Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #224: Swipe Right for Chicken? How Apps and Labels Are Hijacking the Local Food Revolution

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Episode #224: Swipe Right for Chicken? How Apps and Labels Are Hijacking the Local Food Revolution · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels, the podcast with yours truly, Farmer Joel Salatin and our favorite researcher, Dr.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to dive into something today that's uh been a little bit on my mind.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um kind of two topics.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: One, the first one is the proliferation of platforms to match up farmers and consumers, uh, you know, producers and buyers.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems like every week I get a pitch from somebody who's got a new, a new app, you know, a new, this is gonna solve the the marketing problem in food uh by matching you up with farmers.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so you know, farmers can find supposedly, you know, list and and and millions of people will see this thing, you know, and and start buying their stuff.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, if you're not a farmer and you're just wanting to buy food, uh, you can you know put look in what what's available there and you can uh you can buy food.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So two things on this.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: One is that there are a lot of them.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: So if you start just searching, googling, you're you're gonna you're gonna see a proliferation of these.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing is that I'm I'm I'm concerned that some of them might be a little bit self-limiting.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, you know, I've got my app and uh I don't need anything else.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so you kind of lose your own eclectic search.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um most of us, I mean, we've talked about this around here at the farm with my team and with each other, and and and kind of come to the conclusion that, you know, if I was looking for, if I was looking for apples, I would just start asking around.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'd ask, you know, people in the community, I'd ask friends, uh, and I'd I'd find a you know an apple orchard that I liked, or I'd find somebody, you know, in in the clean food space that uh that has already vetted somebody.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and some of these apps uh take a pretty hefty commission as part of the which which I don't begrudge, but just realize that a lot of them do take a hefty commission.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's how they plan to make money.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um and that's that's a commission that's going to go to a third party that won't go to you if you just find the farm and start buying from the farm.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, you're gonna you're gonna either pay more or the farmer's gonna get less, uh, you know, one or one or the other.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wait, are you saying uh so either the people are having to pay to have the app or the farmer has to pay for the farmer to be uh represented on the app?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if the so the farmer pays, for example, a 10% commission, uh some of them, some of them are as high as 20% uh commission to the to the app uh to be listed.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so so if I sell, if I sell, you know, if it's a 10% commission and I sell a hundred dollars worth of product, the you know, the the outfit is going to take off uh a 10%, which which I don't begrudge.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just uh it's important for people to understand that um that that these things are not just free, they they they generally have some sort of built-in um you know, built-in compensation package that's unseen, that you don't, that you don't see.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, for us, when when I'm looking for something, I just start googling websites and I start shopping websites.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, we've talked, Cena, uh, before about you know what to look for on a website.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what are you uh how how do you shop on a website?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and you know, be uh be curious.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, you know, there's there's if you pull up chicken on a website and visit the farmer, and uh I'm thinking of one, you know, here in the Shenandoah Valley, one of our our biggest competitors, organic certified, and it says visit our farmers.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Every farmer is standing out inside out beside his big confinement chicken house.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you don't have to be really astute to pick that up.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh I was on another website that taps themselves as we're the homesteaders conduit to the market.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I look at chicken, and the homepage for the chicken that they get is a guy standing in front of five Tyson chicken houses.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's the home page.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh another one was a supplier for a very, very large, this is organic certified, a very, very large distributor.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and uh come you know, let me I'm stuck on chickens.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I because chickens are one of the most they're one of the most uh corruptible things, I think, that that there is.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I look chickens.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So come meet our farmer.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a little you know, 10-minute walkthrough with the farmer, you know, on his on his farm.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the guy, the guy's wearing a hazmat suit and and oxygen goggles, you know, uh walking through his chickens.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: He looks like a like a space suit.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I don't want to buy chickens from a guy that's got a hazmat suit walking through his chicken.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, now maybe he's saying, well, I'm I'm practicing biosecurity.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I don't want to buy food from somebody that's wearing a spacesuit for biosecurity through the chickens, you know.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be able to go talk to the chickens, walk with the chickens, you know.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um so so when when I'm when I'm vetting stuff, I don't go to one of these um uh uh matching, you know, marketing matching apps.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: I go to the actual website and I start sleuthing through the website.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and I think because most of these apps are desperate for people to sign up and for people to buy, most of them are being fairly uh uh loose about you know who who can register and who can't.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's pretty much all comers.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so I would just encourage folks if you're obviously the number one is visit the farm.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but secondly, you can learn a lot on a website.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be in a hurry.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Don't I guess that would be my number one thing, Cena, is if you're going to shop a website, don't be in a hurry.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, everybody's in a hurry today.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I want to uh, you know, I've got I've got 10 seconds to look at this thing.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And no, no, no.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Spend some time, dig, look at it, punch the other tabs, and and and um, and and look at their you know, look at their pictures, look at their value statements, look at what they're doing, and um and see what they say that they don't do, see what they say that they do do and um do do, yeah.