Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #265: Did RFK Jr. Keep His Promises, Edible Plastic Cookies, and the Rise of 3D-Printed Nutrition

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Episode #265: Did RFK Jr. Keep His Promises, Edible Plastic Cookies, and the Rise of 3D-Printed Nutrition · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Kennedy talked about how um he and Trump have kept their promise to the American people.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact is, nature doesn't have any waste.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of these quote unquote ag wastes should be kept on site.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: A farm should not have any waste product.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: It completely severs the food production from agriculture.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: So what they've done is welcome everyone to another episode of Beyond Labels Podcast with Joel Zallatin.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: That would be me, the farmer, and our favorite researcher, Dr.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Cena McCullough.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: As a current event recently, RFK Jr.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: um spoke to the Republican National Convention in Texas.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um I don't know how many of you got to listen to it.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is a Cena and I both felt like it was a profound uh speech.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's been touted as perhaps one of his best ever, and um got interrupted a lot of times with applause.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to take partisan sides here, but we um we we thought it'd be good to just accentuate some of the things that he said, just statistics, uh, where we are as a nation.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Cena, I think you have some of those.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So Kennedy talked about how um he and Trump have kept their promise to the American people, and he said we're bearing that out in data.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: So the first the first statistic he um presented was that the US is eating more real food.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So then in 2025, real food sales were up by eight percent.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that's fantastic.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we can if we could shift to shift toward real food and away from from commodity crops, I think that's always a plus.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: So then the other statistic Kennedy uh you know relayed was he said that since Trump took office, obesity is down 7% after 40 years of increasing rates of obesity.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think that's from Ozimpic?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was my first thought.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I think this is you know, in probably in large part because of those medications.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, but I mean, you know, it's that whole thing of well, if on one hand, if the people have lost weight, that could be a good thing uh for health, but then there's the side effects of the of the medications.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I don't know, Joel, because there's also been reports of people who have been overweight, um, and they have not had, for example, like high inflammatory markers in their lab tests and things.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, not that I'm promoting people being overweight, but I'm just saying it's not black and white.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so once again, here's a statistic that you can use to try to say, oh, look at the good that we've done.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it is it's going to be much more nuanced than that.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: But the headlines are going to run with it, you know, and say, oh, they're done great.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So um, but either way, they're showing a trend, right?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're showing a trend that people are eating more real food, presumably less processed food, and that people are losing weight.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the other statistic that they cited, and he said that he had, it was hot off the press when he gave that speech.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: He had just heard from the CDC that they have reversed a 30-year decline in longevity.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: So most of us are familiar with that statistic where people have been citing now for a while that for the first time in history, our children are predicted to die at a younger age than their parents.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're saying that, like, so we're reversing that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're um we're actually going to be living longer now.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: So again, I'm not sure what data they're using to make that claim, but man, that sounds like a good headline going into the midterms.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, yeah, it does.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, but aside from that, um, you know, I watched the whole speech and I I thought it was a fantastic speech.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he he talked about um his father and his uncle, you know, JFK, and um and Ted Kennedy.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he talked about how the party, the Democratic Party of their generation is different than the party today.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And he went through line by line, and basically you could tell what he was doing was explaining why he moved from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he actually did a really good job, um, a beautiful job of laying that out.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And partly because, you know, anybody like my my parents, if they were alive, like watching that, it would have invoked um uh emotions, like it would have emotionally tugged at their heart.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I was raised in a family that revered JFK, and so um, you know, and most of my family um is Democrat even today, and they would always tell me that there is a distinction.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: There was a there was a Kennedy Democrat, Democrat, and there's a modern Democrat.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he he did a good job.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I still like most of my family still lives in California, and they don't like what's happening in California.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And get this, Joel.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: When I was just out there visiting, some of my uncles, right?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: These are longtime Democrats, and you know, one um is a journalist who would write, you know, in favor of Democratic Party.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: He has said he doesn't like what's happening in California so much.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: The the party swung too far there.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: So for the first time in his life, he is considering voting Republican, like which just it tells you, I mean, parties have shifted throughout history, you know, throughout American history.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: The parties the party shift, which is another reason why I learned from a young age, don't attach an R, a D, or you know, an L or anything behind your name because the party shifts.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: So don't pledge allegiance to a party.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I thought Kennedy did a great job of actually laying that out, that the party has shifted.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and and my family identifies in large part as Kennedy Democrats.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it made perfect sense to me, brought back endearing memories of you know, of Kennedy and them talking about it.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So he he did a great job of invoking the emotion there, explaining the history.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell you, Joel, um I I walked away from that talk, and I said, wow, Kennedy is a Republican, like he was declaring that he's a Republican.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And Kennedy may even be running for office at some point again because of that speech.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I thought, oh, I want to go run out to um DC and like go attend a vet that he's at because he was so um he connected them.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can hear them, you know, the audience, Republican audience, they were cheering for him, they were booing at appropriate times.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were eating out of the palm of his hands.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: And even my father-in-law, he's a Republican, and he they're not really, you know, into the food stuff.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: They kind of tolerate me and my face.