March 21, 2025 • 33 mins
These large, long-haired cousins to cattle make life a lot easier (and more buttery) in their frigid highland environments. Anney and Lauren yak about the history, biology, and many products of yaks.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hell no, And welcome to Saber Protection of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm any rec and I'm Lauren Voblbaum and today we
have an episode for you about YAX.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, yas. Yeah, I've heard that correctly. Wow, Lauren, was
there any reason this was on your mind? You know?
Yaks are cool? I did.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
This is one of those where I did an episode
about them over on one of my other shows, brain Stuff,
and I was like, you know, I want to read
more about.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
YAX and more was rich. A lot was read about YAX. Yeah.
So sometimes with these, sometimes with.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Like agricultural related episodes, like I feel like like we
are almost ready to go open a ranch.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, from how having done this episode reading, Oh, savor
ranch retirement idea, We'll put that in the backpacket. Oh man,
oh no, that would be great.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Okay, all right, all right, I'm not made for ranching,
that's I'm I'm a city girl.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
But but we'll put it in the back pocket. That's
a nice place to visit anyway. Yes, yes, I do
not have any stories to share about YACK. I feel
like I've seen them, but I have not tasted any
(01:39):
of the products me neither.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, Yes, I'm pretty sure that I have not. Now
I'm really curious though, so.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I have as well. And I have to say this
was this was a tricky one in terms of there
are a lot of yack products to go down rabbit
holes about. One of my very favorite things I found
about this when doing the research is this quote from
(02:12):
a research paper following this review of Yack dung energetics. Yeah,
and we will talk about that a little bit more.
But I was like, Okay, wow, not where I thought
this was going. But I'm really having to expand my
(02:33):
brain and take some things in that I wasn't expected.
And you're reading for a food show. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
which is nice. Yeah, it's nice and sometimes a little complicated,
but nice. Well, we have done similar episodes to Yack,
(02:59):
but YAK it's pretty specific, it is in some ways.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, and we haven't gone too deep into cattle the animals, So.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
No, we have not. That's futures. Oh yeah, we'll deal
with that. But in the meantime, I guess this brings
us to our question yas what are they?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, yax are large, long haired bovines in the same
genus as cattle that are also raised for their milk, meat,
and lots of non food products. Their milk is creamy
yellow in color, high in fats and protein, and used
fresh or to make butter and cheeses. Their meat is
(03:50):
lean and nutritious, and every part of the animal can
be used in crafting things like textiles, tools, and art.
They're like big and sturdy and useful as work animals,
and they're also essentially amenable to being herded and doing work,
which helps one of the reasons why like zebras are
not a hurt animal because they're not nice.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
They're impolite.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, Yaks are like big, shaggy cattle that kind of
look like the Henson company designed them. Yeah, like a
broad face, like a very broad cattlely face.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Snuffle uf. I guess I can feel yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, but okay, so there are wild yaks, but domesticated
yacts is what we're mostly talking about today. A tax
nomical name boss Grunnians. Sure it means grunting ox because
they do not move. They start a grunt and squeak.
(04:52):
They can grow up to two meters or about six
and a half feet tall at the shoulder, which is
their the highest point on their body. They've got like
a hump on their upper back near the neck. They
can weigh easily over one thousand pounds, with male bowls
about twice as heavy as the female cows. And this
is all a little bit bigger than like the biggest
cattle can get. They grow long horns. The bulls horns
(05:14):
curve back and under, whereas the cows horns curve upward
and are smaller. Their fur can come in shades from
black to brown to gray to white, and in different
patterns in bowls. That fur can get so long that
it sort of swings around their legs like fringe on
a shawl. They reproduce in the boring old mammal way,
typically with only one calf per pregnancy and a gestation
(05:36):
period a tiny bit shorter than humans. But calves are
capable of walking within like ten minutes instead of two years,
so that must be convenient. Yeah, And yaks are just
really well adapted to their cold, high altitude native environment,
which is around the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding mountain regions.
(06:00):
They can live in altitudes of up to twenty thousand
feet above sea level. That's six thousand meters. That's higher
than any point in North America aside from the Summit
of Dnale in Alaska. So yeah, to cope with that,
they evolved to produce more red blood cells than other bovines.
(06:22):
And also these extra large lungs that are so big
that they also evolved an extra pair of ribs to
support them. Like cattle have thirteen pair, yaks have fourteen pair.
