Latest / Buying Local Podcast / Episode 35: Stephen Zabala (Greenfork)

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Episode 35: Stephen Zabala (Greenfork) · Buying Local Podcast

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The superpower that every citizen has is the ability to
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control where they spend their time, money and attention by
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focusing these on supporting local businesses who are having
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a profound impact on your friends, your family, and your
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local community. So if you want to change the
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world, you can start with buying local.
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Welcome back everyone to buying local.
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I am your host, Mike Nelson. Each week, if you're a new
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listener, each or I shouldn't say each week, but each episode
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we interview local business owners, people that are involved
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in the community in different facets and kind of helped try to
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amplify their voice and their message.
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So today, oh, and forgive me, I'm a little stuffy sounding
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here. My allergies are out of control.
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I don't know what it is, but. So today we're joined by Steven
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Zabala, which we were just joking around.
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It's like my favorite. Every time I hear his name, I'm
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like Zabala. Like it's just a great last
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name. Steven, welcome.
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Thanks for coming in man. Thanks for having me, Mike.
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Yeah, absolutely. So Steven's a pretty dynamic
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dude. He's he does all kinds of
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different stuff we're going to talk about today, including
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owning Green Fork, which is a meal prep and delivery service,
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And it's it's pretty cool. You got a cool format and
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amazing food and and you do catering and everything else,
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but I won't butcher that yet though we'll we'll kind of get
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into this. So Steve, I I know you've got
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pretty healthy resume stuff that you're doing right now, right?
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So why don't you kind of run us through all the stuffs, all the
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stuffs, all the stuffs, all the things that that you're up to?
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Yeah, I do a lot. Pretty busy guy.
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I have two businesses. One is called Green Fork and
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that's the meal prep, nutrition, coaching, catering, food.
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Healthy lifestyle, kind of brand.
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Yeah. And then I also do personal
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training, group coaching, and I have that under a business
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called Primal Fit. So between those two things and
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being a father, you know, keeps me pretty busy.
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I forget that you've got a son, right?
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Yeah. How old is he?
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He's 1550. My son's 15 as well.
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That's crazy, right? You've rolled.
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With him. Jiu jitsu.
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I rolled with your son? Yeah.
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Stop it. Yeah, he's there.
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That's funny. I had no idea.
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Yep, he tapped me out. I don't.
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Know Did he? I don't know.
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Is he? Pretty savage, yeah.
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Yeah. I mean, he's like, he's really
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into the same things that I'm into.
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Yeah, he exercises all the time. He eats clean.
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I got him working with me, so that's cool, man.
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He's really into his his fitness, his health and yeah,
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and martial arts. He loves it, yeah.
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Building all those habits when you're young, too, man, That's
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huge. That's huge.
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That's. What I'm trying to do, yeah.
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And then so of course aside from Jiu Jitsu, you also you've got
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the the Buddha Khan tell tell the listeners about Buddha Khan,
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cuz that's just cool stuff man. Yeah, yeah, Buddha Khan is a
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really, it's mixed movement. You know, it's a yeah, you could
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say that. Yoga is what introduced me to
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it, because I was really into yoga for a while.
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I got my teacher training and all that, but it was lacking
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something for me, you know? I didn't like being stuck on the
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mat. I've always been an active guy
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and like love exercise. I'll get my heart rate up.
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So this Budokan is like a mix. This guy Cameron Shane invented
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it. But it's a mix of like yoga,
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martial arts, animal movements, really dynamic flowy type
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movements. So all and a little bit of dance
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and then there's like a philosophy, so philosophy aspect
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to it, which is really cool. So it's got a it's very
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allencompassing. And yeah, it's a quadrupedal
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movement. So you're on the floor moving
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around, jumping around, pretending to be an animal, you
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know? Yeah, it's really, really cool.
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Yeah, it's. I always see, like the well,
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when I was on social media, I always see like the G, MB
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Fitness, you know, those kinds of movement patterns that were
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just so cool. Yeah, there's G, MB, there's
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animal Flow, there's Budokan, there's this guy in Brazil that
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was has been doing it for a super long time.
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I don't know what that's called. It's like something him Nastica,
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whatever. But it's all just like natural
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movement, you know? Yeah, kind of get, you know, the
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range of motion that you're supposed to be with your body
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and new joints and all that fun stuff.
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I've heard it called Yoga for Crossfitters.
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Yoga for Crossfitters, yeah. Because it's some of it gets
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really intense. You know, you're really running
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around the room, jumping around like beating your chest like a
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gorilla and really into it. I love it, Yeah.
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I know there was a guy, Justin Wolfer, Yeah, used to really be
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into Botocon. Are you teaching that anywhere?
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Right. Because it like no one offers
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those kinds of classes. He's the guy that actually
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introduced me to it. No kidding.
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Way back in the day. So he was offering it and yeah,
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I think I'm going to do some workshops coming up soon because
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I want to use the Dojo maybe to to get some people and do some
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workshops. I have offered the class before
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pre COVID. I was, you know, I had some
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numbers, I built up a nice class size and then that kind of just
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all went away. So it is kind of an interesting,
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unique thing that you know, you have to be into that sort of
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thing to really want to get into it.
