Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #233: Beyond Meat Bankrupt, AI Grocery Pricing, and The End of Animal Ag?

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Episode #233: Beyond Meat Bankrupt, AI Grocery Pricing, and The End of Animal Ag? · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably one of the most significant investment failures in recent years.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: And now they're trying to spin it.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: They lost$110 million.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: These are similar levels of addiction seen of adults addicted to alcohol and 18% addicted to tobacco.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: So now we have just as many adults addicted to Hello everybody.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another podcast from Beyond Labels.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being with us this week.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, your co-host, Joel Salatin, the farmer, along with our favorite researcher, Dr.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: And today is going to be a little bit of a hodgepodge day of picking up some recent news items from your feedback.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We know that that's always exciting for you guys to feel like you're getting uh stuff about the same time that Cena and I do, that's stuff that comes across our desk or through our computers or whatever.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I'll start with with one that's I've I find fascinating because I've watched the whole, you know, cult cell-cultured meat uh Cena, you know, for whatever, uh since 2016, 2015, when that really started, you know, um Beyond Meat, Impossible Burger, and all the whole everything from fake meat to cell-cultured meat to whatever.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a whole file of the um, uh in fact, yesterday I went back and pulled up some of the uh real-time conferences that were happening at that time from these, you know, um food investor types.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um depending on who you look at, somewhere between three and sixteen, I know that's a great big uh latitude, but that's how hard this stuff is to track, um, billion dollars have been invested in, you know, um authentic meat uh alternatives, if you will, uh, you know, in the last about eight years.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when you go back and look at the prophecies from those times, um they all said that by 2025, for example, uh farmland prices would drop 30%, uh, that cattle prices would drop 50%, that you know, these would be ubiquitous within the grocery stores, it would take over the restaurant business, the culture, the the greater American culture would um would accept these you know without question by now.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, here we are eight years later, and and none of this, Cena, none of this has panned out.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, last week in the Wall Street Journal article comes out Beyond Meat looks at protein beverages to help boost growth.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they have lost in the fourth quarter last year, they lost$110 million compared to 2024's fourth quarter, they lost$26 million.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so these, these, so there, these companies are desperate to, you know, to find something.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so Beyond Meat is now uh uh uh making skinny cans.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm reading this, skinny cans of the fruit flavored carbonated beyond impossible, beyond immerse.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they're calling it, beyond immerse, and are now for sale by a test kitchen and uh in limited um in limited quantities.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And what they're hoping is that this will be a turnaround because right now, as you know, the the typical protein, the typical protein shake is a kind of heavy, high calorie thing.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is an attempt to give you protein with no calories.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's the idea.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is plant-based protein?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Are they still doing the plant-based protein in these shakes?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, or these beverages?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is all this is all plant-based, plant-based um uh protein.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um article says the biggest challenge may lie in asking consumers to make a leap from a brand associated with chewy meals and sustainability to a product more suited for the on-to-go sustenance or post-workout recovery, and that has nothing to do with meat alternatives.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the uh the thing that's in their favor is that it is unlike the dense calorie-heavy shakes that dominate the protein beverage market.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um so anyway, I I I this is this is an ongoing story, I think, of these um these at least alternative meat, if not we could say anti-meat efforts.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and uh, you know, uh when all this first hit, I can tell you in the livestock industry, there was great fear and consternation uh within the farming community.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, oh no, you know, we're gonna be overtaken and all that.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's turned out that this is probably one of the most um significant investment failures uh in recent years, and one of the most um significant crashes, crashes of academic and um uh uh you know uh PhD prophecies that we've seen in recent history.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, besides besides maybe you know Dr.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Fauci's lies, but that's kind of in another another category.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, and I just saw that uh online the founder and CEO said that Beyond Immerse has been especially and carefully designed to provide nutrients that are critical to muscle health, gut health, and immune function, so that whatever the goal is, consumers can go beyond.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they've been listening to our podcast, right?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I just find it interesting that they've they they're targeting gut health, considering the you know, the beyond meat, I would say is in opposition to gut health, you know, yeah, like the actual meat product they started with.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: I would not ever recommend that product for somebody who's trying to actually foster gut health.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just interesting to me that you know it's almost like they're taking something that they created that the market doesn't like and you know, that is is not necessarily a healthy food.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: I would consider it not to be a healthy food.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: And now they're trying to spin it into these beverages, kind of find a new place for it to go, you know, kind of reminds me of like how we take industrial waste products, right?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like fluoride, or how we got glyphosate and uh or or um PFOS, uh, you know, PFOS, and so we took these industrial waste products and then we turned them into something else, then we branded them as good.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, well, the the the truth is that as the you know, as the uh the information continues to develop in a very broad sense over ultra-processed food, which you know, with the new inverted uh dietary guidelines, has I mean, uh we've we've um we've done our negatives on the on the new food dietary guidelines, but for sure we can give kudos to RFK Jr.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: and and and and people for for taking a very broad brush, really, a very broad brush on ultra-processed food, and that includes all of these lab manufactured things from beyond meat to uh you know to sell cultured meat to whatever.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's still all ultra-processed and um and under the ultra-processed category.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you may know more about this than I do, Cena, but I'm hearing that there's a a committee within HHS uh trying to codify a uh a definition of ultra-processed food.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: There really is none right now.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's one of these things that we kind of all intuitively know what it is, but no nobody's actually definitively described it yet.