This week, The Meatcast introduces you to the world of butchery, curing, and animal husbandry with a professional meatsmith, Brandon Sheard. Not too long ago, Brandon was studying English and seemed destined for a life in academia — until he dropped everything and chased his agrarian dreams, despite having zero experience in the field (pun intended).

Now Brandon and his family of seven are raising, harvesting, butchering, and curing all their own meats. In fact, they subsist on this meat alone and never purchase store-bought meat!  Brandon is our first ever Meatcast guest to have never tried an EPIC product, but it’ll all make sense after you listen to the interview!  He and I discuss:

• The different methods of harvesting and butchering animals and the impact that can have on the taste and quality of meat
• The difference between today’s curing methods and traditional practices
• How Brandon’s able to cure meats at room temperature with only a single ingredient
• The most unique “Rank Your Meats” segment to date

I can’t stress enough how awesome this interview is, y’all. I really struggled to keep it under an hour because it’s one of the most interesting conversations I’ve had! Can’t wait to get y’all’s take on it.

For this week’s INSIDE EPIC segment, we speak with Beth Robertson-Martin. Beth leads the Natural/Organic sourcing team at General Mills and is an all-around badass.  The topics we cover include how she helped us literally change the landscape of the grass-fed bison supply in America and why she got a bison tattoo to commemorate it. You read right: she got a BISON TATTOO after securing a huge win on EPIC. Talk about doing EPIC shit!

Finally, we give you a sneak peek at some big things we have planned for January. 2017’s been a great first year for us, but we’re just getting started!