That's metal so cool, and that long, multi layered fur
keeps them warm, and temperatures that can get down to
(06:44):
negative forty degrees, which is so dang cold that it's
the same in celsius and fahrenheit.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Both. Yeah, yaks are YACs are cool. They are.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Uh it's kind of a pun because we just talked
about how they live in chili environments and then note
that those environments are extremes like most domesticated yaks will
hang out and like slightly more forgiving climates because most
humans want to hang out and slightly more forgiving climates.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
So yeah, yaks.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Grays on fresh grass and other forage in the summers,
and in the winter they'll use their horns to like
dig into the snow and find shrubs and a withered
forage stuff like that. We are ostensibly a food show
a note here at the top like, while yaks are
not very widely raised around the world, the cultures that
(07:38):
do have like ranching and or herding traditions around yaks
are super varied, like over forty different ethnic communities in
ten countries around Central Asia, and these cultures are not
a monolith culinarily or otherwise. That being said, yeah, so,
yak milk can be consumed fresh by itself or more
often in a hot milk tea, or fermented into alcoholic
(08:01):
drinks or further distilled into neutral spirits. It's also used
in cooking and made into butter and many, many, many
varieties of cheese after summer grazing. Yac milk can reach
up to twelve percent fat content. Under more like constrained
dietary circumstances, it's like merely around six percent, and also
(08:23):
it's got like five percent each protein and sugar, and
all of that is nearly twice as much fat and
protein as cow milk contains on the low end. So
this gives yac milk a rich yellow color and slightly
sweet flavor. However, one like up the cattle have is
that they can produce larger quantities of milk Yac dairy
(08:45):
is basically never going to be like an industrial level
production the way that cattle dairy is. Where yak products
are commercially available, It's a specialty product. The butter nice
and thick and yellow used. However you like to use
butter mixed with black tea and salt, it creates pocha,
(09:09):
sometimes known as Tibetan butter tea, which is a big
part of the culture in some areas. It can also
be mixed in small amounts with a flour like maybe
barley or oat flour to form a staple grain product,
and is also used to fuel lamps, sometimes ceremonially, to
bring like a buffed shine to fur coats, and to
create a base for traditional butter sculptures yep sculpting. Butter
(09:34):
is probably more widespread than you think, and I love.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
That me too.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
The cheeses, you know, you get everything from like fresh
cottage style cheeses to hard like Swiss type cheeses, to
smoked and or dried cheeses, which can be stored for
much longer. YACs can also be slaughtered for their meat.
Yak meat is leaner than beef, with a similar but
perhaps more mild flavor from what I understand, And it's
(10:04):
more efficient to rear YACs for meat than cattle because
yacks only consume like a third to half of the
food that cattle do, and they produce less methane. The
meat can be used anyway that you like, preparing meat,
from fresh steaks to sausages to jerky yack bone marrow
is also a thing, and now I need that. Hope
(10:27):
that's not too creepy. I'm like, look at this majestic animal.
I definitely want to crack open its bones.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yacks are also used for transportation and for moving supplies around,
plowing of the other work.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
The hide and hair are used to make all kinds
of things. They've got this coarse outer fur that's good
for making like tents and ropes, mid coat that might
go to things like coats or rugs, and then this
soft undercoat that's like cashmere that they shed every spring.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Right back to the food, Yeah, uh. Compared with other
dairy and meat, yak products generally carry heavier punches of
both macro and micronutrients. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yes, yes, indeed, and we do have some numbers for you,
we do, okay.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So there are an estimated sixteen million ish yaks in
the world, about ninety percent in China, but a solid
million or so in Mongolia, the rest mostly scattered around
nearby highland areas. There are small numbers in North America,
maybe like five hundred animals. Total production of yak meat
(11:42):
per year is a bit less than four hundred thousand tons,
around sixty percent of which is consumed locally.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
There is a Guinness record for the longest horns on
a yak, don't. I don't know how far they looked
to find competitors, but this record was awarded in twenty
twenty one to this beautiful brown colored buddy named Jericho
that lives on a farm in Minnesota. His horns are
(12:13):
curved in the spiral and if you could stretch them
out and lay them end to end, they would measure
a little over eleven feet that's like three and a
half meters. He is so handsome.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Look up pictures.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
And there are a number of yak festivals around the
regions that heard or ranch yaks. The ones around Mongolia,
for example, tend to occur in July or August and
have events like agricultural demonstrations, yak parades, yak polo, yak lassoing,
music and dance that, as far as I'm aware, the
(12:58):
YACs don't particularly participate in yack milking competitions, yak dairy
product competitions, fashion shows with yak fiber garments on humans,
and I specify on humans because there's also a competition
for the most beautiful and or best bedecked yak. Sometimes
(13:19):
this is referred to as the nice yak competition. Oh,
I love this so much. And then there's yak racing,
which is the slowest event of any given festival because
most of the yaks kind of saunter casually across the
finish line, assuming that they have not gotten distracted and
(13:42):
wandered off.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Oh that's the best. That makes it so much more fun, right,
fun for us and fun for the X. Yeah, the
yaks are having a nice time. I don't want a
fast yak race. No, The fun is what are they
(14:07):
gonna wander off? Will they ever get back on track?
That's the best, that's the best part. Okay, Well, we
do have quite a history for you, we do, and
we are going to get into that as soon as
we get back from a quick break for a word
from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsors, Yes,
(14:35):
thank you. So all right. The yaks ancient ancestors, are
believed to go back to at least two million years
ago or ish. The estimated range is very very wide,
but you know, probably long time ago. However, researchers have
(14:58):
uncovered fossils what we would more modernly recognize as yaks
in Mongolia, estimated to be at least ten thousand years old.
They are indigenous to that area. The current theory is
that the yak was domesticated in Tibet by the Chiang
people around two thousand, five hundred years ago, though the
(15:20):
process has been in motion for much longer, like seven
five hundred years. Based on currently available evidence, yak products
were fairly important in Mongolia beginning sometime around two hundred
BCE to two hundred CE art and the appearance of
yas on belt buckles recovered in this area suggests that
(15:42):
the yak was really respected. So there's a lot of
that stuff if you want to look it up, which
we always recommend. Oh yeah, And yaks were useful in
this area in a whole lot of ways. For their meat,
their milk, their leather, their fiber, their dung. As few
as a beast of burden. Their meat was preserved, perhaps
(16:04):
dried for later or turned into sausage, sometimes in combination
with yac blood. Some parts were incorporated into animal feed.
