Latest / Everyday Ancestral with James Barry / Regenerative Ranching & Nutrient-Dense Meat with R.C. Carter of Carter Country Meats

Transcript

Regenerative Ranching & Nutrient-Dense Meat with R.C. Carter of Carter Country Meats · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

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  We are more on this regenerative base because it's easier. We can be more profitable. And at the
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  end of the day, I can go outside onto my soil and smell it and be like, I'm contributing to
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  the future versus just extracting. Because that's like this total contradiction between
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  nature and our society is like, get money and be comfortable. In order to do that, you have to
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  extract. But nature needs you to give back to it and work within its circular flow. And so there's
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  like this really interesting balancing act that we're trying to play between being financially
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  viable, but also taking care of the soil the way it tells us that it needs to be taken care of.
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  Welcome back to everyday ancestral I'm James Barry. Today's episode we have our
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  Carter of Carter Country meets what an amazing person, what a great interview. I really learned a
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  lot. And I don't consider myself ignorant to the ranch and industry. I've been working with the
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  meat industry for the last four years. And I thought I knew a lot, but we were able to really dig into
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  myths and some differences between grain fed and grass fed and just different perspectives and
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  practices that are occurring within the rancher community. RC is a third generation cattle rancher
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  and he's a beef supplier chain expert. He owns Carter Country Meats. He's a husband and father
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  of three. He's really into regenerative food systems, also really into soil. So you're going to
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  learn some really cool, very important parts to our food industry here in this episode. So please
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  enjoy. And if you like it, you know, make sure you follow us like the episodes, share it. We need
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  all the support we can get in terms of getting the word out there about everyday ancestral. We are
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  here to be curious and to support everyone's knowledge of how to take the things that matter
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  into our everyday use. Enjoy RC. It's such a pleasure to have you because I loved when we saw
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  each other last, you brought up something that I honestly never really thought about, which was
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  soil, the importance of soil with our meat and the grasses that are grown that the cows are eating.
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  Can you just dive right into this concept? Because in many ways, even though you're raising
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  cattle, the way you talk about it, you're really raising soil. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's all connected,
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  right? We're all nature. The proof is that your finger is this long now and when you were a baby,
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  it was this long. And so that's just the nutrients that we are consuming. And we have to be conscious
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  of that and take care of that because as you grow food, the 30,000 foot view is the healthier your
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  soil is, whether it's you're raising beef or lettuce or it doesn't matter, the healthier the soil,
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  the more nutrient dense the food that is produced from that soil is going to be.
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  How many cattle you guys ranching? Typically, I know it changes probably every year, but
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  historically, we're like a 500 cow calf operation. So historically, we've always been on the
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  production side. So we have pregnant cows and then they have their babies in the spring and we
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  raise those. But over the past 15 years, we've really gotten into the meat side of it and producing
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  the finished animals. Oh, so before this, you were just raising the calves and then selling those.
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  Yeah, yeah, 100%. Oh, similar to Tyler McMahon over where we met right at the rendezvous beef
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  roundup. Yeah. And so we were just, you know, we were strictly ranchers. And that's like this
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  journey that we've been on into the meat industry has been such an eye opener because ranchers look
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  at a cow as a cow. Ranchers don't really look at beef as food. And I didn't because you're not
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  following that animal through the whole process of the butchery. And now we're into the nutrient
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  density testing and the marketing and going into kitchens of restaurants and talking to chefs,
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  it's been a huge eye opener and really has allowed us to connect a lot of dots that are now coming
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  back to the soil, which is our, you know, what we're passionate about. Yeah, it's getting you thinking
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  about all the different pieces that go to getting that meat on someone's plate. So can you share
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  kind of diving in even some more kind of practical learnings that you're gaining? Maybe starting even
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  with what did you learn from talking to the chefs at the restaurants? So 10 years ago, we started
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  out with, you know, just a handshake agreement with an umbrella of restaurants. And they said,
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  yes, we love your beef. We sampled it. Let's go. And my brother and I were like, oh man,
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  this is going to be like easy money. You know, we're making $2,000 a month or I was making $2,000
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  a month trying to raise a family. And then we delivered the meat and the agreement was like
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  whole cow butchery. Well, what we realized was like the chefs, they had no idea about whole animal
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  butchery. And so they ate up all the rib-eye strip and tenderloin and then they were just stuck.
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  So it literally, it took us three years of just nose to the grindstone to figure out like what was
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  going on and how do we sell meat to that restaurant industry. And what I realized is like chefs,
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  at that point in time, they knew how to cook certain cuts of meat. There was no conversation about
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  the soil. There was no conversation about nutrient density. And I mean, it was just like beef.
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  And everybody was comparing our product to grain-finished commodity norm. And so there was a lot of
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  education in that process to say, hey, this is an eye of round. It adds value to your plate.
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  If you can keep this cut of meat instead of grinding it into hamburger and cook it a certain way,
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  it's delicious, but it's the cooking technique that is the key to unlock the potential of this cut.
