Ann & Weldon Warren: A Stroke to a Rancher, Grass-fed v. Grain-fed Beef, & Red Meat Myths | MMP #194
Alright. Weldon and Anne, thanks for joining me. Yes, Grace. We're solo.
Speaker 2:I know you're solo. I'm I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:Partner in science. We're fortuitous that we're here, you know, in Tennessee, Nashville. We love Nashville.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We love Bitcoin Park.
Speaker 3:We love driving in our RV to get here. That's always fun.
Speaker 1:Your RV is a palace. It's you gave me a tour of it because we had met at a couple different conferences, and I'd never seen the RV.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And finally in Georgia, you're like, come check it out. I was like,
Speaker 3:I think I said come have a drink.
Speaker 1:Come have a drink. Let's have a scotch. Right?
Speaker 3:Come have a scotch. And that was a good one that day. That was nice.
Speaker 1:That was a great day.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It was good. We can have more of those. You know? We're they're We're mobile.
Speaker 3:It's got wheels.
Speaker 1:We're gonna have a lot more scotches in the future for sure. I hope so.
Speaker 3:Goes well with beef.
Speaker 1:It goes great with beef. But one of the things that I like to do starting off podcast is I like to give the guests a little bit of context, just how I've gotten connected with guests. I think it as a good experience for the listener, but you're both people that have had a massive impact on Harry and myself, and I know I can confidently speak for him to say that. And we first got connected in July at the beef initiative out in, in Colorado at Jason Rick's ranch.
Speaker 2:Yes. And I
Speaker 1:don't think you know this. I don't think I've actually told you this story before, but I was struggling because I was trying to I was still working a full time job at trying to build the show out. And I knew that, like, this is where my heart was, my passion was, but we still weren't really making that much money. It was more of, like, I think this could become this, but we're not really doing it now. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I was struggling to figure out, should I quit my job? Should I go all in on this? And then I we ended up getting in to speak at that event. You spoke before us. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And there was just something about your story that was just so motivating and impactful. And we'll we'll tell the story for the listener, but just the way that you both, like, led your built your business and your and your ranch by faith Mhmm. That was super impactful to me. And it was actually one of the catalyst for why I went deeper in my own Christian faith and have had an amazing transformation the last few months. And that's really because of both you were the catalyst for that.
Speaker 1:So I just wanna thank you so much for the impact that you've had. Yeah. Praise God.
Speaker 2:That's that's so sweet. That honestly, we Weldon has a master's degree in international finance. I have a bachelor's degree in telecommunications. We didn't grow up thinking we were gonna do this. It is Weldon's background.
Speaker 2:Like you said, we'll tell our story in a minute. But to see when you just surrender and God just moves you and you're like, okay, fine, I'm going, and you just do your thing. It's been wonderful. I can't imagine not doing this, you know. Yes.
Speaker 2:I never ever dreamed I would be a grass finished beef renter in Texas. So
Speaker 3:Yeah. But by being a grass fed, grass finished beef renter in Texas, we have impacted thousands of people's lives health wise
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Over the last twenty two years. Mhmm. And many of them tell us their story. And so it's just as motivational for me to stand on my front porch and let them tell me their story, you know, as it was for you to hear our story the first time and for anyone.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so that's that's very motivational. It it gets you up in the morning. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Definitely. Yeah. And it's amazing for both of you because it's like you've been hearing all these stories from your customers, products have been impacting their lives, their health, their curing autoimmune diseases. Mhmm. But it's it seems like a little the year and a half that this has been where you've become more public and you've been going to these different conferences and getting the opportunity to impact people.
Speaker 2:That's true. And I
Speaker 1:feel like you both have this there's, like, this quality to both of you that kind of draws people in because it's just a very honest story. You were looking to improve your health, and that really led you down this whole pathway. So it's amazing. And maybe that's where we dive in is just learning a little bit more about where you both were twenty or so years ago after nine eleven.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we we had to dive in. I was gonna say it was a question of living or dying.
Speaker 2:Right. It wasn't, hey. Let's improve our health. It was like, okay. You're on a slippery slope decline is the word they used, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the story is, with my health, I had a stroke. Shortly after 09:11, which was a very stressful time, I was a money manager. We had about a hundred million dollars under management. They were airline pilots that were our clients.
Speaker 3:They have a really complicated pension plan that required something other than you a self directed, you know, account that the pilot would manage. And so excuse me. And, the stress of that event and watching those two buildings fall and me knowing what that was gonna do, how it was gonna impact our our finances and our future life. So I was educated in that, but God just said that that's not really where I wanted you. And remember, I got you to read this article about a grass fed, operation South Of Fort Worth.
Speaker 3:That's what I want you to do. So we had to go visit this this ranch, Burgundy Beef is their name, South Of Fort Worth. Good people. They mentor us mentored us for a little bit. Didn't take too long because I was raised this way.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. It's really pretty simple model. Just so everyone out there can hear this, keeping animals on pasture and then processing your own animals for your own food supply is a really easy model. Going to a feedlot, finishing them on grain, all the transportation, the the carbon footprint of all that is completely disastrous for, you know, the environment and all that. And so that's the harder model.
Speaker 3:The more the easier model is just having your own animals and keeping enough supply of that so you're eating that product. And so, anyway, I'm in the hospital. The story is I talked to my cardiologist, and said, could food have anything to do with the fact that I just had a stroke? And I have 50% blockage in both carotids, roughly, and all six arteries of the heart. And he said, cold stone straight in my face, food has nothing to do with your health Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Twenty three years ago.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And it's like, are you kidding me? Yeah. I'm not a doctor, but I'm smarter than that.
Speaker 1:You you intuitively knew that diet and lifestyle had something to do with what happened.
Speaker 3:My granddad Yeah. Provided that intuition. He lived to be 95 years old. It's a debate on 95 or 96. Let's say 95.
Speaker 3:And he was never prescribed a single prescription. He ate off his farm slash ranch. He ate his own product. He has his own one acre garden. He had a roughly half acre orchard, half acre of, vines like raspberries, blackberries, grapes.
Speaker 3:They did their own canning. They ate their own food. And not to be prescribed a single prescription, he spent one day in the hospital with a broken cracked rib from a fender bender after church.
Speaker 1:Right. That's it.
Speaker 3:He went to the hospital. They taped his ribs up. He was, you know, the next morning the nurses came in and he is gone. And they called my dad and said, your your father is is not here. And he goes, I'm sure he just checked himself out at, like, four in the morning and went back to work.
Speaker 3:You know? That's just what he does. He works. And so I knew what the lifestyle he had lived. My dad got educated at tech in the ag department, animal science.
Speaker 3:He was in the livestock judging team. He was really into that. But that indoctrination from Texas Tech's animal science department led him to go home and start finishing everything on grain. Shortens the timeline. Time is money.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. This is just an easy layup, you know. They didn't know the the physical medical consequences of eating grain finished long term. They know that science today and they're ignoring it. And during my dad's early years, in his twenties and thirties, forties, we didn't know that science.
Speaker 3:And we didn't know about the omega threes, omega six, that relationship. And it's like, who wouldn't finish their animals faster, quicker if they could and make more money Mhmm. Except it's not healthy.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And they didn't know that. But then my dad had two sextuplet bypasses in his lifetime. My mom had we don't even know how many. 18 plus TIAs. Those are trans trans ischemic strokes, small little strokes where the brain reroutes the circuitry really quickly.
Speaker 3:You're you're kind of fumbling with your words for maybe thirty seconds and then all the lights come back on, is this that kind of stroke. She also had a major heart attack. Both her carotids had stents in them. And all of that occurred due to the fact that we were so carnivore, more carnivore than we didn't call it that then. We just ate lots of animal proteins.
Speaker 3:Chickens, eggs, you know, raw milk, beef, pork. All of that was a part of our daily life, and then it almost killed us. Well, it did kill us prematurely. My dad lived more than ten years less than my granddad did. And my granddad spent what's a what's a box of, Excedrin, and one night stay in the hospital for a lifetime of health care?
Speaker 3:That was his health care. Yeah. That's it.
Speaker 1:That was it. You know? And you saw the difference in one generation from your grandfather to your to your father. That's incredible.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And, Anne, what did you say to the doctor? Because this is a great story.
Speaker 2:It is. So so we it wasn't as simple as, Weldon had a stroke and he read this great article. It it was a little bit more complicated. We absolutely were standard American diet. We had four little kids.
Speaker 2:Our children were in that kindergarten to third grade age range. And so driving him to the hospital, I was like, man, I don't want to eat that bad food. So, we grabbed something quick and we get to the hospital and his triglycerides am I saying it right?
Speaker 1:Triglycerides.
Speaker 2:Were off the chart. And the guy said, the doctor said, I didn't know any better. This was the ER doctor, not his cardiologist. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you just ate a Big Mac. And I was like, oh.
Speaker 2:And in my innocence, I literally said, well, is a Whopper that bad? I literally drove my husband through Burger King drive thru on the way to the hospital while he's having a stroke. Face is sliding down, speech is slurry, and I'm not wanting to eat the hospital food, but I'll eat Burger King. It's, like, so bad.
Speaker 3:Two for one.
Speaker 1:But But that's how little we're taught about nutrition.
Speaker 2:It's a %. I mean, it was dollar special day, so we got a great deal. You know? Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:It was terrible.
Speaker 3:So I grew up on my grandmother's cooking for the early part of my life. They didn't live very far from us and Mhmm. I'd eat every meal I could, rode around in the pickup with my granddad. Mhmm. You know, they just they didn't know why they did what they did or maybe they did.