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he called and he was saying that that speech by Kennedy was the best speech he's ever heard at at a Republican national convention.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: That he was taken, he was really taken by him.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: So he did a fantastic job.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he even talked about Charlie Kirk.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and he said that Trump has um followed through with every promise that he made to Kennedy.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: So he was really trying to like clear the air and get out there.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And clearly, clearly to me, to me, this was him like putting a stake in the ground and saying, I am no longer a Democrat, I am a Republican, and trying to get the Republicans to accept him.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: But did you have the same yeah, I I actually had the same same impression as well.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's hard for us to appreciate what that what that was for him and has been for him.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, most of his family has broken with him.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and to have that level of uh you know partisan legacy, legacy in your ancestry, I mean, he is a Democrat blue blood, if there ever was one.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the whole Kennedy family.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um and uh so so to make that decision, yeah, I I just think I just think he he's uh he's in general um a guy you can trust.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, he's done a couple things like going along with the glyphosate um administrative thing.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, those have been uh those are over here on my black mark list.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and precision agriculture with the drones and the lasers.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and the biometric monitoring, you know, like yeah.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: But he did he did excoriate Fauci and um and really uh took on that whole big pharma establishment.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And um and big food yeah, yeah, big food, yeah.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a big it's a big thing.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, uh I'm uh you know you can't you can't burn the house down for one little you know for a for a couple of imperfections.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of this is uh is lesser of evils, even and so you you know you uh you take you take what you what you can.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think I think he's got generally integrity, and uh I thought it was I thought it was just a great speech.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't heard it, I would encourage our listeners to um it's not long and and uh and listen to it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh you know, of course, you know, RFK Jr., bless his heart, is not the easiest person to listen to because he's got that voice issue, but he was so um he seemed relaxed and spontaneous.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's got this, he's got this way, he you know, kind of waves his finger, you know, and uh and and it's it's really it's really quite quite endearing.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not it's not he doesn't come across like a like a uh a formal uh you know mannequin mannequin politician.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: He he comes across as someone who's just talking from his heart, and uh it was good.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's Kennedy.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think you have another another one, um some sort of um cookies.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, okay, Joel.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Cookies we all want for supper.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: I know, and I was like, okay, Joel, I I read this headline and I thought, okay, so let me read the headline to you, and I'll tell you my thoughts.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Scientists turn plastic waste into edible cookies because that's the future we deserve.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's literally uh a headline, a news headline.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, okay, Joel, oh my goodness.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so they've they've genetically modified our corn, our soy, like, you know, all these things they come after they've come after, but now they've gone too far because now they're coming after the cookies.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So this is what's happened.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: We now have um, now these are not for sale, but let me tell you um, I'm uh a direction in which I think this is going.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we have genetically engineered 3D printed cookies that are being made from recycled plastic and agricultural waste products.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: So this creation was born out of NASA's deep space food challenge.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, this was a challenge that they posed because um NASA is targeting a man on the moon in, oh sorry, a man on Mars, already been there, a man on the Mars on Mars in the late 2030s to the early 2040s.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And they're saying that they need to be able to feed a crew of astronauts on this deep space mission for at least two to three years.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: So they set out a challenge that they're trying to see if people can figure out how to solve this food problem for them while improving life here on Earth.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: So there were um over 300 teams that entered over 32 different countries.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: The competition, I think, lasted about four years.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: It has ended.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the entries included these cookies.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: They're called microbites.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're from researchers out of um Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was led by a microbiologist.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: And essentially, they are using genetically engineered yeast to help make these cookies.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: So they're taking, um, and I'm just gonna go through this in in brief.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: They have they start with plastic.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: So this would be like plastic water bottles, for example.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they treat them with heat, water, pressure, and oxygen.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: They break down that plastic and agricultural waste into smaller carbon molecules, and that creates like this liquid, what they're calling a liquid feedstock.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: The liquids put in a bioreactor and yeast are put in there.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, there's a yeast strain that has been engineered using CRISPR technology, and it's been engineered to consume some of these plastic breakdown products like ethylene glycol.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's other yeast that will overproduce beta-carotene or a pro forma of vitamin A.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's going to give the cookie more nutrition, but also like a golden hue.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then they've added uh another type of yeast that was modified by Chris Bergen to consume the um ferulic acid from the crop waste.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it turns it into a biosynthesized, what they're calling natural vanilla for an aroma and for a flavor.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's all done in this bioreactor.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Then they put a third strain of yeast in.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this is a wild type yeast to add um bulk.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: So then they take that combined yeast biomass.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: So biomass is pretty much just the yeast bodies, right?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: These are the physical bodies of the yeast.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: They're taking this, harvesting it, separating it out from that broth.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: They call it a broth, and then they kill it using heat.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: So what that means is these dead yeast organisms are serving as this structural protein-dense quote unquote flour that they then use for the cookie dough.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: So they blend this flour with starches, you know, fiber, sweeteners, whatever else, and they turn it into this paste.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then the 3D printer prints it.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: They put one layer of this yeast paste down at a time until they get the cookie, and then they microwave it in order to bake in and firm it up, and also to kill off any living organisms that might be on the cookie.