Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #33: How We Fight Food Inflation

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Episode #33: How We Fight Food Inflation · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can absolutely eat like a king.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: We say eat like royalty for the same as most people are spending for value-added, highly processed food.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you can actually afford much better quality food at that same price.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, everybody.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here, Joel Salatin, the farmer, with my uh wonderful co-host, Dr.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough, the PhD researcher.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we banter about all things uh regarding uh healthy living, healthy farming, food, and nutrition, and the uh tyrannical uh government and whatever.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, it's uh it's great to have you with us.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Today, um we are gonna we're gonna address a topic that's just hitting the news almost every news broadcast, it seems like, is dealing with food inflation, uh uh the the cost of food.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing uh charts go up, you know, 8%, 9%.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Tyson just uh announced they raised their their beef uh prices 32% in the last 12 months.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, these these are these are massive, massive um increases, along with you know, supply chain, different things.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're not gonna drill down on the whys of it today, but what we thought it would be interesting to share is how we personally uh in our households, how we're dealing with this food inflation.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because both of us, I can guarantee you, we are not cheap food buyers.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: We we uh put attention on the food we get, and so um so the the this whole you know inflationary thing, um we we buy good food, and so there are things that we can do to, I mean, that we've always done.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so so some of this, um in fact, my part of it uh will be not new things we're doing, things we've always done to try to eat uh much, much higher quality and not break the bank.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, so that's what we're gonna put a little bit of attention on.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Hope it'll be helpful.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Cena, you want to start off?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this is one of my favorite topics, right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is one of the top complaints that I hear from people is just, you know, I want to eat the way you do, but it's just too expensive.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So my husband and I used to give talks on how to make um food affordable.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And what I wanted to cover in the first part of this podcast is there were three tips that we would provide people.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the first two tips are the same.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: The third tip, we have changed it because of this inflationary spiral that we're in.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the first tip is the really obvious tip, right?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna buy when things are on sale.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think though that this is underrated.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: People are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it on sale.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I wanted to give just a quick example.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: My husband, when he was still eating grains, he would buy this organic cereal from the from, you know, you can get it at most grocery stores, and he would buy it on sale and buy it in bulk.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So he got the sale price and he got the reduced bulk price.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he would actually be able to buy that cereal and eat a whole bowl of cereal with organic milk for less than a dollar a day.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the power of your dollars when you're buying power when you're looking for the sale items and when you're buying on bulk.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So those are tip number one and two, buy on sale and buy in bulk whenever possible.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll buy, for instance, Polyface will have sales on their meat sometimes, like buy one, get one free.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a huge um freezer and we stock up when they have those sales, right?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: We buy on sale and in bulk.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So just one more example of that.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's actually kind of funny because you know, the stereotype of a female is she'll have like all these clothes in her closet and just rows and rows of shoes in her closet, right?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you look in our closet, we have rows and rows of food.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, it's it's part of our food storage plan.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, it's just it's kind of interesting to show other people our closet, you know.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'll go ahead.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: You sound like you want to say something.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, I was just, I was just gonna um ask you like like, for example, on the cereal, what what does I mean you say bulk, but what is bulk?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, is it a is it a bushel?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: How big a quantity is bulk?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm I'm you know, I'm just imagining the questions coming back uh through this microphone, you know, what what what bulk?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Great question.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what we would do is we would have um, and this is this is the tip that's going to change a little bit, but we would have what we called a food slush fund.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So basically that was savings, right?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: We saved money so that when things went on sale, um, we could buy them at that time.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So our dollars went further.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we always had this slush fund.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So what we would do is we knew um different stores would offer different bulk prices.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we would go and you could read it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I wish we had a visual here.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: You could read it on the sticker, you know, like in the grocery store where it tells you the price.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's a code that the stores will often use.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if the if it's a certain number, that means you can buy it in bulk and it will tell you how many you have to buy.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if what it might be 12 boxes of cereal is a bulk, right?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: It depends on that grocery store.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we knew based on the products that we bought at each different grocery store that we frequented, we knew what their bulk number was per that item.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So for instance, I used to buy um, or we would buy organic wild rice, right?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Organic wild rice is actually um gluten-free.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we would buy that in bulk.