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: You could tell I've been around kids a lot because I was over here trying to hold that in, not laugh.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so um I I this is just a this is just uh whatever uh you know an encouragement for me.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because because I'm seeing these just proliferate, proliferate, proliferate.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I I'm I'm I'm glad that there are people entering this space, but um, I don't think anybody has the you know the magic bullet to make the perfect match every time yet.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because there's also a lot of sleuthing that has to be done, right?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, these apps would have to do all that sleuthing in advance.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I can see a consumer, you know, who we're already overwhelmed, we're on the go, like you said, we're you know, hurry on to the next thing.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: We got our list of tasks to do each day and responsibilities.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I can see them saying, okay, well, this app can help me to do the sleuthing for me.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, I have actually found in my own experience that um you really have to trust yourself.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, we have tried to find a place to go apple picking for years, right?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because apple orchards are notorious for spraying.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we recently, and so we just stopped going to apple orchards because I couldn't find any that did not spray, um, even if it was just occasional spray.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: So uh this last year, several of my friends recommended an orchard that's about an hour from us, and they all said, no, we've checked it out.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: This place doesn't spray.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I looked at their website and it did not sound like they sprayed.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: But I called anyway, right?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I always look at the website and then I always call and start asking questions.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: And the first person I talked to, you can tell she really had no idea what I was talking about.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was like, well, can I talk to the manager?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: So then they had to call me back and they never called back.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: So then I called back two days later, asking again for the manager, and I found out from the manager that they do sometimes spray, but they said only um, only if it's absolutely necessary will we spray.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it's gonna be it's gonna be a certain amount of days before we even would harvest, you know.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: And this is a UPIC place as well.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, okay, so have you sprayed this year?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, no.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we went on a field trip up there and paid, got the little baggies, and I asked the lady who was there handing out the bags, do they spray?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And she was like, Oh, they don't really do spraying, and you know, it's very minimal, and I have never seen them spray.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: So we get out there on the orchard, Joel.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: I see a huge tank with pesticides in it, and I'm with a hose, and I was like, and you walked around the trees and you can see that there was spray residue.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so I asked one of the people who was on the orchard themselves, do you spray?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, Oh, yeah, we just recently sprayed.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that so you uh an example of you know, even sometimes word of mouth, check for yourself.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And even sometimes some of these places are being deceptive.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: So you gotta go look for yourself, you've got to keep being diligent and ask the questions and look, look at the actual orchards or look like you say, look how the animals are being raised, you know, and and sometimes if you don't have the farm around you, that can be very difficult.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: But this is another reason why I try to go local at any any time possible so I can check it out for myself.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's great.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's which is a perfect segue into the other thing I wanted to uh touch bases with everybody today, and that is the seemingly unending proliferation of certifications in light of the disappointment that so many people have with organic certified.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I can remember when there was no certification whatsoever in in this food space.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, we started hearing in the you know uh early 80s about um you know, we we need a we need a uh a certification process, and so numerous states and organizations began doing it.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um and yeah, you're saying that they can be deceptive, boy, that's a the the problem is that certification in general is a set of paperwork.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a set of paperwork.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so to frame this disc uh discussion, um I think it's good to real to just go back historically and let's look at some of the certifications that currently exist that are very, very large.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: One certification that exists right now is the American Medical Association.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: You can't become a medical doctor unless you are certified.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, does that make sure, does that ensure that we have doctors that you agree with?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Dr.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Fauci is a certified you know, we we can we can go down this rabbit hole as far as you want to, but but you know, that that is a that is an historic um profound certification process of being a medical doctor.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, and I've heard people say, well, well, I certainly wouldn't want a an un you know, a surgeon that's not certified operating on me.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um maybe maybe there's something better than certification, like um, like performance um history, you know, uh, or or um some other vetting process.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Another certification is of course a public school teacher certification.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can't just you can't just go into a classroom and start teaching.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: You need to be a you need to be a certified teacher.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, how many of us, and this is not a a diss on public schools, I'm just going to say, how many of us want a public school teacher to teach our children?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that, you know, there are things besides boys and girls, and um, you know, that um that the the founding fathers were a bunch of uh ne'er do wells, and and you know, there's a whole there's a whole uh litany of stuff there.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and then and then a high school diploma, you know, that's a certification.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you graduate from high school, do you have a grad?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, 47% of high school graduates now, I mean, the these new uh tests we're we're now learning, you know, 47% of them can't read.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so they've I've got a diploma, but I can't read.