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yum, like so, so part of this, um, so I I told my kids about this, and they thought, okay, gross.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna eat it, but how creative, right?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like that we're it is kind of a creative and you know, ingenious idea.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: So here's the thing, though.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Some people are saying, oh, this is like a green cookie because they're using heat, water, pressure, and oxygen to break down the plastics and the agricultural waste.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: But if you look at what they do after that, they're using chemicals and reagents like um it could be antibiotics, lithium acetate, polyethylene glycol, ammonia sulfate, sodium hydroxide, they use anti-foaming agents to make this cookie.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so there are other chemicals that are being used.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so it's not like this green, this green cookie.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, but here here's my big takeaway on this, though.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just because these cookies were made for astronauts on Mars, it doesn't mean that we're safe from these cookies on Earth.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because oftentimes some like seemingly obscure food ideas of today help shape our food landscape, and they actually become commonplace years later.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: So one example is Joel, you probably know the what is the history of canned food?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do we get canned food?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I just figured people people wanted to preserve food.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, okay.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just like I remember at your farm, you learned something that I didn't know about food labels in the grocery store.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I can't believe I know something about homesteading that you don't know.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Was it for travel?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was for military purposes.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh okay so okay, quick story.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: So this was in the late 1700s.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: The French military was having like a massive logistical nightmare.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: They had soldiers and sailors that were like just dying like flies.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't just because of combat, but it was from like scurvy, starvation, and food poisoning from food spoiling.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: So what happened was they were going on these long campaigns.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so the old ways of preserving food, like drying and salting and smoking, couldn't keep up with the needs of the army.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: So in 1795, the French government put forth a challenge.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: They were offering 12,000 francs, which was like a fortune back then, to anybody who can invent a brand new way to preserve food so that the military could eat and they could win these wars.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: So Nicholas Apert was a confectioner and a chef.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: He spent 14 years in his kitchen experimenting with this idea that people thought was crazy at the time.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up packaging soups, fruits, dairy products, syrups, and vegetables into these thick glass bottles.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: He'd seal them with this airtight cork and wax, and then he would submerge them underwater and boil them for hours.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And Joel, it worked.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: The food would stay fresh for months.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: So he collected the 12,000 francs prize and he published his groundbreaking method for the world.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just months after that, across the English Channel, there's an inventor named Peter Durand, and he patented that the idea.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: So he took Apert's idea and he patented the tin canister.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was a tin-plated iron canister.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of using the fragile glass that Apert used, he put it into cans, and then we got canning.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that happened in 1810.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was like this double idea breakthrough that led to modern canning.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, we all know that in America, canned foods found a home here during the Civil War.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, just a little uh, you know, you like history.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, oh, let's add a little history here.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So no, that that's fascinating.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I did not know that story.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I did not know that story.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it was really for war purposes.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And a little side, a little Jeopardy trivia.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Did you know the can opener wasn't invented until almost 50 years later, like after the can was invented?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, so they would yeah, people use like hammers, chisels, and even bayonets to open up these cans.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what I'm saying is you can see how um a cr uh some like um even the government, you know, for military purposes, can incentivize uh an invention.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: That can be used in mainstream today.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like how many houses have canned goods today, right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: We don't even think anything of it.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they thought it was crazy back then.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: So fast forward to today, um, to this challenge.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not far off to think that these cookies might make it because they're already talking about how this type of technology can actually help with um food waste, food shortages, disaster relief, even supplying like Arctic labs um with these foods.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what so one thing that they're doing, uh so okay.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna ask you this because they're talking about, and then I'll share another couple inventions that came out of this NASA food challenge, because one of them, one of these inventions is producing a product that could actually be on our grocery store shelf soon.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so in terms of this one though, it is an interesting idea.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have a problem with too much plastic, right?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: The landfills filling up with this plastic.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: In traditional recycling, that's downcycling, right?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: So the plastic bottle can be melted and remodeled.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then the polymer chains can end up, you know, fracturing.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: It it decreases the strength of the plastic.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: And at some point, um, it in theory becomes unrecyclable, right?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you incinerate it or put it in the landfill.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: This technology is going to allow them to actually take these plastics and turn them into fundamental carbon building blocks, allegedly.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then they can turn that into brand new high-value materials, like um, they're saying like proteins and enzymes and stuff.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: They can also turn it into pharmaceuticals.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, instead of having to take more like oil, right, and refine that to make pharmaceuticals or different medications, which they do today, they can just keep recycling stuff.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: So they're saying the same thing about the agricultural waste products.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what I wanted to ask you about.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So the claim is that millions of tons of inedible crop residues like corn stocks, husk, and straw, are actually um waste.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're waste.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're turned into like high protein animal feed, pet food, or human food ingredients.