Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode 10: Why Feed Grain to Livestock? Joel Answers a Listener’s Question

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Episode 10: Why Feed Grain to Livestock? Joel Answers a Listener’s Question · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Cena McCullough, and of course, with Joel Salatin.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to do something a little bit different.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: We actually had a question that we received from a listener from Lloyd Marchant, and he asked this question to Joel.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to hear Joel's comments regarding feeding grain to livestock, such as chickens and hogs.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I think this is such a fascinating question that I thought we'd bring it onto the show and we'd hear directly from Joel what his thoughts are about feeding grain to livestock.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, uh, first of all, thank you for the question.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I think from a you know, from a podcast persona perspective, we want to welcome questions.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and look, the hardest part of these kinds of things is knowing what to talk about, right?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh so questions give us a wonderful uh you know launch pad to know you know what's what's interesting to people, what are what are people wanting to know?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh so the grain issue is such an interesting one.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So um uh first of all, you know, I know that on this podcast we have uh kind of poked the poked the grain bear, if you will, uh quite a bit.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Cena, you're almost no grain at all, aren't you?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am totally grain-free.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Totally grain free.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, including no corn, no rice, you know, none at all in any products.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'm not.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so um and so the whole uh grain issue, um, you know, is an omnivore issue, obviously.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's not an herbivore issue.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Herbivores don't need any grain at all.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: That would be cows and sheep and goats and llamas and alpacas and giraffes and wildebeests and bison, and you know, there are a lot of herbivores.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: But as soon as you get into the omnivores, you have a very different digestive system.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: You you you drop down to one stomach, or as in the case of birds, no stomach.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, you know, uh birds don't even pee.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, isn't that an interesting thing?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good one.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good one to tell your trivia guests, you know.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh you know, chickens don't pee.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So they combine it, you know, in the in the manure.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um so so um obviously grains in in the wild, in the total natural wild state, grains were not grown, but that doesn't mean there weren't seeds.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so the the the interesting kind of um whatever the interesting question is what's the difference between, for example, grass seeds and grain seeds?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, barley, wheat, oats.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the thing about grasses is that they're perennials, and the crops that we generally grow for grain, corn, wheat, oats, barley, uh, rye, uh, amaranth, whatever, uh, those are annuals.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in other words, they have to be planted every year.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: They grow up, the plant dies.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas a perennial, you know, the grass, yes, it does make a seed head, but then next year the plant continues to grow.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it it it's a it's a different it's a different thing.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually I actually don't know what the you know what what difference that that that can make, you know, nutritionally, uh, you know, with enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and things like that.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is, but um, but a lot of the grain, uh the the grain development was because it is so much more productive per acre than any wild seed.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um you you know the the wild grasses, the native grasses and things, yeah, they produced they produced a lot of seed, but uh, but per acre, per acre, that production um was was limited and it was also hard to capture.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh those seeds are extremely small.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and so a a crop of grain uh you know has different properties as well, you know, for baking and and all those kinds of things, than just grass seeds.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Where I'm going with this is that that um that lives that the omnivorous livestock, poultry and and and pigs, especially those are the two uh big omnivore livestock, those um those need a they can't live on grass alone.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: So so they need seeds.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: They need the carbohydrate, the starch that comes from seeds and nuts, you know, uh um including things like peanuts or walnuts or whatever.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, in in colonial America, everybody fattened hogs on chestnuts.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, chestnuts are these big, if you think about, well, if you've ever seen like we don't have American chestnut anymore, but Chinese chestnuts, you know, it's it's a great, big, great, big uh fat, a very uh uh carbohydrate.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's a high starch thing.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so so uh, you know, with the with the the bugs and the insects, which of course are high protein, and then the uh the starchy stuff, which were seeds and nuts, you know, these animals survived uh and thrived.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, historically, uh these omnivores, uh, especially poultry and pork, were were primarily salvage animals.