They were really beneficial too in terms of their ability
to survive in the Himalayas in this area, and researchers
often discuss how they were one piece of how people
(16:28):
in this region adapted to these high altitudes where it
was cold with a lot of snow. We've got this creature,
this animal that can really handle that. It is hard
to overstate how important yaks were for the people in
this environment. They provided sustenance, labor and fiber for warmer clothing,
(16:54):
heating elements, and fertilizer when it came to butter, fat
or dung. The horns were useful, as were the bones.
Just all around.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, and that fuel thing is serious. Like the Tibetan
plateaus tend to not have trees, so you know, no firewood.
And furthermore, luckily, yak dung has little to no smell.
As long as the animal has enough water and forage,
it can be used as a construction material as well.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yes, and so here's the thing what I was talking
about with the multiple paths here or here some of
those paths. So yack milk was probably being consumed by
around twelve seventy CE, and likely before that. That's when
the written record indicates it. However, the scientific and historical
(17:47):
record is lacking when it comes to the evidence around this.
Researchers suspect the later date might be because the milk
of other animals was the preference, or just wasn't recorded yep.
Or I read in some sources that in most places
with ready access to it, yack milk went to butter.
(18:10):
At some point, yak butter ended up in tea. As mentioned,
it was generally viewed as somewhat medicinal, especially at high
altitude and as special occasion tea, and probably early on,
yak milk was used to make cheese. It was and
(18:30):
remains a fairly intensive process. It involves hours of churning
or at least in some traditional cases. On the plus side,
though a lot of this cheese lasts for months or longer.
So it was another excellent option for those who were
working in these harsh climates. Taking all of that into consideration.
(18:54):
Yak products were fairly popular in pockets of Asia during
the twelve hundreds, and.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Butter sculpture aside. All right, So Tibetan practices around butter
sculpture might have developed in like the fourteen hundreds or
thereabouts during the Ming dynasty. So the tradition today is
that for Tibetan Buddhist New Year celebrations, which happen in
late winter like February March, some people sculpt and pigment
(19:22):
butter into these elaborate, elaborate pieces depicting the Buddha and
you know, religious scenes and symbols, architecture, animals, mythical creatures,
a lot of flowers. It's an offering slash decoration at
temples and monasteries, and they are very bright and intricate
and can range in size from something handheld to like
(19:46):
a few meters tall, like maybe like twenty feet, like
a couple of stories high. And it's thought to have
developed due to not having fresh flowers to use its
offerings in the dead of winter.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Butter sculpture always recommend look it up, look it up.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Oh yeah no, And these truly they are gorgeous and
I don't understand physically how they work.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
They're super cool, Yes, yes, indeed, okay. The written record
indicates that a handful of yak were sent to Europe
in the early eighteen hundreds. In the early nineteen hundred,
some yaks were sent to North American Zoos. People also
did a couple of tests around hybridization that was centered
(20:32):
around meat production and the cold climates of Canada and
the northern United States.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Nepal established a yac cheese industry in the nineteen fifties,
and they were apparently the only country in the world
with one until around about the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Wild yak were believed to be on the verge of
extinction in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, they're still.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
They're currently listed as vulnerable, with a fewer than ten
thousand left in the world wild and these days climate
change is impacting some of the traditional herding and ranching regions. However,
in expanded regions, yaks are being looked at as a
way to offset some of the harms of the global
(21:16):
cattle industry. You know, they produce that high quality dairy
and meat on less feed and with less greenhouse gas emissions.
There's there's research into like how to keep the genetic
stock good, how to keep the animals healthier during long
lean winters, and how to encourage people to adopt yack
agriculture and yak products on a larger scale. This might
(21:41):
be the first time that we have a future date
in our timeline, but twenty twenty six is going to
be the United Nations International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.
So A, that's brad B. Hopefully that that will help,
you know, like prod along further research in po to
help out yaks and their humans.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, hopefully. I mean they seem very well loved. Obviously
we're fans, but of course they're facing these issues, but
you know they're kind of limited and where people can
get them access them.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, yeah, because they do not tolerate warm weather. They're like, nope,
I don't like that. Unhappy So no, So we're going
to have to travel somewhere.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
I'm what I'm hearing.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yes, if I if I achieve what I really want
to do now, which is hug a yack, we're gonna
have to take a field trip. It's not gonna happen around.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
All right, Okay, if.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Anyone knows how if anyone can facilitate me hugging a yack.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yes, and if any of you listen do have experience
with yak products, please let me.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Oh yes, yes, I'm so curious. I'm so curious about it.
But yeah, that that is what we have to say about.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yaks for now.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
And we do already have some listener mail for you,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from another quick break for a
word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
We're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're
back with Snooth. Yeah was that snuffle off? I guess like,
was that? You know? Maybe I kept thinking of Kung
(23:51):
Fu Banda, But okay, in Kung Fu Panda it's master Ox.
It is not a yak. Oh all right, Yeah I
double checked because I'm may that mistake in the show before.
Actually not Kung Fu Panda mistakes. I've made a Kung
Fu pan A mistake before, so I was like, not again,
(24:13):
good looking out, good looking out? Yeah yeah, yeah, just
a fun creature until it's storming at you.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Oh, especially is what I was going for. Yeah, there
you go, there you go share.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, okay, Sheldon wrote, listening to the Chilula episode, and
I couldn't help thinking about my granddaughter, Florence, or as
I call her Flow Flow Annie. She's someone you'd love
to meet, a girl after your own heart, and maybe
you will when you are up this way for the
Cheese Curd Festival. Flow is only seven, almost eight years old,
(24:53):
and she loves hot sauce. I find that age kind
of young for liking hot sauces. I was in my
late teens before I developed a taste for them. Flow
likes Chilula bottle but says that it's not hot enough.