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Have you heard Cena about this?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's a family somewhere, I think it's in Michigan, that's suing the school on behalf of their daughter that got a high school diploma and she can't read.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they're suing the school for for um for dereliction of duty, basically, you know, dereliction of responsibility, uh, in that they graduated her daughter who can't read.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and she's she's she's not dumb, she's not stupid.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, she's not mentally incapacitated, uh, she just didn't get it.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, but she got the high school diploma.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so, so I want I want everybody to understand that that there are some pretty significant big-time historical certifications and so that that that have been you know corrupted or compromised or whatever.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and the problem is whenever an organization creates a certification for its that we're we're gonna we're gonna have a certification deal.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they want more people certified.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, whoever, whoever is, you know, the executive director in charge of the certification process, how do they, how do they grow their business?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how do they how do they uh uh grow their deal?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they grow their deal with more certified people.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is a there is a philosophical incentive to erode the initial, let's let's assume the initial idea is sincere and the standards are good and all that, but there's there is an inherent uh uh incentive to erode standards to grow your organization that is certifying.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to be a rock, you don't have to be a you know a rocket scientist to see the the the perverse incentive to compromise.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we we've got we've got 100 certified teachers this year.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we're growing.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: This year we got 200 certified teachers.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, no nobody, nobody uh sits here and says, man, we are so successful.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Last year we had 200 certified teachers, and this year we've only got 100.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Man, we are you know, we are cooking with gas, you know.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody says that.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, so so you it's it's easy to see um how these perverse incentives happen.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it happened, of course, in organic certification.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Organic certification is this little itty-bitty, itty bitty fledgling idea, the thing, you know, it starts, and well, the bureaucrats involved with um administering the program, especially when it, you know, when the federal government um uh got into it.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how do they get how do they get a higher paycheck?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm I've got I've got three people under me.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Next year I've got five people under me.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Next year I've got 10 people under me.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're we're growing this thing.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so here we are, you know, 30 years later, and we're certifying you know, hydroponic strawberries and um you know, certifying all uh, you know, fact factory chickens and uh pigs on concrete.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Pigs on concrete, absolutely, all sort all sorts of things, and it never even mentions organic certification, never even addresses vaccinations.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that has become a a fairly new, wouldn't you say, Cena, that you know, since COVID, that has in front on the consumer end, I don't remember before COVID anyone ever asking us when they called us, you know, what do you do?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you, you know, do you uh how do you feed?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feed corn?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Blah, blah, blah.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um they were always concerned about antibiotics, you know, are you are you using pharmaceuticals?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's been for a long, long time.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: But nobody ever asked about vaccinations.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And see, mRNA is technically a vaccination, it's not a drug.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we we've addressed this on the program, but but what it shows is how how uh how difficult it is for a regimented certification program to A stay current and B stay true.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's very, very, very, very difficult.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and to your point, I mean, we talked about this as well on the program, but the USDA organic certification is largely paper pushing.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's very, very little testing of for them to become for a farm to become certified and for the farm to stay certified.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like I can't recall the number we wrote about in our book.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's like five percent.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like five percent of the farms are actually tested.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: But there's so it's really a paper trail that they're trying to verify, which I mean, how well do you trust the farmer?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: How well do you trust the inspector?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, it's so uh to to your point, it's like I remember you talking about this before that there's real no, there's no real great markers even to look at, um, to know like, is this organic or is this not?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: And like there's no scale on it.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: And since they're not doing the testing and it's just paperwork, I mean, you're that's you're putting a lot of trust in that label.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're paying a lot more for that product for something that you think it is, and in some cases it's not.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: And organizations like the environmental working group have tested products and found out that uh these organic product products sometimes do contain glyphosate, for example.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so uh so to I mean, to I completely agree with you to your point that these certifications, these labels are flawed and they're fallible.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: And if they're just paper pushing, then what kind of guarantee do we have that they're even doing the limited things that they say they're holding to?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, like organic is supposed to grow the soil, right?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's in the definition that you're you're supposed to be kind of in in my own terminology, regenerating the soil.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: You're supposed to care uh and tend to the soil.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: But like you said, now they have hydroponics.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and a lot of organic mainstream producers uh, you know, till the topsoil and are doing monocropping.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: So they're not really regenerating the soil.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: So, in the true definition of organic, I would think that means that it's not even technically organic based on the original intent of organics.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's in water down.