get us addicted to it. Yes. That's what I'm saying is like, man, if, if I could get somebody to swap out, you know, ground beef or Doritos, like I would do that.

It's a huge win every single time. Like that's a win. Let's do steps, you know, in the right direction. And then once they're there, they're like, okay, like now we're good. Would you consider, you know, getting a local rancher to get you their, you know, your ground beef? It's so, yeah. Take, take, take steps in the right direction.

Like, those are wins. Yeah, it's a progression over time. And the tweet that you referenced was inspired by the, uh, the Warrens at Holy Cow Beef. And they have that really good, it's the good, better, best model. So the good model is just buying, you know, cheap red meat from the grocery store. Still better than any of the processed shit on the inner aisle.

The better model is grass finished beef, maybe from like some type of DTC service, you're disconnected from the farm. And then best is actually like regenerative grass finished beef from a local farmer. Yeah. But for, yeah, but it's like, for me, when I was healing myself of colitis, all I could afford when I was 23 was the cheap Meat at the outer aisle of the grocery store I ate that for a year and I got off all the drugs and medication that were costing four hundred thousand dollars a year So for us to be like you need to eat regenerative meat right off the bat It's like that's literally disingenuous to my story because that's not what I did and I still got super healthy from the cheap budget meat Yeah, amen.

Yeah The other the other thing too is we don't look at things On a per pound basis. So what I mean by that is we're like, Oh, regenerative beef is 10 to 11 a pound. If you take a bag of lace potato chips, but put it on a per pound basis, it's actually more expensive than regenerative beef. We're just not conditioned to think about those things like that psychologically.

And then nutritional value too. Like what is the dollar per, you know, Gram of protein or something like that's like actual theft. Like there's like no nutrition in those Lay's potato chips. It looks like there's a lot in there, but once you open that bag, there's nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's also a good point about like food and buyer psychology in general.

That's another thing that Jason had said to us on the podcast is he was like, what was he saying? He was like a McDonald's cheeseburger is cheaper than the food cup on the menu. Yeah. At this point, yeah, at this point was like the red meat should be the, should be the thing that costs us the most because it is the most nutrient dense that the protein, the calories, the nutrients in that, and also like the, the energy intensive work that the rancher goes through.

It's like, yeah, that should be the most expensive thing you pay your money if pay your money on. And again, you're paying the rancher directly. It's like money is going from you to the rancher as opposed to some big conglomeration of corporations. And it's, you know, like. Kind of going back to the crowd health thing, it was like, man, if you can impact somebody else's life directly, support them, love them well, you know, truly like love your neighbor, like that, there's, man, there's a, there's a psychological, you know, component of that, that is so rich, I feel like.

Yeah. I mean, Brett and I are early on in our, like, Building the business with the Meat Mafia and having employees who are like working for us and even that just the element of responsibility and like actually feeling like, you know, people are relying on you builds a different sense of community, but we've also gotten more involved with church and it's like that type of community.

I hadn't felt that in like, you know, A long, long time. Just a feeling of like, you know, that these people are going to be there for you. Like they'll step up when you need them. It's such a missing piece to the team. Modern culture just I think I don't want to go down this rabbit hole But you got to think that elimination of community it has mental health consequences Absolutely, right?

And so communities going down like down like this mental health is going up like this like that I think there's a correlation there. That's that's legitimate. Yeah, you know, thank you for it. Yeah, we're all lonely Yeah, yeah, there's still It's some silly stat about guys in their 30s who are, you know, they have one friend or something like that that they could call and they're like, there's a loneliness here that's leading to mental health problems, which is leading to, you know, bad health outcomes, including, you know, suicide rates and drug use and all these kinds of things.

It's like, we need to bring community back into our, our lives. Culture doesn't like that, you know, and so it's like, man, that's why I love I love our little crowd health community because it is. It feels like a little community like people are like loving loving each other. Well, another one real quick.

Another quick story. And I may have mentioned this last time, but like we have, we had a woman in Tennessee who got her fingers cut off in, uh, in a boating accident. You know, and so again, like we went and there's a lot of money a lot of big some big bills is either they try to be a prosthesis and all these kinds of things try to put it back together and And so we sent it out to a bunch of people and again people came back and like man I I feel for that woman.

I don't know her but she's in my community I feel for her like can I give more to her to help that family with with those medical bills. I'm like, dude, like, that's so cool. It brings joy to see other people being so, so generous. But like I said earlier, we've gotten the generosity component. stolen from us because the government has stepped in and said, I've got this.

Like you don't have to be generous. You don't have to help each other. I got this. You know, and I'm like, no, no, no. Like you shouldn't be the one that gets this. It should be me helping Brett or me helping Harry. Um, you know, and so that's cool. You know, I had a medical event last week. I had so much pouring of love, like You guys sent me a nice gift.

That was sweet of you guys. Thank you for that. Like I got so many texts and things. It's like, man, what would you do without the community? You just be lonely and lost and sitting in a hospital room. Yeah, that sucks.