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People look at it and they're like, there's no way I can do
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that. It's so crazy.
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But yeah, but anybody can, you know?
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Yeah, it's just little baby steps in the beginning if you
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need and work into it, right. I mean that's kind of the point
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is the process of of going through those movements and
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learning them, but. Yeah, yeah, starting from the
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ground up. It is a new movement system.
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It's totally different, but once you get it, you can like there's
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basic foundational principles, just like any system of movement
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or any anything. Once you get that, you can play
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with it and make it your own. And it's super creative and fun
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and flowy and yeah, it's just amazing, but it's there's
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anybody can do it. Yeah, yeah.
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So, so yes, I want to do some workshops.
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Coming up soon for sure. Very cool, very cool.
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Stay tuned everyone. I think it's really cool stuff.
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It's fascinating. And I know how much it can help
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your body too, from a standpoint of being able to, you know, if
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you're old like I am, trying to get your range of motion back
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or, you know, even if you're just younger, trying to keep
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that range of motion there. Yeah, healthy.
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Yeah, yeah. People mix up, you know,
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flexibility and mobility all the time.
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And mobility is really the ability to get into say like a
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deep squat position and then be strong in that position.
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So your joints. Are strong in awkward positions
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and you do jiu jitsu, right? So you know you're in some weird
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positions. Yeah.
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And you have to be strong and from those positions and so you
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know, like your shoulder gets into.
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It's pretty wild spots and again, you have to be strong and
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stable there. So it's really great for
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maintaining the healthy range of motion.
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Yeah, I know, definitely I need to do some hip work, man.
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My hips are, my hips are killing me right now in jiu jitsu.
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Like they're so tight and can't get my range of motion and yeah.
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It's a really nice adjunct for for martial arts.
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Yeah, for sure. So, all right, So let's talk
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about Battleground, OK, Right, because you train over there.
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Yeah. It's my friend Rebecca who you
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should have on here. I should.
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Yes. Rebecca, please.
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Come on. Yeah.
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She's really great. She owns.
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She opened it right after COVID. We trained together at a place
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called Fit Strength and Conditioning.
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Back in the day pre COVID, that gym unfortunately shut down and
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then after she started her own gym and that's been going since
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2020. I've been helping her coach
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there since she opened. Nice.
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So I do group classes over there.
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I write the Wednesday workouts, so those are conditioning.
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It's like total body conditioning, so I get to put my
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flavor on it. We do some body weight movements
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like the animal flow, Buddha con type of stuff, but I'm also a
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huge fan of kettle bells. I was going to ask cuz I know
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the stuff that I'd seen from you with with that was a lot of
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kettle bell centric stuff. Like is it only kettle bells or
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you guys incorporate other stuff as well?
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No, there's there's everything Talking about anything I
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Wednesdays, that's my thing. I really love kettle bells and
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you know, but we do everything. I mean, we use barbells, trap
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bars, dumbbells, sandbags, bands, yeah.
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Body weight, anything you think of.
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Really. That's cool, yeah.
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So it's pretty comprehensive. It's strength and conditioning,
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classic strength and conditioning.
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So, you know, deadlifts, squats. Bench press, overhead press, all
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that kind of stuff. Yeah, So.
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And then that leads into your personal training stuff, right?
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So you do. So tell us about how all that
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worked. Like, do you train out of that
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out of that gym or do you go to people's houses?
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Like how does that work A? Little bit of everything
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actually. So I do.
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I have a few clients where I'll go to their house.
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They, you know, they prefer that.
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I also train out of my home gym at my in my garage.
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It's pretty nice set up, but I also do train out of
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Battleground, so. Anywhere during COVID I was
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training out of the State Park, had classes going, Oh yeah, So
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yeah, that's cool. And stuff.
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It was cool. But yeah, so I do personal
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training as well. That's actually, I've been doing
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that since 2016. I'm getting back now, giving my
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back story a little, but I've been a chef my whole life, grew
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up in Saratoga, cooking and various restaurants, and I moved
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to Arizona in like 2016 and I was working culinary jobs out
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there. I landed a job at this place
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called Canyon Ranch. Super nice facility, health and
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Wellness kind of retreat area. A lot of celebrities go there,
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kind of dry out a little bit, you know?
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So I was like, okay, this would be cool.
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You know, I have a degree in culinary nutrition.
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I've always been into that. So maybe here's an opportunity
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for me to use that degree. And it turned out to just be
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like, the worst job I've ever had.
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So, So I left and had kind of a existential crisis.
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Like, what am I going to do? I don't want to cook anymore.
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I don't want to do this anymore. So I did my yoga teacher
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training Baja, Mexico, 30 days on the beach.
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It was sounds awful. Absolutely transformational.
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I mean inside and out. And you had me at Baja, Mexico.
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It's great. Just eating like super clean
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food. Yoga twice a day.