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, as you said, as it's been trying to grow and they need to grow.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, as you were talking about it, I started thinking of all the other things that we um because certifications are a huge thing in our culture.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: We want someone who's certified.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: We want those names, those like those letters behind their name, for example.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we think that's right.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: To bash my own certification, but you know, but it is true, right?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: I was supposed to be an expert in food, yet I got debilitatingly sick, largely from our food supply, because I didn't really know what was in it.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, personal trainer.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: I have a personal training certification.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: I've had it for a long time.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know you can get a you can become a certified personal trainer from these quote unquote reputable organizations?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's all a paper test.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: You never had to step in the gym to actually train somebody to stay and to put to demonstrate you can actually do it.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's literally just did you get the answers on the test right?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, master herbal, herbalism.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: You can get herbal certifications now that look all professional.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: You can get them on GroupMe for like five, 10 bucks.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: You can take this online class and now all of a sudden you're a master in you know these certain fields.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: So certifications are really a dime a dozen, which is why, in large part, I stopped even getting certifications.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: But it is this conundrum because our society puts so much clout into these certifications, as so like uh it's like with those platforms thinking, oh, they did the weeding for me.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: You have this certification.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: This means you have this level of intelligence, you're beyond me, you're smarter than me.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: So now I'm gonna outsource my power and get my answers from you.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really just not the case.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and what it the the thing that bothers me, I mean, there are a lot of things that bother me about it, but one is that it it tends to be a market extortion on those of us who just want to uh who want to build our brand without it.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so, I mean, we our farm certainly went through this when organic certification first came in.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Man, we we fought and fought and fought for for market um you know, market share, market affirmation, uh, because we weren't or we weren't certified.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when I came up with the term beyond organic, uh, because I realized that 95% of organic beef is feedlot beef.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: It you know, it's still fed, you know, what our herbivore should not be fed.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and and it struck me at that time how fast certification stops conversations.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's certified, end of conversation.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I I know what that is, and and so there's no discussion.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: What I want to stimulate is I want to stimulate questions, dialogue.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to stimulate conversation.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I did when I started using the term beyond organic was that that made people turn their heads.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, beyond, beyond, what's that?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, well, did you know that organic carrots can be fertilized with fish emulsion from Japanese drag nets that destroy the fisheries on the planet?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: It can be uh it can be fertilized with on-farm compost, it can be uh uh you know, it can be weeded with um with flame weed eaters, it can be uh mulched, it can be um uh black, uh, it can be plastic, uh plasticed to control.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and you start going down this path, wow, you mean there's that much leeway?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's that much leeway, but the but but the paperwork doesn't pick all that nuance up, including the nuance of the human element.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And this has been one of my pet peeves with all the certifications in in the food space, from organic to to the new ones that have come down, is nobody asks about about the conditions in the processing space.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and for me, processing is slaughter, all right.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're in animals, all right, so we're you know, killing chickens and beef and pork and stuff.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: And what kind of environment is that?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: And nobody asks um about about habitat for workers, uh pay structure, um, you know, anything.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh that that just that doesn't even exist in the space.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I submit that for many people that's a that's an important thing.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: We don't we don't want our our folks to get uh either psychologically damaged because they're killing animals every day, uh, which you know I've killed a lot of animals, but I don't do it every day.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't I don't want to do it every day, and I don't think anybody should do it every day.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, even biblically, the Levitical priests, you know, basically drew straws and had a a monthly rotation on responsibilities in the in the temple, which was basically a big slaughterhouse, you know, as a maybe sacrifice, and uh and and and they drew straw, and they they pulled one month rotations, you know.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: One month I'm killing, you know, then one month I'm cleaning out the you know the uh the candle sticks, and then another month I'm I'm washing the knives, you know, whatever, but but but there were these other responsibilities.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so you know those kind of things don't you know don't don't reach into the to the to the questioning.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and and so as soon as you have the certified thing, you don't ask for you tend to not ask for anything past the certification.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, again, we're you know, we're we're back to the labels.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: All right, you see the label, the the label, the label stops, stops the search, it stops the vetting, it stops the sleuthing.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, uh this brings to mind I had friends who were supportive of hydroponically grown plants, and um, they had no problem with the fact that they were included in the organic certification.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then I told them that, you know, I found out from Dr.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Lindley Dixon, uh who was the associate director of the Real Organic Pro uh Project.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: She um she tipped me off to the fact that a plant and a plant can be certified organic, even if it's hydroponically grown.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: And as part of the growing conditions, that plant is fed GMO, GMO soy byproducts, right?