That's her biggest complaint about most things I make for her.
They're not hot enough. She started liking hot sauces at
(25:17):
the age of six and has wanted them hotter and hotter.
She likes a sauce that is too hot for her
sister and mother, and she's always trying to trick my
wife into using some on whatever. My wife has a
hard time with pepper, but Flow always seems to be
(25:38):
able to trick her. She also likes impressing her friends
by eating something that they can't handle at all. Take
a tiny taste, they say it's too hot, then she
takes a big taste and they are amazed. She doesn't
speak much English, speaks French, but one of the few
(25:59):
English words she can say is hot sauce. For Christmas,
she gave me a T shirt that says, I put
hot sauce on my hot sauce. Wow. Oh that's wonderful.
I feel connected here.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, and it's seven years old. That's that's precocious, that's terrific.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
That is that is that reminds me of my niece
who did something similar to that but really sour thing.
Oh sure, yeah, she just would like eat a whole
lemon and I was taken aback by it. But hey,
(26:45):
good for you. Oh yeah, right, I do.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
I do feel like that is a good age for
like that kind of stunt, eating that kind of Yeah.
I want to be impressive by how like mildly abusive
if I can beat to my own taste buds.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yes, yes, uh, because I don't know. I don't know
at that age. I think I liked very mildly spicy things.
I don't think I had branched out to even chilula
at that point. Yeah. Hey, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I don't think so, I can't even remember. So the
answer is probably no. The answer is I probably did
not branch into that kind of stuff. I don't think
I really encountered that much very spicy food until I
was a little bit older. But yeah, mine was supposed
to be at Mexican restaurants in my small town, where
you put like maybe mildly spicy hot sauce on your
(27:44):
on your dish.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
But I love this. I think this is amazing, and
also I love that she gave you this shirt. I
put hot sauce on my hot sauce. Yes, yes, yeah,
that's great. Oh wonderful.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Kate wrote, you have finally done episodes about both of
my favorite at aliens, Meet the Fruit Ninjas, Mango and Guava,
and attached is a photograph of two cats. One is orange,
that one is mango, and one is gray, and that
one is guava. Kate continues, I am admittedly a couple
(28:27):
of months late. Their supervillain origin story is long and squiggly,
but the short version is that in June of twenty
twenty one, a heartbroken, newly cat free me found Mango
at fur Kids Atlanta thanks to some serious Facebook kismet.
I'm from Alabama for distance reference, and when I emailed
about Margo. They told me he came bonded to his
(28:47):
sister Coconut flakes. Spoiler, his sister was actually his brother,
And obviously, either way that name needed to be something else.
I suggested Papaya, but the other half suggested Guafa. And
since he needed convincing that we even needed one cat
much less too, he got the win. Been waiting a
long time to tell you about them. Funnily enough, I
(29:09):
don't prefer mangos, and I can't say I've ever tried Guava.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Well, they're so cute. The pictures, the pictures attached are
very very adorable.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, yeah, Mango. There's a photo of Mango like on
top of a bookshelf, just with both of his front
pause just hanging hanging down like he's clearly just belly
flopping on top of that bookshelf and surveying his domain
in the way that only a very orange cat can.
(29:50):
And yes, and Glava seems a tiny bit more contained
as gray tabbies tend to be. But but both look
so cuddly and sweet.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
They do, they do. And you know, we love getting
pet pictures and we love if they have food names.
Any any will do? Oh yeah, yeah, but food names
are great. Yeah, the food names are great. I love
that you don't particularly have any experience with these fruits,
(30:27):
but I think they are excellent names and they fit.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Oh yeah, Now mango is a high quality orange cat name. Yes, yeah,
oh absolutely, Guadala is great as well. I'm just I'm
also slightly biased towards orange cats because blessed like, just like, what.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Are they up to? Which? Behind the scenes, listeners, I
have gotten to witness some of Lauren's kittens chaos lately,
and I have to say it's a lot of chaos
and it's been entertaining for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, so bonus story, all right, so it is food related.
I was carrying my lunch upstairs to my office a
few days ago, and the kitten ran up behind me
and slapped it out of my hands like she was
stealing a dribble.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Okay, And it was curry.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
And the plate goes flying, and there's curry on the walls,
there's curry on the cat. She had one little yellow
paw from the turmeric for days.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I still don't know why. I can't. There is no why.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Only chaos, just purs and murder. Murder, that's what that
one is made of yep, that's it's it's been fun.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
We were talking about horror movies and there was a
terrible sound and it turns out the kitten was behind it.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Oh yeah, I figured that the kitten was behind it.
But there was a big like clang and like yeah,
like like clutter noise, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go check that out.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
And Annie absolutely thought I was about to die.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I was like, that's well, that's the end of savor.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Fun. She had somehow knocked over the dish. The dish
rack I.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Pushing over books. She has an interesting character.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
She's very special mm hmm. I love her unconditionally and and.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
And it's yeah, yes, that'sous well listeners, thanks to both
of these listeners for writing it. If you have bet
stories you want to share, yeah, we would love to
have them. You can email us at hello at savorpod
dot com. We're also on social media.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
You can find us on blue Sky and Instagram at
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Save is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Hell no, And welcome to Saber Protection of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm any rec and I'm Lauren Voblbaum and today we
have an episode for you about YAX.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, yas. Yeah, I've heard that correctly. Wow, Lauren, was
there any reason this was on your mind? You know?