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  It was quite a learning curve. And they say, you know, education is not free. So if you're not going
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  to get it from school, you just go out and you learn and that's kind of the way we do things the
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  hard way because we were just ranchers and we're used to that. So the supply chain industry was very
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  interesting to me because I saw that these chefs, they'd all been trained based off of, you know,
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  what the broadliners, which broadliners are like these major distributors that get food
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  from the aggregators of food production and then into the restaurant. The chefs have been trained
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  by these guys and they say, hey, this is a rib bite. This is how it comes. This is the shape. This is
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  the size. This is the flavor. And so what I saw is like these major corporations to simplify
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  their process. They were trying to put everything into the same box. So the simpler their process,
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  the easier it was for them to sell versus when we come onto the scene and we've got like we're
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  marketing these big old fat dry cows rather than trying to make everything the same. We wanted
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  to celebrate the differences in the individual animals, you know, and it's like the flat
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  irons on these older animals, they're huge and the shape of the rib bite varies per cow and rather
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  than discount that on the price. Like why don't we celebrate that as far as like this is an individual
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  animal and the flavor and the quality was there. So it's been a really interesting process to
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  deprogram the chefs that we were worked with to see it from our perspective, which is more of a
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  nature or a natural perspective and get them shifted over onto our program. I imagine early on,
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  they were also probably overcooking it, right? Because a lot of people don't realize you don't cook
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  100% grass fed beef the same as you do conventional grain fed beef. Yeah, right. I mean, you
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  typically you treat it more as like it's wild game. The commodity grass fed beef, it's leaner.
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  We've got a recipe where we're getting these animals fatter, but I mean, still go try to buy a
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  hamburger from anywhere and ask for it medium rare. Like a lot of people will come back and tell you
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  know, sorry, we can't do that because it's illegal you're saying or a health hazard or what do you mean?
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  That's this preconceived notion that that it can be a health hazard, which in reality, it's not like
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  everything that goes through a USDA processing plant has been tested for E. coli. So they grind the
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  meat, then they test it. And once those tests come back, then it's allowed to go out. But the chefs
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  I'll still believe that if you serve meat medium rare, you know, that it can be a health hazard,
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  but it's like, well, what's beef tartar? That's raw meat. And I mean, in my opinion, if you cook
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  beef past medium rare, the quality is only going to decline because you're losing the juices and the fat
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  is cooking out of it and that's the flavor, right? That's where the phytonutrients and all the good
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  stuff stored. So why 100% grass fed? What does that mean to you and what's the difference in terms of
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  the quality coming specifically from someone who ranches the cattle? It spurred us from a number
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  of different levels like I like to be outside, but I don't necessarily like to be sitting in a tractor.
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  And I don't believe that feeding animals grain is inherently a bad thing. I think feeding animals
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  26 pounds of grain, I don't think that's healthy. The act of raising grain is very, very extractive.
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  Because when you think of soil and you think of soil health, we think of it in terms a regenerative
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  perspective on this is like, we're trying to build soil. And there's only one way to build soils.
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  Instead of harvesting everything that is grown, taking it all off the field, we're leaving good
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  portions of it like 50% of our grasses is going back because the only way to build soil is to feed the
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  bugs. So whatever is growing above, you have to put it back onto the soil and the process of raising
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  grain, not to get into the the chemification of it and the monocropping. I mean grain crops are
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  just it's one crop just oats or corn, but there's a tremendous amount of fertilizer added. There's a
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  tremendous amount of herbicides added. The thing that's not being talked about is we're taking the yield
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  like because the farmer is just looking at it as this is my crop. I'm trying to maximize my economic
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  gain off of this field and the way to do that is to maximize the yield. But if you're
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  maximizing for yields, then you're leaving very little in your practices. You're not selecting for
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  the soil health, right? And so that's where we've leaned more towards grass finished because
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  it's much cheaper to do for us because we're not running equipment where we have less tractors,
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  you know, a tractor tire these days costs, you know, $2,000. Everything is expensive. Like I think
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  everybody can agree no matter what it is. Everything is expensive. So we have much less overhead costs
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  in raising grass, but then on the the double dip is cattle grazing. They're stepping on the grass,
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  pushing it back into contact with the soil for the worms and the microbes to eat. But then also in
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  terms of their manure, like the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus and potassium that is in manure
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  is tremendous. That nitrogen needs to bind with some sort of carbon, which we find in the organic
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  matter. So if the cow eats some grass and then coops on the grass, that grass binds that carbon
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  and makes it so it's it can evaporate into the atmosphere. So it goes back into the soil basically.
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  Yeah. I think you're bringing up some some really good points. I mean, the normal person purchasing
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  their meat from a grocery store, they don't really understand what it is you're doing. You know,
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  they don't understand all the pieces. That's also what's contributing to them not really understanding
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  the cost because they see, well, it's 100% grass fed like it's so expensive. Why should I invest in
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  that? Can you walk us through? What is a year of grass fed? Because one thing I've heard for
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  example is that it's hard to find green grass year round here in the US that for example,
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  New Zealand being an island and where they are located, they can have green grass year round. So
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  how do you deal with that? Are you able to feed them green grass or what's the process of they
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  get green grass? This amount of time of their life that it's hay or are you fermenting the hay?
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  Like, can you just kind of walk us through like what that process of feeding the cow from calf to
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  slaughter is? Yeah, so typically like what we're selecting for is like these older,
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  older animals because to address like the issue, a lot of people buy grass finished beef,
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  but then they get it and they don't understand the cooking of it. So then they overcook it because
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  it's very lean. So then we moved over to these older animals because we were able to get marbling
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  in older animals because a cow isn't fully mature until they're four years old.