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because they feed them nutrients uh in this hydroponic system.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like it's like an IV.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically basically a plant, a plant IV.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and so she discovered or she heard that that yes, indeed, they could be fed GMO soy byproducts, but it's still organic.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so once I told my friends that they're like, wait, what?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: What's happening?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's because of the blind trust of the label.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, and I don't want to discourage people.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh certainly if you're in the grocery store, instead of choosing the conventional, you know, apple, choose the organic, right?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: It does uh in general, the organic does hold a lower toxic burden than the conventional.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: But what we're saying is even with that, you can go beyond that organic label to get something that is more true to the way that we are supposed to eat, right?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: The way God designed us to eat, something that it doesn't have uh potentially, you know, those those additional toxins that even an organic label doesn't account for, or that there's loopholes and lack of accountability in the label.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it just ends up having these um potential toxins on them that that you don't realize that you're you're potentially getting.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and and in you know in the big scheme of things, uh you know, what we what we're actually looking for is to diminish the dependency on the supermarket.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that that's where that's where we ultimately want to go.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and bless our that's where we started this episode of talking about all these these uh what I call you know uh product matching apps that are that are proliferating, these platforms to proliferate that.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and and bless our these are all trying, they're all in this space of let's you know, let's eliminate the supermarket, which I'm for.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and so uh I don't want anybody to interpret this, you know, that that that um I'm a I'm I'm a that I'm just you know some sort of a negative, you know, against everything.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: But but but I do think we we need we need to be um aware that these things are also not a panacea.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're not the answer to everything.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I mean, you know, we we Americans, we love convenience, you know, and and the convenience of well, you know, I'll let somebody else make all the decisions and and um you know and and life's easy.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we we tend we tend to be successful at what we put attention on.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: And if we don't put any putting any attention on our food any more than just uh you know, a certification label, uh we're probably we're probably missing a better option.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't like Weston Price, don't they have uh a website that you can use to find local farmers that I mean do they?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not I'm asking you, you know more about their organization than me.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: Do they have something like that?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: And like have they done some of the sleuthing?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: They have the smart shopper guide.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: The the smart the the smart shopper guide, and um and it it's it's actually uh quite good.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I was looking to see if I had one.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Here we go, here we go.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think I do.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Look at that boy.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: My messy desk, and I don't know exactly where some stuff is.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: I remember you being so happy that you spent all those hours cleaning your desk.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: And is it already a mess?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like no, it's not too bad right now, but uh this is 2024.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is the 24 uh shopping guide from West.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what they do, it's interesting what they do.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: They they divide things, so so they they do uh from all the ones I've seen.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably about as good a one as I've as I've seen.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And they they have this is interesting.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and you can get these by the handful.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: So what they do, I don't know if you can see this, but they um they divide they have three categories um best, good, and avoid.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Best, good, and avoid.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so um so they have general descriptions here of you know what you're what you're looking for, and then and then when they have um, you know, like here's a section on butter and ghee, okay?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Best raw butter from grass-fed animals, Dutch Meadows Farm, Full Moon Ghee, uh Miller's Organic Farm, raw goat, blah, blah, blah.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then they've got a section of good, which is my goodness, whoa, probably, I don't know, 60, 60 producers of of of good.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it includes organic valley, all right.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then avoid margarines and spreads, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, shortening spreads, combining butter with the vegetable oils, whipped butter, butter, and ghee containing natural flavors.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they don't they don't have the brands to avoid.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: They just say avoid these, uh, realizing that that all right.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we got eggs, you know, best fresh eggs from pasture poultry, preferably um soy free.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Their Weston A price is big on on the soy free uh deal.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, then they they list you know where you can get eggs, uh different things.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so yeah, this is a pretty good.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I like the fact that they they do the you know the best and good.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: They even uh divvy it up that way.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um that's a that's probably as good a one as I've ever seen.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: There is a um there is now an outfit called um I think it's called Fair.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Are you familiar with that one?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: F-A-R-E.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And they're actually testing for stuff toxicity.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think I think they're starting to test for some nutrition.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you, do you think so so you know there was a time uh I'm gonna say 25, maybe 30 years ago, when um eggs, the the egg yolk color was a huge deal, and everybody was wanting very dark, you know, dark egg yolks, which is indicative of higher nutrition.