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Meditation sun sand. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
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Yeah, that was great. But after that, I got back and
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did my personal training certification, started teaching
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yoga in Tucson, AZ, started developing some one-on-one
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clients at a local gym, and then.
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Getting back to food. So I was doing that for about
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six months. And then my clients would come
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to me and say, you know, I'm not losing weight or like, I'm not
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achieving the results I want. And most of it was around their
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diet, their nutrition plan, and they, most of them didn't have
10:29
time or energy or knowledge around food and nutrition.
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So I said, all right, well, let me do it for you.
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You know, I have this background in culinary.
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Let me just do your meal prep for you.
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You can pay me for it and we'll do that.
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So I had about a dozen. Clients where I was doing that
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and then the gym gym owners call wind of that and they wanted to
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work with me. So this is how Green Fork
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started. It's always been my idea through
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college and stuff. Green Fork got the tattoo on my
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arm here. Fork with roots, so they call
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wind of it and they had seven different locations in in Tucson
11:04
AS22 guys extremely helpful to me.
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So they brought me in and we're like listen we're doing all
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these six week challenges, you know remember when those were
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big like years ago 2016, so seven different gyms across the
11:16
area, six week challenges, they had hundreds of clients and
11:19
thousands across the the city and they said we want you to do
11:23
the food for all of it. So all the meal prep for the six
11:27
week challenge based on these diet, you know these
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restrictions that we're putting on these people.
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So I did and that was like my business went from 12 clients.
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To, you know, 1000. Yeah, that's amazing.
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So that's how Green Fort got started.
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It was. But, and that's how I started
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personal training and yoga and everything.
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So it kind of just like making that choice to go from working
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in restaurants and working for other people to going full blown
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entrepreneur. Kind of really just it took off
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for me within a couple, within like a couple years.
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I think everybody should own their own business personally,
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but it's. It's a lot of work.
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Yeah. It's not easy.
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Yeah. It's not for the faint of heart,
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for sure. But like, I, you know, like I
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just feel that entrepreneurism is, you know, it's like the
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purest path to freedom, right? Like, you know, and you know,
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it's not for everybody, for sure.
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Not everybody wants to, you know, have that kind of freedom
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because it also comes with a price, you know?
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But yeah, I think everybody, if they can, they should.
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You have to be driven. You have to really want it.
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You know you can't. You have to.
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You have to be disciplined. You can't really mess around.
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You have to. You have to.
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Nobody's going to write your schedule for you, right?
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Nobody's going to help you, you know?
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Yeah, sometimes all that freedom can really be a bad thing, man.
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That responsibility? Yeah, for sure.
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But so rewarding. It's so great.
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And then so you know kind of moving towards talking about
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Green Forks, how did you end up back out here on the East Coast?
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Last family stuff. My son moved back here and so I
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kind of had to pack up all that business that I had, which was
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thriving and then move back here, which I did, you know, so
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move back here. Started working at a gym doing
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group classes, which I had never done.
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Besides yoga. I'd never taught group classes.
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So I did that for about a year and then sure enough, you know,
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you talk about Green Fork and ended up getting some clients
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working one-on-one with them. Ended up doing Green Fork out of
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my house, you know, starting out slow and then it just caught
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wind, caught fire. Ended up getting a place doing
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that for a little while. I had a business partner for a
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little while and it just grew from there.
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So it kind of grew almost the same way it did in Arizona, very
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organically. So if you got a good product and
13:44
good service and you know good, you know people are going to
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want to use it, right? Yeah, and I think.
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You can't talk about fitness without talking about nutrition,
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you know, So you're in the gym. You spend an hour a day there.
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Well, what's the other eight hours of your day look like?
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23 hours rather, you know, like, are you eating good?
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Are you doing more movement than just in the gym?
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Are you hydrating? Are you sleeping?
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Well, there's so much to it. So you know, my thing being
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nutrition and food, I want to be able to offer that to the
14:14
community, to the world, and So what better place to meet
14:18
people? And in a gym, yeah.
14:21
And so now you're so you've got your location, you get your
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based out of the mall, right? That's where your kitchen is.
14:28
In the Wilton Mall. In the Wilton Mall, yeah.
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And but you guys don't do any kind of dining service though.
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I want to make sure we said before people start showing up
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looking to, you know. Yeah, yeah, we did try that.
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So they wanted us to be open in the mall and we did try for
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several months. There just wasn't enough
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traffic. You know, unfortunately, we sunk
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a bunch of money into like a new.
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Countertop, we made this nice wood countertop go across.
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We built a sign. So we're geared for it.
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Like we could do it if I wanted to, but you know, there's just
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not enough traffic and eventually, you know, they're
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talking about putting those condos in there.
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If that happens, there's more traffic.
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Maybe we would open. Sure, I would love to.
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Yeah. Obviously it's just another
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yeah, do a dine in service counter service.
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Yeah, why not? There's a Planet Fitness right
15:14
there so we can come over and get.
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And a nice healthy lunch or whatever.
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I'd love to be able to offer that, but the demand right now
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isn't so much and I'm doing fine with what I'm doing already.