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so they were linked up with salvage.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, prior to prior to current mechanization in agriculture, grain was extremely expensive, you know, because you had you had to till the soil, you had to plant it, you had to uh weed it, you had to harvest it, and then you had to try to you know keep the rats out of it after you'd harvested.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh grain itself was um was extremely expensive.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so poultry, you know, think about think about uh um, you know, in in the 1500s, for example, as poultry started coming into uh Europe, chickens were a luxury item.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know that that was reserved for nobility and kings and queens and things like that.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: The reason is because the peasant, the peasant simply didn't have the wherewithal to grow, harvest, plant, and store grain uh like royalty did.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and the omnivores were pretty much hooked up as food salvage.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in um, like in Italy, you know, uh pigs ate the whey.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in the Alps, we know where all the the in the in the Swiss Alps and the Austrian Alps, where the where the um cheese, cheese was made in these high meadows, they they ran the whey down to the pigs, and the pigs ate the whey.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so the omnivores got their higher uh uh carbohydrate, more concentrated dietary um satiation by being um salvage, dairy salvage, uh um vegetable salvage, you know, around the around the homestead.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so there so that's why the foundation of the diet, of the human diet in those days, was all herbivorous.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh beef and lamb were everyday meat.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at Thomas Jefferson's farm book, I have it right here on my shelf, and um, and you look at Thomas Jefferson's farm book.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: If we let's say that today we priced beef, pork, and chicken in the store, let's say we priced them in the same ratio as they were priced during Thomas Jefferson's day.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: All right, a hamburger, uh um a pound of ground beef today would cost, let's say, eight dollars.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: A um a broiler chicken, uh, a broiler chicken would cost thirty dollars a pound.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and and sausage, pork sausage would cost thirty dollars a pound.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: So but but but think about think about that in today's uh um grocery prices, it's inverted, isn't it?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh see you know when when uh beef prices are higher than chicken and pork.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a direct result of grain feeding uh because because uh of of mechanical of the cheapness of mechanical production of grain that allowed grain to become cheap.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Grain has always been extremely expensive because it was laborious to grow.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: You just you just couldn't you just couldn't uh uh you just couldn't till and plant and store that much grain.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: But today with mechanical tillage and and you know sheet metal, uh sheet metal storage bins, that sort of thing, grain for the first time in human history since about since about uh 1910 has become extremely cheap.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that suddenly inverted this historically herbivore was on was on the peasant table, and poultry and pork were on the king's table.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: It inverted it now to where poultry and pork are on the peasant's table, and the beef is considered a you know a luxury.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a complete historic inversion of pricing ratios created by uh the ability to grow to grow grain, which which has been which has essentially not been so much a yeah, that there's been some genetic, certainly genetic um uh development in that, but it's been primarily a a mechanical thing.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, when you when you had to um when you had to till to grow wheat, if you had to till that with a that that sod with a with a sharp stick behind uh an ox or a mule, you know, you just couldn't plant very much wheat.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, wheat fields were you know half an acre, you know, three-quarters of an acre.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they were too valuable to feed to, you know, to feed to animals.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: They they were used for bread and for you know for baking, uh, that sort of for human consumption.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: But today, with the advent of machinery, that that's I think the thing that I'm trying to portray is that the the the grain, the ubiquitous grain, has been created by machinery which allowed pork and poultry to become cheaper than the herbivore.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, those are two very profound, profound things.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: So here we are in the 21st century.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a farmer, I'm raising chickens and pigs, and you can say, well, why don't we take these back to a historical normal?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's just uh in fact, uh right now uh we're working with uh with a farm that has a grass-based dairy who makes cheese.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: We sell it in our in our store here at the farm and ship it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he's consented to buy, I think we gave him four four or five uh hogs that he is raising on whey.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so this fall, for the first time, we're going to be able to offer um no-grain whey-based uh pork.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we'll we'll see how it goes, but um, but you can't you can't afford to transport that whey at his dairy down to our farm, even though they're not that far apart.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Whey is primarily water, the amount of nutrition per pound is very is very small.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: One of the reasons grain is so uh is so valued is because it's easy to it's it's now now is it's easy to store because it's dry.