July 4, 2025 • 56 mins
In this enlightening podcast episode, I sit down with Natalie Kovarik a cattle rancher, to discuss the realities of cattle ranching versus its portrayal in popular media like 'Yellowstone'. Natalie shares her unique journey from Montana to Nebraska, illustrating the challenges and advancements in agriculture over the decades. They delve into her collaboration with dairy farmer Tara Vander Dussen on their podcast 'Discover Ag', which aims to bridge the gap between consumers and the origins of their food. Key topics include the impact of climate and market pricing on farming, the pros and cons of grass-fed versus grain-fed beef, misconceptions about methane production, and the often misleading nature of food labels. This episode offers a comprehensive look at modern agriculture, sustainability practices, and the importance of transparent, informed food production.
What You'll Learn:
- Reality vs. Media: Understand how popular media can mislead public perceptions of farming and agriculture.
- Building Connections: Discover how Natalie and Tara use social media and their podcast to connect consumers directly with the farming world.
- Agricultural Realities: Learn about the technological advances and persistent challenges such as market pricing that impact modern farming.
- Debunking Myths: Gain insights into common misconceptions about "factory farming" and the scale of agricultural operations.
- Environmental Impact: Explore the nuanced discussion on agriculture's environmental role, particularly around methane production and sustainable practices.
Key Takeaways:
- Media depictions often do not fully reflect the complexities of agriculture; Natalie provides an authentic look into farming life.
- Social media and platforms like Discover Ag foster direct consumer connections, opening dialogue about agriculture's realities.
- Challenges in farming extend beyond operations—the unpredictable nature and market factors are significant hurdles.
- Large-scale farming isn't inherently negative; many larger operations incorporate advanced sustainable practices.
- Educating consumers on agricultural processes fosters a more sustainable and understanding food system.
Resources:
Discover Ag Podcast: Listen weekly as Natalie and Tara discuss major topics within Western agriculture, addressing consumer concerns directly.
Follow Natalie Kovarik: Catch up with Natalie on various social media platforms for insights into sustainable ranching.
Support the Podcast:
If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing, rating, and leaving a review on your preferred podcast platform to spread this insightful discussion on agriculture. Share with friends or family interested in learning more about where their food comes from and the realities behind it.
02:13 Challenges in the Agriculture Industry
03:43 Discover Ag Podcast and TV Series
06:11 Debunking Myths in Agriculture
08:56 Sustainability in Cattle Farming
13:51 Monocropping and Soil Health
18:12 Feedlots and Beef Production
23:09 Food Labels and Consumer Awareness
28:55 Misleading Food Labels
30:35 Ultra-Processed Foods: The Hidden Dangers
31:47 The Organic Label Debate
32:27 The MAHA Movement and Food Manufacturing
36:29 Su
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Natalie Kavoriic, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Now, I am this is this is an interesting well,
you're an interesting guest for me.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
You are the first cattle rancher that I have had
on the podcast, and you.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Work very closely with a dirty farmer.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Now, before we get into that, my knowledge on cattle
ranching all comes from Yellowstone, and I'm sure lots of
the listeners will be in the same boat with Kevin Cooster.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So how realistic is that?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, you know, we are in the Yellowstone movement.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
I cannot believe how many people have come back to
kind of Western culture and agriculture and just rural living
from that movie and they do.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
An okay job. So I actually grew up.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
In Montana, and maybe we'll get into this more, but
the operation, the cattle ranch I live on now is
in Nebraska. So it's fun to watch Yellowstone because that
is based in Montana, and so a lot of the towns,
you know, the different places they're filming is kind of
the area I grew up in. So that's always fun
for me. But as far as you know, the practicality
(01:22):
and the reality of cattle ranching, it's a spectrum. I
think Sheridan did well representing agriculture to the masses. Right,
it has to be a drama, it has to be
entertaining to watch. So I think he hit some things
on the head, did it correctly? And then there are
definitely some things that if you were a cattle rancher,
(01:43):
you're watching and you're kind of, you know, shaking your
head saying that that's not exactly what how that would
look or look on an actual cattle.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
So, so, do you have the place where you hide
the dead bodies as well?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Yeah, no, no, we do not have that safe to say.
Have you to say our ranch is free? You know
from what they I think they call it the train
tracks or train station train station. Yeah, we're we're a
zone free train station ranch.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
So and tell me this has it got has the
the job and the industry got harder or easier over
the last couple of decades.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Oh, that's such an interesting question.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
I don't think I've ever been asked that before. It
would be so interesting to hear a generation above me
answer that kind of gone through some maybe technological changes
or different things, you know, in the agriculture industry. I
think that uh, you know, one thing that is probably
consistently hard, and I would say that generations above us, uh,
(02:48):
you know, battled or fought the same challenge is you know,
market pricing, right, so there's just a lot that is
out of our control.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
As farmers and ranchers when it comes to the market.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
And then you know, mother nature is like a huge
challenge for us, and I imagine that has always been
a battle. You could kind of get into people who
you don't want to argue the climate change and different
things that have you know, maybe affecting farming.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That from that perspective, so I think we have it
pretty good.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I think that you know, there are technological advances that
have you know, been good for our industry. And then
I think some of those challenges are just will just
always be there. They're just kind of built into your
lifestyle if you're a farmer.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
D yeah, absolutely. And certainly the weather.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I mean there's if you look at Australia where I
live right now in Victoria, the state of Victoria, there's
pretty much a drug going on and then other states
are completely underwater, so it could go from one extreme
to the other. Now we are The whole idea of
this podcast is that yourself and your business partner, Tara
(03:50):
vander Duson, and you guys have created a podcast and
a spin off TV series called discover IG. So tell
us what's that all about. Where did the idea come from?
And what's the eem of the podcast and the TV series.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah, so Tara and I started sharing online kind of
accidentally a handful of years ago, by you know, education basis.
She's actually an environmental scientist and I'm a pharmacist, and
so this, you know, media, social media, all of this
was not kind of in our future. If you had
asked us ten years ago, would we be doing this?
(04:30):
Not very you know not, we did not see it.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
We had professional careers, both very very happy in it.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
You know, social media is a gift. I think it's
a double edged sword. You can get into pros and
cons but as far as that culture industry.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I do think it's a gift.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
It enables us to connect with our consumers, connect with
people who are interested and removed from the farming way
of life, which, you know, going back historically, you usually
had a family member or someone that you knew that
had a farm, and so your touch points were much more.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Frequent than they are now.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
So being able to open up our farms and ranches
and share with people who are interested in farming and
food is for free is such a gift. And so,
you know, kind of organically, she ended up sharing in
the dairy space, kind of about dairy sustainability with her
you know, environmental science background, and I ended up sharing
kind of in the beef sector and just kind of
sharing more of our ranching and you know, lifestyle, our
(05:24):
family a little bit. And we cross paths online. That
is actually how you know we first met. Is like
every good social media friendship or sorry, millennial friendship started
on social media. So we cross paths and we're like, hey,
you're kind of doing what I'm doing. We're both sharing
online as women in agriculture, which isn't you know, at
the time seven eight years ago, wasn't super popular. So
(05:46):
we kind of became quick friends, and then we kind
of realized that we both had this mission to share
agriculture in kind of a different light. We really want
to you know, show it through the perspective of millennial female.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Tone and kind of i don't know, make it like
fun and cool to to.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Be reconnected to agriculture again, and so we decided to
launch the podcast. Another you know, origin of our mission
was really that we were kind of tired of hearing
so many other people talk about farming and ranching that
had you know, never stepped foot on a farm and
ranch before you open up you know, the New York Times,
or you see a real go viral of someone talking
(06:25):
about farming practices, and it's a wellness influencers, you know,
someone that maybe I'm not saying they can't speak on
that and have an interest in it. But we just
felt that there needed to be representation from within our industry.
And so knowing that we both wanted to kind of
share agriculture in the same manner and highlight in the
same way, it just really made sense.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
For us to join forces. And so we launched Discover.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Ag And so you em to connect consumers with the
origins of their food right and also explode some myths,
give us the give us the general gist of what
you're trying to do from an educational perspective.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, So we're a once weekly podcast every Thursday, and
what we do is we actually take the top it's
usually fourish articles so the top trending news articles, and
that could be traditional media, so like I said, it
could be something that you know, the New York Post,
rights or The Atlantic, or you know, some sort of
magazine or newspaper article, or it could be a real
(07:22):
that's gone viral or a podcast episode. So we cover
the top four things that are kind of almost going
viral that week that are topics within Western culture, agriculture
or the food space, and then we talk about them.
So it's kind of like a food news kind of
podcast that you're getting straight from people within agriculture.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
And we think it's kind of a.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Unique spin because, as we said, like just last week,
there was a real going viral talking about chemicals being
sprayed on your McDonald's fries and how you should be
afraid of the farming practice because you know, the farmers
are doing the potato farmers are doing xyz that are dangerous,
and we debunked that and we talked about you know,
we actually interviewed potato farmer and you know, a will
(08:06):
talk to him about that reel and had him give
you know, actual information of how people are raising and
growing potatoes. And that's what we do every week. So
depends on the topic. We'd be talking about a range
of different things. It's actually like a wild wide spectum
that we talk about on the podcast. But we just
want to take those things that are the foremost of
(08:26):
a consumer that they're seeing online and give an actual
farmer's perspective on it. Sometimes we agree with it and
sometimes we're debunking it.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Okay, so give us some myths about the agriculture and
food production. Maybe maybe something about diry farming, and then
something about cattle.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Farming and whatever order you want.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
What would be the big thing that you if you
could just grab consumers and go this is horseshit and
this is the truth, what would it be in those
respective industries?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Do you reckon?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, so I think I can.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I can give one that I think speaks touches on
both of them, and it is you know that big
is bad. So factory farming, you know, is a common
term you'll hear quite frequently, and not that there isn't
a spectrum of agriculture practices, and not that you can't have,
you know, small scale farming versus you know, a very
large scale production ranch or farm that will look maybe
(09:23):
look different and probably look different, but for the most part,
we just had this conversation on the podcast last week
that was a really good reminder that behind your food
is a person. You know, it is a family growing
the food. And yes, the operations are going to be
different sizes, but it really is not true to just
say that a bigger operation is bad and small is better.
(09:45):
You know, sometimes bigger operations have sustainability practices that they
can implement that smaller operations can't, you know, when it
comes with management, when it comes with people you can hire,
when it comes with dollars, infrastructure, all sorts of things.
And so like any business, you know, scale isn't a
bad thing. Sometimes it comes with efficiency and productivity and
different things that are good, right because even scaling efficiency
(10:10):
for sustainability can come with you know, you can have
that better on bigger operations. And so we love to
just hound that like big isn't bad and you really
need to just you know, understand the food operation before
you judge them and their practices. And it's interesting, you know,
going to myths that you kind of just want to
shake people about. I feel like we were been on
(10:33):
a pendulum swing and I'd be curious to see if
you've noticed this at all as a consumer.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
But you know, ten years ago it was like the
vegan movement.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
It was plant based and every you know, it was
just a very different conversation around the food. There was
a lot of like climate conversation about cattle killing the planet,
you know, methane, carbon footprint, all of that. And I
feel like when we are on podcasts three years ago,
those were the questions we were getting. People really wanted
to know, like what are cow is bad for the planet?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Do we need to sell eating meat?