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I think that if we do get a good definition from RFK Jr., which I can imagine we would get a good definition, I hope we would, um that can that can add another whatever uh um slap, if you will, to all of these alternative, you know, fake cell cultured ultra-processed products.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I have not I have not heard the alt the the anti-meat developers ever admit to being part of that broad ultra-processed um uh you know platform, but they are.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think they're gonna be included when this definition comes out.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think you're right.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think you're right on the money on that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think, you know, for a while there it's really benefited the industrial food complex to not have that definition, you know, um to not be in that label, that labeled category.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: They've been able to skate through on some things.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I think at least one state has actually come up with the definition that they're implementing.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it will be interesting to see how policy and implementation falls out once a definition is obtained.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I think, you know, some people are trying to go on the NOVA definition, but then others are skirting around it, um, which you know we've talked about before on this program.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we really need to nail one down, even though you know there's going to be loopholes and things like that, because it's a definition.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: But at least it's it's right now it's almost like this no man's land, and it's hard for the bureaucracy to even move forward because what leg do they have to stand on when they can't fall back on a definition?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's kind of it's kind of like it's kind of like mRNA uh that's being called a vaccine and not an antibiotic.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it skirts the it skirts the livestock antibiotic issue.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we don't use antibiotics, but they use mRNA, which organic certification does not address.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Organics does not address vaccination.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: It does address antibiotic, subtherapeutic antibiotic use.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: It does not address vaccines.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so so we have we have the same kind of thing, um, you know, skirting of the you know, it it it it's parsing, it's parsing the lexicon.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, that's of course that's very confusing.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, speaking of um ultra-processed foods, there's you know, one of the reasons why I think they're targeting ultra-processed foods as well is because of their addictive properties.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that this is somewhat tangentially related, but um, just a few days ago, Trump signed an executive order called Great American Recovery Initiative to focus on addiction.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And they're treating substance use disorder as a medical condition.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: So they're basically defining addiction as a chronic disease.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then a couple of days ago, Kennedy committed, uh, I think it was$100 million towards finding a solution for the drug addiction epidemic that he says fuel is um America's homeless crisis.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: So they're starting on this path toward addiction now, right?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm always trying to figure out um, connect the dots, where are they going next?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I think you're right on the ultra-processed food definition because they're starting now to move toward addiction.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: And we have study after study showing that these ultra-processed foods can actually cause addiction.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: And particularly in children.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I even just saw this report out of um, I think it was Yale, and they're talking about that at least 14% of adults are addicted to food, and 12% of children are addicted, and how this actually mirrors addiction to alcohol and tobacco.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: So they're saying that these are similar levels of addiction seen in adults at 14% of alcohol of adults addicted to alcohol and 18% addicted to tobacco.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: So now we have just as many adults addicted to ultra-processed foods.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but the number of children is really alarming, that it's at least 12% of children.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, and I would say, you know, they have their own clinical definitions of what they're talking about with addiction here.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: But but I would say that every single adult and child that I know has some degree of addiction to ultra-processed foods when they eat them.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: And let me give you an example to back that up.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: There is this study from quite some time ago.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: This is uh 2007, and the title is Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: So basically, what they did was they took rats and they would either give them like saccharin or and then in another round, sucrose, or cocaine.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: And 94% of the rats chose the sugar over cocaine.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: And this was even after they got the rats addicted to cocaine.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: If they gave them the choice, the rats would still choose the sugar over cocaine.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's how addicting the sugar is.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it talks about how um that basically that the overconsumption of sugar-dense foods and beverages, they say, is initially motivated by the pleasure of the sweet taste, and that um the intense sweetness can per surpass even the cocaine reward because it results from an inborn hypersensitivity to sweet um tastings, is what they call it.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: So they're saying our sweet receptors evolved in an ancestral environment that was poor in sugar.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we're not adapted to deal with these high concentrations of sweetness.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And there's so there's like this abnormal, supernormal stimulation of the receptors in our brain that happen when we have the sugar-rich diet that can override self-control mechanisms and lead to addiction.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so to me, I'm thinking, okay, I'm reading these studies, you know, that clearly show that there's this um instinctual drive to consume the sugar over the cocaine.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then I heard uh Dr.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Eric Berg talk about how a lot of us are just setting ourselves up for failure.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, it's the it's the new year, we usually come out with new resolutions.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: And oftentimes that's something around food or health, but we really need to look at our environment because, you know, your local environment in your own home.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because every time you open your refrigerator or your freezer or your pantry, if what you're seeing is high sugary foods, you know, whether that is a cookie or even chips that can act similarly in terms of, you know, releasing um insulin and glucose responses in the body.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're walking around every time you're hungry or you're bored and you walk into your pantry and you're faced with these decisions, you're constantly having to override that desire to consume the sugar.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: You're constantly having to say no throughout the day.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so he basically, you know, handed down this challenge where he was like, clean up your environment.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, take um responsibility for what you bring into your own home.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Let everybody eat whatever they want to eat, right?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's their right.