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're saying that they can stop that from, they can they can utilize this better by engineering these microbes to digest this fibrous cellulose and the ferulic acid I mentioned and transform that into um food-like ingredients that the human stomach can actually process so they can stick it into our food.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is this a good idea?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, my first my first reaction, and and I'm I'm yeah, Virginia, our state, has done numerous uh things to try to deal with you know crop residues and stuff.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact is, you know, nature, nature doesn't have any waste.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so all of these these quote unquote ag wastes um should be kept on site.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if it's if it's sun, if it's sun-developed biomass, it should be kept on site to re to to decompose and add fertility to the soil uh whence it grew.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so the whole the whole idea of a waste product uh from the farm a farm should not have any waste product.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a well-managed farm, should not have a waste product.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it's like these uh these biogas digesters, you know, at these big confinement operations.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the only reason the only reason that those things work or that they're being done in those operations is because you've got way too much poop in one spot.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you spread it out the way nature does, there is no waste.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we have is we have all these um all these industrial solutions to an industrial problem that were were created by an industrial mindset that was an uh uh uh a nature antagonistic mentality.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so now this whole set of dominoes starts up with problems and and and and and and all the things that nature intended for blessings become curses.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, that's my that's my take.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and and of course, you know, what's interesting about all this is who wants to eat this for four years and see what effect it has on the human body.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, not me.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: My even even my little girl who she literally just turned six.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: I told her about these, you know, edible cookies, and she said, I don't want that.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like she's like her exact words were I'm not eating that.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh Trinity, Trinity is above average.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she's like Lake Wobagon where all the all the uh everybody's above average.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um but but I mean, do do they do they really think that they've got something that's that doesn't have long-term, I mean, I guess they do.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um they think they've got something that doesn't have long-term human impacts, but you know, between you and me and the fence post, uh do you think you think anybody's gonna run a, you know, uh, a 10 year a 10-year feeding cycle on this to see what effect it has on humans?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're not gonna they're not gonna run a long-term.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I said 10 years.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's let's let's put it out there um to to do a long-term test.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: So even if it does, even if it does pass, you know, FDA muster and uh becomes a um you know ends up on our grocery store shelves, um who knows what kind of effect it's gonna have long term.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I don't even think they know.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I doubt that so I would want to know at least, I mean, I'm not gonna eat it, but I would at least want to know if all those intermediate chemicals that I mentioned, like the heavy metal catalyst, you know, for example, are they a hundred percent eliminated from that harvested biomass?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so it it it is so rare to get something a hundred percent, like it in any process that's been created by a human, it's so rare to get a hundred percent.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, um, and I doubt they're gonna even test for that.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if this does come around, and let's say they do get a or they do or they are going for approval, they're probably not gonna test for that.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably not gonna be required, but you know, with our US government um kind of backwards approach to regulating uh like if it causes harm, then we'll see.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Then then we'll see if we wanna take that off the market, right?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be uh it it'll it'll be grass.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be generally oh yeah, oh for sure it's gonna be grass, but oh, which yes, okay, that leads me to um my next one.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, these two pair together.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: So um, okay, so in this one, the first one, they're taking plastics and and agricultural products that they're calling waste and turning them into some kind of food stuff, okay?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna love this one, Joel.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the runner-up in this competition was Nolex.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And what they've done is they remove the need for sun or LED grow lights in order to grow plants for us to eat.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: So they were this is out of UC Riverside and University of Delaware.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: They got awarded uh runner-up status for an artificial photosynthesis.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's gonna bypass natural light to feed plants like lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, and algae.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And they're doing this even in in the dark, total dark.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're doing it through feeding the the plants an acetate solution.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously, you know, this this would work in in like a Mars condition, okay.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can think of it that way.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they produced it for.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you this one I can see being used soon, and I'll tell you why.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, as we know, plants naturally convert the sunlight, the water, and the carbon dioxide into food, and they do that through photosynthesis, okay.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, what this company has figured out how to do is that they are using um electricity and um water and CO2, and they're they are um creating this acetate two-carbon building block, and then they're giving it to the plants.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, this is going to be hydroponic because they're give they're giving it to them in this like water slurry, and then the plants are using their built-in metabolic savage salvage pathways to actually build sugar and cellulose in the total darkness.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: So they plants have these pathways so that, for example, if the seed is uh in the soil and it needs to germinate, it can actually create sugar in darkness.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then if it's stressed out, if the plant's stressed out, like in a drought condition, it will trigger this pathway as well.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: But keep in mind, um, when it's stressed out, it's kind of like the plant's holding its breath, right?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, think of a stress in human humans and what that causes and what metabolic responses result from that.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the plants are not designed to be in a chronic state of stress.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: So what they've done is they've utilized this stress pathway um to make it create sugars in the dark.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: So they've um they've completely removed the need for sunlight or for the LED grow lights.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is how I think it's probably going to be integrated into our food first.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: There is a thing called subterranean indoor farming.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure you've have you heard of this, Joel?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so please, please feel free to jump in any moment and add to this.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there's farming that that's done underground.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's done in like abandoned subway tunnels or decommissioned air raid shelters, retired mine shafts, deep basements, hollowed-out limestone caverns, just for example.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the thought is that you don't have to use up land to do it, right?