Speaker 4 (11:01):
And I don't we don't get that anymore. Really think
the pendulum has swung No, I think. I mean we're
in a proteins food landscape. Everyone is talking about protein,
everyone is talking about animal protein.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I think people have.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Come a long way and understanding how beneficial a cow
is for the planet, a grazing animal.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And so it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I think one of those the big I want to
shake and say, you know, cattle are actually amazing for
the planet. I don't have to, you know, debunk that anymore.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I think we've I think, sorry and athlete to jump
in there, but I think for a lot of a
lot of my listeners and I completely agree with you
on the protein movement that has swung.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
But still there is this big.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Chat about kais being bad for the planet and the
worst polluter are source of pollution on the planet. So
talk to us about what is actually the reality. And
you talked about how cars can be good. So taught
us through that a little bit. Just educate our listeners
on both sides of the story.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Sure, I'd love to so. Our ranch is actually a
really great example of this. We ranch in Nebraska, and
there is a very large portion of the straight state
called the Nebraska Sandhills. Not a lot of people know
about it. I mean I grew up in the US
and I had never even heard of this beautiful ecosystem,
but it really is. It is actually the world's largest,
most intact ecosystem. Still to this point it is just
(12:28):
lush rolling grasslands. I mean, it is beautiful, beautiful landscape
and it is that way because of a grazing animal. Right,
so it is not good. It is not good ground
for cropping. You would not be doing that. It is
truly meant for an animal to be out there grazing.
And when you have an animal grazing in grasslands like that,
it's part of you know, just a natural ecosystem cycle.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
When you talk.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
About regenerative agriculture and one of the most important things
we can be doing as ranchers and farmers for you know,
the land, the world, essentially the planet, it's soil health.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
That's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Like when people are talking about regenerative practices and sustainability,
you can use all sorts of words, but at the
end of the day, usually what they're talking about is
like they're wanting to have the best soil health they
can have on their farm and ranch, and they're actually
like if you went through educational you know, a program
or curriculum, there are like five components to soil health,
and a grazing animal is one of them. I mean,
(13:23):
they're so beneficial when it comes to they're hoofprints, like
aerating the soil. Obviously, they're manure as natural fertilizers. You know,
they're mowing down on the grass, they're doing grazing. That
is really great. And so it's just when you have
a grazing animal in the right environment, you can truly
see how beneficial they are to all the different grasses,
(13:45):
the native grasslands, but also the different animals, Right, You're
going to have that thriving ecosystem where everything is just
working together.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
And then I guess the contra to that is the
wide scaled monocropping that happens with these huge areas that
are you know, it's just one crop produced on them.
Talk about the effects of that on the environment, and
(14:12):
not just in terms of the soil health, but the
overall environment, insect populations, all of those sorts of things.
What's the things that we don't really think about as consumers.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Yeah, so I'm not like the best expert on this
because on our ranch we actually do minimal farming. You know,
we are very cattle heavy, and so we aren't planting
really anything like we don't I've never you know, driven
a tractor and planted anything into the ground. And so
I'm like, I'm just gonna, you know, coveyat this conversation
that I won't go probably too in deep on a
(14:48):
layer of my answer here, but you're absolutely right. And
I think that's one of the frustrating things is you know,
when you have people who are anti meat, a lot
of times they don't realize that, you know, the option
they are promoting is usually from a mono monoculture source.
And when we say monoculture, think of like when you
see rose and rows of corn, or you see rose
and rose.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
It could even be rose and rose of strawberry.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
It's essentially the same plant over and over and over
again a monoculture. And you're just you know, basically, the
lack of diversity is not good for the soil. You
really need the different You should be you know, doing
crop rotation. We should doing cover crops. Those are you know,
again going back to soil health. Those are some of
the practices that are good for soil health, and those
(15:29):
are some of the things that you can lose when
you're doing that monoculture farming.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, okay, and so getting getting back to the cattle farming,
what what are some of the improvements in sustainability that
you've seen over your time farming.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Like on our operations specific yes.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Or generally.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, you know, I mean I feel like so maybe
I'm struggling answer this question because I feel like, you know,
within again going back.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
To you know, where we are right now in society.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
The last five years, you've seen that surgence of the
word regenerative sustainability, like it's kind of like a new term, right, like, oh,
we've got regenerative farming before, and we've never really had that,
and that's not true, like farm I mean, we have
been planting cover crops on our operation for over thirty years, right,
So we were doing this practice a long long time
(16:26):
ago before people started just kind of finding out about
it and making a thing on social media within the
last five.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Could you explain, sorry for the uninitiated, what a cover
crop is.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Yeah, So, again, one of the things that's really really
good for the soil is you don't want it bear, right,
So you think of.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Like the dust bowl. Right, If you have that that.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Bare dirt that's just blowing in the wind and you're
losing those top layers of soil, it's not good for it.
So obviously you're not planting something all the time. You know,
you have planting season, harvest season, right, We're doing it
in seasons, and so in those off seasons, farmers will
put in what is a cover crop, and they'll use
it to cover the soil essentially and protect it in
(17:06):
the off season of when you're not actually.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
For gotcha, you know, you know why this has not
clicked for me because about a month ago I went
to rural Victoria to do a talk and the guys
I was doing to talk for and they owned an
allied health business, but they also own a farm and
my plan was delayed for about five hours because there
(17:28):
was a massive dust storm. And when I got there
and the guy picked me up, he was the farmer,
and he said, yeah, that dust storm, that was my
top layer of soil getting taken up into the earth.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
So obviously the weather in.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
The season was a bad combination because he was trying
to get all the grass or the plant or whatever
it is, and that just came in and just blew
all of it away. So that's the value of the
cover crop then, right, So tell me this about the
actually I wanted to talk about. You were mentioned these
(18:06):
rails that go viral. Right, So some of the stuff
that I personally have seen in Australia is around American
cattle farming and you see miles and miles of these
massive feed lots with cais eating green and not a
single blade of grass around whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Right, So taught me.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Through that, yep, yep, and so kind of you know,
earlier when I was talking about that grazing animal. You know.
That is why I say, when you have the cow
and the right environment, they're so beneficial. Because this kind
of comes the counter argument where people say, well, what
about when they're in you know, feed lots, right, they're
not doing some of those things that there's not grass there,
they're not out grazing.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
So you know, there's pros and cons to the conventional scale,
you know, conventional model, let's say, of beef.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Production in the United States.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Those images are correct, that is, you know, probably a
feed lot that they are showing. They are going to
be animals that are kind of you know, more corraled.
They're going to be you know, closer, all in the
same vicinity, right, You're not out in pasture land at all.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
That is what a feedlot's going to look like.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
I think the interesting thing about the feedlot conversation that
is often missed in those reels and often missed in
those conversation is that the feed lot model in conventional
agriculture only takes place in the last few months of the.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Whole entire lice the finishing.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Absolutely yep.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
So before that our ranches like ours, where cows are
out grazing. They are out on pasture. You know, the
mom and the caff are together. You know, they're consuming grass.
That is their diet. And that is how even in
the conventional scale of agriculture, that is how the beef
cycle begins and it goes up until you know, usually
a certain weight of the animal. And at that time
(19:55):
the farmer a rancher will then sell the animal off
to the feed lot and then they'll have that finishing
ration of grain here in the US because we like
that more mal or the animal. But it's usually only
for you know, three to four months, and then they go,
they're sold off to the processor.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
So that so they sorry to jump in athlete to
they are completely different businesses, right, So there's the yeah, right, okay, gotcha.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
So and that's interesting people don't understand that. So poultry,
chicken is what we call vertically integrated. So Tyson will
own the animal from the beginning to the end and
the farmer is almost actually contracting usually to Tyson. Same
with pork.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I'm sorry for our listeners in Australia.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Tyson, I believe is the biggest producer of chicken in
the United States, like the bohemous business.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Sorry, I thought maybe that would be a safe one
to use down there.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I don't, I guess I've heard of it and and
some some some other ones will, but I just wanted
to clarify that. So it's people listen thinking this is
one dude like Mike Tyson's cousin.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Oh no, no, not one dude, one big company.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
So there, it's owned by you know, corporation, and the
former kind of is contracted by that corporation, and the
corporation owns the animal from the very beginning to the
very end.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
That is not how the.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Beef industry is. The beef industry is segmented. So my
husband and I will own the animal at the very beginning,
and then we sell that to the feed lot. The
feed lot will own that animal, and then they sell
it to the packer, and then the packer owns it
before they sell it to the consumer. So it is segmented,
and I honestly don't ever think it will go as
vertically integrated as the other protein channels.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
It's just not easy. Easy to do it.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
In the beef industry because we're talking you know, chicken
life scale is like six weeks. You know, cow is
like twenty four months, right, So it's just they're just
completely different means of growing out an animal. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Interesting, And so the TV series, right, how did the
idea come about to transform or to add on a
TV series to the podcast And what are you able
to do in the TV series that you're not able
to do in the podcast in terms of educating listeners?
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Yep, So our TV series is actually still in the
like pilot stage, but it came because when we were
talking about you know, food production. It's such a visual theme, right,
so being able to fully understand it's like you can
talk about it and kind of describe it, but when
you get out there and you actually see some of
the methods that people are using to produce and grow food,
(22:31):
it just like you said earlier, it clicks. You know,
you just have much much better picture of what it
takes and how people are doing it. And so we
knew we wanted to take you know, that verbal conversation
we were having in people's ears through the podcast and
somehow bring it to them for a visual component where
instead of us talking about, you know, interviewing the potato
farmer and saying like this is how we do it,
(22:53):
you know this is what's not true. This is what's true.
We could actually go out into the field and we
could bring people along and they could see the equips
and they could see the soil, they could meet the
farmer and just have it's almost, you know, one layer
deeper of that connection to food for people.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
So let's not talk about post food production and getting
in into supermarkets and food labels because I know you
guys focus a for a bit on food labels.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Yeah, I have a love hate relationship with food labels
because I think they're kind of right now, at least
where we are in society. They're a huge disservice to
people who are trying to just grocery shop at the
end of the day. I think they started out with
like really good intentions of people being like, I need
to know what is on this package of beef, how
(23:40):
was it raised? How you know which package do I
choose in the grocery store, And so it makes sense
that we put a food label on there and we explain,
you know, what that food product is and why you
should choose it.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
But I feel pretty strongly and I feel like we.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
End up having this conversation quite a bit on our
podcast just because it is so relevant today with different
and I don't know, conversations I guess around the food landscape.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
But food labels have.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Really become, you know, a marketing scheme almost by companies
of how can we just get people to choose our product.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
There's a lot of greenwashing with labels that are really frustrating.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
You can use labels and words and terms on products
that aren't federally regulated. Right, so you're you think you're
getting a better product. You're going to put money into
that premium product you think you're getting, but it's not
even you know, all natural not regulated, family raise not regulated.
Like there's all these little fancy words that these marketers.
It's truly the marketing company of the the marketing team
(24:37):
of the company sitting down and saying, how can we
make our package look pretty? Use words that connect with
the consumer to get them to choose ours. And it's
just really really frustrating because people's dollars are going to
something that really isn't even different if you did package
AVer's package beach.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
So give me some of the good, the bad, and
the ugly that you see on food packages, right, So
what's what's the.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Benefit of them to consumers.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
And the good and that's the that's the problem too,
because there are some that I'm like, if you care
about your food, you know this is you need to
look at the labels, right. I always say here, here's
what I'll start with. I always say, in my personal opinion,
if you care about your food and you really want
to know how it was made, and you want to
try and get the best food product you can, and
(25:22):
you have the financial means to do that, that is
when you're going to go direct to the farmer ranch, right,
So buy your meat from a rancher online, go to
your farmer's market. You know you can pay that little
bit of difference to skip all the middleman that you
know cheapens our food a little bit, and get it
directly from the food source, because that's the best way
(25:43):
to get the product that you know how it was
raised and raised in the manner you care about. GMOs
is a really frustrating one for me because you'll see
not that it's like, again, it's a helpful label. There
are GMOs, but I think there's only eleven or there
is either eleven or thirteen GMOs.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Those are the only GMO crops that exist, and so
if you want to avoid those, it's good to know.