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it was six bags of the wild rice, was one was considered a bulk for that grocery store.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we would wait until it went on sale, and then we would get the sale price and the bulk price combined.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, not all grocery stores will offer a sales price and a bulk price, but some of them still do.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you get a savings on top of another savings, and we would buy as much as they had in stock.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that that's that's the quantity that we would buy, right?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like my husband would go down and buy that cereal.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: He would buy like 30 boxes of cereal at one time because you know, you check the expiration date to make sure you're gonna be able to eat it in that time frame.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and at the time he was eating a bowl of cereal every morning.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So he would literally just buy like 30 boxes, and that that those boxes went where my shoes would go in the closet, like right.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now, now Cena, one of the one of the you know, the most inflationary things in the food supply right now are grains.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you Ukraine supplies what 25% of the world's wheat, something like that.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna see everything from you know Nabisco crackers to wheat tins to Cheerios, things like that.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, so I I can't I can't help but point out the humor in in this particular uh money-saving thing is since he doesn't eat cereal anymore, you don't even have to buy it.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't help but I couldn't help but point that out.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I've I've often said, see, you know, probably the most um the most high priced least nutrition um uh uh whatever aisle in the grocery store is the cereal aisle.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and everybody that knows me knows that that uh if if if people bought like we do in our house, there wouldn't even be a cereal aisle.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it wouldn't it wouldn't even exist.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: So uh anyway, I I couldn't help but just point the humor out of uh of that that that uh back back when you used to.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so we've got we've got funny and and actually I'll piggyback on that.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's one thing I was thinking as as people are projecting these grain prices are gonna go up.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, as you know, our entire family is grain free.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so my thought was well, this is a perfect time to save money while getting healthier.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Just try, try reducing your grain consumption, you know, like it's a but anyhow, I'll go ahead.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go ahead.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I wanted to piggyback on that.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, so the the whole food slush fund idea and buy when it's on sale non-bulk, this is the one part that has changed from our original, you know, main three pieces of advice that we would give people on how to save money in the kitchen.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: This third piece is the one that has changed a little bit because we're in this inflationary spiral.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the take-home message here is that in this rapid inflationary environment, today's retail prices are tomorrow's sales prices.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: The retail prices of today are tomorrow, tomorrow's sale prices.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So in so we do still try to buy when things are on sale, of course, and we probably try to buy in bulk, but now we don't wait for the sale.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now the assumption is we're gonna stock up on today's retail prices because we're assuming that food tomorrow is gonna be more expensive than it is today.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of waiting, we are actually buying these things now.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and basically, you know, you're turning our different closets in our house into these um storage pantries of to we stock them today.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow you go into your storage pantry, and those items will be the sale items, right?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because in theory the prices are going to keep increasing.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So these are things that we store things like um like beans, you know, seeds, flowers, um, different types of spices and herbs, lentils, like I said, wild rice, oils, um, condiments.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So anything that has a longer shelf life, uh, we will store these in our closets.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I have friends who store these in different ways, like in you know, airtight containers, in mylar bags, things like that.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: We also have done um, we will buy produce now to save it later.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you can can it or you can dehydrate things.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I like to actually buy my produce, especially if I can get something on sale today.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I like to buy it and I actually go ahead and cook it into a meal.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then I freeze the meals.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And those are my homemade frozen dinners, right?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: For whenever you need it, whenever you run out of time, or if you get sick and you can't cook, you don't have to um fall away from your food principles if you've stocked your freezers full of, you know, these healthy, nutritious, nutrient-dense meals.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: We have two standalone freezers, and then we have the freezer under our refrigerator, of course, and they're all stocked with, you know, like polyface meat and all these frozen meals.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we actually um, so I make meals.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I also do things like um avocados.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there was this concern that we were going to have the shortage of avocados.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So they were on sale one day, and I bought a whole bunch of them, and I'll I'll turn them into guacamole.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's a way you and I have this on my website if someone wants to learn how to do it, you can store it in the freezer and minimize the browning that will that will occur on the avocado.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually just make huge batches of it with my children and store it in the freezer.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there's all these different ways that you could actually preserve your food, you know, buy it now so you save the money and then preserve it so you can have it later.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'll give one example.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: As you know, we always Donnie is my husband compares prices all the time, right?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like you said, the food is very expensive.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't compromise on the quality of our food, but we do shop around based on prices.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the um items that he tracks is there is organic um ground pork at Whole Foods.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So last year, and you know, for a couple of years previous, it was seven dollars a pound.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: When it was on sale, it was six dollars a pound.