Yaks are cool? I did.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
This is one of those where I did an episode
about them over on one of my other shows, brain Stuff,
and I was like, you know, I want to read
more about.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
YAX and more was rich. A lot was read about YAX. Yeah.
So sometimes with these, sometimes with.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Like agricultural related episodes, like I feel like like we
are almost ready to go open a ranch.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, from how having done this episode reading, Oh, savor
ranch retirement idea, We'll put that in the backpacket. Oh man,
oh no, that would be great.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Okay, all right, all right, I'm not made for ranching,
that's I'm I'm a city girl.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
But but we'll put it in the back pocket. That's
a nice place to visit anyway. Yes, yes, I do
not have any stories to share about YACK. I feel
like I've seen them, but I have not tasted any
(01:39):
of the products me neither.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, Yes, I'm pretty sure that I have not. Now
I'm really curious though, so.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I have as well. And I have to say this
was this was a tricky one in terms of there
are a lot of yack products to go down rabbit
holes about. One of my very favorite things I found
about this when doing the research is this quote from
(02:12):
a research paper following this review of Yack dung energetics. Yeah,
and we will talk about that a little bit more.
But I was like, Okay, wow, not where I thought
this was going. But I'm really having to expand my
(02:33):
brain and take some things in that I wasn't expected.
And you're reading for a food show. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
which is nice. Yeah, it's nice and sometimes a little complicated,
but nice. Well, we have done similar episodes to Yack,
(02:59):
but YAK it's pretty specific, it is in some ways.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, and we haven't gone too deep into cattle the animals, So.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
No, we have not. That's futures. Oh yeah, we'll deal
with that. But in the meantime, I guess this brings
us to our question yas what are they?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, yax are large, long haired bovines in the same
genus as cattle that are also raised for their milk, meat,
and lots of non food products. Their milk is creamy
yellow in color, high in fats and protein, and used
fresh or to make butter and cheeses. Their meat is
(03:50):
lean and nutritious, and every part of the animal can
be used in crafting things like textiles, tools, and art.
They're like big and sturdy and useful as work animals,
and they're also essentially amenable to being herded and doing work,
which helps one of the reasons why like zebras are
not a hurt animal because they're not nice.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
They're impolite.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, Yaks are like big, shaggy cattle that kind of
look like the Henson company designed them. Yeah, like a
broad face, like a very broad cattlely face.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Snuffle uf. I guess I can feel yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, but okay, so there are wild yaks, but domesticated
yacts is what we're mostly talking about today. A tax
nomical name boss Grunnians. Sure it means grunting ox because
they do not move. They start a grunt and squeak.
(04:52):
They can grow up to two meters or about six
and a half feet tall at the shoulder, which is
their the highest point on their body. They've got like
a hump on their upper back near the neck. They
can weigh easily over one thousand pounds, with male bowls
about twice as heavy as the female cows. And this
is all a little bit bigger than like the biggest
cattle can get. They grow long horns. The bulls horns
(05:14):
curve back and under, whereas the cows horns curve upward
and are smaller. Their fur can come in shades from
black to brown to gray to white, and in different
patterns in bowls. That fur can get so long that
it sort of swings around their legs like fringe on
a shawl. They reproduce in the boring old mammal way,
typically with only one calf per pregnancy and a gestation
(05:36):
period a tiny bit shorter than humans. But calves are
capable of walking within like ten minutes instead of two years,
so that must be convenient. Yeah, And yaks are just
really well adapted to their cold, high altitude native environment,
which is around the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding mountain regions.
(06:00):
They can live in altitudes of up to twenty thousand
feet above sea level. That's six thousand meters. That's higher
than any point in North America aside from the Summit
of Dnale in Alaska. So yeah, to cope with that,
they evolved to produce more red blood cells than other bovines.
(06:22):
And also these extra large lungs that are so big
that they also evolved an extra pair of ribs to
support them. Like cattle have thirteen pair, yaks have fourteen pair.