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Take responsibility for what's in your own home and clean it up and just see, even if you don't want to like throw it out or whatever, put it in a different area where you're not gonna see it, up in the attic, you know, something.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: Just do it as an experiment and just see what happens over a week if you walk in, open your fridge, pantry, your, you know, your freezer, and you're not faced with having to fight this desire to consume those quick fixes.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, see how see how you can use it.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's even true of a lot of these little um these little protein bars, a little chewy, you know, chewy um basically granolas, granola stuck together with sugar, uh little snack bars.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, I can't think of any as soon as as soon as we don't have to think about it, I'll I'll think of the brand names.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, you you know, there's there's a bunch of them.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um and those are those are addictive too.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you can't eat just one.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: You eat one, and oh, I gotta have another one, I gotta have another one.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um you know, Doritos.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can't you can't just eat.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's the Dorito effect, you know.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Mark Shaskell wrote about that in his book, The Dorito Effect.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so yeah, this this is this is really something.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um I you know, I I I'm not sure that this hundred million dollars as a government program is going to help anything.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not very much money, actually, and funneled through natural organizations.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's gonna be funneling through the organizations that that uh take kids to McDonald's for happy meals, you know.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: So um uh you know, this is the problem with the$700 million for um transitional farmers to go organic.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be funneled through Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Extension Service, which have you know uh poo-pooed organics for from day one.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So now you're gonna funnel organic transition money through organizations that have made fun of or uh you know it's uh it it's smacks of smacks of virtual virtue signaling.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, you're right.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the the addictions are are real, and uh and that's a it it's it's a it's a big deal.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um which I think I think can segue into a topic that you told me that you saw lately is this new label for you know weight loss uh stuff, um obesity drugs and um to to um GL1P friendly, I think you called it.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and so my my initial reaction is okay, so if there's a new label telling you what's you know, we govi and osempic uh friendly, I assume this label is going on foods that make you fat uh so they can increase their sales of WeGovi and and Ozempic, you know, uh friendly foods to the problem so we can help you solve it.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what's the deal on what's the deal on that?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so yes, this just came out.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: The food companies, they said, are targeting users of weight loss drugs by slapping on the GLP one friendly label to certain foods.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: So GLP one um obesity drugs like Azempic, um Zeppound, you know, these are the drugs that people are uh it's trending to help them lose weight.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: So meals and snacks will now contain some of them are now containing this GLP one friendly label.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: And these are becoming more common in US supermarkets as more and more Americans are consuming these weight loss drugs.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: The label's not regulated by the FDA.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's basically a marketing trend.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um what the reason the they're saying that the reason they came out with this label is because the GLP1 users eat less because this drug suppresses your appetite.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: So the foods that they do eat need to be packed with nutrients.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: So you can expect to eat around 50% less.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then they so they're saying that every bite needs to be nutritious.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, wow, this is just an overall so here's already a disconnect.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: So every bite should be nutritious regardless.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: If we really wanted to get back to health and do something about this obesity epidemic and chronic disease epidemic, the mindset should start from every bite needs to be nutritious, you know.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so basically they're saying that if you're on GLP one, sometimes you have uh difficulty maintaining muscle mass.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then of course, there's the concern about not consuming enough nutrients just because you're consuming around 50% less food, they're saying.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: So these foods are declared to be higher in protein and higher in fiber and more nutrient dense to mitigate those side effects.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I looked at some products, I found some products that contain this new GLP1 label.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: And here's just three examples one was a cauliflower crust, three meat pizza.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: So again, a highly processed food.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: One was a boost nutritional shake.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wait a minute.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Call cauliflower, cauliflower crust.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Three meat pizza.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Free free meat.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Three meat pizza.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Free meat.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: A three meat pizza.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it has three meats in it.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: On top of it.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then a boost nutritional shake.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then healthy choice turkey sausage lasagna bowl.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: So again, these if you look at just those three, these are all what I would consider ultra-processed foods.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: They're not nutrient dense in my definition of what nutrient dense is.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: And these for me would fall under that category of potentially addictive foods.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: So what's happening here is I feel like now they're having this marketing trend to promote the foods that potentially got these people overweight, overweight in the first place.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: So you're telling them you can go ahead and keep your same behaviors.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: You can keep eating those same foods that we know are harmful to you, not just in terms of weight gain, but in turn in terms of predisposing you now for chronic um illnesses.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't have to address why you got into this condition or how you can get yourself out of it.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: So you haven't actually gained any knowledge.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: You haven't learned from the behavior.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: You're not learning discipline.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: You're not learning why maybe you psychologically chose those foods, for example.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: You're not addressing the quality of foods and how that matters.