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you walked into the grocery store, instead of that seven dollars a pound, it's eight dollars a pound, and the sales price is seven dollars a pound.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that's an example of how the sales price today was yesterday's regular price, right?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's the one change that we've made to the way that we're buying our food is we're buying it now, assuming that um today's retail prices are tomorrow's sales prices.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, you know, uh, and that can be done at scale.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, here at here at uh Polyface, um, you'd be, you know, we we buy a lot of uh GMO free local grain for our uh pigs and chickens, uh our omnivores.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, as we watch this happen, so we we had so we took we took actually um uh uh you you'd be astounded at the price, but anyway, um way more than a hundred thousand dollars.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we we we we took we we we invested basically half a year's uh uh grain um cost in we paid that back uh two months ago, and the the mill, the local mill that we use, um said, if you'll if you'll prepay for the season, we'll lock in the price now, and we won't and you we won't raise the price on you like we're raising on everybody else.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, we we came out of the season our our fiscal year with a little extra money.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't want to pay taxes, so we took that money and we invested it in you know six or seven months worth of uh feed costs for the farm.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: And now, um, so so now when they bring bring the feed for us, it's just uh you know a debit on this on this uh big pile that we uh gave them.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we think that we're gonna save about 15 or 20,000 over the course of the season by being able to forestall that price increase.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so uh, you know, uh those the those of us that are you know farming at scale and making big big things, the same principle, same principle applies.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have one more question before I give you some of my tips, Zina.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my question is um, so what how did you how did you do the slus?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's fun to talk about a slush fund, but the money has to come from somewhere.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, so what what I mean, I mean, uh, you know, there's always, you know, in in church we talk about tithing, but um, but I get the idea that this slush fund you you had some um agreement between you and Donnie as to when you come home or when you're this money goes in the slush fund, where did that money come from?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so every paycheck, we would set money aside.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so we decided together, oh actually collectively as a family, the kids were in on it too.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: We decided that we were going to make our food a top priority for our family.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because like the way my husband says it is we're either going to invest in ourselves now, like invest in our immediate health, right?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and have that um basically bless us for the for the entirety of our lives, or we're gonna sacrifice our our food quality, um, you know, and and not put our budget toward food quality.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then the the expense is gonna show up later in healthcare costs and you know, um trying to reverse diseases, which is as you you know, that I know, that's very it's a very expensive process to go through to try to reverse the disease.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: We do we wanted to avoid that.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we chose it as a priority, and so we sacrifice other things, like you know, we don't go out to eat.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and actually, I think we think I think restaurants are going to be hit hard as the inflation goes up.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, inflation, the wages have not been keeping up with the inflation.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And restaurants are a part of the food supply that could be affected most because more people are required and there's more material inputs, um, especially from because they're getting foods from non-local sources.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't even go out to restaurants.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we don't have the latest like iPhones and you know, technology and things like that.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: So basically we just made it a priority and we gave up other things, going on you know, expensive trips and things like that.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: That that you know, that's wonderful.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, there's there's uh there's an old axiom that um show show me a person's checkbook and I'll tell you what they value.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, it it sounds trite, but it is that that is one of the most profound things you can say.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: People all the time are I mean, like I had a lady come up to me at farmer's market one.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is years ago, you know, she's she know she's obviously a very, you know, uh sophisticated, uh well-heeled lady, cosmopolitan, uh, quaffed to the T, you know, and um, and she she's got it, she's got a diet, a diet cola in her hand, and she looks at my eggs and she says, four dollars.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is a long time ago, four dollars a dozen for eggs.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: I would, you know, and she gets this real huffy.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I would never spend four dollars for eggs, you know.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I and I I couldn't help myself.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: I said, ma'am, I said, there's more nutrition in one of my eggs than a detractor trailer full of that of that$1.50 can of drink you have in your hand.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course, you know, she stalked off.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I didn't make a customer that day, but I couldn't I couldn't help myself, you know.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: But that that's exactly what you're talking about.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: See now, you know, you don't need you don't need uh uh uh you know soda, you don't you don't need soft drinks in your house, you don't need you know takeout, you don't need all this stuff, and and all that stuff is really, really expensive.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it it's it's often not a matter of uh of of you know uh trying to fit it in.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's a matter of simply rearranging your uh your value, your value priority.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: All right, you ready for a couple of mine?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ready.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so so my first one is plant a garden.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh nothing, nothing is as cheap, nothing is as cheap as the food you grow.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: You say, well, it takes time to do that.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but uh uh unless unless your time, now here's the old business guy in me coming out, unless your time is earning something, your time isn't valuable.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, if you're just if you're just uh uh chilling out, okay, at home watching Netflix or whatever, that time is not valuable.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh uh you know it's not like somebody's paying you, you know, a hundred bucks an hour to do something.