Speaker 3:My dad my granddad never had an air conditioner in one of his vehicles pickups or cars. And He'd always say, oh, I need to sweat. Well, he didn't say I need to detox. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or sauna.
Speaker 3:He's right. To do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We have infrared saunas. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know,
Speaker 2:we don't
Speaker 3:We pay money for what he just said. This happens naturally in Right. Texas. You know, in the summertime, I'm gonna sweat all I can. He he didn't intentionally sweat.
Speaker 3:He just sweat. Right. And so, he was just extremely healthy and and lived, he died of his own will. He had a small fender bender. That's the second little wreck, in Lubbock.
Speaker 3:And they took his license and said, you gotta go get your hearing and eyesight checked. He fell those, had to get glasses and and hearing aids. And that's when he pulled the trigger. He said, I'm not I'm not doing this.
Speaker 2:He didn't pull the trigger.
Speaker 3:No. He No. Trigger's on a gun, so I didn't mean that. Sorry. He pulled the trigger in in the sense he goes, I know my decline has started and and I don't wanna go out that way of nursing homes, living in that institutional environment.
Speaker 3:He got all his family together. There were five kids still alive. And they all were around him, and he said, I'm gonna quit drinking water and you're gonna let me go.
Speaker 2:And he did. Wow. Yeah. He did. He was So really
Speaker 3:he died of his own will, died in his own bed. He was born in a bed in Mississippi, died in his own bed in, close to Tohoku, Texas. And he's the one that made the decision that I'm not gonna burn up my savings, impact your kids what you Mhmm. What you inherit on the healthcare system. And that's what we're all burdened with today is Right.
Speaker 3:Everyone's on the healthcare system. Mhmm. We have more obese people in The United States today than we've ever had before. More people are dying of cardiovascular illnesses. At least fifty percent of all the deaths in The US are from cardiovascular illnesses.
Speaker 2:It's true.
Speaker 3:And if we just ate cleaner and more correctly, we could turn we could bend that curve in a big way.
Speaker 2:Yes. Hundred percent.
Speaker 1:That's incredible. And it's like and I'm sure there's a period of time when you weren't as knowledgeable about this. You're probably asking yourself, okay. Why did grandpa live so long, and why did my dad have all these health issues? And you said that it seems like they have this intuitive approach.
Speaker 1:They're controlling. There's no touch points. They're growing everything on the ranch.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:They're eating, you know, raw milk, animal products, eggs, good quality beef.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:They're it's in their backyard, so it's like, I'm sure it helps you from a microbiome perspective. There's no touch points.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It makes it's amazing how, like, it's like we had it figured out, and then we overeducated and oversized everything. And now we've kind of gotten ourselves in a weird situation that impacted both of you.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious. So you so you leave the hospital, and I think, Anne, you said it was kind of a process to get your health under control and kinda learn how to cook and or, like, make the right things. Yes. Definitely. That process like?
Speaker 2:So, the first year, we put down one beef just learning to cook it, like you said. And we had just moved out of the city into the country, so that whole first year was just a complete change. So Weldon went from a desk job to an in the in the field job. And so he got a ton of exercise, a ton of body movement, a ton of lifting heavy A
Speaker 3:ton of fun.
Speaker 2:You know, sacks and bales of hay and lots of vitamin D. I know all that had played into it as well. We the only thing we really changed in our diet that first year was all of our proteins were pasture based. We did actually mill our own, wheat and made homemade bread, but that was in my head, it was more of an economic thing, not a health food thing. But we still had little kids.
Speaker 2:So, we were still going to birthday parties eating sugar and doing other things that we don't do now. So but it and then the second year, we put down three animals, sold two, ate one. And by the third year, we were actually in Whole Foods. So that that's when all of a sudden it was like, oh, this might be a business. Oh, I see what's happening here.
Speaker 2:So but the first few years, it was more like we just need to reset our family and our life and and then figure out what God's gonna do with us. So
Speaker 3:Whole Foods had not been selling grass finished beef, in what we call the Southwest Region. That includes Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana. They said this is grain fed country, and you we just can't compete. And they said, if y'all will go out and market it at the farmers markets, keep up with your results, Start raising some cattle that might be coming our way, then we'll see how it works out. And it actually worked out very well.
Speaker 3:We went to a lot of farmers markets all over Mhmm. The Dallas Fort Worth area around Graham.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And the results were good enough for Whole Foods to say to say, we'll try it. And so five animals from our ranch were the first animals ever killed in the Southwest Region
Speaker 2:Wow. Right.
Speaker 3:For Whole Foods.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Down in Austin, now they went into all
Speaker 3:Austin stores. Yeah. Austin stores. And so we got traction with that. And so those four states were more willing than Whole Foods thought to buy this kind of product
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:For health benefits. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:and this Whole Foods that you're talking about is a very different Whole Foods than today post Amazon sale. It is. Can we talk a little bit about what what it was like? What was Whole Foods like back in the early two thousands when you were first starting to work with them?
Speaker 2:I loved I loved going in there because every single person was super educated. You felt like you were, talking to a pharmacist, but only all natural. You could go in and say, hey. In fact, you you have a guest at this conference that's gonna be talking about hormones. You could go in there and say, hey, I'm having hot flashes.
Speaker 2:And they're like, oh, I know exactly what you need. And, I mean, these people were so educated. It was awesome to shop there. John Mackey, even though he himself was a vegan, he just knew how to support local. He knew how to build from within.
Speaker 2:He put a lot of money into his own people. And that's right the opposite of what, Bezos is doing now. So, he he had originally hoped Bezos he or Bezos had originally hoped to actually eliminate cashiers, with the technology where you just have all the all the products in your bag and you walk out and it automatically scans it and charges your credit card, that hasn't come to fruition, pardon me, yet for him. So
Speaker 3:He was gonna eliminate all the cashier Yeah.
Speaker 2:He was
Speaker 3:across all of Whole Foods for a certain number of years, and it would have paid for the acquisition
Speaker 1:Right. Of Whole
Speaker 3:Foods. Wow. 14,000,000,000. Yep. But he couldn't pull that off.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So then he said, well, if we can't get it out of the cashiers, we'll just get it out of our vendors.
Speaker 2:So he cut us. We had five cuts, price cuts, before they finally bottomed out. And so now we're trying to work our way back up. But that was hard. I mean, not just financially and and cash flow wise, it was just like you felt the disrespect.
Speaker 2:You know? It's like there was so much pride in being a Whole Foods supplier. And now it's just like, no. It it's just a bottom line thing. It no longer was a and I I think you can see, like, Trader Joe's, you can see other natural grocers, other companies that are now par with Whole Foods.
Speaker 2:And Whole Foods used to be this amazing thing.
Speaker 1:Another tier.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now they're just right in there, they're just another supplier. So, Well,
Speaker 3:food is a commodity, and yet it is not. Mhmm. People have relationships with their food. Mhmm. And that's the nice thing about being a human.
Speaker 3:Animals eat instinctively, but humans choose what they eat. And they eat it, you know, as a a part of their health, a part of the flavor profile. It's it's a feel good thing. And so, our food system has become so industrialized, that it is now the enemy Yes. Of the American health
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 3:Dilemma. It's, you know, your processed foods, Coke, Pepsi, high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup is a poison, and it's in every one of our soft drinks. It should have been outlawed. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:But the FDA and the USDA are too corrupt to to outlaw that. But, there's some doctors in California, I'm sorry. I'm not gonna recall their name at the at this time, but we could always follow it up later, that are doing the research on high fructose corn syrup. And it is not good. And it's the younger generation, the young kids that are hooked to that.
Speaker 2:There's two year olds with fatty liver disease. That's a 65 year old alcoholic disease.
Speaker 1:Aged alcoholics. I know. Children are getting it from sugar now.
Speaker 2:They're getting it from high fructose corn syrup. Their their livers really are struggling. And people don't know any better. And that's why this what you guys do is so important. It's why we too are taking more time to get out and make sure that everybody hears hears what we have to share, hear our story because our story is meant to be shared.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so people just have to hear. There's something that we always call good, better, best. And especially in fact, I I'd love to be on Sean Baker's podcast because
Speaker 1:That's gonna happen. We're gonna make that happen. We're
Speaker 3:gonna make
Speaker 1:that happen.
Speaker 2:Well, he, KetoCon, he, stood up and said, look, I love my regenerative farmers, but until I see the science, I have to tell you there's no difference. And I was going, dude, you didn't watch our little our little panel. There was so much right in that panel alone, our regenerative farming panel. But I mean, tomorrow, you'll see I've got a big stack of here's the facts, here's a great article on just the difference, the the the scientific difference. But what he's right about and what he's done that's so positive is talk about, stop eating the the processed food.
Speaker 2:Come back and eat red meat. That is the good. There's good, better, best. And so just in fact, you you had you did that. Yes.
Speaker 2:That's how you figured healing. And then you went further.
Speaker 1:It was a progression.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And now you're only eating the best. And I love that. You guys had a tagline at the beginning, purist. Like, purest like us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I love that tagline and it endeared me to y'all when you said that because people need to know that eating red meat is good, especially children. They need to have that. But there's so much, when you get older, there's so much if you have eaten corn fed beef for so long, you're gonna end up with blockage. That's just what the blockage is caused from, is from grain finished red meat.
Speaker 2:That's why so many cardiologists say get rid of red meat.
Speaker 3:I will make the sixes.