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because these things are already there.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to use up land.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you're not subject to um the weather conditions, right?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: In these deeper caves, it tends to be cooler, um, and you're not having to deal with like weeds, for example, uh, because these are often hydroponically grown and highly controlled.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: So there's one in the UK, in London, and this is grown, they're growing food underground in a decommissioned World World II air raid shelter.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: This food that's grown like 100 feet below um the streets in London is hydroponic vertical farming.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: They're saying it's zero carbon, and you can already buy it there.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's available at Whole Foods, Amazon, Fresh Online.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Chefs can buy it and use it in restaurants.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's one here in America, in Kansas City.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually the world's largest underground business complex.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: It houses um 55 companies, over 6 million square feet of buildings.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's 1700 employees that literally go underground and work there.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's always around 65 degrees.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: So some companies, for example, have figured out oh, it's 65 degrees, it's cooler down here.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: We can host computer servers down here and maybe some data centers down here.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Hollywood stores some movie films down there, like Gone with the Wind.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: But we're also storing seeds and food.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And biotech labs are keeping elite plant lines stored down there, like tissue cultures, for example.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: So this is actually already happening.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the thought is they don't want to use um LED grow lights down there in these subterranean indoor farming areas because that's expensive, right?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it takes energy.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: So now the thought is oh, we can just feed them acetate, right?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: We can use this technology that's been created and just um avoid not only soil now, but avoid sun and avoid even light from LED and just grow our plants in total darkness and eat them, and we'll all be happy.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure we will.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the last one I wanted to share, and I want to get your take on it.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: This one is similar.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: So this was actually the international winner in this NASA food challenge.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this one comes from Solar Foods, and I will tell you, this one has actually already um been uh been available in um Singapore and here in America, and I'll get into that in just a moment.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: So this one, they were awarded first place in the international category for their microbial gas fermentation system.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want to go into you know all of the nuances of the science here and just bore people completely, but the gist of this one is that it comp it completely severs the food production from agriculture.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: So what they've done is um they're using electricity.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: So they're also using water and CO2, but they're bypassing the need for the farmland, so for the crop, for the sunlight, and for the land.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're using electricity to split water.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: So once again, as a scientist, I'm like, this is super cool, but I don't want to eat this food.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: So they're using electricity to split um water.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then what they do is they have bacteria that, you know, usually when you're growing bacteria, you would feed it sugar from like um corn or sugarcane products, but instead they're feeding the sugar um um like a hydrogen gas.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the the bacteria then multiply and they make this protein powder.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you bacteria is actually high in protein.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're growing it to make a high protein powder, which would be like a flour, that they can then blend into making high protein breads, high protein pastas, high protein shakes, and possibly meat alternatives.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you can clearly see where this one could easily get onto the market.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they're saying that these um hydrogen oxidizing bacteria rank among the most protein-dense organisms on earth, producing like 55 to 70 percent 75 percent crude protein.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: You compare that to beef, beef is 26%.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, soy flour is 50%, dried milk is 36%.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: So they're making this argument that, oh, it has more protein, for example, than beef.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a great alternative to meat.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: What they're missing is that the whole animal proteins are by far superior in digestibility and human overall bioavailability.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they actually it's not going to be able to compete against beef.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: But that aside, the protein is called soline.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: S-O-L-E-I-N.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Singapore was the first country in the world to give soline the full regulatory clearance as a novel food.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: And they did this, Joel, back in um 2022.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: They um there were limited edition consumer products available.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: So they stuck it in, for example, dairy-free chocolate gelato, um, snack bars, ice cream sandwiches, and some restaurants um used it and served it under like a limited edition thing to drum up interest.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: So America has already approved it.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: We approved it in 2024.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: They legally, uh the FDA legally cleared it for commercial use and sale in food production here in America.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: And guess what they used to approve it?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Which loophole?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Grass.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: They used grass, big surprise.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, our old friend grass.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it has been approved here.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it is not like a standalone item that you can buy.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's thought that it's gonna be business to business um, you know, food ingredient, so so sold to like big companies that are gonna manufacture these processed foods and put this in it.