Let Them Eat Grass

The Impossible Burger is a burger made exclusively from plant protein. And, more specifically, genetically modified (GM) soy. Its creators claim we can do no less than save the planet if we eat them at scale. Its creators also claim that any and all forms of animal agriculture are not sustainable at scale, and that most of the environmental degradation on our planet is traceable to private herds of livestock.

They cast a wide net... a bit too wide in my opinion.

While CAFO's are objectively destructive to the environment and ecosystems they inhabit, our farm has been the recipient of our stewarding touch. Regenerative agriculture seeks to heal what industrial agriculture has destroyed... and I see Impossible Foods as a sly industrial food company trying to evade the fact they are brazenly selling GM product to unknowing customers.

While conventional beef production in CAFO's emits about 33 pounds of CO2 into the air for every pound of animal protein, the Impossible Burger emits about 3.5 pounds of CO2 for every pound of plant protein. Sounds great, right? Yeah... until you realize that a farm employing regenerative agricultural techniques in Georgia called White Oak Pastures measured NEGATIVE 3.5 pounds of CO2 for every pound of animal protein they produce. That means they ABSORBED 3.5 pounds of CO2 for every pound of meat. Crazy stuff.

Can we solve technology problems like carbon emissions with more technology like the Impossible Burger? Listen to the episode and find out!

"Off the Record" will be a thematically driven show I release from time to time. It's unscripted and pretty laid back. I envision the show as a catalogue of low moments and honest talk. All the stuff that happens to me, or other people I interview, that didn't go the way we thought or simply proved disastrous, will make it on here.

Today's show theme is "time". I am shooting for Dan Carlin's contemplative vibe, but I wax lyrical on just how arbritary time is. But, arbitrary or not, time is important. It's a yardstick for our lives.

And 2 second improvements can really make your life easier. I talk about our dairy operation, and the difficulties I encountered at first. I went from spending 6 hours a day down to 2 hours a day.

And time travel is possible, by the way.

The radical ideology of wilderness abandonment is getting misapplied to our public and private land.

We are seeing the unfortunate consequences of the "hands off" ecological approach. Everything from beetlekill in Colorado to California burning wildly out of control. Still, we persist in our belief that we need to keep our hands off the land. Rather than use our opposable thumbs for good, we just need to stay off entirely.

We are losing farmland to wilderness at a frightening pace in our country. 3 acres every 60 seconds. At that rate, our farm would be gone in 2.5 hours.

Is there any alternative to this madness? Can we produce food in a way that heals the land rather than destroys it? Is land better off being abandoned?

Diets are usually about eliminating stubborn belly fat. That's reductionist, but hang with me. And they are usually recycled. What's in and what's out is really just repackaged every couple of years and given a fancy new name that millenials can get behind. But what I haven't seen is a diet that isn't just totally about you.

Why can't our diets promote consistency in our often chaotic lives? So many diets just end up being short-lived fads because we can't maintain the impossibly high idealism we started them with. Real life just seems to crush it. There needs to be enough flexibility in a diet that allows for times to break it without having to throw all of it out the window.

I offer to you "The Stewardship Diet". I started the stewardship diet about ten months ago with my wife Kelli. It's basically an improvement on the paleo diet, with an acknowledgement that there's no way to follow it perfectly. It's regenerative, flexible, and forgiveable. I hope you enjoy it.

Eating pasture-raised anything has better ecologically regenerative effects than grain-fed anything. But not all meat is created equal. We also run sheep and chickens on our farm, but our cow herd is definitely the backbone. In this episode I delve a little bit into how our production makes our pasture-raised beef different than meat you would find at the grocery store.

Pasture Beef is the number one land-healing food you can eat. They get quite a bum rap in the news media nowadays, and I think I need to be their strong advocate. Any pictures of muddy feedlots and disgusting environments don't have anything to do with the animals (they enjoy being quite clean), but rather with the farmer who owns them. Farmers own the blame for taking an animal who is able to heal the land and allowing them to ruin it.

I interviewed David Boatright, my fellow farmer and best friend, for this episode. He is pretty knowledgeable about everything farming related, so you should enjoy him.

I gave a communion talk at my church a couple months ago on the ingredients of communion. I decided that the content fit nicely into the parameters of "real food" we set for this podcast, so I wanted to share it with you.

I heard many years ago that if Jesus instituted communion in 2019, we would probably be drinking soda and eating pizza. I disagree. I think that Jesus chose bread and wine because they communicated something very specific about himself. I think bread and wine teach us about permanence and impermanence.

We will dive into the history of 1st century near-eastern bread-making and winemaking in this episode, so hold on tight.

Whenever farmers inject artificial fertilizer into their cropland where I live, almost all of it will end up in the Missouri River Watershed. It will be carried to the Mississippi River, and down to the Gulf of Mexico. All this fertilizer has created a dead zone the size of Delaware. And the worst part is that we don't even need artificial fertilizer. We only need it because we've decided cows like grains more than they like grass.

The average conventional farm sells their product on the commodity market. Corn, Beef, Soybean, etc. Some random trader in Chicago or New York sets the prices for the whole nation and farmers across the US feel the squeeze. They have to bet on intangibles like inflation and future events like the weather months in advance, which is really impossible to do. The loans they took out in the spring need to be repaid with the fall's harvest. Sometimes what they plant or slaughter isn't even worth the initial investment and time they've put into them.

For instance, during the 80's the US government bought the dairy cows from struggling farmers and dumped them on the beef market. That tanked the beef market for beef producers and put them out of business!

The solution to all this anxiety-producing bet on intangibles and future events is buying direct. Support a farmer who heals the land and sells directly to consumer. They get to keep the entire dollar rather than watch part of it go to a middle man.

Lucinda Cramsley is jumpstarting that revolution. She's something crazy like an 8th generation farmer, whose ancestors used to farm hemp. She's married, but she's not married to the past. Lucinda founded an internet company called "MOINK" ("Moo" and "Oink") that helps farmers sell direct to consumers. It accepts food that meets only the highest pasture-based standards and ensures farmers receive around 800% more than if they sold on the commodity market.

I've eaten a lot of meal replacement bars in my life. Most of the ingredients on the back label are unpronouncable.

Since becoming a regenerative farmer, I'd like to believe there is a better way. And, I believe that better way is through something called "The Carnivore Bar". Regardless of whether you've decided to live on a meat and water diet, the Carnivore Bar contains only two ingredients: beef and salt. And I think those are two things most discerning foodies can get behind.

Philip and Merry Meece are my friends. Philip was a combat medic and Merry is a touring musician. They both realized the need for healthy, shelf-stable food for different reasons. He needed food that was healthy and could withstand intense heat. She needed a healthy bar she could pick up at a gas station.

If you live a mobile lifestyle, listen up! This might be the bar for you!

If you want to make small changes, change how you do things. If you want to make big changes, change how you see things. And today, friends, we are focused on big changes.

Our understanding of "wilderness" in America prevents us from having healthy relationships with the land. It pits farmers and conservationists against each other unnecessarily. It complicates categorizing my farm.

In today's episode, I tap into my roots as a past English teacher. We look at a little etymology, and deconstruct the cultural and ecological assumptions of the word "wilderness". I use a quote from Luther Standing Bear to illuminate how differently modern Americans view wilderness from Native Americans, and as an example of a better way to think about "wilderness".

The upshot? We should think of "wilderness" as tame, bountiful, and blessed.