Speaker 2:But they're missing all the other nutrition that can only be found in red meat. Yeah. And so all pasture based, or pasture finished proteins will have a higher omega-three to omega-six ratio. It's really, really important to have those ratios. Do you want me to talk about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you're so I know something you've said is, like, you wanna if you can get to as close as one to one as possible
Speaker 2:That's the idea.
Speaker 1:That would be amazing. Right. But isn't it I think you were saying this that some, industrial beef could be as high as, like, 30 to one or something like that or 50 to one?
Speaker 2:50 to one. That's in 50
Speaker 1:to one.
Speaker 2:One omega three to 50, and that's that's
Speaker 3:omega six.
Speaker 2:And that's still considered what we call good because you're eating the red meat, and there's so many other nutrients that we need to get out of there. And then you go to what's called pasture, a lot of people misuse this word, grass fed. And so it has no longer, it's been bastardized if you want to call it that. It really doesn't mean grass finished anymore. So, you can have a grass fed product.
Speaker 2:The label says grass fed, but they're finished on grain. And those ratios will be about one to 20. So, one omega three to 20 omega sixes. And that's still going to cause plaque. It's still not going to be optimal.
Speaker 2:You'll feel amazing because you've brought protein into your life, and we need that. We have to have that. But once you go further into a grass finished, truly grass finished, like ours actually gets tested randomly because of Whole Foods and because of American Grass Fed, they randomly will test our tissue. And it's, ours is testing out at one omega three to three omega sixes. And so anytime you can have a one to four ratio, you will eliminate autoimmune diseases.
Speaker 2:That's doable. I mean, that's doable, but that's the best. So good, better, best. You should evaluate all that you eat that way. Zeeky, fabulous.
Speaker 2:Fabulous. Why? Because they cook in animal oils and animal lard, tallow, phenomenal product that we can now get fast. Because why? This is who we are in America.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:We need it quick. You know? That's just who we've become, your generation even more than mine. I'm still we still eat at home. I mean, even when we're traveling, we eat at home 18 out of 21 meals.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, it's just out of a week, that's what we're doing. Your generation is even more on the fly. You know, you've just got to grab food to go. So you still want to find out who's cooking with what.
Speaker 2:And that's that good, better, best. And that's just really important.
Speaker 1:I love that approach because when I first heard you speak so passionately at the beef and the chef in Colorado, I remember thinking, like, I understand why you're both so passionate because you're doing things as good as it can be. It's you're grass finishing everything. Everything's pasture raised. It's, you know, it's in your backyard. You're incorporating regenerative practices.
Speaker 1:But and I was like, are they just, like, ultimate purists? Like, if I'm eating grain finished beef, do they not support that? And I think your model of the good, better, best, it takes a lot of pressure off of it of just meeting people where they're at. Yes. It's like if we could get people to just start buying you know, maybe you start buying beefier local grocery store, and you stop buying the crap at the inter aisles and you start to feel really good Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Then you go down the education rabbit hole. You start connecting with local ranchers or different organizations Yep. And you'll eventually get to that point. Right. Like you said, that's how I started.
Speaker 1:I was in New York. I was like, let me try this carnivore thing. My stomach doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And just eating grain finished beef got me, like, 80% of the way there. But to get to that % where I felt so good Mhmm. It was getting the grass finished regenerative stuff.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yep. Yep.
Speaker 1:But it's a progress.
Speaker 2:I know. So you and I are gonna sit down with Sean Baker, and we're gonna say, dude. Because a lot a lot, in fact, Jason Rick, I'm looking at his little sticker right here, and I I love love him. He's a great man. He has taught me this great verbiage, observational science.
Speaker 2:And a lot of us in this space had to walk that way. And that's what you did too because you were dealing with an an MD that was like, I'm not sure this is really gonna work. Don't come off your meds. Let let's see. And and really had to cradle you until he you just kept going by what you saw, what you felt, and that's called observational science.
Speaker 2:There wasn't anything. And so with Sean, he's always like, until someone shows me the the actual comparison of if I would have gotten healthy with grass finished as opposed to if I just got healthy with this, no one's gonna go back to being unhealthy. Mhmm. And so it's gotta be observational science, and it's gotta be people like you and Weldon that stand up and say, I got so good, and then I even got better. And so, and it's not something that is, you know, is eating grass finished beef at every single meal every single day sustainable?
Speaker 2:No. In our world, it isn't. But we have an amazing immune system. And if we'll take care of it the bulk of the time, it will take care of us all of the time.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I see that even in my grandchildren. When they come and spend time with us, like, they'll be with us for a week or so, their health turns around immediately. Why? Because I'm eating super clean at my house. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then they go back home and they don't. And then they're sick and they're sick and they're sick. We when we had this sweet family that we were in business well, not really in business with, but that we were involved with, a few years ago and they had a two year old. Well, I guess he was maybe three. Anyways, he came into my house, opened up my pantry, said, what's paleo in here?
Speaker 2:I was like, How does this little kid know that?
Speaker 1:That's incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That is so sweet. And then his mom said, No. We went through feeling sick and he knows the difference. Like this three year old knew that when he doesn't eat paleo, doesn't eat clean, he's got a runny nose, a snobby nose. He's only sick.
Speaker 2:He's lethargic, and he's not healthy. And when he's eat clean, this little kid's a fireball.
Speaker 1:I mean, he is a fireball. Observational science.
Speaker 2:Yes. Observational science. I love that term.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And to your point, something you you've both taught me a lot about understanding labels on your food. Mhmm. And what I mean by that is so it's funny you're talking about Whole Foods. Harry and I live a mile and a half away from the original Whole Foods.
Speaker 1:Yes. And even now, when I go there, sometimes I'll just ask the butcher, hey. Do you know where what farm this meat was raised at? A lot of them can't even answer that basic question. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But it's greenwashed to say grass fed or pasture raised, and a lot of these people these consumers are unfortunately paying a premium.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And
Speaker 1:their beef is probably coming from Mexico or Brazil or somewhere else. Yep. And so maybe we could dig into that. Just what do you think people should know about their labels or just, like, verifying the sourcing of their beef?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll answer that. And number one, the USDA is not your friend. And Tom Vilsack, the head of the USDA, He's the one that invalidated the grass fed label that John Mackey and many of us, pilot pastor Yeah. Will Harris.
Speaker 1:Liar.
Speaker 3:All of us met in Austin, and we were able to go through FISES, the food, information safety group with USDA and get a grass fed label. And then Tom Vilsack, under the Obama administration and Biden, said all cattle eat grass at some point in their life. Therefore, all beef packaged in this you know, wherever it comes from, overseas or in The US can be labeled grass fed because all cattle eat grass at some point in their life.
Speaker 2:But, of
Speaker 3:course, that kinda denudes or strips the the the core of what grass fed supposed to mean is that they're finished on pasture. Mhmm. It's the chloroplast that makes chlorophyll green that is the protein for the cattle. Mhmm. So if they're eating so the grass is being fed by the sun.
Speaker 3:So I just think of God's business model here. Yeah. I'm gonna provide, you know, twelve hours of sun every day and maybe more if you're close to the Equator to the earth to grow all these this vegetation that cattle can eat that we then eat the cattle if we're good stewards of those animals that will be healthy for us. And then, we screw up the business model because we process it. We need to get our our share of money from Mhmm.
Speaker 3:The companies like Kraft and, you know, Kraft cheese, fifty one percent cheese, and what the hell is the other 49%? Yeah. They got that passed through the FDA. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Well, it can't legally be called cheese. Don't they call it Kraft Singles? Because it's like I think they call it a cheese like product or a cheese like substance
Speaker 3:or something like that. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:They can call it cheese if it's 51%.
Speaker 1:If it's 51%.
Speaker 2:But if it's less than that, they do call it something else.
Speaker 1:So I think singles
Speaker 2:Vita or something? Yes. Right. That's right.
Speaker 1:They can't call it cheese.
Speaker 2:Call it cheese.
Speaker 1:That's wild. I know.
Speaker 3:How much cheese does Pringles have in it?
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 3:So, anyway, the the USDA is and FDA is is allowing the industrial food complex to poison us to poison us as consumers for their own financial benefit. That should be illegal. Mhmm. But it's not. The pharmaceutical companies aren't gonna lobby to make it illegal because they live off of all the sick Americans.
Speaker 3:And probably nine out of ten Americans are on a prescription.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And and we're killing ourselves slowly because we kill ourselves quickly then they can't parasite off of us. So it's a pretty sick business model, but so I don't know where I was headed.
Speaker 1:Just all the all the misleading labels. People think that they're in Walmart, and they're like, oh, I can get grass fed beef there.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because it's got a nice green label on it. It's very greenwashed.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But it it needs just for your con your your listeners to hear this, If it's truly grass finished, it's gonna have some type of certification. If the rancher wasn't willing to do that, I'd be suspect as to whether it's not whether it's really pasture finished.
Speaker 2:Unless you have that relationship.
Speaker 3:If you have a one on one relationship, that's what counts the most. Everyone needs to meet their rancher. But if you're buying from a grocery store, it's because you don't have that one on one relationship with a rancher. Then You're having to trust that Whole Foods is buying the right kind of animals. And they're one of the few companies in The US that has better animal proteins than not.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. So I would trust that relationship more so than than not, but always knowing your rancher's the best. But, anyway, you're talking about labels and like Dairy Queen. Warren Buffett owned it. And Dairy Queen, there's no dairy in Dairy Queen.
Speaker 3:It's all synthetic. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, you know, soul brothers. Mhmm. They are, you know, of of the equal yolk. And so, it it there's no dairy in Dairy Queen.