I want a non GMO. I'm trying to even think
of what the list is.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
It could be so beans or something like that.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Right, yeah, I don't I don't let me see.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
But but for but for the most.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Part, they're just putting non GMO and everything because it is.
But it's it's tricking people to think that if they
don't get the product that has non GM on it,
then the other one has GEMO And it's like that
doesn't even exist. There isn't an even a GMO tomato.
Tomatoes is a good one. There are not There are
no GMO tomatoes. So you don't need to look or
pay for a non GMO tomato because it doesn't exist.
(26:42):
And so I think that's like an abuse of the
labeling system where people are very afraid. Speaking to dairy
Tarro would probably bring this up, but I don't know
if rBST is like a concern down in Australia.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
No, don't even tell us what it is, Okay, So
it is very rare in the US around the dairy industry.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
People are very fearful of it.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Consumers are they want to make sure they get a
dairy product that says non you know, no RBS tree
on the outside of the package.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
What it is is.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
A hormone that the dairy industry, I don't know rolled
out thirty years ago. I think it was like in
the seventies or eighties, and very quickly when it was
rolled out, dairy pharmas realized they didn't like it, and
consumers said like, we don't want this, and so the
dairy industry stopped using it. It is like currently not
in practice right now in the United States, but you
will still see no rBST, not rBST tree to cattle
(27:37):
on you know, dairy products everywhere.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Like it's still being marketed.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Around because people think if they don't get the cart
and that says not no rBST, that it's in there,
and it's like it's not even in practice, right.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
So I just think we really need to.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Have some which is really hard because then you get
into the conversation of governmental regulation. But there needs to
be regulation around these food label because we need to
get the ones off that are just like green Washington
consumers and go back to beneficial ones that are actually
you know, practical differences that you should be putting your
dollars towards.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the government regulation thing is interesting, right.
I don't know if you have it over in the States,
but over here there is a star system that goes
onto products and that star system, so I'll give you
an example, right, So there is a breakfast cereal over
(28:34):
here that has four and a half stars on it
and it got the I think it was that the
fourth star, or it went from three to four and
a half because they reduced the sugar in the content
from thirty two grams per hundred grams to twenty nine
(28:55):
grams per hundred grams.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Right. And the other.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Misleading thing about that star is that it is comparing
all foods in a category against each other and not
against all foods. So people look at and they'll look
at certain breakfast cereals and I'll have four stars, yet
it's nearly thirty percent sugar.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
That's the issue when big food then lobbies the government
around these And I'm sure you'll have seen similar things
in the United States.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Right, Yep, yep.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
We actually covered it on the podcast because there was
was going viral. You know, there were reels being made
about it and was talked about online that you know,
it wasn't lucky Charms, but they were saying, like, you know,
they were using lucky Charms in place of it to
make that you know, clickbait sound bite. But they that cereal.
So let's say the lucky Charm cereal had a better
rating than beef, and so they were like, you know,
(29:50):
lucky Charms is more healthier for you than a steak, right,
And so yeah, you don't again a consumer, I just
feel I just my heart really goes out to consumers.
One thing to Tarr and I talk about a lot
on the podcast is that like when you're in the
industry of raising food agriculture, you have a trust built
into the system of food and a little bit obviously
you know more understanding of it than the general consumer
(30:13):
going into the grocery store. And so I feel so
I don't know, I just I hate thinking about the
consumers going in trying to make good choices, trying to
understand what that labels telling them what they should be
paying for, because I really think like the grocery stores
are just set up to make them fail when it
comes to trying to eat healthy on you know, a
limited budget, or whatever that looks like, just eat healthy
(30:34):
in general, it's just so confusing.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, And I think the thing that a lot of
people don't understand is that there is a lot of
ultra processed food products. Right I am, I'm on a
crusie against ultra processed food products. But not only are
they ridiculously unhealthy, but the reason or one of the
reasons why so much of them are consumed. And I
(30:59):
know in in the United States it's about sixty six
percent of all calories consumed or from ultra processed foods.
These are processed at large scale industrial processing using food
substances and food buy products that may already exist in
the food chain, and they're highly profitable for the organizations
(31:25):
and they're also highly profitable for the supermarkets, so they
get lots of shelf space where people are buying, and
then there's these misleading food labels on them that people
actually think they're healthy and they're just buying ultra processed
shit that isn't real food.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Yeah, So I have hope I can remember all three
things I want to say about this that you just
because they're kind of different talking points, but that brings
me to you know, going back to labels that are
frustrating to me. Organic is one of those because you
will see a lot of people say, you can only
eat organic, you have to look for an organic label,
and it's like an organic granola bar is going to
be worse for you that processed organic. You know, it's organic,
(32:06):
but it's a processed food. It's going to be worse
for you than it worse for you than if you
went and just bought the non organic strawberries, blueberries and
ground beef.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
You know.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
So I really hate when people get so hung up
on that organic label because I believe, personally my philosophy
is a whole food diet, right, I agree with you,
like I think that like we have a battle and
a problem with ultra processed food, which is my second point.
Maha make America Healthy Again is quite a popular thing
here in the United States. I don't know, you know,
(32:36):
how okay, how much of your you know, listeners will
be familiar with that, but pros and cons to it.
But one of the things I do love that I
think the Maha conversation, the Maha movement kind of brought
to light for people to help them understand is that
the person the potato farmer is not responsible for the
(32:57):
lays the potato. Yes, And I think before that you
saw that as kind of one problem, and now I
think people are realizing there's there's two processes. There's two
there's two, you know, there's the farmer and then there's
that everything that happens to the food afterward. And a
lot of our problem isn't actually with how the farmer
is growing things like you know, yes, we can always
(33:20):
do better on agriculture, and yes, we're always trying to
do better, but a lot of the problems we're seeing
with like the health and the food system is in
that those manufacturing steps of getting that ultra process food.
And so it has been nice to kind of see
the farming agriculture portion pulled out of conversation. Yes, and
people more going for the food manufacturers, as you said,
(33:41):
are putting in those ultra process steps that are doing
all the you know, preservatives and additives that people don't want,
you know, that's not happening on the farm. And so
that has been like I think, a really positive thing
to come out of the Maha movement.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, and it is interesting the Maha movement.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I mean that the Obviously there's a whole heap of
controversy around Kennedy and on different things, But the thing
that I was excited about is that he is anti
ultra process food and there is just I think people
don't realize how much of their normal shopping basket is
(34:20):
just really not real food at all.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
And there is such.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
A strong link now, such strong evidence between the consumption
of ultra processed foods and a ridiculous amount of poor
health outcomes, everything from depression, anxiety, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease,
and and you know, my general overview for people guidance
(34:46):
around diet is to eat a low hitchy diet, which
means low human interference and and and eat mostly food
that you can see has been alive recently. It's either
walked around on two or four legs, grown out of
the ground or off of bout and it's been minimally
processed by humans. But there's just huge amounts of our
(35:06):
food that do not fit into that category right now.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
And one of the things we talked about on the
podcast too is how we know this but you know
all that the.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Processing happened to it.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
It is chemically designed to be a yes to, you know,
for us, and it is like it's like, you know,
that's why I'm like, we just can't buy chips for
our house because if we do, we eat the whole
bag of chips. Right. It's like it's there's the bliss
point between the carbohydrates, the sugar, and the foot yes
to chemically make our bodies just want more and more
and more. And so it's yeah, it's it's it's you're
(35:41):
up against a lot because it's like, you know they're
bad for you, but you know chemically you want them.
And one thing I don't think a lot of people
recognize either, is that those big companies they're paying for
in the grocery store, at least here in the United States,
you can pay for you know, your placement. I guess
you're where you're at in the grocery store, and you know,
(36:03):
the the ultra process foods, the big companies, the Pepsi Co,
the kel Loogs, the general mills, those are the people
that are going to be able to pay to put
their ultra processed foods right where the consumer are, right
at the checkout. I was right on the ends, like
right when you walk in the grocery store, the big
you know, at least in our American grocery stores, you'll
have a big food landscape at the beginning, you know,
and it's like the small farmer or the whole food,
(36:27):
you know, they're not getting that placement.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
It's the ultra processed food that's getting that that.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
This is a really important point for people to understand
is around product placement. And I actually worked with a
company in New Zealand who they made They made brand right,
but I was working with their leadership team and they
were walking through a problem that there was a big
supermarket over there. And this maybe opens up a conversation
(36:54):
about the supermarkets and the buyers and their influence on
the manufacturers and the farmers as well. But basically, the
big supermarkets had gone to them and said, we want
a white loaf to be able to sell at less
than a dollar, and we want you to create that
(37:14):
for us our own brand for the supermarket. And if
you do that, if you will will create that for us,
we will give your other products price placement right. And
they were having to then make breads, so there was
this big discussion do we do it or do we not?
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Because if we do it.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
We're actually making bread for the supermarket and selling it
at a loss so that we can get our other products,
premium products placed at the ends and at eye level
and all of this stuff. So talk to us about
some of the shenanigans that both the supermarkets and those
(37:54):
ones that are further down the track, and what sort
of practices and negative influences they have around pricing and
manufacturing and all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yeah, you know, one thing that I guess comes to
mind for me again because it's a little out of
this is a little out of my wheelhouse. But I recall,
oh gosh, it was a while ago, probably six seven
months ago, on the podcast we were actually talking about
asparagus because there was an article that came out talking
about the decline of the sparagus industry in California, you know,
and we're not growing asparagus in like a ton of
states in the United States, right, and so you know,
(38:28):
that article really highlighted how the declining industry in California
is really going to if we lose that, right, we're
going to be losing a main source of asparagus growth
at least if you want you know, USA product grown,
and part of it was that they had conversations about
the grocery store who they have market you know, margins
they need to hit as well profit loss. And it's
(38:49):
like this actually kind of segues an entire different conversation
that maybe want to go into. But basically, what was
happening in California is that Mexico could grow asparagus much
more a than they could here in the United States,
and so we were getting edged out by all the
importations that were coming in for Mexico by the grocery stores.
But at the end of the day, the grocery store had,
(39:10):
you know, product margins that they had to hit, and
so they were going to opt to go for Mexico
instead of the USA California ground. And so it was
this whole kind of chicken before the egg. But essentially
it was a cycle of like, if this continues to happen,
we're going to see these farmers who cannot afford to
continue to grow.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Asparagus, and that does open up by a conversation around sustainability,
right so, and I get a little bit frustrated about
this conversation, particularly for people who are in the anti
meat movement and talk about the impact on the environment,
but then they're eating grapes in Australia that are produced
(39:49):
in the USA or Israel that are have been flown here,
and the amount of greenhouse gases that go into the
transport of food that's non local, well, it's just it's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Right, yep, yeah, it's I mean, you can think of
sustainability as like you know, prongs and different columns that
make up for it.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
And eating seasonally eat is a huge one.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Right, So if we're having to import from you know,
at least here in the United States, a lot of
that out of season fruit vegetables are coming from Mexico, right,
our southern neighbors who can grow it year round where
we can't. Well, as you said, transportation costs all sorts
of different things. So eating out of season, eating locally
with the transportation causes another thing. A lot of people
aren't a again just generally you don't think of. But
(40:35):
we'll have this conversation we've talked about on the podcast before.
Because the EU, you know, has really strict regulations when
it comes to farming and especially methane reduction. Right, So
there's been a ton of articles come out how they're
pushing to you know, decrease cattle and cold cattle because
they're trying to hit their methane right for their green
climate number like whatever, you know. But it's like they'll
(40:56):
they'll restrict their farmers in their country through those policies
so that they can hit their methane measure, but they're
importing from other countries that don't have those sustainability regulations.
