Ep. 111 - Where Does my Food Come From?

Welcome healthy friends. Do you know what. Today, we're talking about where you get your food from.

You know, we all want to be healthy. We try and do the best we can when we go to the store to buy food for the most part. And you know, everyone's got a budget. So I've got a question. Do you like food?

If so. Do you care? What food you buy? I think it's really important. After all. Next to movement diets more important than anything.

So today we're going to talk about how. To buy food. Erik. I know how to buy food. You go to the grocery store. And you pay for it. It's more complicated than that. The food system is massive and there's a lot of lies. There's a lot to know. There's some truth. But if you care. We're going to get into it and figure out what really is important. And then why it's important. Erik, we know why it's important. Because you want to eat healthy. Well, what's healthy. The type of food you eat. Or what's in the food you eat. Because I will say there's a third factor. Who's making it. Has a bigger impact. Then the other two. I'll show you.

Obviously the picture on the screen is a whole bunch of food. And each of these can be either grown locally. Unless you live someplace where they don't have bananas locally.

But most of this is transported from all around the world. It comes from local might be regional. But essentially in order for you. To have some of these ingredients. It can travel. A ways. Does that impact the quality of that food? I would say yes. In more ways than one. How they grow it, who's growing it. How it gets to you. And. The one thing that everybody knows about, but they don't really seem to. Put much emphasis on. Is let's see in this photo, we're looking at. I don't know. Tomatoes. That's probably an easy one because we see this all the time.

The grocery store.

And that's.

They'll pick these tomatoes. Weeks. Some of this stuff. You know, apples and other things. Months before it's technically ripe. When they pull it from that plant.

It's going to change colors. It's going to do some stuff. It might get softer. It could slightly grow a little bit. It can, it can change its nutrient profile a little bit. But you know why it's doing that? That would be because it's cut off from the ground.

It's actually dying and in the dying process. It creates things like sugars. Or flavors. Maybe even some nutrients. But for the most part. Things like the tomato. The reason why your tomato and your garden, which is picked right away when it's fresh. And ripe tastes so much better than. 90% of what you get in a grocery store.

That would be because you're pulling it. Off the vine. When it's ready. And it's delicious. And then you get things like oranges and you look at them in the store and you're like, they're not orange. They also could be spraying them orange. Yes, they do that. Because they want to make you think they're ripe. They're not ripe. Some things like potatoes can be.

Harvested. Many months ahead of time, which yeah, you could do that. But then you get degregation of nutrients. So then my point is. You don't know the quality. Originally when it was grown. You don't know how much time it took to get to the store and then you bought it. You know, it said from lettuce farmers, That when you buy lettuce in the store. It goes. Bad fast. Because it's old. Whereas when you go to a farm that makes it, or you grow your own. You can keep that lettuce in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.

Pretty amazing.

I think quality matters when it comes to health, I would much rather have better quality and less amount of food. The terrible quality and a lot of food just to what chew cause you want to chew. You're not getting anything. And then everybody wants all these antioxidants and all these nutrients and make sure your plate has 14,000 different colors in it. Stupid. I'd rather have one chunk of that beef right there in the center, that is raised properly. By people who wanted to do it, love doing it. Then to have all this other stuff around it. Which was just. Raised in properly. Nobody cared about it.

Grown and God knows what conditions. So, yeah. I think it matters.

I could say so much more about this and I will. I just want to make that clear that. Quality over quantity. Knowing where it's sourced and where it comes from. Knowing how they pick these things by the time it gets to you, ?

Did you know, the egg. Is on average 77 days old before you get it.

Good farmers get that to you within a week or two. And if your local. Well, shoot, you could just drive to the farm and buy them right then and there. And they probably grabbed them the same day. Pretty awesome.

All of this matters. And it matters more than, you know, If you're trying to be healthy. Then your food. Has to be healthy. You can't eat unhealthy food and expect to be healthy. Regardless of whatever diet that you're thinking about, that food needs to be the best you can do. But Erik, I can't afford some of these things.

I understand there are many ways to eat food that is high quality without spending a lot of money.

And, yes, we will do an episode very soon maybe even next one on that. I don't spend a lot of money on my food and I eat very well.

Quality over quantity is the first rule of eating well. All right. So let's get into the minutia.

Did you know that. Whatever you buy. That money, that profit. Goes to that company and where it's headquartered. For example. If you have a bank that you work with. The headquarters of that bank gets all the profits. In the state that it's headquartered in. So, for example, I live in Michigan, therefore, any bank that is not headquartered in Michigan, doesn't help Michigan's economy. At all. Whatsoever.