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: You're basically here, they're restricting calories and saying it's okay to keep eating these highly processed, potentially addictive foods.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: So all these three, these three foods that you said, uh, these three um options, I'm assuming they've got unpronounceable ingredients, they've got all the whole, the whole spectrum of whatever, you know, uh color dyes and MSG and anything else in them.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um to to point out that there's nothing wrong with cauliflower, and there's nothing wrong with the three with with three meats on a pizza.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is the stuff is is all the stuff that's around the basic ingredient.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the boost shake, yeah, I'm not not sure about that, but I mean, there's there's nothing inherently wrong with turkey sausage.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, we we grind turkey here and sell, you know, ground turkey for people to put in lasagna.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the problem is when you have a pre-made turkey sausage lasagna bowl, it's full of all sorts of additives.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, it's not just turkey sausage and um and eggs and flour and milk in noodles.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: It it's it's it's a it's a bunch of it's a bunch of stabilizers, emulsifiers and um and and and unpronounceable additives, uh, obviously generally recognized as safe, always grass.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and so you know it makes me it makes me crazy that that we could make, for example, at our farm in our kitchen, we could make this kind of stuff without any of those things that would actually be nutrient dense.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: You freeze it in a you know, in a cardboard tray and and um uh and and sell it.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, you know, in a perfect world, we'd get in our kitchen and get all this get scratch stuff and cook from scratch.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: But uh this certainly indicates how far Americans have come from actually, you know, uh using their kitchens.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: So for example, a boost nutritional drink uh typically contains um glucore, glucose or corn syrup, sugar, um milk protein in the term in form of concentrator isolates, vegetable oils, right, which we just declared war on, soy protein, which is an isolate.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's not, you know, we're not talking about the the soy plant itself.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, isolate in a lab.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh vitamins and minerals with added, um, sometimes they add fiber, flavorings, gums, sometimes it's cellulose or kerogenin, and sometimes sweeteners like stevia or sucralose.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they say this creates a balanced meal replacement.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's meal meal from a lab.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, thanks for being such a good uh client of ours.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's G but it is GLP one friendly.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's giving you the permission.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a marketing trend, right?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a marketing ploy to promote these ultra-processed foods as actually continuing to be healthy for you.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: But I think what it does is for someone who's really um not who's someone who, if you think about, okay, put yourself in their shoes and they're just trying to lose weight.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: And um, maybe they're not even to the point where they're reading the ingredient labels, but they're seeing, oh, okay, it says GLP one friendly.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like this veil of trust, right?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's like they're saying, if you're this is for you, like it's it's almost like a personalized nutrition approach in their minds that, oh, I'm consuming this GLP one drug, and they're telling me that these foods are okay for me.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: So this must be safe for me to eat.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it's this allure of like personalization, um, you know, focused attention on you and this group of people.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but but they're really just leading you down further down this path, you know, of uh further kind of further into the lion's den.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so so I I feel like they're just doing a disservice to these people.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, did you know, did you know that between 50 and 75 percent of people who go on these drugs stop using them within one year?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: 50 to 75 percent of them stop using them within a year, and usually it's either cost or side effects.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and within uh around a year or so, on average, two-thirds of the weight is regained.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: And some studies are reporting that within two years, all of the weight has been regained, and they regain the weight four times faster than if they used a traditional diet to try to lose weight, which makes sense because as I already pointed out, they're not helping them understand the um why they're eating the foods.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do you have an addiction to this food?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: Are you using this as a coping mechanism?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Or um, you know, why these foods aren't as healthy as if you made a a nutrient-dense, you know, shake in your own kitchen, you know, instead of the booze, like using real ingredients.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and and the thing is, Cena, you know, the thing is people need to understand that virtually all of these highly processed convenienced foods are now being um uh whatever, they're they're being overseen, uh developed and overseen by the displaced tobacco laboratories of the tobacco companies.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so when the tobacco companies lost their you know lawsuit, and it was in fact determined that they knew that tobacco was that their cigarettes were causing problems.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um and finally, you know, the the the uh cat got out of the bag.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um a lot of those labs and all that money and uh whatever, manipulative, you know, um food manipulative talent, if we can food manipulative talent, okay, uh, was unleashed on Nestle and and you know these other outfits.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so, you know, this is a this is a deep, this is a deep hole that we've dug ourselves into in our food system.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it reminds me of um you know the food that's labeled American Heart Association friendly.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how many people, how many people have um have eliminated a heart attack because they ate American Heart Association um, you know, no fat, lean, and ate their carrots and broccoli every day.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: Which, you know, I I'm not sure that um I would want to put a label, uh, a heart healthy or any kind of healthy label on practically any processed food.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm with you.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's just the starting point right there.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, which processed foods would you actually think are healthy?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, oils are are a processed food.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: So you can make the case for like a cold press olive oil, for example, um, if you think that might be a healthy food.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, even, you know, even when like I cook with um with beef tallow, yeah, it's still processed.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, somebody still processed that.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess I would think that one's okay.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is actually a real question I'm asking you because when they're talking about a label for processed food and then ultra-processed food, we all consume processed food.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so where do you draw that line in yourself?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I mean, I consume the beef tallow.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I would consume an olive oil if I knew it wasn't adulterated.