So essentially, what you're doing is offsetting the carbon impacts
or the methane impacts, the climate impacts, just as somewhere
(41:18):
else globally, So it's like you're not actually doing anything
to benefit the planet. Alls we're doing is offsetting so
that Brazil who is now importing everything to you, or
whatever country it is who doesn't have as tide of
regulation instrictions, they're just doing it more down there, and
we're just seeing all of the numbers rise there. But
you know, now, whatever nations that are under that that
(41:39):
Climate Agreement, that Climate pac they get to feel good
that they hit their markers, and it's like you just
off You've just.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Moos the chess pieces around the board. You haven't actually
taken any off the board.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yep, exactly, And so let's then talk.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
About and the whole methane production in Keuis. I was
reading some interesting stuff few months ago about mixing in
seaweed into feed lot for cattle and how it dramatically
reduced methian. You're probably a bit more over that than
I am. Is is that is that real?
Speaker 1 (42:14):
And or and what.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Other practices are are there to reduce the methian And
is the methian from cattle as bad as it talks about?
You know, I've heard about it being sequestered back in
and so give us a bit of education because I
am clearly talking very limitedly here.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Okay, hopefully I don't hope I can keep this a
train of thought. But yes, cattle are part of the
carbon life cycle. So carbon and carbon out right, because
they're a part of like the carbon through the plants,
and so it's a little bit different than like carbon
coming out of like the pipe your tailpipe on your car. Right,
they're different conversations, but a lot of time they're actually
measured the same or thought of the contain for the consumers.
(42:57):
There is a there's a ton of work being done
around methane reduction in cattle because when methane. It is
true cattle do have you know, produce methane. They are
I don't know what percentage of top but I know
they rank, you know, close up there. I don't think
they're number one, Like landfills are actually a huge producer
of methane. There's like termites, like rice. I think there's
a couple of things that are like major methane promoters,
(43:20):
and cattle is you know, right up there with some
of them. Because when they belch, cattle have ruminants their
stomach they actually have four stomachs, and so through their
whole process when they end.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Up belching, methane is released.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
The interesting thing about methane and carbon conversations is people
will like consider it's like apples to apples, and it's not.
Carbon has a very very long half life, So carbon
will be in the environment for like one hundred years,
whereas methane has about a ten ten to fifteen year
probably lifeline. So one of the reasons why cattle where
(43:54):
they're looking aggressively at methane reduction is one because you know,
we are amid of it, but two because if you
could decrease methane production, you could almost be net zero,
whereas that's really hard to do with carbon. Like if
you think a good way to think of it is
like if you're filling up a bathtub and you put
(44:16):
a stopper in the bathtub. Carbon is the water you
know that's filling up because it's just in the air
in the environment for one hundred years, is not going anywhere.
Methane is almost if you remove the drain, it's like
methane we put into the environment because we can get
rid of it so quickly in the ten years. It's
almost like the water's just running through where we could
be neutral. And so they are focusing heavily on that
(44:38):
methane reduction because it comes with that lower life span,
which is such a benefit for it. And yes, seaweed
is one of the options. There is actually a university
you see Davis, California and Sacramento is doing huge work
in this showing reductions in methane. The interesting part of
this conversation is how does the consumer perceive that, because
(45:03):
there have been a couple times where different organizations companies
now have rolled out It was actually done in the
dairy industry we covered on the podcast, and it was
a while ago, but I think it was called beauvaire.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I think is what the name of it was. You'd
have to fact check me.
Speaker 4 (45:19):
But consumers didn't like it because what they feel like
is it's this another additive, another product that the animal
is getting. You know, whether it was being fed to them,
they don't like that, or whether it was a shot
that the animal was getting that they don't like. So
there is such a focus, I personally believe on some
of these advancements we are having when it comes to
(45:39):
our food system, we have to make sure that we
are almost marketing them and rolling them out to the
consumer in a way that they understand so that they
don't prevent consumer fear and misunderstanding doesn't prevent some of
that advancement from taking place. Because there was major, major
kickback when that dairy company rolled out their methane reduction.
(46:03):
Consumers did not want there's actually ads going out that.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Are like our cattle or bova free.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
Like. At the end of the day, it was a
good thing, right because you're getting the methane reduction, but
consumers didn't want something that they felt was unnatural being
used in the process.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Of interesting and very very complex topic right, and now
let let's talk about now.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Grass fed versus green fed.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Right, Yeah, because you guys have a ton of grass
We do.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Have a ton of grass fed down here.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
And it's always tighted that that that you know that
Australian beef is more quality, more natural because it is
grass fed. Now I believe that some of that grass faed,
I'm led to believe that some of that grass fed
is green finished, and so that I think there's another
terminology that means grass fed all the way. So in
(46:55):
the United States, is there is there any or much
beaf that is grass fed? And does grass fed mean
grass fed the whole way you know taught us.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Through this, Yeah, yep.
Speaker 4 (47:08):
So grass fed is when you will see companies that's
another one of those labels that's not like regulated.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Yep. So going back to the label.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
Conversation we were coming off of a I don't know,
twenty minutes ago. Yes, grass fed is one of those
ones that is not actually regulated. And I feel like
companies do take advantage of a little bit because you
need to technically you can call at least you'll see
some people promoting that their beef is grass fed, because again,
those first you know, let's say fifteen months of the
cattle's life, they were grass fed technically, right, they were
(47:39):
just finished on the grain. And so people have started
to look for like grass fed and finish yes, then
you know yes, and then you know that the animal
was fed you know, grass the entire time and that
is the only thing that they were fed.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
As far as here in the US, yeah, we don't
have at least that like.
Speaker 4 (47:57):
Large scale production. You're not going to see major grass
fed operations. I think actually ninety per seven percent of
like grass fed beef and our grocery stores does come
from like you guys and New Zealand, Like we're importing
a majority of our grocery store grass fed. There are
a lot of like direct consumer grass fed operations because
they're going to be smaller and they're just shipping to
(48:18):
people that want to buy directly from them online. And
so you'll see a lot of people who want to
get grass fed grass finished beef kind of going that
direct to consumer route to get it. They will, like
I said, get it from the grocery store, but it's
not going to be from a US producer. It's going
to be from you guys, because we're just not set
up in the United States to have for whatever reason,
whether you know it's a lamb conversation or an infrastructure conversation.
(48:43):
You know, somewhere along the beef production scale, we just
I guess made the decision to the grain finished. Yep.
And so that is how most of our model is
set up, is to be grain finished.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
And it's much more efficient, isn't it to do the
great absolutely?
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (49:00):
Actually, it's really funny because people hate to hear this,
but when you get into that methane conversation, feed lots
will have a lower footprint than a grass fed animal
because of the timeline, because it is such an efficient
process that if you were going to go, you know again,
like that feels like a little unfair to me because
I believe in like a grazing animal, and I believe
in like an ecosystem conversation we had earlier. But if
(49:22):
you wanted to go like number for number and like
just have tunnel vision goggles on, you could see better
sustainability measures coming out of a feedlot animal because it
is such an effective, you know, efficient productive process.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
And that efficiency does that come because the animal gets fatter, quicker,
and puts some with quicker, right, uh huh, yep.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
So you will harvest a grain finished animal, oh gosh,
maybe four six months earlier then you would finish a
grass finished animal, they'll be out grazing.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yep. For that there, it takes longer to finish a
grass fed So that.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Is in interesting.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
So a grain fed animal is better for the environment ostensively,
ostensibly ostensibly right now, and I'm sure there's caveats, but
if you were to just look at without without looking
at everything, without looking at where the greens coming from
and stuff like that, But if you're just thinking Kai two,
kais all right, kaya and KaiB Kia is grass fed
(50:24):
all the way and grass finished, and KaiB is grass
fed for a while and then green finished. Technically KaiB
is going to produce less methian because that Kai gets
to a certain way quicker. And when you look at
that weight and you cut open that steak, there's much
(50:45):
more marbling because it's an obese car, right, because it's
been fed and just basically gone into the feed lots
to become obese.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
And then so so so give us the counter argument
to that.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
Too, well, well, so I said, like it is ostensibly
it's a better animal for the environment.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
Yeah, well, it's that conversation had earlier that you need
an animal to be a part of the ecosystem, you
need them to be out in the grasslands. Like the
benefit of grazing animal has you know, out when it's
out at pasture is so healthy for the environment. Right,
That's that set conversation of like you're not getting those
environmental positive impacts from the feedblat animal that you are
(51:32):
when you have that cow grazing out a pasture.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
Yeah, it's the nuance in the conversation, isn't it when
you really have to understand everything that's going into the equation.
And so, what's your preference grass fade or green fit
because I know a lot of people who prefer green
fed because there's more marbling, there's more fat in it.
And and I go say, I like a fatty bit
(51:54):
of steak. I prefer a scotch. Do you call it
scotch over a scotch Philip and are a ribbi? But
give me a grass fed rabbi over a grain fed rabbi.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
Yeah, rabbi is actually my favorite cut as well. I
love a good rabbi. So we eat our own beef.
Speaker 4 (52:13):
Obviously, even the ranch I grew up on, you know,
we were we're eat I don't even know the last
time I ever bought a package.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Of hamburger or steaks from the grocery store.
Speaker 4 (52:22):
I am very spoiled and lucky in that way that
you know, it's a freezer full of a whole animal.
We harvest from our ranch, and we do. We're the
ranch my husband and I have is part of the
conventional beef system, right, so we are again growing up
the animal and then we sell them off to the
to the feed lot, and so we will finish our animal.
(52:43):
We obviously don't you know, sell it to the feed
lot and then buy it back ourselves. But we will
essentially that point that we are growing the animal to
to sell to the feed lot, we'll hold back one
or to ourselves and then do a grain finished diet
it with them on the our ranch where they just
you know, stay with us here.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
But we do do a grain finished diet.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
So I guess you could say I prefer a grain
a grain fed animal versus.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
And is that do you do the finishing because of
the efficiency or because you preferred the taste of the
of the grain fed finished.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Probably bold okay, Yeah, probably both okay.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
And and then last question, what what do you envision
for the future of farming in terms of what what
do you see coming across the horizon that's good and
what is a bit scurry that's coming across the horizon,
both in terms of cattle diry and other farming that
(53:38):
you guys are covering in the podcast.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
Yeah, there actually isn't like a ton that I find fearful.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
You know. I believe we're in like an.
Speaker 4 (53:47):
Industry that thankfully people need our products three times a day,
every single day for their entire life, right And I
do think it's like a really exciting time to be
in agriculture. The technological advances are great. I think there
has been never been more conversation about like what can
we do to not only have a healthy product, but
like a healthy product that's good for you know, the planet,
(54:10):
the land that it's been growing on too. So I
you know, I'm very hopeful for the food conversation. I
always say that I feel like right now again coming
off of the Maha conversation and everything that kind of
politically happened here in the United States this past twenty
twenty four, and kind of right now in twenty twenty five,
and even COVID twenty twenty, I feel like really reconnected
people back to being like I want to know more
(54:31):
about my food. I am willing to pay a little
bit more for my food if it comes at you know,
a better outcome for my health or a better outcome
from the land. I think some of those shift have
put us, like in a really great perspective position in
agriculture that our consumers are wanting to know more about
their food. They're really wanting to maybe pay a little
bit more for their food to have those premium products,
(54:52):
which I think is really exciting as a farmer and
rancher because it obviously means a lot when people are
willing to who you know, back the processes they want
financially because you know, there's a cost to farmers and
ranchers having to make some of those changes in.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
The food system.