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the industry began importing tractor trailer loads of marigold petals from Mexico.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: They began machine harvesting, growing marigolds, harvesting the marigold petals, feeding those to chickens to make the egg yolks turn richer, uh darker yellow.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: My question to you, Cena, is do you as as this kind of testing you know goes forward, and and you and I have had Dan Kittridge on here with the Food Bio-Nutrient Association, um Elliot Coleman and I have talked about this some.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Elliot and I are are pretty good friends, and he's concerned that some of this testing, that the industry, that the big players will figure out how to um put in additives like marigold petals to ape the ape the testing.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that possible?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh sure.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I'm thinking like omega three, omega-six things, uh those kinds of things.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Is because if it is possible, then the folks that are that are saying we're gonna have a bulletproof, cor corruption proof, um, compromise proof system with testing um it's not gonna work.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that anything um like say you're doing nutrient testing, um you can probably manipulate it.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, we even saw this with you know PCR testing, where you could just change the number of cycles, right?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: To get a totally different outcome.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: So there's there's a lot of things you can do, like once you're in the lab to you know, to change the outcome.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the problem here, Cena, wow, I'm glad I because I I actually didn't know how how um susceptible uh these kinds of things because because here's the thing if if it really takes off the money, the money in this to be able to get an extra whatever dollar a pound for something is enormous.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: The incentive to cheat is ab is just which is what what's happened to organic certification, the hydroponics and stuff, you know, nobody thought when they made that label that that hydroponics would ever be certified.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, as you know, there have been massive civil wars within the you know uh National Organic Standards Board over this.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: People have resigned, uh, there have been you know almost fisticuffs uh uh surrounding this issue.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um so far nobody's really uh brought up vaccines uh as an issue in the organic uh program.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: But um if if it if you know if there is a label that carries a price incentive and I'm a big player and I want a piece of that pie, there's gonna be a lot of temptation, isn't there, to to cheat the system?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and I think that's gonna encourage more cheating because we already know that there is cheating.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like sometimes, um, for example, uh turmeric can can be um adulterated with a certain dye or coloring agent.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's some not permitted dyes that have been um identified as added to some spices, um you know, to make them look better, because you want your turmeric to be really dark, right?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so we know that this has happened.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: We we know that um sometimes sometimes there'll be like these brick powder or Sudan dyes that are mixed with chili powder, uh the spice to make it look red.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's also been green dyes, some of them linked, um, some of them identified as being carcinogenic.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: So there's been some of these carcinogenic dyes that have been used to add green coloring to vegetables to make them look more fresh, you know, like maybe in a can, for example, other dyes in sweets and candies.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: In organics?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, I'm talking about in general.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's already, but um, some of these adulterants, adulterants.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, in the tumor run, you know, sure, I can occur in organics.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, who's really monitoring this?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so we so we know that there's already and and this this this is what started the FDA in the first place, right?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like that, you know, um back with with Wiley and his poison squad and thinking these things are adulterated.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: So this has been going on for a long time, but now they're more clever.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: So now there's even uh so industry, for example, has figured out that um if the govern the government contests for some of these adulterants, um, and then they lose a bunch of money.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: So there's actually um parts of comp some companies actually spend money on trying to figure out how to trick the lab tests so that they could, yeah, so they can still have these adulterants in the food, and it doesn't get actually picked up by the lab tests.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like so it's a huge thing because exactly what you said, they're saving lots of money.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, so Cena, you know, it's funny.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was um I was on the very first organic certification committee.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about um whoa man, uh mid-1980s, maybe.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're going back a ways uh when it first came in, and um the discussion because I was I I served a uh a couple of years as president of the Virginia Biological Farming Association back at the time.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and what I argued as I listened to the all the various, you know, talking heads uh in our group around me, you know, I I remember saying to them, you know what we need to certify is um is is is what the farmer reads.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: What what what's the farmer what's what's I said, what we need to certify is the magazine rack beside the toilet.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we need we need to we need to go into the house and and see what's in the map what the farmer is reading, because that that is a better indicator of actual integrity, you know, authenticity and credibility, because ultimately, see no aren't what we're dealing with is is a philosophy.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's a philosophical idea that here's the way things ought to be, and um, and and and it's it and when when you try to condense a philosophy to a regimented form uh um you you you lose you what do you what do you lose you lose the vibrancy of it.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: You you lose the real authentic because then then you get practitioners in that are just they're just posers, you know, they're just and and and they're just in it for the money, for the prestige, for the you know, for the uniform, for whatever it is.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and and this is why this is why the regimented certification becomes a a problem.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the the agency wants to grow and uh the farmers or the the the certifye, whoever the certify is, is incentivized actually to fudge a little bit if he's not.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: If he's not actually up to snuff, right?