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So the garden, the garden is a way that you can put sweat equity, you can trade off your own uh sweat equity in in growing uh your own food.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you can grow a lot of food in small places.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: We've we've talked about that here.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: We won't belabor you know all that right now, but um, you know, but but the the the capacity in a little in a few you know four foot by eight foot beds, for example, the capacity to really impact your food budget is is profound.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so uh that that's that's one place.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: The next one is to Can I add on that one real fast?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I could not agree more.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, we have doubled the size of our garden.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we just did that podcast together how to grow how to start a garden because of inflation.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have now decided as a family to put the effort toward doubling the size of our garden.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And there were some upfront costs, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Some input costs, but sure we we Donnie and I ran the numbers, and especially if we start growing our own compost and we save our seeds, then it's by far going to be less expensive than us buying food in the grocery store.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and it's it's great, it's great um meaningful and sacred uh uh family time with kids.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah uh all kids need to be pulled away from their video games and stick their hands in the soil.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, so working with them is good.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: You look in the amount of time it takes you to mow your lawn, you can you can have a bed, you know.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean that takes time too, mowing your lawn.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna have ornamental landscape, well, put some complimentary edible landscape in.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't take any more to have to have a a non-edible uh Bartlett pear that doesn't produce anything but flowers for 10 days in the spring, to have a real pear that actually produces pears.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and so so you know, the space is the same, the time is roughly the same.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: The difference is you get some really, really great food to eat, you know, from your own um from your own joy.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you mentioned that because that was on my list too.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I do is I forage for food.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we're on a couple acres and we don't spray.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we go out and we actually forage for things, you know, like dandelion.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, dandelion is so underrated.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you see all those people trying to spray the you know, the toxic chemicals to kill the dandelion.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that that dandelion has been shown numerous, numerous health benefits of it, including killing cancer cells.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's amazing.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we go out, we you know, dandelion, we eat that on our salads, chickweed, we make pesto out of that, violets, you know, eat those on the salad, plantain.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: We make a salve out of it.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is free food that God has given you.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I'm writing, I'm writing this series now for Epic Times about how powerful these herbs and spices are.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I kid you not, they're like more powerful.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: The more I dive into them, the more I am convinced that God has given us all the medicine that we actually need.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: These things are so powerful.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they're right there.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like if for most of us are sitting right there in our backyards, you know, go to a city park.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's some dandelions, you know.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Although I don't don't eat them if you don't know if they've been sprayed, right?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: But my point is we have this free food right there that can totally boost your health.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: It can help health, it can help you fight this inflation.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because you know, you're not gonna have to, you're not, you're gonna save money in the long run as well.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna have to go on these prescription medications and have you know devastating health, um, health issues if you would just start foraging in your own area.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so there again, you know, a little bit of uh the the amount of information to bring you up to speed on what is edible and what's not, uh, is you know, there's a lot of it out there.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: You if if that interests you in in in a couple of hours of just some enjoyable reading, you can learn about all sorts of edible foraging plants that are probably in your own yard or in your neighbor's yard.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so an another one of my, so uh another one of mine, uh Cena, is um is to buy unprocessed.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so as a as a farmer, you know, I'm in I'm in this business, of course, I'm in the you know, meat and meat and poultry uh business.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I can tell you right now, today, a whole polyphase chicken is cheaper than boneless, skinless breast at Walmart and Costco, right now, today.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I'm gonna try and sell everybody chicken.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying that that processing, uh and and that's just boneless, skinless breast.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's not even a a De Giornio's frozen pizza.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not a hot pocket, you know.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it and and so so uh buying unprocessed.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: So my my next really big tip is get in your kitchen.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: The best way, one of the best ways to stop food inflation is to buy unprocessed and use your kitchen to prepare it, package it, preserve it, process it, you know.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um use use there's all sorts of gadgets now.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's dicers and slicers and and canners and dehydrators, and even, I mean, I was in a lady's house the other day, and she has a fantastic little uh freeze dryer.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and she showed me all these cans of freeze-dried stuff.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's it's amazing.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, so we have we have the the technology now, we have the the little you know, gizmos and things that that this isn't arduous like it was in great-grandma's day, you know, when she slaved over a a wood fire in the summer kitchen on a on a you know uh a canning heat bath kind of kind of thing.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we have we have technology today to enable us to do that.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: So get in your kitchen, buy on process.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and um uh the next tip that I would have, again, I'm in the you know, meat and poultry business, is get get the the less um the less enjoyable parts, you know, um uh chuck roast, beef chuck roast is is just as uh nutritious.