Speaker 4 (55:07):
So I'm really excited about the future of agriculture, and
I think this this conversation we're in right now, hopefully
we're going to come out of it in like twenty
twenty six and like a really good place where like
we are seeing some health impacts, you know, made across
the nation here at least in the United States, where
we do have some pretty bad numbers when it comes
to our health. And we're seeing that, you know, support
(55:28):
of the agriculture industry for farmers and ranchers to be
a part of that.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
So where can people go, Natalie to find out more
about what you and Tara do?
Speaker 1 (55:38):
Podcast, TV series, any other stuff? Social media? Give me
the whole lot.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (55:44):
Yeah, Well, if you're turning into this year, obviously a
podcast person, so you can hop over to our podcast.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
It's called Discover ag We are.
Speaker 4 (55:51):
You can find us anywhere you listen to podcasts. Our
cover art is two girls and We're clad and Denham
head to toe. We have, you know, Denham tuxedo and
I'm holding a chicken and Tara is holding a hot dog.
And so that is your That is when you know
you landed in the right space for the food conversation
that you you know you want to have every week.
And then social media you can find me at my
(56:12):
I'm on a couple different platforms and it's just under
my name Natalie Kovorik. And then you can also find
us on social for the podcast. You know, YouTube, Instagram,
under discover AGAs.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
Cool, and we will get all the links and stick
them in the show notes. So, Natalie, thank you very
much for your time in educating our consumers on all
things agriculture. And keep doing your work because it's important stuff.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
I am so honored be connected. Thank you so much
for having me on
Natalie Kavoriic, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Now, I am this is this is an interesting well,
you're an interesting guest for me.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
You are the first cattle rancher that I have had
on the podcast, and you.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Work very closely with a dirty farmer.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Now, before we get into that, my knowledge on cattle
ranching all comes from Yellowstone, and I'm sure lots of
the listeners will be in the same boat with Kevin Cooster.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So how realistic is that?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, you know, we are in the Yellowstone movement.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
I cannot believe how many people have come back to
kind of Western culture and agriculture and just rural living
from that movie and they do.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
An okay job. So I actually grew up.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
In Montana, and maybe we'll get into this more, but
the operation, the cattle ranch I live on now is
in Nebraska. So it's fun to watch Yellowstone because that
is based in Montana, and so a lot of the towns,
you know, the different places they're filming is kind of
the area I grew up in. So that's always fun
for me. But as far as you know, the practicality
(01:22):
and the reality of cattle ranching, it's a spectrum. I
think Sheridan did well representing agriculture to the masses. Right,
it has to be a drama, it has to be
entertaining to watch. So I think he hit some things
on the head, did it correctly? And then there are
definitely some things that if you were a cattle rancher,
(01:43):
you're watching and you're kind of, you know, shaking your
head saying that that's not exactly what how that would
look or look on an actual cattle.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
So, so, do you have the place where you hide
the dead bodies as well?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Yeah, no, no, we do not have that safe to say.
Have you to say our ranch is free? You know
from what they I think they call it the train
tracks or train station train station. Yeah, we're we're a
zone free train station ranch.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
So and tell me this has it got has the
the job and the industry got harder or easier over
the last couple of decades.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Oh, that's such an interesting question.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
I don't think I've ever been asked that before. It
would be so interesting to hear a generation above me
answer that kind of gone through some maybe technological changes
or different things, you know, in the agriculture industry. I
think that uh, you know, one thing that is probably
consistently hard, and I would say that generations above us, uh,
(02:48):
you know, battled or fought the same challenge is you know,
market pricing, right, so there's just a lot that is
out of our control.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
As farmers and ranchers when it comes to the market.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
And then you know, mother nature is like a huge
challenge for us, and I imagine that has always been
a battle. You could kind of get into people who
you don't want to argue the climate change and different
things that have you know, maybe affecting farming.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That from that perspective, so I think we have it
pretty good.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I think that you know, there are technological advances that
have you know, been good for our industry. And then
I think some of those challenges are just will just
always be there. They're just kind of built into your
lifestyle if you're a farmer.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
D yeah, absolutely. And certainly the weather.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I mean there's if you look at Australia where I
live right now in Victoria, the state of Victoria, there's
pretty much a drug going on and then other states
are completely underwater, so it could go from one extreme
to the other. Now we are The whole idea of
this podcast is that yourself and your business partner, Tara
(03:50):
vander Duson, and you guys have created a podcast and
a spin off TV series called discover IG. So tell
us what's that all about. Where did the idea come from?
And what's the eem of the podcast and the TV series.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah, so Tara and I started sharing online kind of
accidentally a handful of years ago, by you know, education basis.
She's actually an environmental scientist and I'm a pharmacist, and
so this, you know, media, social media, all of this
was not kind of in our future. If you had
asked us ten years ago, would we be doing this?
(04:30):
Not very you know not, we did not see it.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
We had professional careers, both very very happy in it.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
You know, social media is a gift. I think it's
a double edged sword. You can get into pros and
cons but as far as that culture industry.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I do think it's a gift.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
It enables us to connect with our consumers, connect with
people who are interested and removed from the farming way
of life, which, you know, going back historically, you usually
had a family member or someone that you knew that
had a farm, and so your touch points were much more.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Frequent than they are now.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
So being able to open up our farms and ranches
and share with people who are interested in farming and
food is for free is such a gift. And so,
you know, kind of organically, she ended up sharing in
the dairy space, kind of about dairy sustainability with her
you know, environmental science background, and I ended up sharing
kind of in the beef sector and just kind of
sharing more of our ranching and you know, lifestyle, our
(05:24):
family a little bit. And we cross paths online. That
is actually how you know we first met. Is like
every good social media friendship or sorry, millennial friendship started
on social media. So we cross paths and we're like, hey,
you're kind of doing what I'm doing. We're both sharing
online as women in agriculture, which isn't you know, at
the time seven eight years ago, wasn't super popular. So
(05:46):
we kind of became quick friends, and then we kind
of realized that we both had this mission to share
agriculture in kind of a different light. We really want
to you know, show it through the perspective of millennial female.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Tone and kind of i don't know, make it like
fun and cool to to.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Be reconnected to agriculture again, and so we decided to
launch the podcast. Another you know, origin of our mission
was really that we were kind of tired of hearing
so many other people talk about farming and ranching that
had you know, never stepped foot on a farm and
ranch before you open up you know, the New York Times,
or you see a real go viral of someone talking
(06:25):
about farming practices, and it's a wellness influencers, you know,
someone that maybe I'm not saying they can't speak on
that and have an interest in it. But we just
felt that there needed to be representation from within our industry.
And so knowing that we both wanted to kind of
share agriculture in the same manner and highlight in the
same way, it just really made sense.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
For us to join forces. And so we launched Discover.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Ag And so you em to connect consumers with the
origins of their food right and also explode some myths,
give us the give us the general gist of what
you're trying to do from an educational perspective.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, So we're a once weekly podcast every Thursday, and
what we do is we actually take the top it's
usually fourish articles so the top trending news articles, and
that could be traditional media, so like I said, it
could be something that you know, the New York Post,
rights or The Atlantic, or you know, some sort of
magazine or newspaper article, or it could be a real
(07:22):
that's gone viral or a podcast episode. So we cover
the top four things that are kind of almost going
viral that week that are topics within Western culture, agriculture
or the food space, and then we talk about them.
So it's kind of like a food news kind of
podcast that you're getting straight from people within agriculture.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
And we think it's kind of a.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Unique spin because, as we said, like just last week,
there was a real going viral talking about chemicals being
sprayed on your McDonald's fries and how you should be
afraid of the farming practice because you know, the farmers
are doing the potato farmers are doing xyz that are dangerous,
and we debunked that and we talked about you know,
we actually interviewed potato farmer and you know, a will
(08:06):
talk to him about that reel and had him give
you know, actual information of how people are raising and
growing potatoes. And that's what we do every week. So
depends on the topic. We'd be talking about a range
of different things. It's actually like a wild wide spectum
that we talk about on the podcast. But we just
want to take those things that are the foremost of
(08:26):
a consumer that they're seeing online and give an actual
farmer's perspective on it. Sometimes we agree with it and
sometimes we're debunking it.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Okay, so give us some myths about the agriculture and
food production. Maybe maybe something about diry farming, and then
something about cattle.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Farming and whatever order you want.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
What would be the big thing that you if you
could just grab consumers and go this is horseshit and
this is the truth, what would it be in those
respective industries?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Do you reckon?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, so I think I can.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I can give one that I think speaks touches on
both of them, and it is you know that big
is bad. So factory farming, you know, is a common
term you'll hear quite frequently, and not that there isn't
a spectrum of agriculture practices, and not that you can't have,
you know, small scale farming versus you know, a very
large scale production ranch or farm that will look maybe
(09:23):
look different and probably look different, but for the most part,
we just had this conversation on the podcast last week
that was a really good reminder that behind your food
is a person. You know, it is a family growing
the food. And yes, the operations are going to be
different sizes, but it really is not true to just
say that a bigger operation is bad and small is better.
(09:45):
You know, sometimes bigger operations have sustainability practices that they
can implement that smaller operations can't, you know, when it
comes with management, when it comes with people you can hire,
when it comes with dollars, infrastructure, all sorts of things.
And so like any business, you know, scale isn't a
bad thing. Sometimes it comes with efficiency and productivity and
different things that are good, right because even scaling efficiency
(10:10):
for sustainability can come with you know, you can have
that better on bigger operations. And so we love to
just hound that like big isn't bad and you really
need to just you know, understand the food operation before
you judge them and their practices. And it's interesting, you know,
going to myths that you kind of just want to
shake people about. I feel like we were been on
(10:33):
a pendulum swing and I'd be curious to see if
you've noticed this at all as a consumer.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
But you know, ten years ago it was like the
vegan movement.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
It was plant based and every you know, it was
just a very different conversation around the food. There was
a lot of like climate conversation about cattle killing the planet,
you know, methane, carbon footprint, all of that. And I
feel like when we are on podcasts three years ago,
those were the questions we were getting. People really wanted
to know, like what are cow is bad for the planet?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Do we need to sell eating meat?
Speaker 4 (11:01):
And I don't we don't get that anymore. Really think
the pendulum has swung No, I think. I mean we're
in a proteins food landscape. Everyone is talking about protein,
everyone is talking about animal protein.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I think people have.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Come a long way and understanding how beneficial a cow
is for the planet, a grazing animal.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And so it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I think one of those the big I want to
shake and say, you know, cattle are actually amazing for
the planet. I don't have to, you know, debunk that anymore.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I think we've I think, sorry and athlete to jump
in there, but I think for a lot of a
lot of my listeners and I completely agree with you
on the protein movement that has swung.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
But still there is this big.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Chat about kais being bad for the planet and the
worst polluter are source of pollution on the planet. So
talk to us about what is actually the reality. And
you talked about how cars can be good. So taught
us through that a little bit. Just educate our listeners
on both sides of the story.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Sure, I'd love to so. Our ranch is actually a
really great example of this. We ranch in Nebraska, and
there is a very large portion of the straight state
called the Nebraska Sandhills. Not a lot of people know
about it. I mean I grew up in the US
and I had never even heard of this beautiful ecosystem,
but it really is. It is actually the world's largest,
most intact ecosystem. Still to this point it is just
(12:28):
lush rolling grasslands. I mean, it is beautiful, beautiful landscape
and it is that way because of a grazing animal. Right,
so it is not good. It is not good ground
for cropping. You would not be doing that. It is
truly meant for an animal to be out there grazing.