Speaker 3:Why can they do that? That's misleading to the consumer. Mhmm. And then the sugar is addictive. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And the dopamines go off and, you know, you're a happy camper until you hit the bottom of that curve. And then, you gotta get another hit of, you know, sugar
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:In your system. But, anyway, our labels in this country were more corrupt in our food system probably than any other part of our economy. The the food companies are allowed to mislead us. You don't know that there's glyphosate in in the flour that you're eating from the pipe bread that you bought at a store. It's just endemic in our society that food companies can mislead the consumer.
Speaker 3:And so every consumer needs to really pick up every package of anything they buy at a grocery store and read the ingredients.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And they'll be shocked. If there's more than four or five ingredients, don't buy it.
Speaker 2:Right. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Anne, were you gonna say something?
Speaker 2:I was gonna say, the origin the origin of animals of beef coming in. Do you wanna address that?
Speaker 1:The cool act?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because that got what that got.
Speaker 3:Of origin, right, and all cool.
Speaker 2:Got taken off
Speaker 3:That was under Obama bite. Right. They eliminated cool that. Which was the consumer's way of tracking whether or not they're buying American beef or foreign beef. But the big food the the big processors are the one that got that eliminated.
Speaker 3:Your four biggest processors are Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and IBP. They control about 85% of the beef market in The US. Most of American beef gets shipped overseas Mhmm. Because they can sell our beef
Speaker 2:At a premium.
Speaker 3:Because we have higher standards. They can sell it at a premium. They import beef from South America and Africa and different countries at a lower price point and pay the diesel both ways. Why aren't the environmentalists jumping all over those four companies for these big ships with all the diesel burn that they have, adding carbon dioxide to the environment, taking our beef over there and their beef back to us. And the American consumer can't tell the difference because we had a a a law passed that all they had to put on there is that this is a product of The USA.
Speaker 3:So you go into the beef market at Kroger, and it'll say products of The USA. Well, it was a product of Mexico until it get it it landed on our border, and they repackaged it with a label that said product of The USA. That's deceptive marketing, and our country allows that to happen.
Speaker 2:And it's not just Mexico. Namibia, Africa. Why are we eating African beef?
Speaker 3:South American beef.
Speaker 2:We eating beef that's going across the pond?
Speaker 1:How many touch points could that even be? I've heard I forget. I don't know what the number is, but it could be, like, 20 plus touch points from that initial feedlot to the time it actually ends up at your on your plate. Right.
Speaker 2:Right. Right.
Speaker 3:And so just miss yeah. Misleading the consumer.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:We the consumer has the ultimate control over what we eat and how they what they purchase. So if they'd get more educated and and buy correctly, then the food industrial food system would start putting out more, healthier product.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:We we gotta quit buying the the bad stuff. Yeah. But and the consumer needs to get educated enough to know what the bad stuff is. If it's got more than five ingredients in it, it's got bad stuff
Speaker 2:in it. Things you can't pronounce, you
Speaker 3:don't know what it is. It I mean, like, MSG has, like, five different seven different names.
Speaker 2:Many, many names.
Speaker 3:They just keep coming up with a new name to call it to confuse the consumer.
Speaker 1:Just like you said with high fructose corn syrup, sugar, I think, has, like, 85 plus names that it can be hidden under. I think it might even be more than that too.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:So you both are saying that there so there used to be a world where if I was in Whole Foods, like, in the early two thousands Mhmm. If it was harvested in Brazil Mhmm. It would actually reveal that. Absolutely. Where now it can be processed in Brazil, and as long as it's packaged, it's still listed as a product to The USA.
Speaker 1:Right. Yes. That's insane.
Speaker 2:It is insane because all the meat in Whole Foods is supposed to be that's like their thing. It's supposed to be US born and raised. And we know for a fact it's not. I mean, we know the producers who aren't raising them here, but they but they're falling under that label. And that's not a Whole Foods thing.
Speaker 2:In fact, when we were talking about, you know, what did it used to be like, Mackey John Mackey used to do something called local producer loan program. And that is where, White Oak Pastures got funding to build their own processing plant. Gave them a huge leg up, and they had a great relationship. And they were I mean, he was Will Harris was their poster boy. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I mean, everyone loves his southern drawl, and, he's doing it all correct out there, and he's got a closed herd and, minimal stress. He's the highest animal welfare grass finished producer that that we know. I mean, he's even one rank above us because we do castrate our bulls. So, he's a rank above that us. And so, anyways, he's this amazing thing.
Speaker 2:He won't have anything to do with Whole Foods now. I mean, because it has so radically But
Speaker 3:they were using him to greenwash.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They were greenwashing big time with him. And so he didn't anyways, it's just an it's a it's an unfortunate situation. But they used to invest in small producers in Brazil. And so when if meat came from Brazil, Whole Foods was like, look, my loan program allowed this man to produce so that I can supply you with some Brazilian grass finished beef.
Speaker 2:So they were really proud at helping the small guy come into being able to produce. Everything from even, like, women that made jewelry, they would invest in. They did so many cool things. All that's gone now.
Speaker 3:They helped start so many small businesses They
Speaker 2:really did.
Speaker 3:Especially in other countries, foreign countries. Mhmm. And it was a really well run program It was. Local producer loan program. I don't know exactly where it is today.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's the same animal that it was twenty years ago, but Whole Foods helped a lot
Speaker 2:of businesses. About it, so I'm assuming it's gone. Yeah. I really don't know.
Speaker 3:They just sourced as much as they could from the local producer loan program vendors Mhmm. For their own stores that went into the Whole Foods consumers.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:You know, they were supporting that.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And so that was a very good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I remember I think Jason Rick told me this story that he has a good buddy in Colorado named Mike Calcrate, I think, who used to be Whole Foods' biggest grass finish producer in Colorado, potentially.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I think weeks after the cool act was repealed in 2015, they they sent him a new quote, like, 40% discounted price, and they were like, this is our new price. You know, if you can't beat it, unfortunately, we're not gonna be able to work together anymore. So Yeah. Those are, like, the behind the scenes economics of being a rancher that I think consumers have not known about, and now we're starting to wake up to it, which is why these podcasts are so impactful.
Speaker 2:It is. It is. So Whole Foods, when we entered, they had a really high, high standard. That's why we're so proud of our standard because we had to learn it, come into it, understand it, really get our head around it, and and fall into that if we wanted to be one of their producers. Will Harris did the same.
Speaker 2:He wasn't always a clean producer. But, you know, that nagging thing, finally, nagging thing is God, of course. Yeah. Finally convinced him, wait, my animals aren't healthy. I need to do something better.
Speaker 2:And then he too realized, okay, here's this niche. And all of that with this greenwashing, it's just not there anymore. I mean, it's just not and it's not just Whole Foods, it's across the board. I mean, it's the little rancher who's coming up, but he can find this slot of like, okay, I can label all this grass fed and I can still finish on grain and I can still have my steers to market before eighteen months. And it's like, that's just pushing a fat teenager.
Speaker 2:That's all you're really doing. You know, it's, I mean, y'all are young men and you realize you've just grown another chest. It happened after 25. It's like at 25, you grow this chest. And I know it's There's no waiting for that chest.
Speaker 2:I know. It's not just from working out. It's just, you know, men still grow. Women stop around 21, you know, but men grow this second thing. So pushing these animals to be finished before they're really finished, like cattle actually finish growing at age 30 or 36.
Speaker 3:Between 30 and 33, they've quit growing bone and muscle.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And if their steak still taking in the same number of calories after that point in time, then, they don't need that to grow bone and muscle, so they put it into the marbling in the back fat. Right. So all of our retail animals are older than 36 of age because then it's a better eating product. And with there being more fat in that grass finished beef animal, it's healthier because it has more omega omega threes because of the fat. You wanna eat all the fat you can Right.
Speaker 3:From that type of animal. Well, Whole Foods animals had to be finished younger than that. And we argued with the food the beef buyers at Whole Foods for years and years and years, like, why can't we move that to an 36 model? Mhmm. We always say over 30.
Speaker 3:It's under 30 or over 30 months. The over 30 is gonna have more fat.
Speaker 2:And it'll yield more too.
Speaker 3:And and it yields Financial. Roughly a 500 pounds of boxed beef, and the Whole Foods model yields roughly 350 pounds of beef. But it takes another year longer.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And so time is money, and they they they'd rather have a 350 pound box of beef than a 500 pound because it's a year earlier. And that that's shortsighted on their part. It's the legal department. They didn't wanna get sued if someone got mad cow disease from eating an infected, you know, beef animal, which there's only been a few in The US in our lifetime. So it's a really, really low.
Speaker 2:Worldwide for grass finished. There's never
Speaker 3:been one. Had one recently.
Speaker 2:Grass finished?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, no. No. Not grass finished.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say grass finished is worldwide. Yeah. Worldwide. There has not been,
Speaker 3:When you eat naturally
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:God takes care of you by helping you dodge the bullet of these other types of animals that are infected by something.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So That's incredible. So we're looking so, ideally, the cow would be 36 and older. Do you have a sense of, how young some of these cows are being killed at, like, an industrial feedlot that most people are eating?
Speaker 2:Eighteen months is kind of
Speaker 3:a big A 14 year old cow.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So 14 year old cow. They're not even gonna grow in. Right.
Speaker 3:But time is money.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So they're big. They get to 800 pounds hot weight. That's that's the carcass weight, 800 pounds in 18. And a third of that is fat, but it's not a good fat.