Therefore, if I shop at, let's say. Kroger. Which is a large grocery store chain. I don't know where they're co they're headquartered, but let's just say it's Ohio. Ohio gets all the profits, not Michigan or the Carolinas or Florida or any other place. So, where do you want to spend your money? You could spend it locally. And then the farmer. Actually makes all the money.

You can buy it at farmer's markets.

So here we go. Farmer's markets. Basically, if you buy the ingredients, not pre-made products. Then in most states it's not taxable.

So they keep all the money. Isn't that excellent.

I think it's really good thing to do to support your own economy because the money stays here. And in your case, it may be in your own county. Which is even better for you.

So it matters.

Let's see this, this is a photo of. People actually farming.

They are doing it the right way. This is not factory farming. So when you go to a farmer's market or you buy local in whatever way you can, maybe it's online. Maybe it's a CSA. Maybe you go to the farm and actually buy it any way that you can get local produce. This is how they're making it.

Bigger farms look a little different, but essentially it looks like this. There's no factory farming here. There's no monoculture. There's what. 1 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. At least 10 things growing into one area. That's called diversity and it's very, very good for farms to do that. Monoculture is not good. There's a lot of problems.

This keeps everything in check.

if you want. To know where your food is coming from. Then it's these people right here, they can tell you everything about how they farm, what they use. Are they using fertilizers? Are they organic or not? Do they care? Because let's face it. If you're doing everything organic, it doesn't matter. If you get certified. They'll tell you.

They can also tell you why the tomato or the corn or. The green bean tastes so good right now, this, they can tell you what happened during the growing season. You know, Everything about your food because they know everything about how it was grown. Isn't it. Awesome.

Fantastic.

Let's talk about chicken. Well, let's say you knew her because you actually went to the farm. And visited her. And she showed you around and you got to say, wow, Look at these. These hens are in grass. They're not cooped up. They're able to eat anything they want, whenever they want. They've got air. They're outdoors.

They get sun.

Does she have to sometimes maybe supplement feed cause it's cold. Yeah, maybe. Now she can pick which feed she wants to give them, rather than just.

Really low quality food. I would much rather. Eat her eggs. Or her chicken. Than anything. That comes from this. Factory farm chicken. This is a disease cesspool, therefore, they have to give them antibiotics.

Oh, and many other things. Essentially. There's nothing healthy in here. Nothing.

Any one of these birds has less nutritional value. Then even, probably.

A third of this chicken.

I

notice. We have fluorescent lights.

Why?. Oh, because we're not allowed to have normal light bulbs anymore. We have to use fluorescence. Do you think fluorescent light is good for chickens? Kind of looking. Not great.

The other thing to notice is this is the only air purifier. Then there's no sunlight. Would you want to be that chicken? Or would you want to be this chicken? She knows these chickens, by the way. Believe it or not.

Farmers know their animals. They know their personalities they know. If they don't have too many of them, they have names. Anyway, I would much rather have hers. She knows these animals very well.

Which brings me to my point. So here we have pastured grassfed beef.

Why is this important? Well, because cows they don't want anything other than grass. If you give him something. Outside of grass, they'll eat it, but that's not their preferred food this is their preferred food. You all know about this? You've heard about grass fed. I'm going to point out something different.

Here's the third factor. Who's growing your food. Cultivating your food. Raising your food.

This couple. Knows this cow. They've known it since birth, and guess what? That cow knows them. They love their animals. I've listened to testimonies of farmers who they know the.

Chicken or the cow or the pig or Turkey or duck or anything else? They know him so well, it's painful to know they're going to slaughter. But they do it because they want to raise this animal in the best environment that they can. For you.

I think that's worth extra money. And here's why.

This cow. Is going to be stress-free. It's not going to take antibiotics because it doesn't need them.

It lives a.

Let's call it a. Natural life. It. When it was born. To when it dies. Does what cows do. Eat and eat and eat. They also do other things which comes out of this end, but you get my point. So it. Actually lead a life that it wants to lead and it knows exactly what it wants and when. Isn't it funny how they say that cows know when it's going to rain or lightning in the lay down and stuff.

I don't know if that's true, but anyway. I knew of a farmer I saw a testimony where he has. Uh, bin and maybe other farmers do this. They have a bin with a special, like really heavy cover and they put in rows, nutritional ingredients like silica. Yes, they feed sand to animals.