• 32:12
  unknown: Like, you know.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I think, I think um, I mean, this is what they're struggling with with ultra-processed definition, isn't it?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this this is this is some of the around, you know, beef tallow.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, if it's if it's just if it's just I mean, butchering a chicken is processing, okay?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and but we don't we don't consider that ultra processed.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: We consider it, you know, pretty healthy to get the feathers and the gut feathers off and the guts out of it before you, you know, put it on your table.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: And and so in science, we would define that as minimally processed.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like in the literature.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe, so maybe the difference is if you're adding um like a man-made chemical to it, like something that was man-made.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you're fundamentally changing the chemical structure of it.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like high high like um uh high fructose corn syrup from corn, that is a major change.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or or uh or or uh using hexane, hexane to extract the oil out of soybeans, uh, that is a fundamental chemical.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: So there are smart minds, certainly smarter than me, maybe not you, but smarter minds that are that are looking at uh I think we've I think we've touched on the nub of this whole you know ultra-processed question.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I think I think we're gonna get uh we're gonna get some boundaries uh coming out of these efforts.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, that's that's pretty wild, which then um which all of this discussion leads me to uh bring up the um IP 28 in Oregon uh that's on the ballot.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's um in Oregon they have uh you know ballot initiatives where if you get um referendum, if you get enough signatures on a referendum, it automatically has to go on on uh the ballot for the next election cycle.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Next election cycle is November, and so there's um there's uh IP 28, it already has 75,000 signatures, so you got to have a thousand thousand signatures to get a referendum on the ballot.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're all familiar with you know California's propositions and all this.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: So this is the same same procedure.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, but IP28 has 75,000 signatures, so they're only 25,000 away uh from their 100,000 target that they need to go on the ballot, which you know at this early in the season, they're probably going to get that.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um, what this measure does is it outlaws all termination of life before natural death of all animals, wildlife, cows, chickens, pigs, everything.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, what they're using is animal cruelty.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: What they're saying is so they have animal cruelty laws, which you know, um some people would say are are okay to have.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And animal cruelty laws have always exempted you know, slaughter of cows and chickens and pigs and and and and harvesting of deer and turkey, wildlife, things like that, shooting a rabbit.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: But this IP twenty-eight takes that exemption off of the animal cruelty.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: So and and and the the proponents have been very, very clear saying that what we're trying to do is create equivalency, this is their word, not mine, equivalency between animals and humans.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, it is the same level of um care and the same prohibitions of what you know, murder and killing and all that that we would ascribe to humans is now ascribed to all animals.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, so are you saying then that if this passes, you can't raise chickens in your backyard and slaughter them for Well you can raise them, you just can't kill them.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you can So you could raise them and collect their eggs, for example, but you can't you can't have like a um broiler chicken.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can never butcher a chicken or or an old laying hen that quits laying, you know, and and uh I mean these things they don't you know they don't live forever, they don't last forever.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it it would eliminate all hunting.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: You could never, never um uh uh kill an so so the only way an animal can die under this um under this initiative, the only way an animal can die is of natural causes.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it's fine if you want to have a nursing home for cows, you know, and let cows live to their natural death, that's fine.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: But you can't terminate a life uh prior to you know um prior to natural death.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, depriving food and water would be considered animal cruelty.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so so they they get you on both ways.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the the the interesting thing is that the proponents of this bill included in the bill is funding, you're gonna love this, Tina.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's state funding to retrain livestock farmers to raise something else.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because there will there will be no livestock farmers.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: There will not be a single um animal slaughtered in the state of Oregon.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: So so all the ranchers and the you know farmers that raise livestock will have to raise, you know, whatever, apples or kumquats or peaches or something else.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: Or become monocrop farmers, which is what you're trying to get people away from.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Or yeah, raise wheat, you know, wheat, soybeans, corn.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and and um you know, the the i it it it just smacks of so many disconnects.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, just just um this week we actually had a lady um who had been out to the farm, and uh she was very concerned that our that the chickens waiting to be slaughtered were in their crates and they could see the other chickens being slaughtered.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they they just they this is they look stressed in in the the crate.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so you know, this is a nice, faithful customer.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: She loves, she's not an enemy, she's you know, she's a fan, uh, but this is her take.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I I said, well, if you came and were with us a day of processing, if a chicken does escape the crate, um they don't go anywhere, they don't run away, they just either perch there and sit, sit there, or if they happen to jump down on the ground, they immediately go over and be and begin eating pieces of blood and guts and intestines, you know, on the floor of the processing thing.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: We just reach down, pick them up and you know, put them back in a crate.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and so so what we this is just a um it's it's it's a it's an ecological womb disconnect on steroids, is what this is, that that somehow um we can actually live.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, what we've talked about so far with all this, you know, uh the foods and and the the different um things that we've uh discussed.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's and and and and losing muscle mass with the weight reduction drugs, all this stuff.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's just amazing that with all of that going on, we have an initiative like this that will eliminate the most nutrient-dense food there is, which is you know, grass-finished meats, pastured livestock.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's more nutrient-dense than cheese, it's more nutrient-dense than lentils, it's more new, you know, it's it's the most nutrient-dense thing thing.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: And here we have this initiative coming down the pike that would literally outlaw, now, it doesn't outlaw imports.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: So supposedly meat and things could could continue to be imported into the state, so people could still eat it.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: It it doesn't, it doesn't um prohibit the consumption of meats.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: It just prohibits the slaughter of animals for human consumption.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's so one of the things that bothers me about it is that now they're dictating what you can do on your own land.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you would think you'd have the right to to do what you want on your land, but I I guess not.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: But is any of this is the argument?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, in in in in in deference to them, uh Cena, you have a right to do what you want to do on your own land.