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  So structurally, they're still growing and this is why the commodity norm is to finish animals on
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  grain because you can get an animal fast. There's much more energy in grain than there is in grass
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  so you can get an animal fat much quicker. How old are the grain fed animals? How long do they let
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  them live? Typically, they're processing them at the earliest 18 months of age? Yeah, the average
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  age of the animal's process in the United States, I think is around 19 months old.
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  Based on what you're saying, they're not even mature. So in a sense, are they even that nutritious
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  at that point? I mean, if we look at maturity as kind of aging and nutrient density?
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  So the testing that we've done, so we've outsourced our testing to some third parties
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  and they've looked at the phytonutrient density. They're still trying to figure out what the
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  spectrum of nutrient density looks like. You know, it's still growing on like how weak of nutrient
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  density can we have and how much nutrient density can we have and how do we even test it?
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  So far, they've identified like 26,000 different phytonutrients within food. And from speaking
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  with these scientists, there's a Dr. Stefan von Bliet. He's one of the leaders in this technology.
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  He told me that even with the technology that exists right now, he believes they're only
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  able to see 5% of what is actually in our food. You know, you got your macros, your micro,
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  now there's phytonutrient density. And he thinks that that's only 5% of what is actually there.
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  I feel that like the soil is kind of like if you look up at the stars, it doesn't end, right?
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  It's so deep. You can't even wrap your brain around it. I feel like the soil is probably
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  the same thing, but in reverse, it just gets smaller and smaller, but every piece of it at some point
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  does matter. We just can't measure it. Wow. No, that makes complete sense to me, actually.
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  So if they're slaughtering the animals in such such a quick time, so how are you doing it
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  differently? So you said you're letting them go to four years? Yeah. So we're aggregating these
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  animals from not only our ranch, but other ranchers and bringing them and then either processing
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  them or running them for another year, you know, because the key is they've got to be fat.
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  If an animal doesn't have, if she doesn't look fat, there's a very unlikely chance that she's
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  actually going to exhibit any type of marbling within the meat. And that's a learning curve because
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  nobody's really doing this. So we're trying to figure it out. Finally, it's starting to rain and
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  turn into winter right now, but up until right now, like the animals are out, they're out eating
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  pastures. They're just eating the green grass that's that's growing either on the range land or
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  in our irrigated fields. And then as the snow flies, we've done a lot of testing from everything from
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  creating halage, which means you chop the hay when it's green, let it ferment and feed that
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  to offering them good, bailed hay. And so we're just like we're evolving the process and trying to
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  figure out like what is the perfect scenario to keep our costs down, but the animals still gain weight
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  and maintain the quality. It's really interesting out in the hay fields like our fields are really,
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  really flat. Like if you're going to drive machinery and harvest anything, that is the one reason
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  that we make fields flat is so that you can run equipment across them. I love to experiment and
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  just like go against what the norm is and if you have an idea, you've got to test it because we
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  understand we're like we're leading a charge. We're trying to do things differently and not accepting
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  just that this is the way we've always done it. So we went into one of our fields that was super
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  flat. It wasn't very productive and we ripped it. So we put a bunch of oxygen into the soil and then
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  we just went from like a polyculture to just we put a bunch of different seeds out there and said,
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  okay, whatever wants to grow out here can grow. And then we've been going in with the cattle and
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  just letting the cattle harvest that. And what we're finding is that the soil actually becomes
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  healthier when it's not just flat. So we talk about monoculture, but then it's like you think about
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  soil and just like as you're driving like landscapes, there is nothing in nature that is like flat where
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  you can drive a tractor across it at you know 15 miles an hour. And so I believe that these like
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  really flat areas are kind of ecological deserts. So why are we promoting that within our pastures?
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  Like you've got ecology that likes the high spot, ecology that likes the low spot and let's enable
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  that and then let the cow come in to do the harvesting and keep the machinery off of it. So I really
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  believe that at the end of the day like the model that the majority of ranchers are participating in
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  just in terms of the cattle. I think that that model is like it's very flawed because we're all tied
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  to these input costs of oil and tractors and tires and that at the end of the day they can jack
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  the price of that and you're tied to it because that's the model that you're operating in.
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  I hear where you're going and that we're really not just talking about how you run a ranch but
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  how do we change the industry to definitely right? I'm on that page two, but how do you convince them
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  when you're okay so yeah maybe you're not using the tires you're not using as much fossil fuels
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  but you're still growing those animals longer. So is your cost four times higher than theirs
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  or are you able to get it relatively close like how do you close the gap of the cost?