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mold as long as you keep it dry, and it has a very long storage window.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: You can keep it for a long, long time.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: These whey-based pigs, you know, um, we can't even raise those pigs here at our farm because we're too far away to economically transport the the low, low nutrition per pound whey to feed.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: The only reason it works is because he's got a little pen up there.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: They're not out on pasture, they're on deep bedding, they got plenty of room and they're happy and they're but they're not on pasture, but they're on way.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's got a small farm with a dairy, he don't want his pastures torn up with pigs.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: So so here, here we we've we've got we've got plenty of good marginal, you know, marginal uh uh, you know, pig pastures here to run the pigs on grass.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: We give them grain with his situation.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have the pasture, so he's got them confined on deep bedding, yes.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: So they're you know they're clean and they're happy, but but no grass, but whey.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, so to get the whole ball of wax gets pretty dicey sometimes to get the whole uh the whole option.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there are certainly people who are trying to go with gleaning, you know, uh taking food scraps.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we've worked, we've worked with many of these.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, we've even experimented with this and tried this over the years to get food scraps and stuff to feed pigs and chickens and things.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: That becomes very problematic because the dietary uh because it's all different week to week.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one week you get a bunch of this stuff, another week a bunch of this stuff.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, when you're you know, when you're growing uh uh when you have a diet, uh you know, you need a balance of proteins and carbohydrates and and the minerals and the vitamins and things like that.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you're when you're using um human food waste, uh, you know, one week you get all lettuce leaves, another week you get all bread, another week you get all squash, another, you know, and and and it's it's extremely difficult to to balance out a ration, which means one week the pigs are happy, one week the pigs are not happy, they're skinny, they're they're not feeling full.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just like you or I, if we had that kind of a roller coaster diet, you know, on our plate, on our on our uh food uh intake.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's kind of and and then you have the whole you know packaging and you know plastic forks and spoons and and and the whole debris uh debris issue.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that that's that that that's a that's a huge issue.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: We we tried for about six months to do um gleanings, and uh, and we just we we gave it up for two reasons.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: One is because the human food was not nearly as nutritious as the GMO-free local grain we could get.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that that's a big problem.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the human food scraps, I would I I don't feed them to people, and I don't want to feed them to my pigs.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so here we've got here we got all these human food scraps that we'd love to be able to use, but they're so nutritionally poor the pigs aren't even healthy on it.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: So the humans are eating stuff that won't even keep pigs healthy uh or chickens.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, that that's a that's an issue.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the second issue is is is wrappers, you know, just um just wrapping.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: So then then you say, well, what other alternative feedstuffs are out there?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one is, for example, root crops like like uh you know like like mangles.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's it's like a huge uh tuber, a turnip.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine a turnip that weighs five pounds, okay?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Big, long, like like uh in the ground.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, those those used to be raised uh uh a lot.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: But now now we're back to tillage.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're back to tillage and a monocrop.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: The pigs can dig them out of the ground, they're starsy, but it's it's not a complete ration.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's it's 70%, but it's not a complete ration.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: So how are you gonna balance it out, you know, with a ration?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: The beauty of grains is every grain has a different carbohydrate protein profile, and so you can use a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of the other, and it's pretty consistent, so you can actually create a really um a really practical um practical, consistent diet.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not you're not roller coastering your pig's nutrition, you know, uh uh from day to day, or or or chicken.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't want to make this sound like it's all about pigs.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Pigs are just easier to say than chickens.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, we've talked about gleaning, we've talked about salvaging, we've talked about alternative crops, and so um so at the end of the day, um, you know, I I don't think that grain is inherently bad.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think grain can be grown very well.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we now we now actually have wonderful work being done by the Rodale Institute, Ray Archuletta, you know, numerous people around the world, uh Colin Sice in Australia, where we're actually, for the first time, really in human history, again, because we have some cool machines, we're designing machines to be able to grow crops um where where instead of tilling, we simply cover crop, lay down the cover crop and crimp it and then plant into mulch.