That's metal so cool, and that long, multi layered fur
keeps them warm, and temperatures that can get down to
(06:44):
negative forty degrees, which is so dang cold that it's
the same in celsius and fahrenheit.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Both. Yeah, yaks are YACs are cool. They are.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Uh it's kind of a pun because we just talked
about how they live in chili environments and then note
that those environments are extremes like most domesticated yaks will
hang out and like slightly more forgiving climates because most
humans want to hang out and slightly more forgiving climates.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
So yeah, yaks.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Grays on fresh grass and other forage in the summers,
and in the winter they'll use their horns to like
dig into the snow and find shrubs and a withered
forage stuff like that. We are ostensibly a food show
a note here at the top like, while yaks are
not very widely raised around the world, the cultures that
(07:38):
do have like ranching and or herding traditions around yaks
are super varied, like over forty different ethnic communities in
ten countries around Central Asia, and these cultures are not
a monolith culinarily or otherwise. That being said, yeah, so,
yak milk can be consumed fresh by itself or more
often in a hot milk tea, or fermented into alcoholic
(08:01):
drinks or further distilled into neutral spirits. It's also used
in cooking and made into butter and many, many, many
varieties of cheese after summer grazing. Yac milk can reach
up to twelve percent fat content. Under more like constrained
dietary circumstances, it's like merely around six percent, and also
(08:23):
it's got like five percent each protein and sugar, and
all of that is nearly twice as much fat and
protein as cow milk contains on the low end. So
this gives yac milk a rich yellow color and slightly
sweet flavor. However, one like up the cattle have is
that they can produce larger quantities of milk Yac dairy
(08:45):
is basically never going to be like an industrial level
production the way that cattle dairy is. Where yak products
are commercially available, It's a specialty product. The butter nice
and thick and yellow used. However you like to use
butter mixed with black tea and salt, it creates pocha,
(09:09):
sometimes known as Tibetan butter tea, which is a big
part of the culture in some areas. It can also
be mixed in small amounts with a flour like maybe
barley or oat flour to form a staple grain product,
and is also used to fuel lamps, sometimes ceremonially, to
bring like a buffed shine to fur coats, and to
create a base for traditional butter sculptures yep sculpting. Butter
(09:34):
is probably more widespread than you think, and I love.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
That me too.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
The cheeses, you know, you get everything from like fresh
cottage style cheeses to hard like Swiss type cheeses, to
smoked and or dried cheeses, which can be stored for
much longer. YACs can also be slaughtered for their meat.
Yak meat is leaner than beef, with a similar but
perhaps more mild flavor from what I understand, And it's
(10:04):
more efficient to rear YACs for meat than cattle because
yacks only consume like a third to half of the
food that cattle do, and they produce less methane. The
meat can be used anyway that you like, preparing meat,
from fresh steaks to sausages to jerky yack bone marrow
is also a thing, and now I need that. Hope
(10:27):
that's not too creepy. I'm like, look at this majestic animal.
I definitely want to crack open its bones.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yacks are also used for transportation and for moving supplies around,
plowing of the other work.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
The hide and hair are used to make all kinds
of things. They've got this coarse outer fur that's good
for making like tents and ropes, mid coat that might
go to things like coats or rugs, and then this
soft undercoat that's like cashmere that they shed every spring.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Right back to the food, Yeah, uh. Compared with other
dairy and meat, yak products generally carry heavier punches of
both macro and micronutrients. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yes, yes, indeed, and we do have some numbers for you,
we do, okay.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So there are an estimated sixteen million ish yaks in
the world, about ninety percent in China, but a solid
million or so in Mongolia, the rest mostly scattered around
nearby highland areas. There are small numbers in North America,
maybe like five hundred animals. Total production of yak meat
(11:42):
per year is a bit less than four hundred thousand tons,
around sixty percent of which is consumed locally.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
There is a Guinness record for the longest horns on
a yak, don't. I don't know how far they looked
to find competitors, but this record was awarded in twenty
twenty one to this beautiful brown colored buddy named Jericho
that lives on a farm in Minnesota. His horns are
(12:13):
curved in the spiral and if you could stretch them
out and lay them end to end, they would measure
a little over eleven feet that's like three and a
half meters. He is so handsome.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Look up pictures.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
And there are a number of yak festivals around the
regions that heard or ranch yaks. The ones around Mongolia,
for example, tend to occur in July or August and
have events like agricultural demonstrations, yak parades, yak polo, yak lassoing,
music and dance that, as far as I'm aware, the
(12:58):
YACs don't particularly participate in yack milking competitions, yak dairy
product competitions, fashion shows with yak fiber garments on humans,
and I specify on humans because there's also a competition
for the most beautiful and or best bedecked yak. Sometimes
(13:19):
this is referred to as the nice yak competition. Oh,
I love this so much. And then there's yak racing,
which is the slowest event of any given festival because
most of the yaks kind of saunter casually across the
finish line, assuming that they have not gotten distracted and
(13:42):
wandered off.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Oh that's the best. That makes it so much more fun, right,
fun for us and fun for the X. Yeah, the
yaks are having a nice time. I don't want a
fast yak race. No, The fun is what are they
(14:07):
gonna wander off? Will they ever get back on track?
That's the best, that's the best part. Okay, Well, we
do have quite a history for you, we do, and
we are going to get into that as soon as
we get back from a quick break for a word
from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsors, Yes,
(14:35):
thank you. So all right. The yaks ancient ancestors, are
believed to go back to at least two million years
ago or ish. The estimated range is very very wide,
but you know, probably long time ago. However, researchers have
(14:58):
uncovered fossils what we would more modernly recognize as yaks
in Mongolia, estimated to be at least ten thousand years old.
They are indigenous to that area. The current theory is
that the yak was domesticated in Tibet by the Chiang
people around two thousand, five hundred years ago, though the
(15:20):
process has been in motion for much longer, like seven
five hundred years. Based on currently available evidence, yak products
were fairly important in Mongolia beginning sometime around two hundred
BCE to two hundred CE art and the appearance of
yas on belt buckles recovered in this area suggests that
(15:42):
the yak was really respected. So there's a lot of
that stuff if you want to look it up, which
we always recommend. Oh yeah, And yaks were useful in
this area in a whole lot of ways. For their meat,
their milk, their leather, their fiber, their dung. As few
as a beast of burden. Their meat was preserved, perhaps
(16:04):
dried for later or turned into sausage, sometimes in combination
with yac blood. Some parts were incorporated into animal feed.