And when you have an animal grazing in grasslands like that,
it's part of you know, just a natural ecosystem cycle.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
When you talk.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
About regenerative agriculture and one of the most important things
we can be doing as ranchers and farmers for you know,
the land, the world, essentially the planet, it's soil health.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
That's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Like when people are talking about regenerative practices and sustainability,
you can use all sorts of words, but at the
end of the day, usually what they're talking about is
like they're wanting to have the best soil health they
can have on their farm and ranch, and they're actually
like if you went through educational you know, a program
or curriculum, there are like five components to soil health,
and a grazing animal is one of them. I mean,
(13:23):
they're so beneficial when it comes to they're hoofprints, like
aerating the soil. Obviously, they're manure as natural fertilizers. You know,
they're mowing down on the grass, they're doing grazing. That
is really great. And so it's just when you have
a grazing animal in the right environment, you can truly
see how beneficial they are to all the different grasses,
(13:45):
the native grasslands, but also the different animals, Right, You're
going to have that thriving ecosystem where everything is just
working together.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
And then I guess the contra to that is the
wide scaled monocropping that happens with these huge areas that
are you know, it's just one crop produced on them.
Talk about the effects of that on the environment, and
(14:12):
not just in terms of the soil health, but the
overall environment, insect populations, all of those sorts of things.
What's the things that we don't really think about as consumers.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Yeah, so I'm not like the best expert on this
because on our ranch we actually do minimal farming. You know,
we are very cattle heavy, and so we aren't planting
really anything like we don't I've never you know, driven
a tractor and planted anything into the ground. And so
I'm like, I'm just gonna, you know, coveyat this conversation
that I won't go probably too in deep on a
(14:48):
layer of my answer here, but you're absolutely right. And
I think that's one of the frustrating things is you know,
when you have people who are anti meat, a lot
of times they don't realize that, you know, the option
they are promoting is usually from a mono monoculture source.
And when we say monoculture, think of like when you
see rose and rows of corn, or you see rose
and rose.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
It could even be rose and rose of strawberry.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
It's essentially the same plant over and over and over
again a monoculture. And you're just you know, basically, the
lack of diversity is not good for the soil. You
really need the different You should be you know, doing
crop rotation. We should doing cover crops. Those are you know,
again going back to soil health. Those are some of
the practices that are good for soil health, and those
(15:29):
are some of the things that you can lose when
you're doing that monoculture farming.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, okay, and so getting getting back to the cattle farming,
what what are some of the improvements in sustainability that
you've seen over your time farming.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Like on our operations specific yes.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Or generally.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, you know, I mean I feel like so maybe
I'm struggling answer this question because I feel like, you know,
within again going back.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
To you know, where we are right now in society.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
The last five years, you've seen that surgence of the
word regenerative sustainability, like it's kind of like a new term, right, like, oh,
we've got regenerative farming before, and we've never really had that,
and that's not true, like farm I mean, we have
been planting cover crops on our operation for over thirty years, right,
So we were doing this practice a long long time
(16:26):
ago before people started just kind of finding out about
it and making a thing on social media within the
last five.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Could you explain, sorry for the uninitiated, what a cover
crop is.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Yeah, So, again, one of the things that's really really
good for the soil is you don't want it bear, right,
So you think of.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Like the dust bowl. Right, If you have that that.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Bare dirt that's just blowing in the wind and you're
losing those top layers of soil, it's not good for it.
So obviously you're not planting something all the time. You know,
you have planting season, harvest season, right, We're doing it
in seasons, and so in those off seasons, farmers will
put in what is a cover crop, and they'll use
it to cover the soil essentially and protect it in
(17:06):
the off season of when you're not actually.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
For gotcha, you know, you know why this has not
clicked for me because about a month ago I went
to rural Victoria to do a talk and the guys
I was doing to talk for and they owned an
allied health business, but they also own a farm and
my plan was delayed for about five hours because there
(17:28):
was a massive dust storm. And when I got there
and the guy picked me up, he was the farmer,
and he said, yeah, that dust storm, that was my
top layer of soil getting taken up into the earth.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
So obviously the weather in.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
The season was a bad combination because he was trying
to get all the grass or the plant or whatever
it is, and that just came in and just blew
all of it away. So that's the value of the
cover crop then, right, So tell me this about the
actually I wanted to talk about. You were mentioned these
(18:06):
rails that go viral. Right, So some of the stuff
that I personally have seen in Australia is around American
cattle farming and you see miles and miles of these
massive feed lots with cais eating green and not a
single blade of grass around whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Right, So taught me.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Through that, yep, yep, and so kind of you know,
earlier when I was talking about that grazing animal. You know.
That is why I say, when you have the cow
and the right environment, they're so beneficial. Because this kind
of comes the counter argument where people say, well, what
about when they're in you know, feed lots, right, they're
not doing some of those things that there's not grass there,
they're not out grazing.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
So you know, there's pros and cons to the conventional scale,
you know, conventional model, let's say, of beef.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Production in the United States.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Those images are correct, that is, you know, probably a
feed lot that they are showing. They are going to
be animals that are kind of you know, more corraled.
They're going to be you know, closer, all in the
same vicinity, right, You're not out in pasture land at all.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
That is what a feedlot's going to look like.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
I think the interesting thing about the feedlot conversation that
is often missed in those reels and often missed in
those conversation is that the feed lot model in conventional
agriculture only takes place in the last few months of the.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Whole entire lice the finishing.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Absolutely yep.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
So before that our ranches like ours, where cows are
out grazing. They are out on pasture. You know, the
mom and the caff are together. You know, they're consuming grass.
That is their diet. And that is how even in
the conventional scale of agriculture, that is how the beef
cycle begins and it goes up until you know, usually
a certain weight of the animal. And at that time
(19:55):
the farmer a rancher will then sell the animal off
to the feed lot and then they'll have that finishing
ration of grain here in the US because we like
that more mal or the animal. But it's usually only
for you know, three to four months, and then they go,
they're sold off to the processor.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
So that so they sorry to jump in athlete to
they are completely different businesses, right, So there's the yeah, right, okay, gotcha.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
So and that's interesting people don't understand that. So poultry,
chicken is what we call vertically integrated. So Tyson will
own the animal from the beginning to the end and
the farmer is almost actually contracting usually to Tyson. Same
with pork.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I'm sorry for our listeners in Australia.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Tyson, I believe is the biggest producer of chicken in
the United States, like the bohemous business.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Sorry, I thought maybe that would be a safe one
to use down there.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I don't, I guess I've heard of it and and
some some some other ones will, but I just wanted
to clarify that. So it's people listen thinking this is
one dude like Mike Tyson's cousin.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Oh no, no, not one dude, one big company.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
So there, it's owned by you know, corporation, and the
former kind of is contracted by that corporation, and the
corporation owns the animal from the very beginning to the
very end.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
That is not how the.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Beef industry is. The beef industry is segmented. So my
husband and I will own the animal at the very beginning,
and then we sell that to the feed lot. The
feed lot will own that animal, and then they sell
it to the packer, and then the packer owns it
before they sell it to the consumer. So it is segmented,
and I honestly don't ever think it will go as
vertically integrated as the other protein channels.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
It's just not easy. Easy to do it.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
In the beef industry because we're talking you know, chicken
life scale is like six weeks. You know, cow is
like twenty four months, right, So it's just they're just
completely different means of growing out an animal. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Interesting, And so the TV series, right, how did the
idea come about to transform or to add on a
TV series to the podcast And what are you able
to do in the TV series that you're not able
to do in the podcast in terms of educating listeners?
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Yep, So our TV series is actually still in the
like pilot stage, but it came because when we were
talking about you know, food production. It's such a visual theme, right,
so being able to fully understand it's like you can
talk about it and kind of describe it, but when
you get out there and you actually see some of
the methods that people are using to produce and grow food,
(22:31):
it just like you said earlier, it clicks. You know,
you just have much much better picture of what it
takes and how people are doing it. And so we
knew we wanted to take you know, that verbal conversation
we were having in people's ears through the podcast and
somehow bring it to them for a visual component where
instead of us talking about, you know, interviewing the potato
farmer and saying like this is how we do it,
(22:53):
you know this is what's not true. This is what's true.
We could actually go out into the field and we
could bring people along and they could see the equips
and they could see the soil, they could meet the
farmer and just have it's almost, you know, one layer
deeper of that connection to food for people.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
So let's not talk about post food production and getting
in into supermarkets and food labels because I know you
guys focus a for a bit on food labels.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Yeah, I have a love hate relationship with food labels
because I think they're kind of right now, at least
where we are in society. They're a huge disservice to
people who are trying to just grocery shop at the
end of the day. I think they started out with
like really good intentions of people being like, I need
to know what is on this package of beef, how
(23:40):
was it raised? How you know which package do I
choose in the grocery store, And so it makes sense
that we put a food label on there and we explain,
you know, what that food product is and why you
should choose it.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
But I feel pretty strongly and I feel like we.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
End up having this conversation quite a bit on our
podcast just because it is so relevant today with different
and I don't know, conversations I guess around the food landscape.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
But food labels have.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Really become, you know, a marketing scheme almost by companies
of how can we just get people to choose our product.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
There's a lot of greenwashing with labels that are really frustrating.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
You can use labels and words and terms on products
that aren't federally regulated. Right, so you're you think you're
getting a better product. You're going to put money into
that premium product you think you're getting, but it's not
even you know, all natural not regulated, family raise not regulated.
Like there's all these little fancy words that these marketers.
It's truly the marketing company of the the marketing team
(24:37):
of the company sitting down and saying, how can we
make our package look pretty? Use words that connect with
the consumer to get them to choose ours. And it's
just really really frustrating because people's dollars are going to
something that really isn't even different if you did package
AVer's package beach.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
So give me some of the good, the bad, and
the ugly that you see on food packages, right, So
what's what's the.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Benefit of them to consumers.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
And the good and that's the that's the problem too,
because there are some that I'm like, if you care
about your food, you know this is you need to
look at the labels, right. I always say here, here's
what I'll start with. I always say, in my personal opinion,
if you care about your food and you really want
to know how it was made, and you want to
try and get the best food product you can, and
(25:22):
you have the financial means to do that, that is
when you're going to go direct to the farmer ranch, right,
So buy your meat from a rancher online, go to
your farmer's market. You know you can pay that little
bit of difference to skip all the middleman that you
know cheapens our food a little bit, and get it
directly from the food source, because that's the best way
(25:43):
to get the product that you know how it was
raised and raised in the manner you care about. GMOs
is a really frustrating one for me because you'll see
not that it's like, again, it's a helpful label. There
are GMOs, but I think there's only eleven or there
is either eleven or thirteen GMOs.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Those are the only GMO crops that exist, and so
if you want to avoid those, it's good to know.
I want a non GMO. I'm trying to even think
of what the list is.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
It could be so beans or something like that.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Right, yeah, I don't I don't let me see.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
But but for but for the most.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Part, they're just putting non GMO and everything because it is.
But it's it's tricking people to think that if they
don't get the product that has non GM on it,
then the other one has GEMO And it's like that
doesn't even exist. There isn't an even a GMO tomato.
Tomatoes is a good one. There are not There are
no GMO tomatoes. So you don't need to look or
pay for a non GMO tomato because it doesn't exist.
(26:42):
And so I think that's like an abuse of the
labeling system where people are very afraid. Speaking to dairy
Tarro would probably bring this up, but I don't know
if rBST is like a concern down in Australia.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
No, don't even tell us what it is, Okay, So
it is very rare in the US around the dairy industry.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
People are very fearful of it.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Consumers are they want to make sure they get a
dairy product that says non you know, no RBS tree
on the outside of the package.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
What it is is.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
A hormone that the dairy industry, I don't know rolled
out thirty years ago. I think it was like in
the seventies or eighties, and very quickly when it was
rolled out, dairy pharmas realized they didn't like it, and
consumers said like, we don't want this, and so the
dairy industry stopped using it. It is like currently not
in practice right now in the United States, but you
will still see no rBST, not rBST tree to cattle
(27:37):
on you know, dairy products everywhere.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Like it's still being marketed.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Around because people think if they don't get the cart
and that says not no rBST, that it's in there,
and it's like it's not even in practice, right.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
So I just think we really need to.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Have some which is really hard because then you get
into the conversation of governmental regulation. But there needs to
be regulation around these food label because we need to
get the ones off that are just like green Washington
consumers and go back to beneficial ones that are actually
you know, practical differences that you should be putting your
dollars towards.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the government regulation thing is interesting, right.