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: Anything from baked goods to protein bars, and like I said, to pastas and dairy alternatives.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: It it is um, and and it's my understanding, they're working on this.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um, it is going to have to be labeled, it's gonna have to be listed as something like dried microbial biomass or um bacterial protein powder.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: They can also call it something probably like single-cell protein or or dried soil microbe, because this one is made using this bacteria that's found in the soil.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you see what I'm saying?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's some fancy um speak that they could do here to kind of dupe people into not realizing what it is.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: The front of the label can even say, for marketing purposes, non-GMO, animal free, complete protein.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it could even say something like that.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um it it's so we're gonna have to be watching the market.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'll keep watching, um, you know, figure out if and when this thing does actually come out.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: But again, it's already been approved um by our FDA, so it can come out.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the reason why I'm speculating on the label is because we've seen this story before with um a similar precedent existed for um corn, Q Q U O R N.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's that meat substitute that's um that's not made from soy or wheat or pea.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually made from a soil fungus.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was mandatory labeling from that.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: But here's what I was thinking, Joel.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: People consume that product, that Q, that corn, Q-U-O-R-N product.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's in major chains, Target's, you know, Kroger, Walmart, Publix, natural food stores sell it.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: People are consuming that, even though it's actually scientifically speaking, that fungus is actually classified as a mold.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you're actually eating mold, like dead mold in this product, right?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have, and I say that because if you have a mold sensitivity, you might not want to be consuming those products.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: It has been reported to actually cause reactions in people with mold sensitivity.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: But aside from that, it also obtained grass status way back in 2001.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Its sales are going strong.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if people are willing to eat dead masses of mold, don't you think they might be willing to eat dead masses of bacteria?
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'm I'm convinced that you know most people shop based on price.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever's cheapest.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean they don't they don't sit down and intentionally get up in the morning and say, I don't care what I eat.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: They don't do that.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: What they do say is I'm gonna buy the cheapest food out there.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I have enough money left over to do other things, or you know, so I can afford to pay my rent.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so I I I'm convinced that price is price dominates every food decision there is, in in my opinion.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think price and convenience.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Price and convenience, yeah.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and all of this stuff is convenience.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, these are all that's an excellent point.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: These are all convenience foods.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, even with that corn one, Q-U-O-R-N, somebody may actually be going in the supermarket and going up and down the aisles, and they may be thinking that they're doing something good, like they're trying to find um an alternative to meat that isn't made from you know the commoditized crops, the the soy and the corn and whatnot.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: So they may actually uh like they probably have good intentions, is what I'm saying.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's just so hard to discern these labels, especially with that clever marketing speak.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, imagine one of them going down the aisle and the front of the package says non-GMO, animal free, complete protein.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: All right, and their kids screaming next to them and trying to get out of the grocery store, they're probably gonna grab it, you know, and thinking it's a good thing.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I'm saying we we have to, you know, be savvy in in the market.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to flip that over and read the ingredient label because they can't put, they they have to list it based on a um like a commonly recognized name.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: They can't put like a patented trade name there.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: So just flip it over and look.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, talk about these things potentially coming to the market, you know, because sometimes when you hear things about like, oh, 3D printed cookies made of plastic, people are gonna say, well, okay, how likely is that gonna be on the market?
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um I will tell you there has already been 3D printed supplements on the market in America.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: So uh there's a company who introduced 3D printed seven-layered vitamin gummies.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this was a company out of um the UK called Nourished.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's a personalized nutrition tech company, and they partnered with Boots Ireland, which is a pharmacy giant.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: So what they decided to do was, you know, instead of you walking into the grocery store or getting on Amazon and looking at supplements that are like, you know, generic multivitamin pills or generic vitamin C.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: They are using um a patented food grade 3D print technology paired with AI to help you personalize your gummy supplements.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, and I tried this, you can go on their website and you can take a quiz.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is one route.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's two routes.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: One is you can take this quiz and it's AI driven, and you give it information like lifestyle things, your sleeping habits, your stress patterns, activity level, your wellness goals, and it will do a search through all of their formulations, you know, using their algorithms, and it will pull up the supplement that it thinks is right for you.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, alternatively, Joel, you can go on that website and you can pick, you can create your own supplement.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it's seven layers, right?