Speaker 2:Right. It's
Speaker 3:not high in omega threes. It's high in omega sixes because it's it's finished on corn and milo and soy in a in a feed yard Mhmm. Which is an economic is an environmental hazard
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:You know, in a feed yard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we should have never gone there. The the ag departments of all the state universities that pushed the grain finished model years and years and years ago did it without knowing the science. They were just trying to feed more beef to more Americans.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And then when they finally learned that, the horse was out of the barn. When they learned the nutritional difference, they go, oh my gosh. This really isn't good for us, but we can't we can't get the horse back into the barn now.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You know,
Speaker 3:it's too late. Right. So it's sad. And then then the big food systems take over, and they don't really care about your health anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right. One of the things that that we love about you guys too is so you were one of our first two podcast sponsors that we ever took on. Yes. And we had this beautiful relationship where you guys would send us these massive boxes of, like, just delicious grass finished beef with all these steaks and beef bacon.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:One of the things I actually don't know the answer to is on on the steaks, there's, like, this beautiful, like, yellowish color to the fat. Mhmm. Where does that yellowish color from fat come from? Do you
Speaker 3:Omega three.
Speaker 2:As well
Speaker 1:as Omega threes. Okay.
Speaker 2:And so
Speaker 3:did did any of your steaks ever
Speaker 2:I was gonna say
Speaker 3:have a little bit of a fishy smell? Maybe a couple of them.
Speaker 2:It's That's the omega three. You're actually literally smelling omega three. We have a really good customer, and he'll call every once in a while. And, JP, do you know JP Valadez?
Speaker 1:Through you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Okay. He's he's really good guy. But he's like, hey. This one was way more fishier than last one.
Speaker 2:Can I get more of those? Yeah. Oh. He's Yeah. He's kinda funny.
Speaker 2:We don't have that control where we know which one's gonna be it. But you're literally that's what you're smelling. It's not a bad thing. It isn't a a spoilage thing. And it's not like really strong.
Speaker 2:It's just No. You can get a waffle that's like, like, oh, did I just smell a little
Speaker 1:fish?
Speaker 3:You'll have a yellowish tinge to the fat in pasture finish.
Speaker 2:Just like from the core?
Speaker 3:Bright white when it's grain finished.
Speaker 2:Because it gets washed out. All that gets
Speaker 1:washed out. Got it. So that's where the yellowish comes from.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Right.
Speaker 1:And what I what I noticed, because so so the fish the fishy smell is actually a sign of nutrient density that's really good beef.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:What I've noticed with your beef is that if I just dry brine it a little bit and just salt it and then throw it in my fridge for, like, a couple hours or even a day Right. That smell just like it kinda neutralizes too.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yeah. In fact, beef, any red meat, so wild game, any red meat, people need to hear this, it's really forgiving. It so we do something called wet age, our premium steaks. And, if you've ever eaten at a really high end steakhouse, they get the same exact steak as Applebee's or lower end.
Speaker 2:But Applebee's gets the meat, slices, cooks it, and it's served. And the high end steak houses will age it in in sealed, but wet aging, so it's stewing in its own juices. They'll do it for no longer or no shorter than thirty days, usually forty five, the better the steak. So you've been at these these really high end steakhouses, and you're like, this is so good. And yes, there's some good seasoning, but bottom line is the steak is so good.
Speaker 2:And what's the difference? It's aging it. But when they open that aged product out, it smells like it has spoiled.
Speaker 3:So there
Speaker 2:is a wafting of bat aroma. You will never get to tour those when they're opening, like, the kitchen won't get to do a kitchen tour when they're opening that, aged steak. But all you do is just rinse that off and it's fine. It is not spoiled. It's just a kind of byproduct.
Speaker 2:But literally, just rinse off. Like you said, just put salt on it. Do something to neutralize the odor if there is an odor.
Speaker 3:Yeah. What it's doing by aging is microbes have begun to tenderize, the the steak.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:They're they're breaking down the connective tissue, the the you know, call it the not the cartilage, but they're just breaking down the steak, and it'll get more and more tender.
Speaker 2:And flavorful.
Speaker 3:Old time guys would wet age for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. So and that's what we do. We dry aged.
Speaker 2:Will go if butchers, like, retired butchers just buy their meat, like, at Costco or, any store, they'll buy what's on sale because it has begun to age. And so it's cheap, and it's already getting more premium. And so people don't realize how wonderful aging red meat. Now you don't age chicken or pork. You don't wanna age any of that.
Speaker 2:But, if it smells bad on those two proteins, they're done. You're thrown away. But beef, just rinse it off and cook it. It's fine. It's nothing's wrong with it.
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 3:We did she did an interesting test. We've actually done it several times, but she actually videoed this one where, taking we're we're gonna demonstrate the difference between the conventional foods, beef system of slaughtering animals versus pasture finished and by the smaller processors. When you dry age an animal, our intent is to dehydrate that carcass by six to 7% of its body weight, the carcass weight. And then, we wet age it, but we don't lose any more, weight from that because it's all in a vacuum sealed bag. So you dry age to dehydrate it, and that reduces the weight.
Speaker 3:And what the USDA allowed to happen FDA allowed to happen many years ago is the big beef industry lobbied that they could rehydrate. They they basically made the argument because we're losing moisture from the animal, shouldn't we be able to put it back into the animal? So they can hook up the the beef vascular system and inject municipal tap water. Roughly 8% is added to the beef. So you're buying water.
Speaker 3:So you she you know, we've heard this for years. We knew it for years. And she did this little experiment and videoed it where we browned a pound of Walmart ground and of our ground. Mhmm. We weighed it before, and then we waited after it had been browned.
Speaker 3:And you could see the water boiling off or just dehydrating, the steam coming off in the skillet. There wasn't nearly as much of that in the our beef that's, you know, pasture finished. Then you weigh it afterwards, and it's about a 15% difference in the product weight. So people that are complaining that pasture finished beef is more expensive, well, you're paying 8% more, of what you're paying at Walmart for Water. Water.
Speaker 1:Wow. And Yeah.
Speaker 3:And when we're dehydrating ours, that's another 7%. So there's a 15% difference. So if you're paying $6 for a pound of ground, you're you're not getting that full $6 worth of beef from Walmart, but you are from ours.
Speaker 2:Right. You're
Speaker 3:getting more than that because ours was dehydrated.
Speaker 2:And then then you take another step when they're comparing prices. Ours is so nutrient dense that you're gonna get satisfied on less. Yeah. So you're gonna be satiated with not eating as much. And that takes a little bit of time.
Speaker 2:If you're used to eating just a lot of quantity of food, and you switch to all grass finished, you're gonna continue to eat that quantity until all of a sudden you're like, oh, I'm full. Oh, I don't need to eat that.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So, like, when we're eating our beef a lot and not eating out very much, we don't eat a whole steak. We literally split a New York strip. That's our favorite one, and and very satisfied. You know? We're just
Speaker 1:It's amazing.
Speaker 2:I know. It's crazy. JP, when he eats our beef and really is in the groove of just doing just carnivore, hard carnivore, he'll he eats one steak once a day and that's it. And I mean, nothing else. So he eats one only one steak for the entire day and that has satiated him.
Speaker 2:And, and he's thriving. Yeah. And he's just thriving.
Speaker 1:And for a lot of people, that sounds so crazy, but most people don't give their the body the ability to, like, actually allow the incredible machinery of the body to do what it's supposed to do. Mhmm. And when you start going carnival or animal based or whatever that eating real foods, it rewires yourself, and you're like, wow. I actually don't need this much food to feel really good.
Speaker 2:True.
Speaker 1:And I've been noticing with your beef too, and I'm not just saying this because you're on the podcast, it tastes delicious, but I almost feel, like, a vitality or energy from it. Aw. Like, when you start to rewire and eat that beef. And then when you go back, it's like, you know, it's not it's not crapping on grain finished beef or saying not to eat it. There there is just a difference in how you feel.
Speaker 1:Again, it's the observational science. Mhmm. I don't need a peer reviewed study to tell me it. I feel it, and that's all I care about.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yep. Yep. Yep. Good.
Speaker 2:That's I mean, that's to me, that's just so, so important. You know, observe your children, what's happening with them, observe your body, what's happening within, you know, just pay attention because it's it's hugely different if you really can just slow down and listen to what your body's telling you.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 3:so the long story on my health situation Yes. Is that I'm still alive because my cardiologist really didn't think I'd I'd live to be
Speaker 2:He said he was gonna manage his decline. So we had kids in kindergarten, and we're being told he's gonna, you know, we'll just manage your decline.
Speaker 3:He put me on four prescriptions that I did have to take while I was in the hospital. But the note to the listeners is, over a period of time then, I got off those four Yes. And have never been back on them and never hoped to be again. So I saved the cost of that right there.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And, of
Speaker 3:course, medications really screw with your body. Mhmm. And so I haven't had to suffer through the medication illness
Speaker 2:Side effects.
Speaker 3:Side effects that people have. Yeah. And so, we lived through that. We did I've done several scans since then, where we had a full body scanner of the carotids Mhmm. And where I was 50% blocked at one point in my life.
Speaker 3:And my my cardiologist said we do not have a pharmaceutical that will dissolve plaque. Right. It can't be undone. It can't be undone. So whatever you have now, you never will have less than that.
Speaker 3:But I'm here to tell you, you can have less than that. You you can heal yourself from cardiovascular illness
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:By eating clean Mhmm. And especially with the animal proteins. Right. And and your cardiologist is just not gonna tell you that. It doesn't fit their business model.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Right. Go home and eat pasture finished beef and never come back to see me again.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:You know, he he actually said, no. Here's what your future looks like. At some point, we're gonna be putting stents in. Another certain point, you know, several years down the road, we're planning to do our first bypass. Ten years later, we're gonna do our second bypass.