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: So the the soil is never bare.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're actually so I I just um uh Ray Archuletta uh just told me about a guy in Indiana raising 5,000 acres.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a small operation, 5,000 acres of you know corn and soybeans, and he's doing it with no tillage, no chemicals, and no fertilizer by using cover crops as a mulch and no tillage.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is a breakthrough.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's it's dynamite.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think I think to whatever to um to to say that grain is is evil um is is to disparage uh you know uh whatever uh uh a God given food stuff.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and so then you say, well, well, how can we if it has been used badly and I recognize that, how can we use it positively, both you know, ecologically, nutritionally, and everything else.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: That said, I know a guy, for example, in Kentucky who raises grain-free hogs.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: He's got 200 acres of four of woods, and he raises 10 hogs a year in those 200 acres and sells them for like five thousand dollars apiece.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: It it it it it's in a it's a niche market.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, his pork chops cost$100 a pound.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, he's only raising 10, he's only raising 10 hogs, so he's been able to cultivate a market that's willing to pay that for that for that grain-free pork.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I completely I think it's great.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I think it's just fine.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: But here at our farm, we are actually trying to create a credible uh a credible alternative to the entire factory farming approach.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and what I've by trying to explain the the problems with gleaning, human food salvage, the alternative crops like like you know, uh root crops and things, the the problems with those, um I I hope that people can understand that if we're going to actually the baby step, the baby step to eliminating um to eliminating the factory farm is to first come to pasture with local, with especially, you know, low ideally produced local um GMO uh grain stock and and and and move that you know move that as far as we as far as we can with that.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, if we can refine if we can refine it more, you know, let's refine it more.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, there are there are hogs, for example, the the there's two breeds from New Zealand, the Cooney Cooney uh is is one, and there's they're they're almost herbivores.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: These are these are pigs that that can almost Most you know, uh th survive on on plants plants only and don't need any uh don't need a higher uh carbohydrate.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: The problem with them is that they they grow extremely slowly.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: They take they take three years to grow and they're very small, even when they're fully grown, they're not very big.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: So again, you have the issue of all right, that's fine, but you're gonna you're gonna sell you're gonna sell pork chops for$50 a pound.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And there are some people who can pay$50 a pound for pork chops, but not very many.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so so we kind we kind of have this, you know, we kind of have this this marketing slash uh credible production slash what is actually practically doable in the in you know in today's climate.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you have all those things with the climate, by the way, which which you look, everybody who knows me knows in my perfect world, I don't think, I don't think even our farm, you know, we would not raise the chickens we raise in my perfect world.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we would be raising, you know, people simply wouldn't eat the the amount of chicken that they eat.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, in my perfect world, we wouldn't pay half of our income in taxes either.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: In my perfect, you know, in my perfect world, uh, we we could, you know, we wouldn't have to um have a a million dollar slaughterhouse in order to sell a T-bone steak uh by because of food you know regulations.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know we can talk about perfect worlds all all day, but but we we don't live in a perfect world.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we make we make compromises, we do the best we can with it within the practical realities of life, and um and and that's where we are.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: That was a lot of talk, and I was waiting for you to interrupt me with a with either uh uh a question or a uh or a or a disagreement, but you just stayed right there.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I held my time.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was enjoying so much what you were saying.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't want to interrupt, and there wasn't really a moment to you were on a roll, so I don't ever want to interrupt you on a roll.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I learned so much.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do have some questions, and I'll keep it short, um, you know, because I know we're running out of time.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my okay, my first question is well, first a comment.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize all the different intricacies that are involved in farming.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it your explanation gives me a much deeper respect for what the decisions and compromises that farmers have to make.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I definitely appreciate that.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: I have a couple more, let's let's do basic questions.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the first one is um you differentiated like the cows, sheep, and the goats with the poultry and the pigs, for instance.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you said the cows, sheep, and the goats, they don't actually need grains, correct?