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I mean, let let's let's I'll I'll bring up, I mean, if I'm an attorney, well, you don't have the right to, you know, to um to have a slave on your land or to chain up somebody uh to rape somebody on your own land.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: So so there are and so they are the the problem is the philosophical equivalency of animals and humans.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the problem.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we can trace that back to you know the the the most aggressive arm or or fringes of the animal welfare movement, you know, clear back into the into the early 1800s, even in in England.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then it gradually morphed into other places and was was really um got a got a shot in the arm by you know Peter Singer uh here uh in in the US in the 1970s and really launched what we consider the a modern American animal welfare movement.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and the problem is when people are this far removed from the cycle of life, death, decomposition, regeneration, life, death, decomposition, regeneration, you know, that something has to die in order for something to eat it and live, whether it's in a compost pile microbially or you know, the the roots of a carrot interacting with glomelin and the microbial community with the actinomycetes in the soil, uh something has to die in order for something to get sustenance.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's the way, that's the most foundational element of of ecology.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and um because animals have eyes and um whatever, vocal capacity, they they look more like humans than ascribing to them a place of human equivalency versus.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know, a microbe or a I'm assuming these people would never would never swat a fly.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: If a mosquito lands on you, they wouldn't swat a mosquito.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean this, you know, the the this philosophical um uh trail leads to absurdity as you as you move down through it.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah yeah yeah because I mean plants are alive and there's lots of studies showing that um plants um well using the technology that we have currently in science showing that in our understanding plants can hear and they can respond and that they talk.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah so I even just read a study this weekend about how a plant was in a totally separate room from the kitchen and and they did this they automated it so there's no human there to interact, you know, to interfere with um picking up the signals from the plants and and um the the in these shrimp that were in the kitchen.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: And what they did was they measured the electrical output from them like they're measuring the energy running through let's say their field and they wanted to see if the plant would respond to dropping these shrimp into boiling water.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean this Oregon would have a heyday with this experiment.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: So um which I I'm not in favor of it either but here this is what they did.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: So they recorded a baseline of you know energy emission of the plant they dropped the the shrimp into the boiling water and the researcher said the plant screamed like their energy emission changed like the electricity coming out of that plant changed.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: So the plant screamed and it was in a different room it wasn't even like right there where like a human's eyes could see the shrimp going in there but it could somehow sense and feel that this other living thing was in pain.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: So there's an argument right there that you know no plant should be harvested either.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh maybe this gets you back to um doing the cultured meat like you know maybe that's the the end game is well it yes yes and in fact you know from day one from day one the cell cultured fake meat whatever you want to call it um uh you know when they when they list their you know their reasons for existence you know why are their why why are we doing this um the fact that nothing has to die is right up at the top.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah but as you know wonderful writers like you know Lear Leith and and others uh have have written there's a lot more death in a soybean field than there is in a cattle herd a a cattle herd out grazing grass you know the grasshoppers and crickets and things are going along and earthworms and all that but you start you start um planting soybeans or corn and there aren't any grasshoppers and crickets it's all either either tilled and the earthworms are split in two or or it's herbicided and they're killed uh but there's no i if you're actually looking at what actually what actually creates more life cow management good cow management in a pasture not overgrazing and not all that but good cow grazing good cow management in a pasture produces far more life per square yard than a than a than a chemical monocrop uh by by long shot is that because the manure is giving back to the city it's be it's because you have a healthier ecosystem and and um and I'm I'm putting the caveat on well managed we had a we one of the most interesting studies ever done here this has been I don't know 10 12 years ago was a two-year Smithsonian study and uh these two arachnologists came so spider spider PhDs that's a thing yeah yeah what's what's your what's your PhD in arachnology yeah so um so that would freak me out spiders freak me out so sorry sorry all you listeners that spiders freak you out okay but the these these were PhDs in arachnology in in spider and what they wanted to do that their their study was comparing um managed grazing like we do compared to non-managed grazing just you know turn the cows out in the field and let them go and so we actually we actually got permission from three of our neighbors to go across the fence you know 100 feet and for these guys to do assays in the neighbor's field and then over in our field you know right across the fence and the differences were profound they measured five they they took um uh population counts of five genuses so they did um beetles and um obviously uh spiders insects I can't remember all the five but anyway five genuses and um and and what they would do they would put down a you'd love this you're such a researcher so that they they they'd bring a a little um like a an 18 inch by 18 inch um uh metal thing that they would they would put down and identify well it actually what it was not square it was it was round and they would put this ring on the ground and as soon as they put it on the ground they had a uh a heavy vacuum cleaner with them and they would start their vacuum cleaner they put the ring on the ground immediately vacuum up everything they could and then take a little pocket knife kind of thing and dig down because a lot of these things as soon as there's something going on they they burrow down in the ground you know dung beetles and and you know uh ants ants things like that and so they would they would chase them down and try to you know grab them six inches under the soil that's about as far as they could go and they would they would uh put all this stuff in a bag and go back to the lab and and identify all these um critters into their five genuses and so what they ended up with was a was a pie graph they had a pie graph you know with five different colors of these different genuses and on the neighbors places uh there were basically 95% was um uh beetles beetles and ants those two genuses beetles and ants and then five percent was everything else on ours all the sections were almost identical that they all had identical populations so it was a very even the segments were are you with me yeah the segments were very even around like like 20 20 20 20 20 um and it was it was really cool and and so then so then they they they wanted to look at what the difference was between like right before we grazed right after we grazed and then you know like a month later and what they found was that while while the populations did collapse when we were when we had the big the mob grazing and and you know and defoliated things it did collapse but within like two weeks it was right back to normal.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: The recovery was was incredible and what what they one of their their theses was that the the actual pulsing of the pasture actually freshened up and stimulated to more aggressive um pop more aggressive whatever babies of all these five genuses.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah it was pretty it was pretty cool.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: So so yeah I I I have no problem uh um the fact is that the entire cosmos is pulsing with sentience that's the truth every everything that's living even the microbes in our gut they are they're communicating and responding they're they're biologically active which means they're not inanimate they're not just um protoplasmic structure they they are actually uh dynamic spontaneous and adaptive uh within their within their environment and interacting with each other the biological systems are fundamentally relational your your car cares not a lick whether there's another car on the on the highway or not it doesn't care a lick but an animal whether it's a microbe absolutely knows and cares if there's another one on the highway that was so tender and you know what I was thinking while you're while you're monologuing there I thought wait a minute so you can now make the argument to save all the plants and now you can make the argument to save all the microbes you know including those in your gastrointestinal tract and those under the soil so then the next um proposition they should put up up to vote is um glyphosate should be banned because it's in patented antibiotic and so aren't you infringing on my microbial's right to existence?