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're gonna fudge a little bit so I can get in because it's a pass-fail system.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you either pass or you fail.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and so so the guy that's got a 74 fails, the guy that's got a 75 gets in by the hair of his chinny chin chin.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so the so the so so the incentive is to fudge the paperwork a little bit.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, your you know, your your Apple discussion was was fabulous on that, you know, of you know how how much to use.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and what struck me about certification as I examined it further was the whole system is predicated on the fact that we can't trust people, so we got to come in and certify, but then it only functions if we trust them to fill out the paperwork.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's called that's that's called intellectual schizophrenia.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because sometimes too, the fraud could be they're substituting other um ingredients in it to save money.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, um, in spices, rice rice can be substituted, like a rice uh flour can be added to spices, which I mean, and the only reason why I know that is because I try to avoid grains, right?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: All kinds of glutens.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: So you can actually substitute rice in there and how and so here's the thing.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, uh okay, let me back up for a second.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: While you were talking, I looked it up, and yes, the FDA calls this economically motivated adulteration, food fraud.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it is yeah, there's actually a thing, uh a name for it.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: But when you look up, so for example, if you look up different ways in which food can be adulterated, including organic products, it talks about using artificial coloring agents, like I mentioned, unauthorized chemicals, waxing and mislabeling or fraudulent certifications, for example.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: So let's say you're gonna add in an unauthorized chemical.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, okay, if if this is certified organic, let's assume they're testing.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we know that they're not actually testing the individual ingredients, but let's assume that they are lab testing.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: If someone's adding a chemical to it to um to basically bulk it up so that they don't have to add as much of the real thing in it, if you don't know what they've added to it, how are you going to test for that?
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: You you don't know, right?
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's no way you have to test for everything.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: And who's actually going to do that?
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: And they're certainly not going to do it on every sample.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one of the examples that they list here as um fraud in the organic label is blending organic with non-organic ingredients, but still labeling the final product as 100% organic.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so uh how are you how are you really gonna test for that?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: If if let's say the product has um organic tomatoes and non-organic tomatoes in it, well, what are you actually testing for on that?
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: You can test for pesticides, but they don't even really do that.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: So so you're not gonna know.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then another example is people will sell conventional produce as organic and they will forge the certification documents, or they were they will forge the or country of origin document.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or they'll mix it, they'll have some organic and they'll mix conventional in there and just put it on as you know, ship it along as uh completely organic.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: But but that's the point.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: You can't um so like if they add melamine to milk, right?
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, to increase the protein content, that's something that's also been done.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: Are they going to be testing the batches for melamine?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know what I'm saying?
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: You have to know what you're actually going out there and looking for.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and Cena, the truth is that these these when you start getting into these, so there's a you know, I've heard about an effort that's that's kind of starting now that that essentially wants to wants to test everything, well, these tests are not cheap.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if if you started if you started testing, I mean, let's just take our farm, for example, you know, we do, let's just say we do 30,000 chickens.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's say that you want to, I mean, I don't know what a proper batch would be, but you know, if you tested for something, uh and you tested three or four times a year, for example, uh, those are those are thousands, those are multi-thousand dollar tests.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the more things you test for, the more you know, the more expensive it is.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so as soon as you start down the here's another, as soon as you start down the testing path, then you automatically go to a scaled prejudicial system because you're already because it's because the the little guy can't afford the test.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: So who's gonna pay for the test?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, the consumer ought to pay for the test.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well then, but the consumer doesn't want to pay for an expensive test that makes the food inordinately expensive in small batches, so then the consumer's gonna go to the big batch operation that that where the test uh doesn't and and and frankly, the test doesn't uh doesn't uh actually test as big a batch percentage, as big a percentage of batches.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh uh Ralph Nader, um a lot of our listeners, I'm sure, have never even heard of him, but uh Ralph Nader, you know, was the consumer advocacy guru back, you know, during my early years, and he he tried for a while to get um legislation required that every single uh chicken that that a sample of every single day's processing would be tested for, I don't know, salmonella, E.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: coli, something, all right?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: And for every single um, you know, operation in the world, that that a sample from that day's slaughter would be tested.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the test was you know two thousand dollars.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for Tyson, who's doing you know, two hundred and fifty thousand chickens a day in a plant, that's that's um, that's not very expensive.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: But for a place like us that's doing 400 in a day, that's five dollars a chicken.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: You see what I'm saying?