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So, yeah and so and so if I'm not mistaken, you know, tell us
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a little bit about the services that you are offering through
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through Greenfield, Greenfield, Green Fork.
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Green Fork, Yeah. So right now just a meal prep
15:38
service, right? So we do six different meals and
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some snacks and bone broths and stuff.
15:44
So six different meals. Two chicken, 2 Turkey and two
15:47
beef each week and you can choose to do a subscription or
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you can order a la carte. So you can go on my website,
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eatgreenfork.com. Everything's listed there, tells
15:57
you how to order the process and everything.
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But yeah, I try to mix up the menu every six weeks to be
16:04
seasonal and the meals are prepackaged, pre portioned.
16:09
Portion control is a huge thing, right?
16:10
The whole idea fully cooked. In eco friendly containers, you
16:16
just throw in the microwave for 2-3 minutes and you have a nice
16:18
hot meal that's pretty cool. And now, are people able to
16:22
customize the meal plans based around their own personal
16:26
nutrition or how does that work? No, not really, because unless
16:30
they want to pay extra. Right.
16:31
Yeah, that's a lot. You know, So the way that I've
16:34
structured it is pretty, pretty broad broad stroke nutrition
16:39
wise. So everything is gluten free,
16:41
everything is dairy free. You can order a vegan option and
16:47
all the accompaniments are also made vegan.
16:50
So, and it's pretty straightforward across the
16:54
board. It's whole food, it's real food.
16:55
It's we don't use a lot of things that cause allergies, we
16:58
don't use a lot of allergens. So in that way it's good for
17:02
anybody to eat. I mean we do 5 ounces of
17:04
protein, 3 1/2 ounces of carbs, and a handful of non starchy
17:08
vegetables. So each meal is about. 40 grams
17:12
of protein and about 500 calories ish in total.
17:19
So it's good for most people you know, unless you have a specific
17:24
need like you need way more protein or something.
17:28
You know it covers most bases. So yeah.
17:32
So individual nutrition plans, no.
17:34
But. Another service that we offer is
17:36
nutrition coaching. So if you so I will work with
17:40
you. Say you needed to help figuring
17:42
out this whole nutrition thing. There's a lot of misinformation
17:45
out there. There's a lot of bullshit out
17:46
there. You want to work with a
17:49
nutritionist or a dietitian or somebody?
17:51
You would come to me and I would help you break down your
17:56
nutrient needs, your macro nutrient needs, and explain that
18:00
whole process to you and help you.
18:03
You know, get on the right path there.
18:04
Yeah. So, So as far as like who this
18:07
service is really good for, right?
18:08
It's good for, you know, they don't have to be a pro athlete
18:11
to take advantage of this kind of just someone who just wants
18:13
to improve their nutrition, doesn't have the time.
18:15
Like who are some of the people that you're working with,
18:18
honestly? Anybody could benefit from this,
18:20
right? If you.
18:21
Yeah, mostly people that care about their health.
18:23
If you're somebody that cares about your health and Wellness,
18:25
then you're going to be drawn to.
18:27
Clean eating, right. But I do sponsor some athletes.
18:32
I've sponsored triathletes in the past.
18:34
Alex Best sell. You know her.
18:35
Yeah. Yeah.
18:37
Don Walton, who you've just had on this podcast, I helped him
18:40
with his his first pro fight. Cutting weight is really hard to
18:44
do. You know he had to drop like 30
18:46
pounds in a couple of months. Cutting weight without starving
18:49
yourself and completely destroying your body?
18:51
Yeah. Yeah, and it's tough to do and
18:53
it's not something. I would do with a normal person,
18:57
you know, but a pro athlete in that sport, you got to do it so,
19:01
So I helped him. I gave him all the food that he
19:03
needed. I gave him some supplements,
19:05
helped him a little with his training and got him down.
19:09
He made weight and and then the the recovery process afterwards
19:13
too, you know, that's a big deal.
19:14
You can just. You know, lose 30 pounds and be
19:17
skin and bones and then just start mounting down
19:19
cheeseburgers and milkshakes. You know, it's funny.
19:21
Years ago I, a buddy of mine was doing some of the, like, fitness
19:24
competitions, you know, and he, you know, did the whole thing
19:28
with eat and clean training for however, you know, a year or
19:31
eight months or six months or whatever it was.
19:33
And and then he went to the event, he did well in the event
19:36
and then when the event was over, he went right for the
19:39
cheeseburger and fries and blah, blah, blah.
19:40
And then like had like this crazy edema thing happening in
19:44
his legs where he like had to go to the hospital because he's
19:46
like he thought his leg was going to basically like, explode
19:49
because it was so swollen. Because all of a sudden all that
19:52
sodium and and water was getting pumped in there and his body
19:55
just didn't know how to handle it.
19:57
Yeah, you got to be really careful, especially when you're
19:59
when you're drying your body out like that for competition,
20:02
bodybuilding, yeah, yeah, they get down to like.
20:06
You know less than 3% body fat is.