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because the 3D printer will print one layer at a time of this gummy.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you can go on that website and say, Oh, I want vitamin C in one layer, or I want echinasia in one layer and completely personalize your own supplement.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: That this used to be available um in America.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: There was import regulations that happened that made it so they could not ship it here.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: So right now it's in the UK.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: But the last report I read said that that company it was so successful here when they had that limited time that you could buy it in America, that they are setting up physical operations in America so that they're just gonna bypass these import problems and now and then we'll be able to get it.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll they'll just make it here, they'll just make it here.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're just gonna make it here.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: But so that's what I'm saying.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like the technology is already here, and people are already able to personalize what they want.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: And people love it.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: People love this, Joel.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, who doesn't want per personalized nutrition?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know where they're thinking it's gonna go next?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: Personalized meals.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna be able to go and you're gonna be able to click what you want that 3D printer to create for you, and it's gonna make the meal for you and your specific needs and ship it even better.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: You can give it your information.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say you got test results, you know, like you had a physical done or whatnot, and you're saying, I don't know what to eat.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so confused.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many different opinions out there in the nutrition space.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm gonna give this company uh my data, I'm gonna upload my test results.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: Their AI system is going to figure out what my needs are, my dietary needs, my supplement needs, completely personalize it for me, print it and ship it to me.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's where this is actually going.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know the speed at which this is coming, of course.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I didn't even know they had this 3D printered, seven-layered um vitamin gummy already, but they do.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's coming fast.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's coming faster than any of us probably ever predicted.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think it's something to watch.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: And also one thing I wanted to bring up, I know we're almost at a time, but as soon as I heard of, oh, the 3D printed vitamin gummy, I instantly said, uh no, like this has to stop.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I gotta want 3D printed gummies, okay?
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then I told um and I looked at the ingredients, and and they do say like it's a cleaner version, and it is.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: I did look at the ingredients in some of these products that that that web that that company is selling.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's cleaner than some of a lot of the gummies that you can buy on the market here, okay.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: So when I told Donnie, my husband, this story, uh I fully expected him to also push back.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he had a different take on it.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: He said, What's wrong with 3D printing a supplement?
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Well, you know, like because in my mind, I think of 3D printing as you're printing plastic, because we have there's 3D printed toys, for example, all over, you know, and they're all made out of plastic.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he and he corrected me.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, Well, yes, that's one thing that's been used, but the 3D printer is just a technology.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is the real difference between a 3D printer and actually in an industrial setting where they're producing these gummies at the mass level using all of this machinery?
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: What is the difference?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: They're still creating like they're they're creating the ingredients, they're putting in these huge vats, and they're basically plopping it into these molds using a machine.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what is the 3D printer doing?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: You are feeding in ingredients and it's just printing it out.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so the real crux of it is if it's garbage in, it's garbage out, right?
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: So these gummies that we're buying right now that are mass-produced, a lot of that's garbage in, regardless of the technology they're using to make the gummy, and it's garbage out, right?
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: So this one, if they're saying we're gonna put clean, uh cleaner products into the 3D printer and you get to pick the ingredients yourself, and we'll just print it out for you, then it's the process of them printing it isn't that different than actually these huge machines that are used in most industry practice, right?
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a little bit, I'm having this like I guess, you know, philosophical conflict in my mind because you know it's going to 3D printing anyway.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to like specialty products.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they talk about how there's benefits behind having the 3D printer versus these, you know, big machines.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can't personalize things with these big machines.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way these big companies making these mass-produced gummies are going to be able to take orders, you know, coming in online and personalize your gummy for you.
• 52:36
  unknown: Right.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, in this bookshelf behind me, there's a book uh written in I think it was 2020 by uh by a futuristic a futurist named Faith Popcorn, and it was called uh Trends 2000.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was it's it's just a it's just a fascinating book, still very, very relevant.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: And boy, did she hit a lot of things on the head now that it's 26 years later.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: But uh one of one of the chapters is mass customization.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: Ah and and that's what you're describing here, mass customization.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh in fact, what's funny is that it's not only your what what you're talking about here is coming at it from a large-scale industrial standpoint, but we're experiencing the same thing with our little sawmill here on the farm, our band sawmill, which I know you've seen.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's an example of mass customization because we can we can customize any board.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can't go down to Lowe's and buy a three by three, a three-inch by three-inch board.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: They don't they don't make them, okay?
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: But you can come here and I can customize a three by three board for you.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's on both ends of the spectrum.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: This mass customization is not only uh something that the the huge you know scaled conglomerates are using to try to create individuality and and and personalized attention to people.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you check in a hotel now, you go up, you check in your room, what's the what's the TV screen?