I don't know if you have it over in the States,
but over here there is a star system that goes
onto products and that star system, so I'll give you
an example, right, So there is a breakfast cereal over
(28:34):
here that has four and a half stars on it
and it got the I think it was that the
fourth star, or it went from three to four and
a half because they reduced the sugar in the content
from thirty two grams per hundred grams to twenty nine
(28:55):
grams per hundred grams.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Right. And the other.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Misleading thing about that star is that it is comparing
all foods in a category against each other and not
against all foods. So people look at and they'll look
at certain breakfast cereals and I'll have four stars, yet
it's nearly thirty percent sugar.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
That's the issue when big food then lobbies the government
around these And I'm sure you'll have seen similar things
in the United States.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Right, Yep, yep.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
We actually covered it on the podcast because there was
was going viral. You know, there were reels being made
about it and was talked about online that you know,
it wasn't lucky Charms, but they were saying, like, you know,
they were using lucky Charms in place of it to
make that you know, clickbait sound bite. But they that cereal.
So let's say the lucky Charm cereal had a better
rating than beef, and so they were like, you know,
(29:50):
lucky Charms is more healthier for you than a steak, right,
And so yeah, you don't again a consumer, I just
feel I just my heart really goes out to consumers.
One thing to Tarr and I talk about a lot
on the podcast is that like when you're in the
industry of raising food agriculture, you have a trust built
into the system of food and a little bit obviously
you know more understanding of it than the general consumer
(30:13):
going into the grocery store. And so I feel so
I don't know, I just I hate thinking about the
consumers going in trying to make good choices, trying to
understand what that labels telling them what they should be
paying for, because I really think like the grocery stores
are just set up to make them fail when it
comes to trying to eat healthy on you know, a
limited budget, or whatever that looks like, just eat healthy
(30:34):
in general, it's just so confusing.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, And I think the thing that a lot of
people don't understand is that there is a lot of
ultra processed food products. Right I am, I'm on a
crusie against ultra processed food products. But not only are
they ridiculously unhealthy, but the reason or one of the
reasons why so much of them are consumed. And I
(30:59):
know in in the United States it's about sixty six
percent of all calories consumed or from ultra processed foods.
These are processed at large scale industrial processing using food
substances and food buy products that may already exist in
the food chain, and they're highly profitable for the organizations
(31:25):
and they're also highly profitable for the supermarkets, so they
get lots of shelf space where people are buying, and
then there's these misleading food labels on them that people
actually think they're healthy and they're just buying ultra processed
shit that isn't real food.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Yeah, So I have hope I can remember all three
things I want to say about this that you just
because they're kind of different talking points, but that brings
me to you know, going back to labels that are
frustrating to me. Organic is one of those because you
will see a lot of people say, you can only
eat organic, you have to look for an organic label,
and it's like an organic granola bar is going to
be worse for you that processed organic. You know, it's organic,
(32:06):
but it's a processed food. It's going to be worse
for you than it worse for you than if you
went and just bought the non organic strawberries, blueberries and
ground beef.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
You know.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
So I really hate when people get so hung up
on that organic label because I believe, personally my philosophy
is a whole food diet, right, I agree with you,
like I think that like we have a battle and
a problem with ultra processed food, which is my second point.
Maha make America Healthy Again is quite a popular thing
here in the United States. I don't know, you know,
(32:36):
how okay, how much of your you know, listeners will
be familiar with that, but pros and cons to it.
But one of the things I do love that I
think the Maha conversation, the Maha movement kind of brought
to light for people to help them understand is that
the person the potato farmer is not responsible for the
(32:57):
lays the potato. Yes, And I think before that you
saw that as kind of one problem, and now I
think people are realizing there's there's two processes. There's two
there's two, you know, there's the farmer and then there's
that everything that happens to the food afterward. And a
lot of our problem isn't actually with how the farmer
is growing things like you know, yes, we can always
(33:20):
do better on agriculture, and yes, we're always trying to
do better, but a lot of the problems we're seeing
with like the health and the food system is in
that those manufacturing steps of getting that ultra process food.
And so it has been nice to kind of see
the farming agriculture portion pulled out of conversation. Yes, and
people more going for the food manufacturers, as you said,
(33:41):
are putting in those ultra process steps that are doing
all the you know, preservatives and additives that people don't want,
you know, that's not happening on the farm. And so
that has been like I think, a really positive thing
to come out of the Maha movement.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, and it is interesting the Maha movement.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I mean that the Obviously there's a whole heap of
controversy around Kennedy and on different things, But the thing
that I was excited about is that he is anti
ultra process food and there is just I think people
don't realize how much of their normal shopping basket is
(34:20):
just really not real food at all.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
And there is such.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
A strong link now, such strong evidence between the consumption
of ultra processed foods and a ridiculous amount of poor
health outcomes, everything from depression, anxiety, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease,
and and you know, my general overview for people guidance
(34:46):
around diet is to eat a low hitchy diet, which
means low human interference and and and eat mostly food
that you can see has been alive recently. It's either
walked around on two or four legs, grown out of
the ground or off of bout and it's been minimally
processed by humans. But there's just huge amounts of our
(35:06):
food that do not fit into that category right now.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
And one of the things we talked about on the
podcast too is how we know this but you know
all that the.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Processing happened to it.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
It is chemically designed to be a yes to, you know,
for us, and it is like it's like, you know,
that's why I'm like, we just can't buy chips for
our house because if we do, we eat the whole
bag of chips. Right. It's like it's there's the bliss
point between the carbohydrates, the sugar, and the foot yes
to chemically make our bodies just want more and more
and more. And so it's yeah, it's it's it's you're
(35:41):
up against a lot because it's like, you know they're
bad for you, but you know chemically you want them.
And one thing I don't think a lot of people
recognize either, is that those big companies they're paying for
in the grocery store, at least here in the United States,
you can pay for you know, your placement. I guess
you're where you're at in the grocery store, and you know,
(36:03):
the the ultra process foods, the big companies, the Pepsi Co,
the kel Loogs, the general mills, those are the people
that are going to be able to pay to put
their ultra processed foods right where the consumer are, right
at the checkout. I was right on the ends, like
right when you walk in the grocery store, the big
you know, at least in our American grocery stores, you'll
have a big food landscape at the beginning, you know,
and it's like the small farmer or the whole food,
(36:27):
you know, they're not getting that placement.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
It's the ultra processed food that's getting that that.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
This is a really important point for people to understand
is around product placement. And I actually worked with a
company in New Zealand who they made They made brand right,
but I was working with their leadership team and they
were walking through a problem that there was a big
supermarket over there. And this maybe opens up a conversation
(36:54):
about the supermarkets and the buyers and their influence on
the manufacturers and the farmers as well. But basically, the
big supermarkets had gone to them and said, we want
a white loaf to be able to sell at less
than a dollar, and we want you to create that
(37:14):
for us our own brand for the supermarket. And if
you do that, if you will will create that for us,
we will give your other products price placement right. And
they were having to then make breads, so there was
this big discussion do we do it or do we not?
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Because if we do it.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
We're actually making bread for the supermarket and selling it
at a loss so that we can get our other products,
premium products placed at the ends and at eye level
and all of this stuff. So talk to us about
some of the shenanigans that both the supermarkets and those
(37:54):
ones that are further down the track, and what sort
of practices and negative influences they have around pricing and
manufacturing and all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yeah, you know, one thing that I guess comes to
mind for me again because it's a little out of
this is a little out of my wheelhouse. But I recall,
oh gosh, it was a while ago, probably six seven
months ago, on the podcast we were actually talking about
asparagus because there was an article that came out talking
about the decline of the sparagus industry in California, you know,
and we're not growing asparagus in like a ton of
states in the United States, right, and so you know,
(38:28):
that article really highlighted how the declining industry in California
is really going to if we lose that, right, we're
going to be losing a main source of asparagus growth
at least if you want you know, USA product grown,
and part of it was that they had conversations about
the grocery store who they have market you know, margins
they need to hit as well profit loss. And it's
(38:49):
like this actually kind of segues an entire different conversation
that maybe want to go into. But basically, what was
happening in California is that Mexico could grow asparagus much
more a than they could here in the United States,
and so we were getting edged out by all the
importations that were coming in for Mexico by the grocery stores.
But at the end of the day, the grocery store had,
(39:10):
you know, product margins that they had to hit, and
so they were going to opt to go for Mexico
instead of the USA California ground. And so it was
this whole kind of chicken before the egg. But essentially
it was a cycle of like, if this continues to happen,
we're going to see these farmers who cannot afford to
continue to grow.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Asparagus, and that does open up by a conversation around sustainability,
right so, and I get a little bit frustrated about
this conversation, particularly for people who are in the anti
meat movement and talk about the impact on the environment,
but then they're eating grapes in Australia that are produced
(39:49):
in the USA or Israel that are have been flown here,
and the amount of greenhouse gases that go into the
transport of food that's non local, well, it's just it's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Right, yep, yeah, it's I mean, you can think of
sustainability as like you know, prongs and different columns that
make up for it.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
And eating seasonally eat is a huge one.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Right, So if we're having to import from you know,
at least here in the United States, a lot of
that out of season fruit vegetables are coming from Mexico, right,
our southern neighbors who can grow it year round where
we can't. Well, as you said, transportation costs all sorts
of different things. So eating out of season, eating locally
with the transportation causes another thing. A lot of people
aren't a again just generally you don't think of. But
(40:35):
we'll have this conversation we've talked about on the podcast before.
Because the EU, you know, has really strict regulations when
it comes to farming and especially methane reduction. Right, So
there's been a ton of articles come out how they're
pushing to you know, decrease cattle and cold cattle because
they're trying to hit their methane right for their green
climate number like whatever, you know. But it's like they'll
(40:56):
they'll restrict their farmers in their country through those policies
so that they can hit their methane measure, but they're
importing from other countries that don't have those sustainability regulations.
So essentially, what you're doing is offsetting the carbon impacts
or the methane impacts, the climate impacts, just as somewhere
(41:18):
else globally, So it's like you're not actually doing anything
to benefit the planet. Alls we're doing is offsetting so
that Brazil who is now importing everything to you, or
whatever country it is who doesn't have as tide of
regulation instrictions, they're just doing it more down there, and
we're just seeing all of the numbers rise there. But
you know, now, whatever nations that are under that that
(41:39):
Climate Agreement, that Climate pac they get to feel good
that they hit their markers, and it's like you just
off You've just.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Moos the chess pieces around the board. You haven't actually
taken any off the board.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yep, exactly, And so let's then talk.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
About and the whole methane production in Keuis. I was
reading some interesting stuff few months ago about mixing in
seaweed into feed lot for cattle and how it dramatically
reduced methian. You're probably a bit more over that than
I am. Is is that is that real?
Speaker 1 (42:14):
And or and what.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Other practices are are there to reduce the methian And
is the methian from cattle as bad as it talks about?
You know, I've heard about it being sequestered back in
and so give us a bit of education because I
am clearly talking very limitedly here.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Okay, hopefully I don't hope I can keep this a
train of thought. But yes, cattle are part of the
carbon life cycle. So carbon and carbon out right, because
they're a part of like the carbon through the plants,
and so it's a little bit different than like carbon
coming out of like the pipe your tailpipe on your car. Right,
they're different conversations, but a lot of time they're actually
measured the same or thought of the contain for the consumers.