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  So these animals like the younger animals that are being processed that is their mission once
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  they're sold that is their mission to just get fat blow up very artificially and quickly and then
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  right to the slaughter plant whereas what we're doing is we're taking animals that have been in a
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  cow calf production model. So their first mission was to raise babies and then once they come in
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  they're no longer getting pregnant then they slide over onto now we're going to get you fat
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  and you're going to go into the butcher then you're going to be processed. So she's got her whole
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  lifespan of out eating you know in this country there's millions and millions of acres and
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  everybody's cows are out like nobody has got their cows in confinement. For the most part they're
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  all raised pretty much the same and so they're out just grazing and I think that is what adds to
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  the nutrient density because if you're just focused on a pasture you know maybe there's
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  depend on what you planted in there there's maybe five or really great pastures got seven
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  different plants different types of plants that these animals can be consuming but if they're out
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  on the range I mean they've got access to everything wild you know like 70 different things. So just
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  for the viewers like phytonutrients every individual plant every species of plant has got a chemical
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  signature that is unique to that species. The wider the the array of diversity of an animal's diet
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  is allowed to pick up consume and then store those phytonutrients within its body and so
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  I think that ranges by far the most nutrient dense animals are coming from areas that have
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  the most diversity of diet. You said you're testing your meat compared it to others so what do you
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  see? Compared to the grass finished norm I mean we have an omega 6 to 3 ratio that's 3.5 times
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  better than grain finished beef and I still don't know what this one means but essential
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  amino acids were 70 percent higher in these beef and then also the phytonutrient density was
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  264 percent higher but one of the things that comes back is like yes our beef is more expensive
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  but it's like cost versus quantity. Right now food is just being sold based off of waterway
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  you can compare my one pound ribeye to a grain finish one pound ribeye and you're like well that's
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  a lot more expensive but if you break it down you're like what is the nutrient density of this
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  there's a lot more nutrients in it so it is what it is at this point. Do you find that you actually
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  need to eat less because it's more nutritious? I believe so I mean you you definitely you feel better
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  we've got a lot of customers who've gotten into the carnivore diet and you know keto diet
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  and I had a fellow by the name of Jeff Toland he called me this was when I first heard about
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  the carnivore thing and I'm like what is that? So I called him and he said okay I started doing this
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  because of you know x, y and z health issues and then he said when I started eating your beef
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  he said I felt a higher level of health come into my body so I mean at the end of the day that's
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  it's the nutrient density right? Yeah that's fascinating. How would you talk to the people out
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  there that are saying like you know cows are killing our planet or destroying our planet? How do
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  you speak to that comment? The first thing I would say is I feel like it's misguided of all the
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  things that are contributing to climate change we're like I don't know if climate change is real
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  because one side says this one side says that but I'm like are we poisoning our environment
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  100% the amount of chemicals that we're putting on to the ground so and it really don't think the focus
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  should be on climate change I think it's like are we poisoning the soil and poisoning the ocean
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  we can agree on that we can measure that and nobody can deny that you know when it comes to the beef
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  is like what's beef's contribution to that look across all industries transportation agriculture is
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  like this much of all of that and cows is even a smaller percentage of that I believe that these
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  like large confinement operations I don't think they're good that's why I don't participate I don't
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  like dumping chemicals on my ground I don't like raising grains and I don't like stuffing animals
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  in a large confinement operation that's where they get sick and at the end of the day it makes more
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  work for me and it costs more money so that's why we are more on this like regenerative base because
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  it's easier we can be more profitable and at the end of the day I can go outside onto my soil and
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  smell it and be like I did something I'm actually contributing to the future versus just extracting
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  because that's like this total contradiction between nature and like our society is like
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  get money and be comfortable in order to do that you have to extract but nature needs you to give
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  back to it and work within its circular flow and so there's like this really interesting balancing