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: So does that mean if they're growing in the wild, you know, back when they back when they were in the wild, would they ever eat grains?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like would they ever eat those, you know, like the seeds?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you that there is a there is a period of time every summer when the when the grass, when our grass goes to seed.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um now some fields, it depends on your grazing management.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, sometimes a field doesn't go to go to seed.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it it like like a lawn, okay.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Your your lawn, your lawn doesn't go to seed.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because you never let the grass get long enough to go to seed, okay?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: But if if you if you shut down the lawnmower for you know for a month, um you you'd have you'd have seed heads, you know, in your lawn.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: So so uh our pastures are the same way.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them go to seed, some of them don't.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the ones that do go to seed, there is a period of time, it's about uh three weeks, three weeks a period of time in the summer when those fields, the cows, the the the cows go and nip.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: They just go go in and just nip those seed heads off, uh just just like you took nippers and nip those seed heads off.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: They are at it's when the seed heads are kind of you know doughy and they're not completely mature yet.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and boy, they love those seed heads.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, absolutely in the wild herbivores do eat those seed heads from plants.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that would be a short period of time, like you said, once a year, this is about a three-week time period on on average.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's compare that to the way that most like cows, for instance, are raised.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: So most of them, the ones that are not grass-fed and grass finished, right?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be correct me if I'm wrong, but they're gonna be raised on some type of pasture, and then they're gonna be sent to the feedlot where they're gonna probably be fed grains, and that could be what up to three months.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: How long is that?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it it uh three months would be short.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: It normally it's uh it's 120 to 100 and 180 days, so often they're in so yeah, it it's uh it's a 90 days would be really, really short.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh normally it would normally be at least 120 days and often on up to 180 to even 200 days.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so do you think this is where we get into trouble with feeding the cows so much grain?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's that it's for an extended period of time, it's more than they're used to.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like it's an overfeeding of the grain.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in addition to the quality of the grain, right, it it most likely has if it's not like organic, it most likely has glyphosate on it, which which makes the grain more toxic.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and so it is the it is the uh the amount, the the ratio.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: So even even when the cows are nipping off the seed heads of the grass, that's almost like a it's it's like a little tonic, you know.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a little it they're still eating primarily grass, all right.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Even the day, even the day that they can pick some seed heads off, uh they're still eating primarily grass.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's never more than, oh goodness, you know, it's never more than just a little bit of their diet, uh almost almost like a like a like a condiment?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, a condiment, like an energy bar.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that and maybe that might be to where the where Lloyd's question was going uh about feeding the grains.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the cows would, cows, for example, in the wild would consume some type of grain, but it would be seasonally and a small percentage of the calories compared to what we do now in um in this industrialized food system, with largely feeding them entirely grain-based diets for an extended period of time.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the most dangerous time for us as consumers, right?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because they have they have consumed a like all their calories, right?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: From from these grains and right before slaughter.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's changed the fatty acid composition, the vitamin mineral like omega 3, omega 6, all those kinds of things.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and that's why I tell people that like I I my family never eats meat that was raised in meat, you know, poultry chicken that was raised industrially.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the reasons why.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that was the cow side.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's go to the omnivore side, with for instance, the poultry and the pigs.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you said they need seeds, they need seeds and nuts and things like that for the carbohydrate.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say there's a pig in the wild, and you said like they would eat like chestnuts and things like that.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're on pasture, they're in the wild.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Would they do the same thing as the cows?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Would they go and nibble the the the seeds from the grass?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they'll they'll eat they'll eat grass as well.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and and they will, but but they will also eat you know, caterpillars and worms and insects and and all sorts of things.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: The the I think the the main difference, what we're what we're talking about here, like I talked about the guy in in Kentucky that has 10 pigs and 200 acres.