(42:57):
There is a there's a ton of work being done
around methane reduction in cattle because when methane. It is
true cattle do have you know, produce methane. They are
I don't know what percentage of top but I know
they rank, you know, close up there. I don't think
they're number one, Like landfills are actually a huge producer
of methane. There's like termites, like rice. I think there's
a couple of things that are like major methane promoters,
(43:20):
and cattle is you know, right up there with some
of them. Because when they belch, cattle have ruminants their
stomach they actually have four stomachs, and so through their
whole process when they end.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Up belching, methane is released.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
The interesting thing about methane and carbon conversations is people
will like consider it's like apples to apples, and it's not.
Carbon has a very very long half life, So carbon
will be in the environment for like one hundred years,
whereas methane has about a ten ten to fifteen year
probably lifeline. So one of the reasons why cattle where
(43:54):
they're looking aggressively at methane reduction is one because you know,
we are amid of it, but two because if you
could decrease methane production, you could almost be net zero,
whereas that's really hard to do with carbon. Like if
you think a good way to think of it is
like if you're filling up a bathtub and you put
(44:16):
a stopper in the bathtub. Carbon is the water you
know that's filling up because it's just in the air
in the environment for one hundred years, is not going anywhere.
Methane is almost if you remove the drain, it's like
methane we put into the environment because we can get
rid of it so quickly in the ten years. It's
almost like the water's just running through where we could
be neutral. And so they are focusing heavily on that
(44:38):
methane reduction because it comes with that lower life span,
which is such a benefit for it. And yes, seaweed
is one of the options. There is actually a university
you see Davis, California and Sacramento is doing huge work
in this showing reductions in methane. The interesting part of
this conversation is how does the consumer perceive that, because
(45:03):
there have been a couple times where different organizations companies
now have rolled out It was actually done in the
dairy industry we covered on the podcast, and it was
a while ago, but I think it was called beauvaire.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I think is what the name of it was. You'd
have to fact check me.
Speaker 4 (45:19):
But consumers didn't like it because what they feel like
is it's this another additive, another product that the animal
is getting. You know, whether it was being fed to them,
they don't like that, or whether it was a shot
that the animal was getting that they don't like. So
there is such a focus, I personally believe on some
of these advancements we are having when it comes to
(45:39):
our food system, we have to make sure that we
are almost marketing them and rolling them out to the
consumer in a way that they understand so that they
don't prevent consumer fear and misunderstanding doesn't prevent some of
that advancement from taking place. Because there was major, major
kickback when that dairy company rolled out their methane reduction.
(46:03):
Consumers did not want there's actually ads going out that.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Are like our cattle or bova free.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
Like. At the end of the day, it was a
good thing, right because you're getting the methane reduction, but
consumers didn't want something that they felt was unnatural being
used in the process.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Of interesting and very very complex topic right, and now
let let's talk about now.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Grass fed versus green fed.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Right, Yeah, because you guys have a ton of grass
We do.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Have a ton of grass fed down here.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
And it's always tighted that that that you know that
Australian beef is more quality, more natural because it is
grass fed. Now I believe that some of that grass faed,
I'm led to believe that some of that grass fed
is green finished, and so that I think there's another
terminology that means grass fed all the way. So in
(46:55):
the United States, is there is there any or much
beaf that is grass fed? And does grass fed mean
grass fed the whole way you know taught us.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Through this, Yeah, yep.
Speaker 4 (47:08):
So grass fed is when you will see companies that's
another one of those labels that's not like regulated.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Yep. So going back to the label.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
Conversation we were coming off of a I don't know,
twenty minutes ago. Yes, grass fed is one of those
ones that is not actually regulated. And I feel like
companies do take advantage of a little bit because you
need to technically you can call at least you'll see
some people promoting that their beef is grass fed, because again,
those first you know, let's say fifteen months of the
cattle's life, they were grass fed technically, right, they were
(47:39):
just finished on the grain. And so people have started
to look for like grass fed and finish yes, then
you know yes, and then you know that the animal
was fed you know, grass the entire time and that
is the only thing that they were fed.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
As far as here in the US, yeah, we don't
have at least that like.
Speaker 4 (47:57):
Large scale production. You're not going to see major grass
fed operations. I think actually ninety per seven percent of
like grass fed beef and our grocery stores does come
from like you guys and New Zealand, Like we're importing
a majority of our grocery store grass fed. There are
a lot of like direct consumer grass fed operations because
they're going to be smaller and they're just shipping to
(48:18):
people that want to buy directly from them online. And
so you'll see a lot of people who want to
get grass fed grass finished beef kind of going that
direct to consumer route to get it. They will, like
I said, get it from the grocery store, but it's
not going to be from a US producer. It's going
to be from you guys, because we're just not set
up in the United States to have for whatever reason,
whether you know it's a lamb conversation or an infrastructure conversation.
(48:43):
You know, somewhere along the beef production scale, we just
I guess made the decision to the grain finished. Yep.
And so that is how most of our model is
set up, is to be grain finished.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
And it's much more efficient, isn't it to do the
great absolutely?
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (49:00):
Actually, it's really funny because people hate to hear this,
but when you get into that methane conversation, feed lots
will have a lower footprint than a grass fed animal
because of the timeline, because it is such an efficient
process that if you were going to go, you know again,
like that feels like a little unfair to me because
I believe in like a grazing animal, and I believe
in like an ecosystem conversation we had earlier. But if
(49:22):
you wanted to go like number for number and like
just have tunnel vision goggles on, you could see better
sustainability measures coming out of a feedlot animal because it
is such an effective, you know, efficient productive process.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
And that efficiency does that come because the animal gets fatter, quicker,
and puts some with quicker, right, uh huh, yep.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
So you will harvest a grain finished animal, oh gosh,
maybe four six months earlier then you would finish a
grass finished animal, they'll be out grazing.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yep. For that there, it takes longer to finish a
grass fed So that.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Is in interesting.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
So a grain fed animal is better for the environment ostensively,
ostensibly ostensibly right now, and I'm sure there's caveats, but
if you were to just look at without without looking
at everything, without looking at where the greens coming from
and stuff like that, But if you're just thinking Kai two,
kais all right, kaya and KaiB Kia is grass fed
(50:24):
all the way and grass finished, and KaiB is grass
fed for a while and then green finished. Technically KaiB
is going to produce less methian because that Kai gets
to a certain way quicker. And when you look at
that weight and you cut open that steak, there's much
(50:45):
more marbling because it's an obese car, right, because it's
been fed and just basically gone into the feed lots
to become obese.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
And then so so so give us the counter argument
to that.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
Too, well, well, so I said, like it is ostensibly
it's a better animal for the environment.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
Yeah, well, it's that conversation had earlier that you need
an animal to be a part of the ecosystem, you
need them to be out in the grasslands. Like the
benefit of grazing animal has you know, out when it's
out at pasture is so healthy for the environment. Right,
That's that set conversation of like you're not getting those
environmental positive impacts from the feedblat animal that you are
(51:32):
when you have that cow grazing out a pasture.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
Yeah, it's the nuance in the conversation, isn't it when
you really have to understand everything that's going into the equation.
And so, what's your preference grass fade or green fit
because I know a lot of people who prefer green
fed because there's more marbling, there's more fat in it.
And and I go say, I like a fatty bit
(51:54):
of steak. I prefer a scotch. Do you call it
scotch over a scotch Philip and are a ribbi? But
give me a grass fed rabbi over a grain fed rabbi.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
Yeah, rabbi is actually my favorite cut as well. I
love a good rabbi. So we eat our own beef.
Speaker 4 (52:13):
Obviously, even the ranch I grew up on, you know,
we were we're eat I don't even know the last
time I ever bought a package.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Of hamburger or steaks from the grocery store.
Speaker 4 (52:22):
I am very spoiled and lucky in that way that
you know, it's a freezer full of a whole animal.
We harvest from our ranch, and we do. We're the
ranch my husband and I have is part of the
conventional beef system, right, so we are again growing up
the animal and then we sell them off to the
to the feed lot, and so we will finish our animal.
(52:43):
We obviously don't you know, sell it to the feed
lot and then buy it back ourselves. But we will
essentially that point that we are growing the animal to
to sell to the feed lot, we'll hold back one
or to ourselves and then do a grain finished diet
it with them on the our ranch where they just
you know, stay with us here.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
But we do do a grain finished diet.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
So I guess you could say I prefer a grain
a grain fed animal versus.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
And is that do you do the finishing because of
the efficiency or because you preferred the taste of the
of the grain fed finished.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Probably bold okay, Yeah, probably both okay.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
And and then last question, what what do you envision
for the future of farming in terms of what what
do you see coming across the horizon that's good and
what is a bit scurry that's coming across the horizon,
both in terms of cattle diry and other farming that
(53:38):
you guys are covering in the podcast.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
Yeah, there actually isn't like a ton that I find fearful.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
You know. I believe we're in like an.
Speaker 4 (53:47):
Industry that thankfully people need our products three times a day,
every single day for their entire life, right And I
do think it's like a really exciting time to be
in agriculture. The technological advances are great. I think there
has been never been more conversation about like what can
we do to not only have a healthy product, but
like a healthy product that's good for you know, the planet,
(54:10):
the land that it's been growing on too. So I
you know, I'm very hopeful for the food conversation. I
always say that I feel like right now again coming
off of the Maha conversation and everything that kind of
politically happened here in the United States this past twenty
twenty four, and kind of right now in twenty twenty five,
and even COVID twenty twenty, I feel like really reconnected
people back to being like I want to know more
(54:31):
about my food. I am willing to pay a little
bit more for my food if it comes at you know,
a better outcome for my health or a better outcome
from the land. I think some of those shift have
put us, like in a really great perspective position in
agriculture that our consumers are wanting to know more about
their food. They're really wanting to maybe pay a little
bit more for their food to have those premium products,
(54:52):
which I think is really exciting as a farmer and
rancher because it obviously means a lot when people are
willing to who you know, back the processes they want
financially because you know, there's a cost to farmers and
ranchers having to make some of those changes in.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
The food system.
Speaker 4 (55:07):
So I'm really excited about the future of agriculture, and
I think this this conversation we're in right now, hopefully
we're going to come out of it in like twenty
twenty six and like a really good place where like
we are seeing some health impacts, you know, made across
the nation here at least in the United States, where
we do have some pretty bad numbers when it comes
to our health. And we're seeing that, you know, support
(55:28):
of the agriculture industry for farmers and ranchers to be
a part of that.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
So where can people go, Natalie to find out more
about what you and Tara do?
Speaker 1 (55:38):
Podcast, TV series, any other stuff? Social media? Give me
the whole lot.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (55:44):
Yeah, Well, if you're turning into this year, obviously a
podcast person, so you can hop over to our podcast.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
It's called Discover ag We are.
Speaker 4 (55:51):
You can find us anywhere you listen to podcasts. Our
cover art is two girls and We're clad and Denham
head to toe. We have, you know, Denham tuxedo and
I'm holding a chicken and Tara is holding a hot dog.
And so that is your That is when you know
you landed in the right space for the food conversation
that you you know you want to have every week.
And then social media you can find me at my
(56:12):
I'm on a couple different platforms and it's just under
my name Natalie Kovorik. And then you can also find
us on social for the podcast. You know, YouTube, Instagram,
under discover AGAs.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
Cool, and we will get all the links and stick
them in the show notes. So, Natalie, thank you very
much for your time in educating our consumers on all
things agriculture. And keep doing your work because it's important stuff.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
I am so honored be connected. Thank you so much
for having me on
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