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  act that we're trying to play between being financially viable but also taking care of the soil the
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  way it tells us that it needs to be taken care of gosh just so many questions so how do you think people
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  should shift their mindset around the meat industry like and I don't just mean about is it good for
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  the plan or bad I mean even like when people go to the grocery store and they're trying to figure out
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  which one to purchase like what do you think that they should be thinking about that maybe they're not
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  currently thinking about I think they should focus on health not only their health but like
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  think about the health of that animal when it was being raised maybe or can you elaborate yeah in
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  the that animal because you know I think the simplest thing you can do is cut out all processed
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  foods you know if it's an ultra processed foods if you're trying to optimize for your health
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  selects for that and don't trust the labels like trust your tongue if it doesn't have chemicals that
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  aren't like tricking your brain that's the reason why like an egg that somebody raises in their
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  backyard tastes better than an egg from a any grocery store it's because there's more nutrient
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  density and so our tongues are just like they're hardwired to tell our brain to select for nutrient
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  density and so by doing that and just tasting different things your tongue is going to tell you
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  which foods are more nutrient dense and then by selecting the more nutrient dense foods that's
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  going to drive more demand for foods that are grown in healthy soil so at the end of the day the
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  consumer dollar will drive the demand for healthier soil because more nutrient dense foods are
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  grown in more healthy soils where are you located so you're what specific region are you
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  I'm in North Central Wyoming okay you are in Wyoming yeah and that's a bit different than
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  than like where Tyler's located because you're more it's kind of greener right I think it's
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  more deserty where he is right yeah I mean we're pretty arid you know we only get 13 inches of
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  annual precipitation so Tyler's a little bit lower they get a lot more wind than we do
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  which is better for us the wind's no bueno but we've also got a lot of irrigated ground we've got
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  500 irrigated acres and so like in the springtime we turn the cows out when the range is turning green
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  then we go out and we harvest the grasses you know at the right times and then as things start to
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  dry up then the cattle migrate down and then we kind of focus on our irrigated pastures I know you
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  shared at the beginning it's been a bit of a process of learning curve in terms of not only how
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  you're raising and how to make sure it's economical but how to educate you know buyers right so how
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  long have you been doing ranching I'm a third generation and raising our our boys you know
• 29:31
  out here so we've been doing it our whole life but really you know focused on this old school
• 29:37
  approach you know just over the past 15 years really leaning into that that's a good amount of time
• 29:44
  did that start with your father is that who who owned the ranch before yeah well really it started
• 29:52
  with my grandfather because he was just a visionary and he drilled wells we've got our teasing water
• 29:59
  out here which means you don't have to pump it we've got these like huge peaks that are right
• 30:04
  behind us and all the snow melt goes into these rock layers and then comes into like where I'm at
• 30:11
  at a 23 degree angle and so 1700 feet below me is this huge aquifer so my grandfather tapped
• 30:19
  into those and then he laid this infrastructure in terms of pipelines out all over along the ranch
• 30:26
  and that was his contribution you know he was a naturalist and just an outdoorsman in the every sense of
• 30:32
  the word and then my dad he came in because my grandfather lost the ranch he was going to lose it to
• 30:39
  the bank because he couldn't make the bank payment so my dad came in and he saved the ranch from the
• 30:44
  bank and basically financially got us to a place where we were safe and then I graduated in 2001
• 30:55
  decided that while I decided on early age this was what I was going to do and then I came back
• 31:01
  and have kind of been steering the ship since then and hopefully our boys you know that I can see
• 31:07
  it in them they'll just take it to the next level because at the end of the day I mean we're
• 31:13
  you get like x amount of years I think it's like you get 24 years to actually contribute to the world
• 31:20
  between the amount of time that you sleep and you're in the shower and you know you're not
• 31:25
  a kid and you're not old you get it's really a short period of time and folks say this is like it's
• 31:32
  not your land you're borrowing it from the future and I think it's it's kind of it's short-sighted
• 31:39
  to just use that time to only focus on building capital it's our future and if we don't have clean
• 31:46
  water and clean food and healthy food I mean look at our world right now you know this health
• 31:52
  epidemic that can be directly correlated to metabolic disease which is you know what we eat and
• 31:59
  what we what we put in and what we put on our bodies no I'm curious what was your dad doing
• 32:05
  before he came and saved the ranch what career was he in well he was a bull rider and then he came
• 32:12
  back and he he's always been into cows but he started like branching out and like more into like
• 32:18
  trading cattle and figuring out how to take advantage of like cattle markets to build capital
• 32:25
  very few ranchers I think over the long haul most operations that are just a cow calf operation
• 32:35
  they just break even good ones get a little ahead but the moms like they'll have a job in town
• 32:41
  so that they can get insurance and you know make an extra 60 grand a year to supplement because
• 32:46
  ranchers they're not lucrative the one thing that has kept the ranching industry alive is that