20:09
Dangerous. And so you have to recover
20:11
problems. You have to reverse diet, and
20:13
that's super important. But you know, you don't have to
20:16
be a pro athlete. You don't have to be, you know,
20:19
a fighter or whatever. If you're just a busy person and
20:23
like to eat clean on the go, these meals are just two minutes
20:26
in the microwave. You could even eat them cold,
20:28
you know, So anybody who's busy, anybody who wants to eat clean
20:33
but doesn't know. Like, I'm running down here.
20:36
I'm like, stopped by my house, grabbed a thing of pasta salad,
20:40
which I don't ever eat pasta, but it was like the only thing I
20:42
had in my fridge that was cold and I could grab.
20:44
So I was like, shit, I guess I'm eating pasta and you know, and
20:48
then I'm like slamming it down on the car as I'm driving down
20:50
here. But yeah, sometimes you guys,
20:52
it's terrible to do right. That's basically just poisoned
20:55
myself, I feel like, but whatever, it could be worse.
20:58
But it's that kind of stuff though, right?
20:59
I mean, it's, you know, just be. It doesn't.
21:00
You don't have to be. In fitness.
21:02
Or be just your person that's got a crazy schedule.
21:05
Like like we do, like entrepreneurs.
21:08
I mean, I benefit so much from my own meals.
21:11
I make extras so I can take them home.
21:13
Because you know, my girlfriend, my son and I, we all live
21:16
together and we are eating them constantly just because we're
21:19
always so busy all this. Yeah, it's.
21:22
I mean, I'm, you know, you and I've geeked out a little bit
21:24
about food, and I'm a big nutrition geek.
21:27
I've said I don't have your knowledge or expertise or that
21:30
stuff. But I love listening to
21:32
podcasts, love listening, reading up on nutrition and
21:34
different things that go on. And I've done every kind of food
21:38
experiment on my body that you can do basically over the last
21:41
15 years, whether it was eating paleo or keto or all these
21:44
different kinds of things. Over the years and trying
21:46
different things, I went vegan for a while.
21:48
Vegetarian a few times. And just trying to experiment to
21:52
see what worked for my body, you know, got big and intermittent
21:56
fasting, but a huge fan of fasting and all the benefits
22:00
that come along with that. But then I did read, listen to a
22:03
podcast recently with some experts on.
22:05
I think it was on Huberman. You listen to Huberman, love his
22:08
podcast. He had a guy on talking about
22:10
fasting, though. And the guy was basically like,
22:12
listen, like there's really no benefit of intermittent fasting
22:16
compared to just. Caloric reduction.
22:18
He's like, there's no magic thing about what time of day
22:21
you're eating. It's like it's just about
22:22
reducing the amount of calories that you're eating at any given
22:25
point in time. But yeah, basically that's it.
22:27
It's calories in versus calories in.
22:29
Yeah. And that's a super general,
22:31
simplistic way of putting it. But it's very fair to say that
22:36
that's all that really matters Now.
22:38
Where things like special diets do help is, you know, like
22:43
intermittent fasting, for example.
22:45
It puts a time restriction on when you can eat.
22:47
So if you didn't do that, you know, you didn't have the
22:50
discipline to say I'm only going to eat 6 hours a day, you'd be
22:52
eating all day. You might end up eating 2000
22:55
more calories. Way more calories, right?
22:57
And that just affects your your calorie deficit.
23:00
So many different ways to skin the cat there.
23:03
And it really depends on your individual needs, your
23:06
lifestyle, your morals, you know, all kinds of different
23:11
things that can affect it. But yeah, calories in versus
23:14
calories out is plain and simple.
23:16
I I recently tried to put breakfast.
23:18
So I've been an intermittent fasting guy for years now,
23:21
right? Yeah.
23:21
So typically I, you know, I'll eat my last meal somewhere
23:24
around we'll say 7:00 o'clock at night, and then I don't eat
23:27
again until before noon the next day.
23:29
That's my rule, right? Like, I can eat at noon if I
23:31
want, or sometimes it ends up being one or two or three or
23:33
whatever it is. But about, I don't know, maybe
23:36
four or five months ago I listened to that podcast about,
23:39
like, doesn't matter what time I'm like, oh alright, I'm gonna
23:41
try breakfast out. I can't eat breakfast.
23:44
Yeah, I put on. My body is so used to what I do
23:47
now that I put on so much weight almost immediately because I
23:50
just, I was now was eating breakfast and then I was eating
23:53
lunch and then I was eating dinner.
23:54
So I literally just added an extra meal in there instead of
23:56
like right now I pretty much eat 2 meals.
23:58
I ate a lunch and then I eat at dinner and and we're calling it
24:00
quits. But yeah, it messed me all up
24:02
man. So I'm back on the don't eat
24:04
before noon trained. Sure.
24:05
Yeah, yeah, That's what your body's become accustomed to.
24:08
And, you know, it just depends on what your goals are too.
24:11
If you, you know, let's say you don't want to lose weight and
24:13
you want to gain weight, well, you know you want to gain some
24:16
muscle, you're going to have to eat more.