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah um yeah I I think um I think the I think the uh uh uh uh an alternative pro if if the opposition to this proposition wants to put something in I think it would be that uh anyone who votes for this proposition um shall not receive any uh government assistance in their health care that's I like it it's a little vengeful but well what what it says is you know it's fine if you if you want to if you want to um you know choose your choose your food choose your thing uh but if you're gonna be this far off of um ecological uh balance then um you know you're on your own we're not gonna take care of you and and and and by the way I'd be happy for them to say that to me too yeah if you're gonna if you're gonna be so far that you're gonna eat compost grown tomatoes well you know we're not gonna take care of you either and I'd say that's just fine um don't don't don't tax me to take care of you when uh you're gonna eat you know Twinkies and Cocoa Puffs.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: Hey you're onto something because wouldn't that be great if if they did flip it around and say that they wouldn't help us with healthcare costs, then maybe we wouldn't have to like pay for it out of our paychecks when we work for other companies.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like yeah please give me that money back I will totally opt out of your system and I'll use it to go see practitioners that are aligned with my principles.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think you're I mean I I know you know you're kind of being a little jabby here but I I think you're really onto something here.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like they may give us a way to opt out.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah that's right that's right all right you've got another uh item here we've got it we've got just uh maybe time for one more here uh quickly and that is um the the main initiative LD 124 uh doubling down on food sovereignty um yeah well so we only have four minutes um uh so do you want me I could do that one but I think that one's a longer one or I can do this the AI one yeah go ahead do the AI one then okay so this one I think uh for me was a little bit interesting I wanted to get your take on it so there's a new uh kind of a warning that this may be coming there's uh the title is how AI enables higher food prices and corporate profits so there's speculation that we may be entering a new era of what they're calling corporate greed uh so obviously this is you can tell this person's side of the story but the concept here is that there may be personalized pricing happening and coming down the pike for our food in December of 2025 there is a consumer reports investigation and they found that the food delivery platform Instacart was actually conducting a pricing experiment.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_02: They were using artificial intelligence and charging shoppers different prices for the same items to see how much different people were willing to pay.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_02: And consumer reports projected that the price swings were as much as$1,200 more for some families for groceries in a year.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: So using AI somehow they're they're using um data that they're collecting on people and they were changing the prices of the foods.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: So so Cena was this based on your income so they're not saying and that's why this has led to like they really need to come out in front of this like get in front of this and head it off they're not actually saying that so now it's leading to this speculation so uh there's a few things that have happened so we saw do you remember uh back in I think it was 1999 when Coca-Cola revealed that they were testing like a temperature sensitive vending machine design and it was going to automatically raise prices when weather got hotter okay yeah I think that was back in 1999 and I think this was the first time that somebody tried this um you know price fluctuations and basically they were arguing that the um during the hot summer days yeah the the utility of a cold soda is higher yeah so it's fair that they should be more expensive and these machines were going to be equipped with a thermometer and computer chip and once the temperature crossed a certain threshold the price of the can would increase I think it would I think it was something like 25 cents or something back then.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but so then in theory in the cold weather the price could drop you know if they wanted it to that's right.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was a PR disaster.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean consumers didn't see it as this utility based pricing.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_02: They saw it as proud price gouging and uh and they were arguing that the company was just finding ways to tax them for being thirsty when they were the most vulnerable to heat.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the spokesperson came out saying that oh no you know we want to you know we we weren't doing that at all.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like and then their competitor Pepsi jumped in and they were like oh okay so Pepsi's focusing on making this um you know harder for you guys to buy soda we're gonna make it easier for you guys to buy soda and so it it was this whole big huge issue.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_02: Then Wendy oh go ahead yeah yeah that's that um I I don't remember that but um I don't I don't drink much Coke so um yeah I don't I don't either actually uh Donnie's the one that told me that because Donnie was the big Coke drinker in the family this before I met him.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_02: So Donnie's like oh yeah Coke tried to do that.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: I was like what I've never heard that but so he educated me this weekend.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_02: But so last year uh Wendy's tried um tried something similar a dynamic pricing this was in like early 2024 into 2025 the CEO announced that they were going to test like dynamic pricing using digital menu boards by 2025 and the public immediately revolted.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: They thought they'd have to pay more for burgers during lunch rush and Wendy's was forced to kind of walk it back saying oh no we meant we were going to do dynamic discounting like lowering prices during slow hours.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_02: So this has been you know something that's already been in the works and people have been trying it.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now we have things like um they're called uh digital price tags at certain grocery stores.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_02: So Kroger Whole Foods in Walmart for example have been rolling out digital price tags.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_02: These are the biggest grocery retailers in the country.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that means instead of you know when you go into the grocery store and it's like a printed price tag they're now digital which means that um the uh uh the employees can update prices using an app within seconds of doing this so so the the the the pri the prices are not physically posted on the product that's right yeah it's not physically posted they can change it and um what they're saying is so a couple things one they can change the price in just a matter of seconds based on you know rush coming in after work into the grocery store like maybe that's a more expensive time and so they're gonna charge you more i they're not saying they're doing this they're speculating on these are the things they can do based on learning that Instacart was using data collected uh in and using AI to charge you a different price so one reason why they're saying that um they're concerned that maybe we're heading toward a new era where they will charge you differently based on maybe income for example is because now these stores have collected a lot of data on us.