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: This TV screen's on, it says, Hi Joel, welcome to Hilton, you know, whatever.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's mass customization.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right, it's it's it's one of these, you know, big, big things.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, when you when I when I land uh in an airport, you know, American Airlines um comes on my my flip phone, actually.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: My flip phone with a little thing, uh welcome to Charlotte, you know, uh your flight number 632 is leaving out of gate, you know, B34 um in one hour and 30 minutes.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's and that that's nobody is punching that in.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's done automatically by some you know uh data bank somewhere.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I mean the the ability of, for example, it used to be, I'll give you another example.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it used to be that in order to get like uh um ball caps with a logo on the front, you know, you had to you had to get 500 of them just just so you could afford to do it.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with automatic, if I have a logo that I can email uh to a company, I can get one hat logoed almost as cheap as 500 hats because the cost is in that software technology to take my electronic logo and run it through the stitch machine.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the money is.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: The money is not in uh in a run of identical hats.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: The money, the the capital cost is in the technology to take my electronic uh logo and run it through a stitching machine that puts it on a hat, and they can send out one of them or a hundred of them at basically the same cost because the same cost, it's mass customization.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and and who doesn't want to be treated like an individual?
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, I think that's what they've realized.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've swung maybe too far over, and now they're course correcting as people want individuality and they want personalized attention.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: It it it's it's a natural, it's a natural human desire.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't you can't few fun we can't fuss at people for wanting to be recognized as individuals.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that you know, uh that that's that's a normal human desire.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's so true, Joel, because there's several times I've I've looked on the market for um, you know, supplements, for example.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe for myself or for somebody who's come to me for help, and I'm reading the ingredients and I'm thinking, oh, if it just didn't have that one ingredient in there, I would buy that.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that's also a way to get around that, is that you can personalize your because how many times have I said to you, oh, I want to create my own supplement and herbal line?
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, right, that may be a thing of the past because now almost anybody's gonna be able to create their own supplement.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: Just sitting at their computer.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of a dying business there.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, oh, that's kind of sad.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just realized that as we were talking.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that dream just got bursted of mine.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you just need to hook up with uh uh with AI and uh and launch and launch a brand that is um uh let's see, we we'll we'll we'll we'll think about what to call it, you know.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be um uh um uh you know, you're um built, you know, uh uh formulated, you know, cust custom formulated, uh just for you, you know.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's the that's the idea.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that way so I have to get in bed with AI and in bed with a 3D printer.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll tell you, we're we're in a we're in a we're in a really interesting spot historically, aren't we?
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: With it it's it's interesting that this podcast, we're out of time here, but it isn't interesting that this podcast started with um at the top with RFK Jr.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: talking about Americans eating real food, and we have we have moved the podcast through um fabricated proteins for uh for Mars travel and ended with uh 3D printed um vitamin supplements.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um that that that's a perfect example of yin and yang, I think, uh spectrum.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um so the question we can ask our folks is um uh what are the chances of you participating in the different kinds of systems we've just talked about?
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um real food, scale of one to ten, and uh 3D printed um or or or what was this this NASA um this uh yeast?
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well the the first one was the cookies.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you know, Joel, I would love to know if they would eat that 3D printed personalized gummy supplement.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: Personalized vitamin uh supplement.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, uh what's your what's your chances of uh of eating of of uh jumping into that if it were available?
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a that's a fair thing.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's a good question.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: It it would help us to gauge where where we are truly.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do we do we hate technology or just bad technology?
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that that that is that is becoming the question, isn't it?
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it is um I mean here we are.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're you know, we're certainly using technology on this, and our listeners are using technologies to listen to us.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not we're not we don't we're not opposed to technology outright, but we um we want to make sure that technology is used in a way that that is not detrimental.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's the thing.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and it can be very detrimental.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: So great, great question.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: I like I like your refinement.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the question is um scale of one to ten, one, zero, ten, uh, very likely um to to um to be interested at least in a three 3D printed uh customized supplement package.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and assuming that it was clean ingredients, right?
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, assume it's clean.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: So then so that so then you need you need uh some sort of an endorsement or a you know a clearinghouse that's gonna vet, you know, like like triple A or or um Underwriters Laboratory or something um that you know that says uh I mean this is our problem.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our our our our problem in our culture, we're we're in a we're in a uh we're in a trust problem.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh how do you how do you trust how do you trust something that you don't know?
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well then you trust somebody, so then you you you you um you befriend or subscribe to somebody you can trust who knows how to do it, and then that's how you develop trust.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: So are you into 3D customized vitamins?
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: How about that?
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: All right, everybody.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being with us on another Beyond Labels podcast.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: We really appreciate you uh taking the time to visit with us each week, and uh, hope these have been interesting to you.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_00: We'll look forward to being visiting with you again next week.