They were really beneficial too in terms of their ability
to survive in the Himalayas in this area, and researchers
often discuss how they were one piece of how people
(16:28):
in this region adapted to these high altitudes where it
was cold with a lot of snow. We've got this creature,
this animal that can really handle that. It is hard
to overstate how important yaks were for the people in
this environment. They provided sustenance, labor and fiber for warmer clothing,
(16:54):
heating elements, and fertilizer when it came to butter, fat
or dung. The horns were useful, as were the bones.
Just all around.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, and that fuel thing is serious. Like the Tibetan
plateaus tend to not have trees, so you know, no firewood.
And furthermore, luckily, yak dung has little to no smell.
As long as the animal has enough water and forage,
it can be used as a construction material as well.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yes, and so here's the thing what I was talking
about with the multiple paths here or here some of
those paths. So yack milk was probably being consumed by
around twelve seventy CE, and likely before that. That's when
the written record indicates it. However, the scientific and historical
(17:47):
record is lacking when it comes to the evidence around this.
Researchers suspect the later date might be because the milk
of other animals was the preference, or just wasn't recorded yep.
Or I read in some sources that in most places
with ready access to it, yack milk went to butter.
(18:10):
At some point, yak butter ended up in tea. As mentioned,
it was generally viewed as somewhat medicinal, especially at high
altitude and as special occasion tea, and probably early on,
yak milk was used to make cheese. It was and
(18:30):
remains a fairly intensive process. It involves hours of churning
or at least in some traditional cases. On the plus side,
though a lot of this cheese lasts for months or longer.
So it was another excellent option for those who were
working in these harsh climates. Taking all of that into consideration.
(18:54):
Yak products were fairly popular in pockets of Asia during
the twelve hundreds, and.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Butter sculpture aside. All right, So Tibetan practices around butter
sculpture might have developed in like the fourteen hundreds or
thereabouts during the Ming dynasty. So the tradition today is
that for Tibetan Buddhist New Year celebrations, which happen in
late winter like February March, some people sculpt and pigment
(19:22):
butter into these elaborate, elaborate pieces depicting the Buddha and
you know, religious scenes and symbols, architecture, animals, mythical creatures,
a lot of flowers. It's an offering slash decoration at
temples and monasteries, and they are very bright and intricate
and can range in size from something handheld to like
(19:46):
a few meters tall, like maybe like twenty feet, like
a couple of stories high. And it's thought to have
developed due to not having fresh flowers to use its
offerings in the dead of winter.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Butter sculpture always recommend look it up, look it up.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Oh yeah no, And these truly they are gorgeous and
I don't understand physically how they work.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
They're super cool, Yes, yes, indeed, okay. The written record
indicates that a handful of yak were sent to Europe
in the early eighteen hundreds. In the early nineteen hundred,
some yaks were sent to North American Zoos. People also
did a couple of tests around hybridization that was centered
(20:32):
around meat production and the cold climates of Canada and
the northern United States.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Nepal established a yac cheese industry in the nineteen fifties,
and they were apparently the only country in the world
with one until around about the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Wild yak were believed to be on the verge of
extinction in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, they're still.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
They're currently listed as vulnerable, with a fewer than ten
thousand left in the world wild and these days climate
change is impacting some of the traditional herding and ranching regions. However,
in expanded regions, yaks are being looked at as a
way to offset some of the harms of the global
(21:16):
cattle industry. You know, they produce that high quality dairy
and meat on less feed and with less greenhouse gas emissions.
There's there's research into like how to keep the genetic
stock good, how to keep the animals healthier during long
lean winters, and how to encourage people to adopt yack
agriculture and yak products on a larger scale. This might
(21:41):
be the first time that we have a future date
in our timeline, but twenty twenty six is going to
be the United Nations International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.
So A, that's brad B. Hopefully that that will help,
you know, like prod along further research in po to
help out yaks and their humans.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, hopefully. I mean they seem very well loved. Obviously
we're fans, but of course they're facing these issues, but
you know they're kind of limited and where people can
get them access them.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, yeah, because they do not tolerate warm weather. They're like, nope,
I don't like that. Unhappy So no, So we're going
to have to travel somewhere.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
I'm what I'm hearing.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yes, if I if I achieve what I really want
to do now, which is hug a yack, we're gonna
have to take a field trip. It's not gonna happen around.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
All right, Okay, if.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Anyone knows how if anyone can facilitate me hugging a yack.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yes, and if any of you listen do have experience
with yak products, please let me.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Oh yes, yes, I'm so curious. I'm so curious about it.
But yeah, that that is what we have to say about.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yaks for now.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
And we do already have some listener mail for you,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from another quick break for a
word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
We're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're
back with Snooth. Yeah was that snuffle off? I guess like,
was that? You know? Maybe I kept thinking of Kung
(23:51):
Fu Banda, But okay, in Kung Fu Panda it's master Ox.
It is not a yak. Oh all right, Yeah I
double checked because I'm may that mistake in the show before.
Actually not Kung Fu Panda mistakes. I've made a Kung
Fu pan A mistake before, so I was like, not again,
(24:13):
good looking out, good looking out? Yeah yeah, yeah, just
a fun creature until it's storming at you.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Oh, especially is what I was going for. Yeah, there
you go, there you go share.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, okay, Sheldon wrote, listening to the Chilula episode, and
I couldn't help thinking about my granddaughter, Florence, or as
I call her Flow Flow Annie. She's someone you'd love
to meet, a girl after your own heart, and maybe
you will when you are up this way for the
Cheese Curd Festival. Flow is only seven, almost eight years old,
(24:53):
and she loves hot sauce. I find that age kind
of young for liking hot sauces. I was in my
late teens before I developed a taste for them. Flow
likes Chilula bottle but says that it's not hot enough.