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it it can be done.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, pigs uh uh and chickens too.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, goodness, when we when we first started with our layers with the eggmobile back, you know, uh 40 years ago, we started with the eggmobile, only had 100 chickens in there.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: They basically lived off the land.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't feed them anything.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: They lived on grasshoppers, crickers, and crickets, and grass seeds and that sort of thing.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and and the the but here's the problem, Cena.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is it took me the same amount of time to go out, hook up with the tractor to move those chickens if there were a hundred in there, than if there were two egg mobiles with 800 in there.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, so while I'm sure I could find somebody who would pay, you know, 30$30 a dozen for eggs, okay.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm I'm there I'm sure there's somebody out there that would, okay.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: There aren't very many.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, there aren't very many.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and so and so we we we judiciously make compromises.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: This this is it it's it's not hypocritical if you admit it, okay.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: So so so I'm quick to say we make compromises so that when I'm taking that half hour to go out and move them, and the diesel fuel and the tractor cost to go move them every day, I'm I'm moving enough chickens to lay 40 dozen eggs, not just five dozen eggs.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: The compromise is I have to supplement them with grain because 800 chickens don't don't go out any farther on the pasture than 100 chickens.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: So the hundred chickens, they you know, they they'll cover, you know, uh uh whatever, six or seven acres in a day, and and and there's enough cream there to satisfy them.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: But as soon as soon as I go to more birds, my 800 birds, of course, they eat in in an hour, they eat that they eat the same amount of cream as the hundred did on the same area.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Chickens won't, they don't they don't walk a half a mile, you know.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're only gonna go so far away.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, and and so you know, they they have this they have this this amount uh to go in.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that um uh that that that those just just the practicalities and and the economic realities of where we are in our in our day, um you know push us into some of these compromises.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, that makes a lot of sense.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if I hear you right, you're saying you could actually raise pigs and chickens, mimicking their diet in the wild, but it's cost prohibitive for us.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like who's gonna buy that expensive meat, right?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And most of us we're not gonna buy it.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's way too expensive.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: So now you've just priced yourself out of the market, right?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's and the business goes under.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and if that if that became if that became uh ubiquitously adopted, okay, uh, then then we would we would literally have um whatever, uh a 20th, maybe, or even a 40th of the pork and the chicken that we have.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this goes to your earlier comment about people consuming less chicken, for instance, that it would be so you mentioned Thomas Jefferson.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: He did consume meat as a condiment, right?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: He mainly consumed a lot of vegetables.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: So now that the the prices of you know the meat has gone down, it's it's much more affordable for many of us, you know, especially the chickens and stuff, especially if you're not buying organic.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: So um, with the price going down, more of us can afford it, you can consume more of it.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it went from a condiment to almost like a mainstay, right?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is your main dish.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're a lot of us, our dinners are built around the meat as the main dish.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if we actually did convert back and it eat it more as a condiment, um, you know, and depending on the price of the vegetable, of course, there's many variables here, but you could switch back and pay for higher higher meat uh prices and egg prices if you weren't consuming as much of the meat if the vegetables, you know, countered it, right?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: If the price of the vegetables was a lot less than the mead.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's that that that's that's conceivable.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I don't think I don't think there's been much research, Sina, done.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's not been much research done on the in fact, to my knowledge, there's been no research done.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Other maybe there has, but I don't know about it.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's there hasn't been research done comparing, for example, a the the the nutritional the nutritional quality of a let's just say a a pastured chicken, uh a pastured chicken on local GMO free grains, all right, one like like I would produce, versus, versus a totally, you know, uh uh ranged chicken that gets no grain whatsoever, that just lives off the land.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I can tell you that when we when we had those hundred chickens uh that just lived off the land and didn't get any supplementation versus the ones that we have today on the pasture that get grain, I don't think you can tell a difference.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: You certainly can't tell a difference visually in the egg.