24:17
Yeah, and a lot of people. More of the Right Stuff, more of
24:21
the right stuff, right? I have people that come to me
24:25
that their goal is to get bigger and gain muscle.
24:27
A lot of people in the fitness world, you know, and so they're
24:30
used to, women's mostly are used to eating less and less and
24:34
starving themselves, right? It's like, no, here's the idea.
24:37
We're going to work out hard and we're going to feed your body
24:39
with the fuel that it needs. You're going to watch yourself
24:41
grow. You're going to watch the body
24:43
fat shrink and your muscles grow.
24:45
And that's the look you're going for.
24:47
You know you don't want to starve yourself too much.
24:49
No, you're going to have the opposite effect.
24:52
Yeah, definitely. Opposite effect so.
24:55
So you guys are doing your meal service.
24:56
Yep, right. And then, but you also, you're
24:59
still doing catering too, right? I'll do some catering, yeah,
25:02
little for friends and stuff. People reach out different
25:05
events and stuff. We like to be at CrossFit
25:07
events. You know, anything that can help
25:10
me spread the awareness. Of the meal prep stuff, The meal
25:13
prep stuff. Got it.
25:15
All right. Because I know that you you
25:17
catered some Food First for our party last year.
25:19
It was freaking amazing, dude. It was so good.
25:22
And I was so pissed because like, everybody was eating the.
25:26
I think it was like a short rib. OK.
25:29
Yeah. Was it a short rib?
25:30
Yeah, it was like some sort of braised beef.
25:33
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was so good.
25:35
And I was like, ooh, I'm going to have leftovers.
25:37
I'm going to eat this for like a week.
25:38
And then, like, there were no leftovers, man.
25:40
Everybody ate the food on me. And I was, I was pissed.
25:44
Should be more. I know.
25:45
It was so funny. You have a party catered, then
25:47
you're like, I don't want anyone to eat the food because I want
25:49
to. I want to eat it myself.
25:50
But yeah, yeah, well, we aim to please, you know, I like to.
25:54
So yeah, I like to do some catering events here and there.
25:59
Like I said, we had one called the Masters Classic down in
26:02
fraternity. Yeah, that was really cool
26:05
because we get to feed these athletes and be a part of the
26:07
their growth. And what a great group of people
26:09
they are down there at fraternity.
26:10
I I photographed them a bunch and just they're just all so
26:13
great and you know those guys will be doing workouts that are
26:15
just murdering them and and they're still smiling and
26:18
laughing and having a good time. Yeah.
26:20
So I wanted to get into the gyms that we partnered with to help
26:23
me spread the word. But just on that point, I walk
26:26
in there. The past, like, few months,
26:28
these guys have been going super hard.
26:29
I walk in there at 6:00 AM to make my Monday deliveries and
26:33
they're going nuts, clean and squat and jerk.
26:36
And the gym is packed and the music's raging.
26:39
Yeah, man, I'm getting out of my car listening to like a quiet,
26:42
like podcast or something, and it's like a kick in the face
26:44
when I walk in the door. It's great.
26:46
I love it. Yeah, they got the great people,
26:48
great gym, very supportive people help me out.
26:51
So yeah, like I said, I've partnered with these different
26:54
gyms everywhere from Albany up the Northway, Clifton Park,
26:59
Saratoga up in Lake George. So that has helped me spread the
27:03
word too. So if you're somebody that lives
27:05
in the capital area, not necessarily in Saratoga and you
27:08
want to try Green Fork, you can get it delivered Albany, Latham,
27:13
two spots in Clifton Park, Saratoga and Lake George.
27:17
And. And then when you say to get
27:20
delivered like you're going to deliver it to those like drop
27:22
points or they'll get it delivered right to their house,
27:24
to the drop to the drop points, got it.
27:25
So they could go to their gym or gym close by that if they didn't
27:28
even go to that gym, doesn't matter, but and they can go pick
27:30
it up there, right. And that that allows me to, you
27:33
know, spread my reach a little further and help more people.
27:38
And it also saves me from having to drive door to door in Albany,
27:41
you know, not going to do that. What's What's the price point?
27:45
I'm sure that and which I know. I'm sure it fluctuates depending
27:47
on food costs and things like that, but yeah, I've set it at
27:50
14, I've only I started at 12 years ago and I've only raised
27:55
the price by a dollar twice, and that's just because of
27:58
inflation. You.
27:59
Know. Well, yeah.
27:59
Your food costs have had to have gone up.
28:01
They did stupid amounts. Quite a bit, yeah.
28:04
Especially, you know, during COVID.
28:06
Yeah, just got a little crazy there.
28:08
Yeah. Between deliveries and supply
28:10
chain problems and yeah, everything.
28:11
Like Turkey used to be like 399. Now it's $8.
28:16
I gotta tell you, I don't know if you'll know the the answer to
28:18
this, but I so I'm at the grocery store on Friday and I'm
28:25
looking, you know, I'm looking at, I'm looking at steak and I'm
28:28
looking at burger and I'm just looking at the prices, which are
28:30
ridiculous. And anyone that goes in the
28:32
grocery store knows it's absolutely ridiculous.