• 32:55
  you know the value of land out here in the west has just gone through the roof we saw it with COVID
• 33:00
  there's so many people fleeing the cities and wanting to get into more the mountain west
• 33:06
  and so we've seen the land prices just go through the roof properties that we purchased for $100,000
• 33:13
  or $180,000 30 years ago they have like their values in the you know multi-million dollars at this point
• 33:21
  and so as land values go up then the banks allow the ranchers to borrow more and so it's like it's
• 33:29
  almost a trap you know that they're just borrowing they're not cash flowing into profitability
• 33:36
  they're just borrowing against the values of their ranch and it's it's kind of silly because
• 33:42
  like our ranch is worth a lot of money but it's actually worth nothing because we don't want to
• 33:47
  sell it like we take it as a it's a responsibility that it's like it's ours to take care of and
• 33:53
  steward it as far as consumers supporting local ranches like the real ones if they're raising
• 34:01
  and trying to take care of the land like they're going to promote a product that's going to take
• 34:06
  care of your bodies and they need you like those folks need to go direct to you and cut out these
• 34:14
  these middlemen and then in that scenario everybody wins is it the middle men that are making the
• 34:21
  money like who makes the money in the beef industry who makes the most of the money because it
• 34:25
  doesn't seem like it's the ranchers it isn't the ranchers you know like this year ranchers are
• 34:31
  profitable and really profitable like one or maybe two out of every seven years and then they
• 34:38
  starve so if you make money you just don't spend it so within the industry you know you have to
• 34:44
  recognize the supply chain so you have the producer the aggregator the process you know the feed
• 34:51
  lots and then it goes on to the processing plants and that is directly in the middle and that is
• 34:57
  where the biggest bottleneck is because they control the processing 86% of all the animals
• 35:06
  processed in the United States are owned by four processors and two of them they're not even
• 35:13
  American companies they're Brazilian owned and have direct ties to the cartel they were caught
• 35:19
  bribing like the president and I think 1300 elected officials in Brazil those are the guys that
• 35:27
  control the processing in the United States and those are the guys it's typically it's a very low
• 35:33
  margin business they're just making sense but it's interesting because I did this experiment
• 35:40
  we built a little restaurant in our town town of 260 people and we built a restaurant it can only
• 35:46
  stay open for six months out of the year while the tourists are here but this past spring I had
• 35:52
  this vision in my head where I was like we are going to out compete the local grocery store
• 35:57
  which is 30 miles away and they're really expensive so I have this walk-in freezer where people
• 36:03
  can come and go purchase meat and so I was like okay what is my cutout price what is my break even
• 36:10
  price to compete with that grocery store so I went to the grocery store I took all the prices of
• 36:17
  their meat I didn't take into account the margin that the distributor or the grocery store was making
• 36:25
  just face value shelf price if I was to sell 20 beef at their prices I'd lose fourteen thousand
• 36:34
  dollars my balloon was deflated because I was like there's no way I can't compete but that made
• 36:40
  me think why are the broadliners why are these giant corporations why are they using beef as a
• 36:47
  loss leader because the price of cattle this past year has gone through the roof so the ranchers
• 36:53
  are getting a win but why are they using it at last as a loss leader and the only thing I could come
• 36:59
  up with is that these big four packers were selling beef less than they could buy and produce it
• 37:08
  because the attack was being played on the other section of the the independent supply chain
• 37:14
  14% of the market is independent processors distributors you know people that are selling this
• 37:22
  and that was where they're attacking because they don't have the runway the big four packers they've
• 37:28
  got billions of dollars in cash like they can lose money on this for you know it's a strategy they
• 37:34
  can lose money for a year but if they consolidate a percentage of the independence that is our
• 37:41
  indirect competition with them in the two years from now three years from now they've got a more
• 37:47
  captive supply so and we see this within the the local processing there's all these processors that
• 37:54
  got money off of covid to build these brand new processing plants and they're dying because
• 38:00
  people aren't bringing cattle to them because they're all getting scooped up and going these other
• 38:05
  ways so they're just they're starving out this independent sector of the supply chain
• 38:11
  to then have a monopoly later on so it's a long play who will willingly lose money like not
• 38:16
  very many people except for ranchers because they love the lifestyle and from the buyer's
• 38:23
  perspective so the person buying it from the store though who's processing it does that actually
• 38:29
  affect them not really so it's really the rancher that feels the front of that and in the independent
• 38:35
  slaughter processors yeah right and of course when we have any monopoly in any industry then they
• 38:42
  eventually can control pricing they can manipulate markets there's just so much that can happen
• 38:47
  so it behooves us to continue to try to in many ways the way you're talking about grasses right
• 38:53
  have a diversity in the grass and in the soil you want to have that in the marketplace as well
• 38:59
  we have to have competition we have to have it or we're in the long term we're going to be very
• 39:06
  vulnerable let's talk about some of the things that are getting spread around and I'd love to hear
• 39:10
  your perspective on it so the RNA vaccine that's one of the things that we get asked this all the
• 39:16
  time like are the cattle you're you're sourcing from getting that vaccine are they getting any
• 39:22
  vaccines other things are like are they getting antibiotics added hormones so can you talk about like
• 39:30
  what is common and what are you doing as far as the mRNA vaccine I've had a lot of questions about
• 39:39
  it's beyond my pay grade so I've reached out to veterinarians and folks that are in the industry
• 39:46
  what they've told me is that that's not actually happening that's what I heard too yeah they just
• 39:52
  said no there's there's nothing like that on the horizon that we that they know of who's to say
• 39:58
  but as far as I know the mRNA vaccine is not actively happening as far as hormones and antibiotics you
• 40:06
  know in the 80s there's a little pellet and you'd put it in the calf's ear and they would gain
• 40:12
  another 30 pounds we used to do that we don't do that anymore I only know one producer that still
• 40:20
  does that and that little chip was like releasing a hormone or something I think it was an estrogen
• 40:26
  or it was hormones like in a pellet form what I've read about that is the amount of hormone that
• 40:32
  still exists within that animal at the time of processing it's so trivial like your body produces
• 40:40