Speaker 3:And I looked at him and said, that sounds like a lot of money to me. Yeah. Alright. It's gonna be a lot of money. My dad did that twice.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And my mom had all these heart attacks and strokes. That was a lot of money Mhmm. For the health care system. And so, we're gonna be the the couple like my grandparents who spent very, very little money in the health care system. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And that's not what our modern system is built around.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, it's
Speaker 1:like you look at both of you compared to other couples that are your age, and it's like you have all this energy. You're cooking all your own meals. You're traveling around. You're teaching people. You I know you're out in the ranch.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. You're hopping fences with me in Georgia. Oh my god. And it's like, that's actually possible. People don't people just like this conference.
Speaker 1:Right? The the book that Zane wrote that he's gonna be doing the book signing on, kicking ass after 50.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:A lot of people think, oh, 50. I'm just gonna be managing my decline, like you said
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:When there's this whole other future that's possible to you by
Speaker 2:%.
Speaker 1:Diet and lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yep. Yep. Yep. %.
Speaker 3:It's a lot of fun to get on a horse.
Speaker 1:It is. Yeah. Well, I still need to get on a
Speaker 3:horse because you got none of commuting
Speaker 2:out there. In fact, that's pretty. We've gotten rich.
Speaker 1:Now would be the time to come out. Would be. Alright. Well, Harry and I are gonna come out. Okay.
Speaker 1:We should.
Speaker 3:Manny would love to give you a a ride around.
Speaker 2:Yeah. For real.
Speaker 1:I need it. I'm a Jersey boy. I gotta get Texas stuff, so no one will be better than that than you two.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Sooner than later. Sooner than later. Something I wanted to to touch back on is you you touched on, like, the oligopoly that is the big four Packers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And there's a lot of talk on Twitter and podcast about what they're actually like. But I'm curious from a rancher's perspective, what is it actually like having to deal with packers like that that have such a stronghold on the market? I don't really know because that's what we'll deal with them.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Sell any animals into that system. So we are very thankful. God has blessed us to be able to sell most of our beef direct to the consumer or to a couple of different, wholesale channels like Whole Foods. And this new one is called a Thousand Hills.
Speaker 3:And we've just begun to ship animals to them. We hope that continues, and they distribute to multiple grocery stores, chains, if you wanna call them that. And so our beef is gonna be out in more, it's gonna have a greater reach now than we've had just the Whole Foods. Whole Foods limited us to four states. So we were covering one animal per store for 40 stores in four states for the the last fifteen years, you know, that that model.
Speaker 3:And now we're gonna be in natural grocers and other grocery stores around the country. And so we're we're looking forward to that. Hope that goes well. We we're developing a good relationship with Mat Meyer. We have a Fort Worth processor that's gonna be putting those animals down, and we didn't have to ship them to Omaha.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 3:Shrinking is a bad thing. This is such a big thing. We're talking about Will Harris being a part of the LPL program, the local producer loan program, that they had a processing plant built. Well, Whole Foods wanted a ranch out in West Texas to be a stopping off point for cattle coming from Louisiana or Arkansas. Needed a place to stop, drink more water, put feet on the ground, regain their stamina, and and regain that water loss.
Speaker 3:And so they lent us money that it took us several years to pay back, but they were dedicated enough to saying for animal husbandry and animal welfare purposes, we're willing to lend you money because you're out there in Far West Texas. So when these guys are shipping animals, they can stop over and rehydrate, you know, eat again. I mean, it's just like if you took a twelve hour car ride, you're not very happy at the end of that. If you break it up into two six hour drives, you're you're more happy you're a happier camper. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:So but they were committed to doing that, and they initiated it. I didn't call them. They called me and said, hey. You're you're ranching out there. If you can buy more land or if you can do this and that, can you house animals for Whole Foods that are on the way to be processed at Cabiness in Hereford?
Speaker 3:And we did.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Is is it true that even if you're raising the animal the right way, you're grass finishing them, they're out in the pasture, regenerative practices, but the animal gets stressed out during the processing that it could damage the nutrient profile of the animal? Is that true?
Speaker 2:I don't think nutrient. I don't think it damaged, but it definitely damaged the the, eatability. The
Speaker 1:eatability. Yeah.
Speaker 3:The flavor profile. So Yeah. This is something that we kind of hang our hat on. We love to tell people that we do this, but we spend hundreds of man hours, with our cattle, most of the time off the horse.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We're on foot. We don't keep water in the water tanks, twenty four seven. We'll turn on the well, fill up the tank, turn off the well. Cattle will get a day or two of drinking water, and then we have to come in up there and turn on the well, fill up the tank in the cattle, or come to the tank to get water. And we're there on two legs.
Speaker 3:When, when the cattle see Anne or I or Manny or any of our guys on horseback, they just see a four four legged horse.
Speaker 2:Right. They don't They
Speaker 3:don't see us sitting on top. Right. You'd think they could, but they don't
Speaker 2:Well, they see us as a four legged animal.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. We're the four legged animal. And so when we get off the horse and on our feet and we're walking around those cattle, they'll reach their nose out and and smell me, you know, or Manny or Anne or any of us. So we're helping to domesticate those animals even more.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:The the more comfortable they become with us, and and here's part of our protocol. We bring them into the pins. We shut metal gates. We put them on the trailer multiple times, shutting those gates, metal on metal. They hear this loud noise that that helps them acclimate to that noise.
Speaker 3:So if they've heard it once, the next time they hear it, they're less stressed. The next time they hear it, they're even less stressed. All we're trying to do is to reduce the adrenaline flow.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:If if you don't if you're stepping off the curb, you know, over here at the end of this block and a car almost hits you, your heart rate instantly races. You're drawn from the fat that is the KPH. Mhmm. This is that's what adrenaline you know, it comes from the fat right there around your heart to get you off that street and keep you from being run over. So you had an adrenaline rush.
Speaker 3:Well, that adrenaline stays in the muscle for quite a while, several days. And so if you can train the animal to not get anxious on that last ride to the processing plant, that they say, basically, I've heard all these noises. I've been in this trailer. I've bumped around in that trailer on the way.
Speaker 2:I've seen two legged animals.
Speaker 3:Then they're much more relaxed when they get killed. Right. And that improves the quality of the meat and the flavor profile. Wow. And we spend hundreds of man hours that the consumer doesn't factor into the cost of their meat.
Speaker 3:Right. This tastes so good because
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Because we've put time into those animals Right. For all the right reasons. We get to look in their eyes. We know what they're gonna do for our health. We know what they're gonna do for the health of the population as a whole.
Speaker 3:Right. We appreciate what Whole Foods is doing to provide this kind of product to the consumer so that so that they have the chance to be healthier. Mhmm. And we want our animals to be the best. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And if Will Harris were here, I would argue with him and tell him our feet taste better than his because his has been watered down with all the rain. And our poor little animals out there in West Texas have to work really hard Right. To gain a pound Mhmm. Of that dehydrated grass. Yeah.
Speaker 3:High protein, but almost no water in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And they they, you know, our cattle do really well. What that does is higher protein gives it a stronger flavor profile.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's beefier. Our Will Harris' own employees kinda did a little taste test with us. We we cooked how many New York strips? Four. Four.
Speaker 3:Four and let them eat it. And and they're both grass fed operations and both really good nutritious product. And we had a a different flavor profile that I'm gonna say was stronger, beefier, maybe more robust, whatever all that really means. On those Will Harris' employees were going like, this is the best beef I've ever eaten. Wow.
Speaker 3:Wow. Don't tell Will. Right.
Speaker 2:So there
Speaker 1:so there's probably a difference in flavor profile of West Texas beef like yours versus Central Texas. Right?
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. Yeah. It's like a fine wine. I mean, when it's really finished on pasture, it all over the country, there's gonna be slight differences.
Speaker 2:So yep.
Speaker 1:And what do, what do some of your friends say when you tell them about how much red meat you eat? Because I I would imagine there's probably a world where some of your friends are like, oh, that's great that this diet works for Weldon, but, like, should women really be eating that much animal product or red meat? Like, how do you respond to that? Because I'm sure you get that all the time.
Speaker 2:I do. In fact, even just when we talk, like, we just spoke at our church a few weeks ago and a few months ago, I guess. And I had a lady come up and say, I don't even eat any red meat. I just said you should. You need to.
Speaker 2:I mean, how do you how do I communicate that to someone? People are surprised that I eat so much, red meat and so much protein in general. Like, they're surprised that a woman can lean as far carnivore. Now, I still love my leafy green salad, but I it's not a part of my everyday life. I don't eat it every single day.
Speaker 2:Like, a lot of women are just rabbits. And, and yet they're carrying a lot more belly fat than I care. Yeah. And, anyway, so it that's a very interesting question because I I love sitting on a panel with all men and going, yeah, I eat this way too.
Speaker 1:So And you feel amazing.
Speaker 2:I do. Yeah. I do. And my weight manages itself. I mean, I'm definitely, menopausal.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely past all that. And that's when a lot of women gain all that extra weight and have a hard time balancing hormones. I I am hot flashing. I'm still doing other things, but I'm not putting on that extra weight and I'm not carrying it in the wrong places.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And it's really not it's not because I'm not eating because I eat a lot of protein.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I eat a lot a lot of protein. So we definitely, eggs and meat at breakfast every day virtually.
Speaker 3:And raw milk.
Speaker 2:And raw milk. We do that raw milk.