28:34
And then I see chicken breast. And there it was like probably,
28:39
you know, it's a half breast, right?
28:41
And there must have been, I don't know, eight or nine of
28:44
them in the package and it was like 899.
28:47
And I'm like trying to figure out how that chicken is so
28:50
cheap. Like, is that?
28:50
Is it even real chicken at that point?
28:52
It's not good. You don't want that chicken, you
28:55
know? Right.
28:55
That's why I'm like, I'm like do I buy this right now?
28:57
I'm like this is stupid cheap but.
29:00
Like, what are they feeding that chicken?
29:02
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of gross. Yeah, right.
29:04
They pump them full of hormones and stuff to make them grow real
29:07
quick, and they feed them the cheapest stuff they can find.
29:11
And the chicken tastes like rubber.
29:12
And that's how they sell it, so cheap.
29:14
You know, it's it's gross. Yeah, it was perplexed.
29:17
Yeah, we don't use that stuff. We use.
29:18
Really good. That was good, yeah.
29:20
We try to get as clean and fresh as possible, you know, with all
29:24
the ingredients that we use. It's really tough though.
29:28
You know, we could probably have a whole conversation on the
29:31
state of agriculture in the world and in the US and it's
29:35
scary and it it's terrible. But you know, I think one of the
29:40
best things you can do is to support local by as local as
29:43
possible. And just be aware of that stuff,
29:48
you know, good versus what's what's really good, you know.
29:53
So everything we do is antibiotic free, it's hormone
29:55
free. I would really love to use local
29:59
products, you know, local chicken stuff, but but
30:02
unfortunately the farms aren't big enough to supply what I
30:04
need. I.
30:04
Was going to say I think who's I think probably the one of the is
30:07
it Buckley's over now Buckley's they can't supply you know I
30:12
need like 40 pounds of chicken breast a week.
30:16
A week. Yeah, they can't do it and Missy
30:18
Noel could, but very expensive. Yeah.
30:21
So I get the best products that I can.
30:23
I work with a company performance that works with
30:26
regional farms. So you know, I do the best I can
30:30
within the the matrix of the agricultural.
30:33
Yeah, I go on a whole kick about factory farms right now, man.
30:37
I'll tell you. Put my tin foil hat on and start
30:41
talking about how I'm trying to extricate myself from shopping
30:44
at the grocery store. That's like, my mission in life
30:45
right now. Yeah, be a local bore.
30:47
Yeah, that's one of the best ways to do it, you know?
30:50
Local bore. I've never heard that term.
30:51
I love it. I need a hat that says local
30:53
bore. Yeah.
30:54
Oh, for sure. That's amazing.
30:56
Yeah, I've got this like theory out on how we should all be
30:59
eating regionally, you know, and locally.
31:02
And we we could totally self sustain that way.
31:05
But you know, The thing is, you wouldn't be able to have
31:07
tomatoes in the winter, right? It just wouldn't work.
31:09
Or avocados at all. And I love avocados.
31:12
Man, you'd have to sacrifice. Quite a bit.
31:14
That's a tough one. Yeah, I don't know.
31:16
We'll figure it out, yeah. There's a lot of cool ideas
31:18
around that stuff and if you dig into there's some good to it.
31:23
You know, there's a lot of history and and things that you
31:26
can learn from the follies of of the agricultural system and the
31:30
and the way that we've done it so far.
31:32
Rape and pillars, the earth and yeah, have all these huge mono
31:35
craft farms. There are better ways to do it,
31:38
and a lot of folks are starting to wake up.
31:40
To that no till regenerative farming man that's what we're
31:43
working on out at the at the farm that's great.
31:46
It's creating that that no till regenerative system that you
31:50
know just gets everything back kind of into balance the way
31:52
it's supposed to be. Yeah, biodiversity.
31:55
The soil better. Not using inputs, chemical
31:58
inputs like fertilizers and all those things in order to keep
32:01
your. You don't need it if you're.
32:03
You know, doing certain things on your farm with livestock and
32:07
everything else. So.
32:07
Right, right. And if you take it, use that
32:09
chicken breast for example, but you know, transfer it over to
32:12
like a carrot, right? So an industrial grown carrot
32:15
that's huge and it's super cheap, is mostly water, You know
32:20
there's no nutrients in that carrot.
32:21
But if you take a carrot from your farm where it's been fed
32:26
with tons of good nutrients, fresh soil, it's going to be way
32:29
tasting, way better, but also much more full of nutrients.
32:32
Yeah, healthy. Yeah.
32:34
That's how I recently read an article about these oranges
32:36
coming out of. I won't say where they're coming
32:38
out of, but oranges with no vitamin C in them?
32:41
Yeah, because they're growing these things with just chemical
32:43
inputs. And while they're technically
32:45
growing in orange, they're growing in orange with no
32:47
nutritional value whatsoever. It's crazy.
32:50
Yeah, that's sad too. Yeah, you know.