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_02: So for instance Kroger is the second largest grocery store in the country but it's also a data collection business.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: It collects massive amounts of personal information and shopping habits for roughly 62 million households it collects and infers this information uh through like loyalty cards like they have your address they have your shopping history sometimes they have ethnicity your education level they infer these things and it uses the information they say to tailor discounts they're already doing this they already tailor discounts to you um Kroger also sells that customer data and those insights to a host of other food corporations like General Mills, Coca-Cola and Kraft Heinz and it informs those corporations um for marketing purposes as well this has become a huge business for Kroger it's estimated that they have they earn they gain$500 million of profit a year just based on your data that they're collecting and there it's not just Kroger Walmart Target Albertsons delivery apps like DoorDash GoPuff Instacart they're all collecting and using this data they're saying that right now they're using it to um discount your to offer you discounts and they're not using it to personalize your prices but we saw that Instacart just did that.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it it is it's interesting now that we're entering this period of time where so many people for so long have just volunteered their information over even on social media.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: I have lots of people I know that post all these photos on Facebook and stuff and it's like they don't think there's any harm that can come to them.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the the fallback is well I'm not doing anything illegal right I'm which we know is not true.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's that whole book it's called like three what three misdemeanors a day or something like that because of all the the now laws in the federal register that we're not even aware of.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_02: But aside from that it's now we're using this they're using this data potentially they're going to be using it against us to charge us more for food when when a lot of us like the food is already expensive and that and that's a whole nother topic.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: We pay less than other countries as you said but it's interesting to me that there may be a difference in pricing if you walk into a grocery store based on your income yeah well I mean um in in in theory well for example I've had I've had numerous people um we've we've certainly talked about it here on on the farm as to why when you come and get a fresh chicken, literally we I mean we process it in the morning you come in the afternoon pick up your chicken that's the same price as one that we sell out of the freezer off season that we put in a bag, we put in the freezer and we paid for it to be frozen you know through the winter well shouldn't one be more expensive than the other because it does cost, you know, you got a utility uh but our our um our response to that is that the cla cash flow for the winter is is more important than a discount.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: Or raising the price, either a price differential.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: That we make whatever price differential differential we might conceive, uh we actually we actually gain by having product to sell every day of the year, which is you know cash flow is is key for business.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so you know, in theory, I I I get what they're trying to do, but uh but at the end of the day, it comes down to trust.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and I think I think most people don't trust the big retailers any more than they trust the bureaucracy.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so this kind of um uh this even if we give even if we give every credibility, every uh you know, grace to these companies, um, it smacks, it smacks of gamesmanship.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and and then and then when you add into well, they're not they're not open about it, they're not they're being kind of coy and um and not being open with people about what they're doing, then it just adds fuel to the fire of of mistrust.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, and I'll add, so this happens in other areas like on like Uber or airlines or hotels, they have dynamic pricing generally, but it seems like there's a fairness perception here when it comes to um physical commodities, you know, like the can of soda or like food, and and some fairness perception based on prices, prices changing.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, like you're more you're more willing to pay for a service for, for example, a ride home in the rain.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_02: But people tend to revolt when the price of a physical commodity changes based on their immediate physical need, or when there's a perceived perception of um lack of fairness across the board.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like we all need to eat food.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_02: So why should one person have to pay more than the next person walking into the same grocery store for that food?
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it it it and and the fact that somebody at some computer console, you walk in the store and and you know, pork and beans is is a dollar fifty, and uh by the time you pick the can up off the shelf, it just became a dollar fifty-nine.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that that smacks of of of um whatever uh connivance, uh uh, you know, behind the scenes, somebody manipulate it it it it it's just not it it's very opaque.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_01: And when we have when we have um you know transactions in commerce the single most foundational principle in any transaction is trust is do I trust you?
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and these kind of things um you know militate against trust.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: So another reason to uh know your farmer, know your food, get it directly from a farmer and um and somebody that's not hooked up to the machine.
• 1:09:16
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, good.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh when we when we look at a um, you know, I've been I've been thinking about uh a question for the day, and um I guess I guess my my question, uh I mean, that this Oregon, this Oregon initiative is just uh beyond the pale.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_01: What should the what should the livestock farmers in Oregon do if this went into effect?
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, it's just on a ballot, so we have no idea.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I'm I'm not suggesting for a moment that it'll pass, but uh but if it did, what do you do?
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pretty uh it's a pretty drastic thing.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: So let us know your thoughts, let us know your comments.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_01: We're always uh happy to hear from you, and we thank you for um tuning in to another episode of Beyond Labels, and we'll look forward to visiting with you again next week.