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now, could you actually test the difference, you know, in in a lab uh nutritionally?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps, but I don't think that research has been done.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: What has been done, well, the research that has been done is comparing the nutritional quality of of anything on pasture, outside, sunshine, exercise, uh uh, on uh, you know, on GMO free versus factory farm industrial confinement, you know, that research is done.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: You and I both know a lot about that.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's pretty obvious it's been done.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: What what we haven't done is taken that that alternative and um and what would I say um and and and defined it yet further, you know, uh to do to do this other.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um because because well, uh nobody's interested in it really because that's such a tiny market.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the the big question was, are our chickens better than Tyson?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that was the big question.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's been answered, and you know, we come out smelling like a rose.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but what hasn't been answered is how much better is a is a non-supplore?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna use non-supplemented, okay, a non-supplemented omnivore versus a supplemented omnivore.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if you use supplements, what difference does it make whether the supplements are are root crops versus grain versus whey versus you know, uh, I mean, there's a million ways to cut this.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't it be fascinating to research, you know, those those nutritional differences based on feed stocks, on the dietary feedstocks going into the herbivore?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that would be amazing research, but I don't I don't think it exists right now.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would be awesome.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I'll look into the literature and see if that's been done at all.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, and this will be a good follow-up, I think, to this video.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I did that interview with rancher El Zinga um over in Idaho, and he partnered with a local university where they're attesting the quality of his meat, and he raises his um, you know, they have cowboys there and they raise them out there in the wild.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't believe he supplements them at all.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyhow, I'll check back in with him because the data may have come back about the different phytochemicals, phytonutrients in the meat, different profiles, and see if there is a substantial difference.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be an interesting thing.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'll follow up.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, we our our our cows are also on nothing but grass, okay, ever.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, you know, so I I I'm I'm not sure, you know, in in the in the herbivore, in the herbivore world, it's basically comparing grass to to grain, and and that's also been done.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: That that's also been done.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh what what I don't think I think what has not been done, perhaps, is comparing, for example, um Idaho grass finished beef to Virginia uh grass-finished beef.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and it wouldn't surprise me if Idaho finished grass beef is better simply because it's a more arid, uh mineral, you know, highly mineralized, and and the soils there uh were conquistadored by Europeans for you know a hundred years, few uh a hundred years uh fewer than than than ours in Virginia.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're we're we're trying to build from subsoil up, right?
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and so so I'd be the first to admit, I'm sure there are nuances of difference, but um, but I'm not sure uh I'm not sure how much differences those are uh uh you know in in the omnivore uh with a a pasture with grain supplementation versus um a totally wild uh a wild situation.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not sure.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and of course, even in that, your your basic feedstocks, you know, is the is the grain grown on organic, organic rich soil, or is it grown on uh uh chemical soil?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean uh there are there are nuances.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you as you know you started this, and there are nuances of nuances of nuances of nuances.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh always more to learn.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I I hope we've hope we've cracked that shell a little bit for folks and encouraged uh everybody to realize that it it's it's not it's it's it's not just easy.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and and if if you want if you want perfection, if if you want perfection, um that has ramifications all the way down the line.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and per perfection is not easy and it doesn't come cheap.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that that's uh you know that that's a honest an honest appraisal.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: We're about out of time here, so we probably we probably ought to wrap up and and really appreciate everybody uh tuning in and and uh and kind of trying to wrap our heads around this whole uh grain issue.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and this will be the first of many podcasts, as you as we've just figured out.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have many more questions and I'll dive into the research.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'll get a hold of El Zinga and see what his research is showing.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: But we want to thank you guys for um, or thank Lloyd for sending in the question.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if other people have questions, feel free to email us or post it, you know, under the video.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we'd love to hear from you and we'd love to answer any questions we can.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right, thanks so much.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: Bye bye.