32:53
Yeah, scary. So that's, that's my goal really
32:55
is to just help spread knowledge more than anything, right?
33:00
Like, I can cook for you, I can provide your meals.
33:03
But really what I want to do in this community is be a voice of
33:07
knowledge, you know, in terms of real food nutrition.
33:11
You know, how can you, how can you apply these food rules?
33:17
You know, to quote Michael Pollan, who's one of my favorite
33:19
food authors, How can you apply them and just make good choices
33:22
about what you're eating? You know, because knowledge is
33:25
power, right? Goes a long way.
33:26
And so there's, like I said before, there's so much
33:29
misinformation and so much garbage out there regarding
33:32
nutrition. And it's really quite simple.
33:36
And so if I can educate people on that and empower the
33:39
community, you know, I think that's like the intro to this
33:42
podcast, right? Because like, you know, start
33:44
small and support your local community and then that helps
33:47
the whole world grow. Absolutely.
33:49
So yeah. Yeah, if you want to change the
33:51
world, buy local. That's all you got to do, man,
33:53
right And and and be a local voice like.
33:56
Teach. Yeah, yeah, help everybody out.
33:58
Yeah, it's amazing. I just how many people are are
34:02
ignorant of like what food does in your body and and how it
34:05
reacts in your body and bad food and good food and and why you
34:09
know like what eating. All that stuff from the grocery
34:12
store really is doing your body like, yeah.
34:15
It's pretty gross, Yeah. If you know where it comes from
34:17
and exactly what it is and what's what it's doing to your
34:20
body, you probably won't want to eat it.
34:21
No. You know, And so many people
34:24
just don't have the education around that, so they don't know.
34:27
So they think a hot dog is a good choice.
34:30
You know it's not. Or like eating.
34:34
I won't use the brand name, but there's meat sticks that we all
34:37
know love, you know? And then you look at it, There's
34:39
like things in there that are endocrine disruptors.
34:41
And it's like, do you know what an endocrine disruptor does to
34:43
your body? Because if you did, you wouldn't
34:45
be enjoying that meat stick ever again.
34:47
Yeah. I mean, ever since I actually
34:49
learned about nutrition and and what food really is.
34:53
Yeah. I don't look at it the same.
34:55
Yeah, anymore. You know, there's certain things
34:59
that I just won't touch at all. I look at it and I think it's
35:01
gross. You know, a lot of things that
35:03
come in packages are no good. That's a pretty simple rule to
35:07
follow. Yeah.
35:08
But but in terms of like actual real food too, like I look at
35:12
everything is in terms of proteins, carbs and fats and
35:15
like try to eat a rainbow. And so it's kind of skewed my my
35:21
vision on food and reality, I guess, in a way.
35:24
It's hard. It's hard sometimes to enjoy
35:25
food when you're like, Oh no, I need to get this much protein in
35:28
so. Well, that's what Green Forks
35:30
does though, right? That's, you know, helps, helps
35:32
people not have to worry about that.
35:34
So yeah, exactly. Yeah.
35:35
And like I said, more than anything, my vision for Green
35:38
Fork is to be a force in the community for spreading
35:43
knowledge around nutrition and food and healthy eating and and
35:46
that type of stuff. That's awesome Wellness in
35:48
general. So, so people want to find you.
35:51
Maybe they're interested in your meal prep service, or maybe
35:53
personal training, or although at the amazing things that you
35:56
do, How do how do they find you? You can go on my website
35:58
itseatgreenfork.com on Instagram as Green Fork Eats.
36:04
And my personal Instagram where I do some of my fitness stuff is
36:08
Zabala, under score PRML. And you can find me on Facebook
36:13
too. Steven Zabala.
36:15
Awesome. Well, I appreciate you coming
36:16
in, man, taking time to talk with us and tell us about what
36:19
you're doing. Yeah.
36:20
Thank you very much and thanks for being who you are and
36:23
spreading the word on local businesses.
36:25
We're trying. It's super important.
36:27
Like I talked about eating local.
36:29
You also need to support your local businesses and keep things
36:32
in the community as much as you can. 100%, yeah.
36:35
Appreciate it. Thanks, everybody.
36:37
Thanks, Steven. Until next time, check us out,
36:40
you can find us. Pretty much anywhere you get
36:42
podcasts these days. Spotify, Apple, Google, and you
36:47
can also get us on our websites, whether it's Saratoga,
36:51
businessreport.com, glensfallstoday.com.
36:53
And I think we may even have a listing on
36:56
saratogatodaynewspaper.com as well.
36:57
So check us out everybody. Thank you, Derazio Peterson Law
37:02
Firm. They believe in educating
37:04
individuals about their legal rights, empowering them to stand
37:07
up for those rights, and guiding them towards the right decision
37:11
in difficult situations because legal problems are never
37:15
one-size-fits-all. The superpower that every
37:18
citizen has is the ability to control where they spend their
37:21
time, money and attention by focusing these on supporting
37:25
local businesses who are having a profound impact on your
37:28
friends, your family and your local community.
37:31
So if you want to change the world, you can start with buying
37:34
local.