  like 100 times more of that same chemical whether it's testosterone or estrogen or what I don't
• 40:47
  even remember what it was that it doesn't even matter it was like one of these things that took
• 40:52
  off with the media but when you actually looked at the amount that could be measured in the meat
• 40:57
  compared to what your body was producing it was like negligible we don't do it because I don't
• 41:04
  feel like it's really necessary antibiotics that one is real and so this is where it gets where
• 41:12
  management is crucial because the advent of all these antibiotics really comes from the process
• 41:22
  that has been put together by these the large four packers and like all in terms of being
• 41:29
  efficient at producing beef and aggregating lots of animals you know you've heard of these
• 41:35
  feed lots that have a hundred thousand animals in them and so it all stems from that so I like to
• 41:41
  think of it as like anytime you take a bunch of kids you know when you if you've got kids the first
• 41:46
  time when they first start going to kindergarten they get sick and cattle are the same way if you
• 41:52
  stress them take them off their mom you know let them breathe in some dust put them on a semi and ship
• 41:58
  them to a pen where there's a lot of different cattle they're going to get sick in that scenario
• 42:04
  typically what happens is before those animals get sick they will feed they'll put an antibiotic
• 42:12
  into the feed and give them a low dose of antibiotics throughout you know whether it's for 30 days
• 42:19
  or 60 days you know they all have different protocols but that is real I can't speak to is that
• 42:26
  measurable in the meat six months later a year later I don't really know that we don't do that
• 42:34
  because the way we manage the animals like we wean our calves we do across the fence weaning means
• 42:40
  that we take the calf and like the cows and calves are all in a pasture and the day that we decide
• 42:48
  it's time to take the calf from the cow which is necessary so that she'll rebreed and she can
• 42:54
  kind of reset we'll take the cow and we'll sort the cow off and put her in a pen because she's
• 43:01
  already got a strong immune system and then we let the calves go back out and they go right back
• 43:06
  to the same place that you know they they last had milk from their mother it's a much less stressful
• 43:13
  environment and by doing that you don't have the need for the pharmacy that's within the animal
• 43:19
  industry to show up and so you can mitigate a lot of that stuff just through you know proper
• 43:25
  management oh that's great is there anything that isn't out there that's happening you know or
• 43:32
  that you know of is there something that is being done to cattle or to the meat that's just not
• 43:38
  being talked about good or bad really I was talking to the folks that are really spearheading the
• 43:44
  nutrient density research and they told me that they've tested all the meat that's in these
• 43:50
  mainline grocery stores that makes the claims of grass bed grass finish beef they told me they've
• 43:57
  tested all of it and it's all a lie none of it's real so I think that one of the thing one of the
• 44:03
  games that's being played in the large packing industry there's a very large import export
• 44:10
  business that happens and so what they're doing is they're taking all of this excess trim which is
• 44:17
  when they butcher an animal you're going to get down to where it's like you know they're trying
• 44:22
  to be efficient and so you get down to like slices of meat that's got a lot of fat in it because
• 44:28
  you can't put too much fat just too greasy and so they'll take that trim they call that trim whether
• 44:36
  it's 50 50 trim so that's half lean meat and half fat or just 2080 which is you know predominantly fat
• 44:45
  and then they'll import these animal which are typically very lean right now the United States can
• 44:53
  import from 18 different countries Brazil Nigeria like all these different countries and they take
• 45:02
  those lean animals and then they mix them with this fat as long as they this meat that's coming in
• 45:09
  it's killed in a different country as long as they break the cryo bag if they repackage it
• 45:16
  it can be claimed a product of America and then they can mix you know these other things so
• 45:21
  I think they've tested and there can be upwards of 100,000 animals DNA in one package of meat
• 45:29
  and so I just look at it like it's big money big corporations big money they're not focused on
• 45:36
  your health they're focused on making money and controlling the interests of their business
• 45:42
  they're just really good at splitting the hairs and figuring out how to be more profitable
• 45:47
  and then lobbying our government to allow them to continue participating in in what I consider
• 45:54
  really shady practices to that end in terms of this lack of transparency this corrupt piece of
• 46:01
  the industry what can the buyer do what what should they be focusing on obviously they can
• 46:08
  go to country card or meats but what should they be looking for in the type of meat they purchase
• 46:17
  flavor I mean flavor but how do they know that before they buy it so you know what I mean like so
• 46:21
  are they looking for specific small small industry providers like is there any kind of
• 46:30
  indication that they would have to to know who and where to buy one of the best things to do is to
• 46:38
  just find people that are local you can trust them you've got a higher probability of being able to
• 46:45
  trust the guy at the farmers market or that is trying to sell locally then you do the corporation
• 46:53
  because if he screws up he's done you know if he sells bad meat that's it you know the word
• 46:59
  spreads and his his ship is sunk so he can't afford to get all the claims on the label and the
• 47:05
  fancy marketing he can't afford it so I'd say at the end of the day is like your health is your
• 47:13
  responsibility we've put too much on the FDA and the USDA to make us safe the corporations have
• 47:21
  slipped in there they figured out that game and they're playing that game and the little guy can
• 47:25
  afford to so you need to take the responsibility of your food and go find the people that are doing
• 47:33
  it from the farmers co-ops to everybody that's got a couple of cows has got to meet a meat
• 47:40
  business at this point and there's some really cool really cool operations that are getting more
• 47:46
  and more streamlined as far as how you can procure that meat and you guys are not just selling
• 47:53
  your meat I mean you really you really are focused on whole animal use in whole animal procurement
• 47:58
  right I mean so you guys I know your your wife takes the tallow from from the meat and makes skin
• 48:05
  care products what are the things are you using we're limited by our processors on everything that
• 48:12
  we can do how much do you get from them or are like are you able to get even the pancreas how far
• 48:17
  down the Oful Trail do you get to go well it's interesting you say that because we're we're talking
• 48:24
  earnestly right now about building our own processing plant and I think you and I talked
• 48:29
  about the limitations of processing plants they're focused on butchering and harvesting the meat
• 48:36
  but then everything else the fat the organs the hooves the collagen the bones that has to be moved
• 48:45