That's her biggest complaint about most things I make for her.
They're not hot enough. She started liking hot sauces at
(25:17):
the age of six and has wanted them hotter and hotter.
She likes a sauce that is too hot for her
sister and mother, and she's always trying to trick my
wife into using some on whatever. My wife has a
hard time with pepper, but Flow always seems to be
(25:38):
able to trick her. She also likes impressing her friends
by eating something that they can't handle at all. Take
a tiny taste, they say it's too hot, then she
takes a big taste and they are amazed. She doesn't
speak much English, speaks French, but one of the few
(25:59):
English words she can say is hot sauce. For Christmas,
she gave me a T shirt that says, I put
hot sauce on my hot sauce. Wow. Oh that's wonderful.
I feel connected here.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, and it's seven years old. That's that's precocious, that's terrific.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
That is that is that reminds me of my niece
who did something similar to that but really sour thing.
Oh sure, yeah, she just would like eat a whole
lemon and I was taken aback by it. But hey,
(26:45):
good for you. Oh yeah, right, I do.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
I do feel like that is a good age for
like that kind of stunt, eating that kind of Yeah.
I want to be impressive by how like mildly abusive
if I can beat to my own taste buds.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yes, yes, uh, because I don't know. I don't know
at that age. I think I liked very mildly spicy things.
I don't think I had branched out to even chilula
at that point. Yeah. Hey, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I don't think so, I can't even remember. So the
answer is probably no. The answer is I probably did
not branch into that kind of stuff. I don't think
I really encountered that much very spicy food until I
was a little bit older. But yeah, mine was supposed
to be at Mexican restaurants in my small town, where
you put like maybe mildly spicy hot sauce on your
(27:44):
on your dish.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
But I love this. I think this is amazing, and
also I love that she gave you this shirt. I
put hot sauce on my hot sauce. Yes, yes, yeah,
that's great. Oh wonderful.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Kate wrote, you have finally done episodes about both of
my favorite at aliens, Meet the Fruit Ninjas, Mango and Guava,
and attached is a photograph of two cats. One is orange,
that one is mango, and one is gray, and that
one is guava. Kate continues, I am admittedly a couple
(28:27):
of months late. Their supervillain origin story is long and squiggly,
but the short version is that in June of twenty
twenty one, a heartbroken, newly cat free me found Mango
at fur Kids Atlanta thanks to some serious Facebook kismet.
I'm from Alabama for distance reference, and when I emailed
about Margo. They told me he came bonded to his
(28:47):
sister Coconut flakes. Spoiler, his sister was actually his brother,
And obviously, either way that name needed to be something else.
I suggested Papaya, but the other half suggested Guafa. And
since he needed convincing that we even needed one cat
much less too, he got the win. Been waiting a
long time to tell you about them. Funnily enough, I
(29:09):
don't prefer mangos, and I can't say I've ever tried Guava.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Well, they're so cute. The pictures, the pictures attached are
very very adorable.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, yeah, Mango. There's a photo of Mango like on
top of a bookshelf, just with both of his front
pause just hanging hanging down like he's clearly just belly
flopping on top of that bookshelf and surveying his domain
in the way that only a very orange cat can.
(29:50):
And yes, and Glava seems a tiny bit more contained
as gray tabbies tend to be. But but both look
so cuddly and sweet.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
They do, they do. And you know, we love getting
pet pictures and we love if they have food names.
Any any will do? Oh yeah, yeah, but food names
are great. Yeah, the food names are great. I love
that you don't particularly have any experience with these fruits,
(30:27):
but I think they are excellent names and they fit.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Oh yeah, Now mango is a high quality orange cat name. Yes, yeah,
oh absolutely, Guadala is great as well. I'm just I'm
also slightly biased towards orange cats because blessed like, just like, what.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Are they up to? Which? Behind the scenes, listeners, I
have gotten to witness some of Lauren's kittens chaos lately,
and I have to say it's a lot of chaos
and it's been entertaining for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, so bonus story, all right, so it is food related.
I was carrying my lunch upstairs to my office a
few days ago, and the kitten ran up behind me
and slapped it out of my hands like she was
stealing a dribble.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Okay, And it was curry.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
And the plate goes flying, and there's curry on the walls,
there's curry on the cat. She had one little yellow
paw from the turmeric for days.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I still don't know why. I can't. There is no why.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Only chaos, just purs and murder. Murder, that's what that
one is made of yep, that's it's it's been fun.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
We were talking about horror movies and there was a
terrible sound and it turns out the kitten was behind it.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Oh yeah, I figured that the kitten was behind it.
But there was a big like clang and like yeah,
like like clutter noise, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go check that out.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
And Annie absolutely thought I was about to die.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I was like, that's well, that's the end of savor.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Fun. She had somehow knocked over the dish. The dish
rack I.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Pushing over books. She has an interesting character.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
She's very special mm hmm. I love her unconditionally and and.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
And it's yeah, yes, that'sous well listeners, thanks to both
of these listeners for writing it. If you have bet
stories you want to share, yeah, we would love to
have them. You can email us at hello at savorpod
dot com. We're also on social media.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
You can find us on blue Sky and Instagram at
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Save is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.