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and and so so the so you know all these ideas, they sound they sound nice when you start them up.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then boy, the devil's in the details.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as you start down these details, uh you begin realizing, you know, let's just there's nothing that that uh substitutes for putting some attention, putting some attention on sleuthing, talk to friends, talk to people, spend time on websites, um visit farms, and become, you know, become uh uh confident, confident if not if not highly skilled, but at least uh somewhat confident in your in your sleuthing.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're in the grocery store, because I think most of us still shop to a certain extent in the grocery store, that's when obviously you're going to be relying on labels for the most part.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why I always say that I pair the USDA organic label with the non-GMO project label and the um detox project label, which is the glyphosate residue-free label.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because, like we're saying, the organic label has um, like I say, it's spring, it it has it's like a bucket and it springs holes.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're using these third-party uh labels to actually patch up those holes.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: And um, because you're you're not gonna know who really who the farmer is for the most part when you're in the grocery store.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're going through the grocery store and you look at the USDA label, you know it probably has less of a toxic burden than the conventional.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then those are the two labels that I like because they're third-party certifications.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so, unlike the USDA organic label, which is not gonna go out of business, a third-party organization that certifies products, they can go out of business, right?
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: If they make mistakes, they are held accountable.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you're gonna do anything, like I would say, don't start creating more labels that are just gonna have it's more of um like the veil of trust coming down again, right?
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's it it's so instead of creating more of this illusion of trusting a label, if you're gonna do something and put money into something, do more third-party certifications because what we really want to know is I don't care how much fat is in that product or how much salt or cholesterol that's in it, like the things on the nutrition facts panel.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't care about that stuff.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: I want to know what toxins are in it.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we have the non-GMO project label that tells us if there's GMOs in it, and they actually do test the products.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: We have the detox project who tells us through testing, the best testing on the market, if there are any glyphosate or glyphosate residues in it.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: So then think of the other things that we want to know that are toxins in those foods and test for those.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, um, I want to know that um, for example, there's no heavy metals in there.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that's another thing that's not accounted for in the USDA organic label currently is how many heavy metals are in that?
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's more important to me than these other indicators that they're, you know, calories and all this stuff that doesn't really matter.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: So let's get a third-party organization going that's gonna test for heavy metal content.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, some organizations do this, like um, we had Mike Adams on previously, the Health Ranger, and I buy my essential oils from him because they are tested, third party tested for heavy metals and mycotoxins, and they're not sourced from China.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: So we do have the laboratory ability to be able to test foods, supplements, herbals for heavy metals, for example, and have that on that on that package.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I want.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: We don't need another label.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: We need third-party, independent organizations coming up and verifying what toxins are not in that food.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: So how do those so how do those organizations pay for it?
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: What's their what's their financial, what's their business plan?
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so it's my understanding that the company pays to have that label, to have it verified, and then that is ultimately going to get passed down to the consumer.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you are paying more for that product.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: For me, I would rather pay more to know that those toxins are not in my food.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: But it does, in my it's my understanding that the buck ultimately comes down to the consumer.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this has been uh I hope this has been uh uh helpful for folks to just to just kind of you know uh from the 30,000 foot view all the way down to the practical kitchen view, uh kind of look at these at these um platform apps and these new certifications that are coming on just from a you know from a from a thinking standpoint.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and everybody's gotta make their own decision, you know.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're we can't uh but the uh the idea is to at least dig down, discuss it, and see the the pros and cons, you know, of the various of the various things.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and nothing nothing beats knowing your farmer and uh and and trusting, you know, trusting that your supplier, that your providence shares your shares your basic values, you know, uh in uh in what you're interested in.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so question for the day as we uh come off is uh is have you ever been disappointed with a certification program?
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh is is there any certification program as we've as we've articulated them here uh in the program that um that you're that you thought was great and now you say and and there are reasons you learn things, there are reasons to uh to wonder about its whatever its uh efficacy.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good word.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's efficacy.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, listen, everybody, thanks for being with us on another episode of Beyond Labels, and we look forward to being with you again next week.