  to a different location to facilitate the further processing into the value added products right
• 48:51
  it's an operational inefficiency so that's what we're looking at is like building our own processing
• 48:58
  plant where we're not focused on how many animals can we butcher because that's what happens with
• 49:04
  the processing plant then it's all dependent on the volume and let's focus on more of like the
• 49:10
  value added let's do 30 cows a month or a week and then let's like a cow comes in and everything
• 49:17
  that we can possibly think of comes out the back end as far as like a value added so that's like
• 49:23
  this redesigning of like the centralized beef processing industry because anytime something central
• 49:30
  it can be very vulnerable right versus if you had 3000 of these little plants across the united states
• 49:38
  like one goes down you're like we're still okay we'll just send the workers over there send them
• 49:43
  60 miles down the road keep production going and so we're limited with our processors like they
• 49:51
  can't pull the hooves off of them which is like the best collagen you know the freeze drying of the
• 49:56
  organs like that has to go to a different location so you know it's so challenging to go I started
• 50:04
  out as a rancher and then I decided I'm gonna be a businessman because we're gonna starve to death
• 50:08
  as ranchers and taking this deep dive into this industry I'm like it is so big so complex that we
• 50:17
  just try to simplify things so that we can just go back to doing what we really want to do which is
• 50:22
  like we just want to be outside and take care of cows and soil man well you know I'm on board and
• 50:29
  I can't wait to be part of that think tank in terms of supporting a slaughterhouse that you that
• 50:35
  you create and being one of the entrepreneurs kind of helping to figure out how to how to sell
• 50:42
  more parts of that animal and thank you so much thank you so much for your time tell everyone
• 50:46
  where they can find you guys socials website and please share a little bit about the skincare
• 50:54
  line as well because you sent me some and it's fantastic yeah so if you're looking for beef you can
• 51:00
  you can hit us up at Cartercountrymeats.com we're on all social platforms but the only one we have
• 51:06
  the bandwidth to maintain really is Instagram Carter Country Meats and you can get you know sampler
• 51:13
  boxes you can buy basically everything all meat products that come from the come from the cow
• 51:20
  if you're looking for like a whole or a half animal which is by far the most economical
• 51:27
  we sell D to C but I I hate that model and hates a strong word but it's it makes meat so
• 51:33
  expensive because of the amount of fixed costs and shipping is just shipping perishable products
• 51:40
  it's like it's not sustainable so the best way to purchase an animal is buy a whole or a half
• 51:46
  feet build your communities you know connect with your neighbor or your family and my wife to speak
• 51:52
  on the skincare she's got a product where she takes the kidney fat which is completely different
• 51:59
  than the the the back fat and she mixes it with like her gift is like ingredients you know and
• 52:06
  frankincense and mer and oramis and snail musin it's like I don't know all I know is it works
• 52:14
  I'm outside all day every day I just spent four days at 12,000 feet with no sunscreen I haven't
• 52:20
  worn sunscreen in three years and every year I'd have to go get you know these pre cancerous spots
• 52:27
  burned off of me I've just been putting this you know beef towel on my face and my skin damage has
• 52:34
  gone away like it's literally it's gone if you have an injury you just put fat on it and it's like
• 52:40
  it's it's magic it just it heals well it's it's specifically also the fat that's coming off of
• 52:48
  your animals right it's like healthy grass fed pastured animals right it's just it's clean the meat's
• 52:56
  tasty it's nutritious and you don't have to overcook it either you can keep it as raw or as rare as
• 53:04
  you want because it's going to be you're just going to maximize the flavor and the nutrition so
• 53:10
  thank you for everything you're doing and and for sticking it out as a rancher right I mean this
• 53:15
  is a generational ranch and you know I think I think that is the fear is that we're going to
• 53:22
  lose ranchers since they're not profiting much right we're going to lose people wanting to get
• 53:28
  into that industry so thank you for your contributions and keeping keeping it going without people like
• 53:35
  you we would only have these these big box these these huge processors and and as you mentioned
• 53:43
  that's not it's not healthy meat it's not it's not as nutritious and you're not going to get the
• 53:48
  value from that as you do from someone like Carter country meats yeah it's imperative I mean
• 53:56
  if you're hungry which you know we're we're extremely obese in this country and just
• 54:02
  metabolically not well but we're still starving we're starving of nutrients and our agriculture
• 54:10
  industry needs people I don't want to be a doom and gloom guy but we have lost the average
• 54:17
  farmer and rancher is 60 years old the kids leave because there's no money and it's hard work
• 54:24
  and we've gone from like 1.3 million ranchers to 700,000 just since 1980 and it's like it's
• 54:32
  looming so the question is is like who's going to raise the food you know we're we're supposed to
• 54:39
  see only 15% of ranches survive the death of the matriarch patriarch in the family to go on to
• 54:49
  be a productive ranch the next year I mean it's just it's not it's not good but it's in the best
• 54:55
  answers of of our society just to be healthy and to allow the people with this knowledge to continue
• 55:02
  to do what they want to do but for hexake man we've got to be able to be profitable while we do it
• 55:09
  you know when people go to the store you just like it's like cheap is not where it's at and so
• 55:15
  to be optimistic I really feel that like the work this nutrient density testing that is the hope
• 55:24
  you can't fake it we can just go in with tools now and test for it and then all of a sudden the
• 55:30
  labels are going to be obsolete this game that the big the big money is playing it doesn't matter
• 55:36
  anymore we can test for it the only way you can do that is with healthy soil so the foot that are
• 55:42
  doing it right I believe that in the end they will be rewarded well I hope so thank you so much
• 55:48
  and thank you for taking the time out to listen to every day ancestral I'm James Barry and it's
• 55:55
  been a pleasure make sure to follow us that's how we get our word out there is just by you following
• 56:00
  this podcast and please check out Carter country meets we need to support our local ranchers we need
• 56:06
  to keep looking for high quality products and supporting those people that create them thank you
• 56:13
  again RC thank you James it was a pleasure man thank you so much for joining me on every day
• 56:20
  ancestral if you enjoyed this episode hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one you could find
• 56:26
  the show notes links and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com that's EATPLUCK.com and hey if you
• 56:38
  know someone who'd get something out of this share it with them too stay curious live well and keep
• 56:45
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