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, in a lot of ways, it has some more of the really good fats and and and fats and juices in it than ribeye steak.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but chuck roast is like a fourth the cost of ribeye steak.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, use your slow cooker.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Slow cooker sits there all day, you know, percolating at 40 watts, takes almost no energy.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to look at it.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you go out of the you you throw you throw this in in the morning, you go to work, you come back in the evening, it's cooked, you know, on 40 watts a day.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can't beat that.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have always, for example, stewing hens.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we uh that that's like a a cul, uh a laying chicken that's done laying.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so what do you do with with the chicken?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we've always, and at our farm, you know, we sell these stewing hens way cheaper than broilers, than you know, uh first class broilers.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: We take, we buy them, yeah.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: We buy them, we we take them, we don't buy them, we raise them, but we sell them.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, anyway, we we we we've always from I mean for decades, we've always taken those stewing ends, put all we can, pack them in a great big roaster pan in the oven, 350 for about three and a half to four hours.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: The meat falls away.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: We pick all that meat off, freeze it in quart containers.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now you've got precooked frozen chicken ready for a quick casserole or you know, uh whatever in the freezer, similar Cena, to what you were talking about, your you know, your pre-cooked meals.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and the stewing hen is way cheaper because it's a salvage thing.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's way cheaper than the premium uh broiler and tastes way better uh because it's an old it's an old animal instead of a young animal.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you have these really, really diversified amino acid complexes that uh that that feed your microbiome.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the the point is to um you know to go to salvage.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't agree with you more, Cena, on the the just stop eating out.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for me, the number one litmus test of somebody that gets food is are you eating leftovers?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to go out for lunch.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Take your thermos, take your little baggie, whatever, and and and eat leftovers.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you're eating leftovers, it means you probably cook from scratch.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't have a single service, you know, single service prepackaged thing to start with.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: You ate as a family and you had leftovers.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and you can eat on that for for pennies.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I watch these people, you know, they're spending uh uh 10 bucks a day, 50 bucks a week.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um it, you know, it comes out to$3,000 a year.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: That that adds up really, really fast.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um and then and then when you throw a couple soft drinks in on it, um you know, it it's it's real common for folks to spend a lot of extra money.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you can you can absolutely eat like a king.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we say eat like royalty for for for the same as most people are spending for value-added, highly processed um uh uh food, and and you can actually afford much better quality food at that same price.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's expensive to eat out of the sheets filling station.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's expensive food.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: It really uh I mean, it really came home to me, seeing we're gonna have to wrap up here, but you know, the movie, the the the block muster boot movie Food Inc., remember when that family um went to that Burger King and got that great big um uh soft drink of burgers and a great big biggie fries for their for their uh son.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was, I don't know what, 10 bucks or something.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and then they couldn't afford to get you know vegetables or anything at the supermarket.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sitting there watching the movie, I'm saying, you could buy two pounds of our grass-finished, uh hormone-free, drug-free uh uh ground beef for the price of that Burger King meal, and there'd be more nutrition in a quarter pound of our beef than in that$10 meal.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: So um uh not to throw a guilt trip on anybody, but in general, in general, if you turn your closets from clothes into food, like Stina said, and you and you turn your power bill, you turn your power bill from video games into powering freezers, and you turn your free time from Netflix into a garden, you take those elements and suddenly you're you're really fighting food inflation and you're keeping yourself out of the doctor's office at the same time.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love that wrap-up.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Can I just add one quick thing to it?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: You sure can.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the only piece I would add is about waste, right?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: This has been highlighted by so many organizations, even the government, we are food, we are great at food wasting in our culture.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so one thing that I have found is that when I have my kids in the garden, when we're growing our own food, when we're in the kitchen cooking together, we waste less food, right?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because you realize what's involved in growing it and in cooking it.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: So even things like if you buy a rotisserie chicken, right, then we eat the meat off of it.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what do we do with all those, you know, nutrient-dense bones, right?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: We throw them away.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, instead of doing that, you can make um bone broth from it and live off that, you know, like that's your lunch for the next week, right?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there's all these different ways that you can reduce your waste, and that is going to save you a lot of money.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: So stretch, stretch those, stretch those pieces, stretch those parts.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and and I would say if we could say one word, it would be participate.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you you you can't hire out, you can't hire out everything that people used to do.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to jump in and participate.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's both an honor, a responsibility, and a privilege.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you very much for joining us on this podcast.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: I hope some of these uh ideas and tips have been um helpful to you.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Cena, for always uh bringing up such such great uh points.