Speaker 1:Every day. I
Speaker 3:I'm a bit butter. Yep.
Speaker 2:In fact, what I will say for women, what I noticed when I because I'll go I'll do cleanses. I'll do, like, thirty day cleanses at various times throughout the year. Usually, only twice a year when I really crank down and just try to just only eat, do a cleanse. And I don't even do Whole30 anymore. I usually just do strict carnivore or really strict, keto and really, really pushing healthy fats, that type of thing.
Speaker 2:But what I have found is that as a woman, when I'm doing carnivore, I actually lean heavily on dairy. Not I eat a ton and ton of protein, a ton of meat, but more than a normal carnivore, more than you. I'll bring in, cheeses, I'll and I make my own yogurt. I make my own cream cheese. I love cream cheese.
Speaker 2:And so I actually find that, those fermented dairy products, when I'm doing carnivore, they really help me a lot. So I would say that to women. And I've heard other women that are in my space Mhmm. Say that they too have they too do a lot with dairy as opposed to, like, a true male carnivore like Sean Baker doesn't. He doesn't do that.
Speaker 2:And so I don't know if that's a female thing that we just need a little bit more relief. So anyways, that's what I have found works for me.
Speaker 1:Is one of the yeah. Go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 3:Everyone that can find their local, dairy farmer in their in their area that's raising brown hided, Jersey Guernsey or Brown Swiss dairy cattle. It is the best milk. That raw milk, people that can't eat other foods can almost live exclusively off the the milk. Mhmm. The protein and the fat of that.
Speaker 3:It is just wonderful. I try to drink a 10 ounce glass of raw milk every day.
Speaker 1:Full fat, of course.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. All the fat. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And our dairy farmer out in West Texas doesn't skim the cream. Mhmm. He gives you everything the cow gives him.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And it's wonderful. When you come out, you'll get to drink some of that.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to try it.
Speaker 3:And it is oh, it's it's thicker than normal. It's creamier, and and it just, oh, it's just wonderful.
Speaker 1:Have either of you had a mother culture yogurt before? Have you heard of it?
Speaker 2:Of it. Yes. And I have not had it.
Speaker 1:Okay. We we, we had Michelle, who's their founder on the podcast, like, two weeks ago, and they're out of San Antonio. Okay. Very similar story. And her I think her daughter had some really serious allergy issues, and they healed it by doing, like, the GAPS diet, which
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And, she started getting into just making her own yogurts Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And, really high quality, all grass fed, I think, Jersey or Guernsey cows
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And, low temp pasteurized because they're selling it commercially. So I guess because they're in Whole Foods, so I don't think they can sell that raw.
Speaker 2:Right. It's totally sold. Correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. But their yogurt, it's like they'll put, like, wild blueberries in there or cherries, and it's, like, the best thing ever.
Speaker 2:Oh, man.
Speaker 1:It's so good.
Speaker 2:I'd love to try it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I have heard of them. So
Speaker 3:I'll put a plug in, for something that's gonna become more and more popular, already has begun since COVID, and that is homesteading.
Speaker 1:Homesteading. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And someone can go out and have 20 acres. If you're in East Texas, 20 acres gets enough rain and you get a lot of vegetative growth on the grasses. In West Texas, it might take a few more than 20 acres. But the very first animal anyone should buy is a dairy cow. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:The the the big dairies are gonna burn out a Jersey at about four year as a four year old. They won't be producing enough milk for that dairy to keep them, so they'll sell them cheap. We bought ours for 3 or $400. She lived another ten years on our ranching gram. She gave us however much milk we needed every day, a gallon at least a gallon for our own consumption, but then we put orphan calves on that dairy cow because not many people moving from the city out into the country wanna become a dairy farmer.
Speaker 2:Right. They
Speaker 3:don't wanna milk at four in the morning, four in the afternoon. Right. So if they'll put an orphan calf on on that cow, she'll raise that cow for that that farmer Mhmm. And then that becomes an animal in their food system. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:They're gonna consume that animal at some point in the future. And and you we had them staggered for maybe there was one that was, 12 old that's grazing on its own now. One is eight months old, not quite weaned. Another one was four months old and still, you know, heavily nursing the dairy cow. And that's three animals that are in my food system to be consumed or be sold off this one Jersey cow that was providing us whatever amount of milk we wanted.
Speaker 3:You know, we we could go on go to the stock shows. We could go on a vacation. We didn't have to worry about a milking schedule. The calves got all that we didn't need.
Speaker 2:Right. Yep.
Speaker 3:Most productive animal we have ever been involved with.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:That's incredible.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:So it seems like a lot of people, they say they wanna go into ranching, and it's like, no. You actually probably wanna just go into homesteading to provide for yourself.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's there's a whole another thing of bringing business into it.
Speaker 2:In fact, we really didn't start thinking that. You know, we just we had a health crisis, 09:11. We had a financial crisis. We needed to move out of the city. We needed to reset, and then it became a business.
Speaker 2:So I think dropping your city life with the intent of doing a ranching business is is not really the wisest thing because most ranchers don't make enough make money. We don't even I mean, we're we we live comfortably because of other reasons, you know, inheritances and different things. But there's not a lot of money in ranching. So But But
Speaker 3:there's a lot of food.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of food. So even Will Harris will say I mean, he's got, 81 employees. But I mean, the bottom line is it's it's paycheck to paycheck for Will Harris too. Yeah. You know?
Speaker 2:So you just are breaking even. He's he's supporting 81 people and his own family and, but there's not like a lot of money to be made doing what we do. It's definitely we always say it's our passion and our ministry because it's we get you know, we we just And we're still
Speaker 3:waiting for Kevin Costner to call Yeah. And bring down Yellowstone to West Texas. He went out to 46. He did, mate.
Speaker 2:Before 46. Yeah. He went
Speaker 3:out to
Speaker 2:part of his
Speaker 3:But he didn't go out to West Texas.
Speaker 1:It's this really interesting dichotomy. Like, even Will, I think he said on the show, I think he they do $2,025,000,000 a year in revenue, but the margins tell a different story. It's just, like, weird dichotomy of a lot of ranchers. They're technically asset rich, but the margins of the business themselves or the money they're taking home are so difficult.
Speaker 2:Exactly. That's what I'm trying to communicate. So yeah. But homesteading is definitely where it's at.
Speaker 3:A guy can be homesteading and have a job in town. Right. He can be out in the country because that's the way he wants to raise his family. Right. He wants the kids to be involved in four h and FFA and have an animal to show in the livestock show.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. You can start with rabbits. That that's pretty inexpensive, and you can eat them at the end of the show. We did. I mean, we did.
Speaker 3:We had we had rabbit stew, and to be honest, it's very good.
Speaker 2:It's fun. Yes.
Speaker 3:You know? So you can you consume almost everything that you're touching and and working on
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:On the farm, and someone still might be going into town for the the paycheck. Mhmm. But it's the lifestyle of homesteading.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:You're in control of your own
Speaker 2:food security. You have a lot of food security when you
Speaker 3:get that. You got beef in the freezer. You've got chickens in the freezer. You've got the dairy cow out there that's gonna give you as much milk as your family can consume.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And help you raise another animal to be processed. Right. You've got your own garden. We did all that in that first year, in Graham. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Oh, for many years.
Speaker 1:We're the base.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:We did it from for ten years in Graham, we milked our own cow.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:But we didn't milk her every day.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And and she's so easy. As soon as she saw me leave the back porch, she was coming out of the pasture and and headed for the barn. We didn't have a halter on her. She just went into the barn. She knew right where to stand because I'd put a flake of hay in in that feeder for her.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. I tied up her tail. We had the the the the pail A bucket. Bucket for the milk. It took less than an hour to get a gallon.
Speaker 3:I'm not a very good milker, but for someone that's really good at that, you could probably do it
Speaker 2:in thirty minutes.
Speaker 3:Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes.
Speaker 2:You'll you'll laugh at this. I would make my kids because we would all go out there together and we homeschooled at that point in our life and, that's when we prayed the rosary. So hail Mary, full of grace.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I love that.
Speaker 2:You would laugh about that.
Speaker 3:But you built character in the kids. Absolutely. And there we had horses they rode, you know. They had sheep out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know what a mutton busting is? No. It's where you grab onto the the wool of the sheep and it starts running and you try to hang on. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:If you're trying to ride
Speaker 2:that sheep You ride it.
Speaker 3:That's mutton busting.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Little kids, like five year olds.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And at the rodeos, they always have a mutton busting contest of all these little four and five year olds riding a sheep.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Who could ride it the furthest before they fell off?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I love it. Harry and I will have to, do that when we come out. I know. Do you have go longer.
Speaker 3:We we don't have any sheep right now, but we might could find something. We could find her out, but I could.
Speaker 2:No. I don't know.
Speaker 3:You might have to They're kind of a bit. Shrink a little bit.
Speaker 2:I was gonna
Speaker 1:say Yeah.
Speaker 3:You weigh more than the five year old. That's true.
Speaker 1:One of the you reminded me of this. One of my last questions for both of you is, you know, whether it's, like, you guys getting married, having kids, having grandkids, holy cow, going through your stroke process. I'm just curious just the role, like, as Catholics and Christians, like, what what what role faith has played
Speaker 3:in both of your lives. It's it's paramount.
Speaker 2:It's everything. And we we I I can't preach this enough, walk by faith and not by sight. You've and I feel so bad because mental health has really consumed our society. There's there's so many, we've learned of a new another new one, intermittent explosive disorder. It's like, is that a for real diagnosis?
Speaker 2:Don't we all have that? I mean, don't we all just freak out every once in a while? But, anyway, so I mean, the to label all this stuff, and then you're giving people the justification to blame, well, it's because I'm this or because of that, as opposed to like, okay, God, just what are you trying to teach me? And in this moment, okay, I'm just gonna keep walking because I know that's what I'm supposed to do. And so you walk by faith, you don't walk by sight because sometimes when you look around, life can be really overwhelming and and difficult and hard.
Speaker 2:We just ended up having our grandchildren with us, for a few weeks and, there's four of them. They were seven months old to seven years old. And the little one, was waking up every two hours and I was like, what are you doing, Lord? I'm 59. What am I doing?
Speaker 2:This is so hard. And, but you just keep going, you know, and you wake up and you still smile and you're just like, I've got this. And you put good food on the table and sure enough, life turns around and the baby's sleeping through the night and everybody's happy and life is good. So, you just for us, it's paramount. We've always said Holy Cow beef is not our company.
Speaker 2:It's God's company. And that allows us the ability to give back a lot. There's customers that'll that we know are on a health journey. I would say eighty five percent of our customer base are on a very serious health journey like yours. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:That's why it resonated when you told your story. I'm like, woah. This is so cool. Incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so when they call us or they say, I can't order this month. Finances are tight. I'll get back to you next month. It's like, no. Here.
Speaker 2:Take your monthly order, and we don't want you to not eat well because we know you're in a fragile area. That kind of stuff is what it's all about. That's knowing that God's gonna give us enough customers to meet what we need, our payroll, our people, and yet help this customer out who has been a good customer for so long but can't afford to pay. We do that often and other things. But I mean, that's all I can say is I can't say it enough, walk by faith.
Speaker 2:Because what's happening spiritually in our world is is beyond what we can see. The principalities, they always say that in the Bible. Right? It's the principalities. So,
Speaker 3:you Good and evil.
Speaker 2:God's never going to give you more than you can handle. That's a for real thing. So when life is overwhelming and and struggling or you don't see which way you're supposed to go next, you just got to take that step back and say, okay, And you keep moving forward. So
Speaker 3:Mhmm. We've always said for twenty two years, knowing that God was opening these doors, we didn't have a clue what the future looked like. We didn't know if it'd be a business. We just wanted to eat this way.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:As it unfolded and began to mature, it became our mission and our passion. Mhmm. Our mission as as a Christian to witness to people. It's on our front door of our you know, we got all things on the front door. The threshold of the door, so people, when they walk up to our porch, they're gonna know we're Christians.
Speaker 3:And then, you know, we're active in our church. The kids have all been raised this way. And then God has to open all the doors. Like this thing with Matt Meyer, Thousand Hills, we tried to open that door five years ago. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And you try a little bit and if it doesn't work, you just say this isn't his will right now.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And then Matt called me three months ago and I'm going, Matt Meyer, are you on the phone? Mhmm. So you're calling me this time? Right. I'm like, okay.
Speaker 3:So the door opened.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And so when the door opens, you walk through it. Yeah. And we'll walk through it as long as he wants us to. In a couple of years, it might be that the door shuts. You know, we've been proud to be a supplier to Whole Foods, but that if that door shuts at some point in the future, that's just where God has us.
Speaker 3:And that's that's okay with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're okay with that.
Speaker 1:And God will give you another door to walk through.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:There'll be other grocery stores, other opportunities
Speaker 2:%.
Speaker 1:Selling your beef online, you go on different podcasts. There's so many other opportunities that you can't even see.
Speaker 2:Right. That we can't see.
Speaker 3:Maybe to give her the time to write this recipe that you know, she's gonna write a a recipe book, at some point in
Speaker 1:the future. We need that.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 3:We do.
Speaker 1:I need your bone broth recipe. Will you yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, it's really Sally Fallon's mother, I think, or grandmother.
Speaker 2:That's what you always say.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's not. It's it's Anne's.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 1:And in my mind, it's Anne's. Yeah. But it is amazing, though, because Austin is a very it's a spiritual city, and I think our pastor said this. People are really looking for the supernatural Mhmm. But they're not looking for it in the right areas.
Speaker 1:I know. Millennials in particular. Right? It's like the amount of people that I know that will spend thousands of dollars to go on some, like, crazy retreat in the jungle of Costa Rica to do, like, some crazy drug.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And then
Speaker 1:I remember going into church at Thrive and just having this amazing experience of being like, the answer was always, like, right down the road. I just didn't I was just looking for the wrong things, but he's always been there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He's, like, waiting for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. He's waiting for you. I think that's a really that's a really key thing for people to hear, especially from someone young like you and from someone seasoned. I always say I'm seasoned because I'm
Speaker 1:You are seasoned. Over
Speaker 3:here. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. But is that he's waiting for you. And so you've gotta put effort. There's gotta be an effort. So you can walk by faith and not by sight.
Speaker 2:But the point is you gotta walk. I mean, you've gotta put that effort into keep going because God's not giving me more than I can handle. And a lot of times, it's beautiful and you're blooming where you're planted, but you've just you've got to put forth the effort because he is waiting. And when you put forth the effort, he's right there and he's picking it up and he's opening up these doors. And, and twenty three years later, here we are.
Speaker 1:Here we are.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 3:And we don't know today what we're really capable of, but he does. And so if we'll just let him open those doors, we'll be ready when that door opens.
Speaker 2:Right. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:So
Speaker 1:Yep. Yep. My absolute last question is, what is the impact that you both wanna leave on your kids and grandkids now having, like, multi generations to to the Waldens or to the Warrens? Sorry. I always I'm just
Speaker 2:That's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I've done a lot five times.
Speaker 3:I'll let you start.
Speaker 2:Oh, gosh. Faith first. Mhmm. Relationship with God, of course. But I think when you come into that relationship with God and realize his creation, which is us and our own immune system, how amazing it is that when we support it, you stay healthy.
Speaker 2:And it's you know, stress is one of those things that is as bad as bad food.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And so if you can reduce the stress in your life and you can come into that comfortable relationship space, and then you can eat clean, that's really what I'd like to teach my kids. It's not about, okay, I went to school to become this great doctor. I went to school to be this. Because most of us in our age group have changed careers, not just paths, careers. And so a lot of people will be like, yeah, I never knew I was gonna own a diner.
Speaker 2:You know, I never knew I was gonna run a food truck. I don't think Nick from Ziki started off thinking, I'm gonna do this food truck thing. And when it became good, I I know it crossed his mind, should I do brick and mortar? And it's like, no, man. Look at this.
Speaker 2:You know? And so just let life happen in that positive way, but you gotta be healthy. So it's gotta be healthy spiritually and physically, and, of course, mentally will fall in line if you can get those too.
Speaker 3:And my take on that, Brett, is that in whether you're homesteading or you're in town with your family and you have dogs as pets or cats as pets, God has given us this opportunity to have relationships with other animals other than the humans. And so we really value the the the benefit of the relationship that's back and forth. We're taking care of the dogs, the horses, the cattle. Literally, there's nothing more fun for me. And and I've and I've done it more in the past than I've done it recently.
Speaker 3:But, to look directly in the eyes of all these animals at the water tank and they're they're they've entrusted their life to us so we can get them to a proper weight so they can serve the purpose that God gave them to us to serve. He wanted them to be a part of our food system, but we don't have a single hotshot on our ranch.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:If we have to hotshot one, we've screwed up.
Speaker 2:We have failed.
Speaker 3:We have failed. So these animals are there to live a good life on green grass with sunshine, adequate water Mhmm. And to do what they're supposed to do. And then we prepare them for that processing plant in the most humane way we can Mhmm. So that they have an enjoyable experience living life on the ranch.
Speaker 3:And we call them holy cow happy cows. I love it. They they have one bad day, and and then that's that's the way they serve us. Yep.
Speaker 1:I love it. What is the best way for people to connect with you and holy cow? And if they're compelled and wanna get some some beef from you, what's the best way for them to do that if they're not local to West Texas?
Speaker 2:Right. Holycowbeef.com. It's just and if they go on there, they'll see our story. There's a shop. They can reach the guys who are doing most of the heavy lifting now.
Speaker 2:Weldon and and I aren't really doing that as much anymore, but that's probably the best way.
Speaker 3:It's spelled h o l y intentionally. Intentionally. That's a spiritual religious
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Word. We have a halo over our cow's head in on the logo. Yes. So it's HolyCow, c 0 w beef b, double e, f. Holy cow beef Com, and then it's easy from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They'll they'll they'll figure it out from there.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Well, I feel like the name really tells the story, and I just feel I feel so grateful to be able to to sit down with you guys and be able to, like, hear the story in its full completion. And just I feel like I knew I'm knowing I'm learning new things about you that I didn't even know prior to the podcast. And Harry and I really do view you guys like our West Texas parents. So we appreciate you both, and we love you.
Speaker 1:And, just very grateful to have you both in studio and record this.
Speaker 3:Thank you for the invitation. It's nice to be here again at Bitcoin Park
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 3:In Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Sorry Harry wasn't able to be here. And I'm sorry he's lost a family member.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Our thoughts and prayers are with him Yeah.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 3:And his family. It's a really great family.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We so enjoyed being able to, you know, sit down and eat dinner with y'all
Speaker 2:Yeah. In Austin. That was a lot of fun. That was fun. That was cool.
Speaker 1:That was great. And I'm looking forward to many more conferences. So thank you, well then. Thank you, Em.
Speaker 3:Yes, Brett.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.
Speaker 3:Thank you, guys.
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