And magnesium and a bunch of stuff like that. And then on the other side of the trough, It's salt. And the cows will go up to this. And lift it up in lick whichever nutrient that they want. Wait a minute. How does that cow? Know that it needs magnesium and is going to lick the magnesium powder.

That's astonishing. Salt. I could give that one because they can probably smell salt. We probably can't. But they can, but how does it know it needs to lick silica, which is sand?

Why?. That's incredible. I think cows in any ruminant animal. We don't give them enough credit. They're wonderful. They give us the best food that you can eat on the planet.

Same with hens. Their meat is good, but their eggs come on.

Okay. The love that they give this animal. Creates a good quality animal. No stress.

Happy animal. And isn't that the cow you want to eat to know how it was raised. Unlike.

Feedlot.

the problem with this is these animals are, uh, in conditions where they going to need things like antibiotics. They have no human interaction. They don't get to lead a life that is exactly what a cow would do. They eat whatever's given to them, which is things like.

Plastic pellets. Candy bars with the wrapper. Grains, of course. And there's other stuff. That's not good. And is that the cow you want to eat? Of course it's cheap. There are ways to get cheaper grass fed grass, finished animals. There is. So you don't want this. This creates ill health it's loaded with omega 6's. It's bad for the animal. It's bad for the earth.

Then we go to porcine, known as. Pig. Did you know, they're scavengers. Did you know, they don't just wallow in mud and eat like things you throw. Of course, they'll eat anything they're scavengers like dogs. But if left to a pasture, they eat everything in a pasture mushrooms, bugs, grass, roots. Uh, acorns any nuts and seeds they can find. They eat all kinds of things.

They don't eat a ton of grass, but they do eat grass.

This is how modern. Pig raising has done that does that does not make healthy pigs. Or happy pigs at all. They're also in stress. And when animals are in stress, their whole life, they don't produce good quality meat. It doesn't taste good.

It has a low nutritional value.

So don't eat this.

So, where do we find our food. So last week we talked a little bit about.

Bird flu and.

Adding vaccines to animals in this kind of thing. And I showed you this website. Real milk.com. Run by the Western A price foundation. This map. We'll show you how to get all the raw milk you want from locally sourced farms. Yeah, they are where you live trust me you're going to find them. They have laws and what they can sell you.

Like some can't do butter, but they can just do the milk itself. Some are for pet purposes only. Which you can still consume yourself. But essentially you can get any thing milk you want from this site. Fantastic. And by the way, Raw milk butter. I'm trying to get some, I think once I go that way, I don't know if I'm ever going to go back. It's amazing.

Next eatwild.com. This is phenomenal site. So this just happens to be Michigan where I live. You've got a map. And you can get even. You know, more specific to where you live, but it is. All the farms listed. That. That do that raise their. Animals or their produce. Appropriately.

Tells you, uh, the website tells you where they're located. Everything. I highly recommend. Sites like these.

And. Once you go to sites like that, this is another one called local harvest. You can visit a farm. These two sites are fantastic by the way, lots of information. They have CSA programs. Farmer's markets. Co-ops these kinds of things, but you can visit a farm. This is how you really get to know where your food is coming from.

This is very, very important. If you have the chance to do it. I say you do it. Take your kids. Let them see where food actually comes from. It doesn't come from a grocery store.

Now this right here. How to visit a farm gives you the etiquette. You can't just stop in there and expect. Them to not be a little upset if you don't know how to be on a farm. You need to know the rules. So things like this can really help you and there's everything you need to know. All the farmer's markets, you events going on, you can shop from sites like this. Fantastic.

Now let's go into farmer's markets real quick, because. Most people don't know how to shop at a farmer's market. There's one. I'll say.

Uh,

There's one thing that people don't know about farmer's markets. That when, you know, It might upset you. The whole idea of a farmer's market. Is to say. We grew our stuff. We're selling our stuff to you. And you assume. They grew it. Or they made it. Like pies or bread or something. Only to find out. Nope. They will buy produce. From a produce supplier. Show up to a farmer's market. And pretend. That they're the ones that grew it. It's their farm.

I don't know if that upsets you as does for me, because that's a lie. And.

It's so wrong.

So what's the first question that you should ask them. I don't care how good their sign looks. I don't care what their produce looks like or their meat or anything else. There's one question that you have to ask them right away. Did you grow this food? Did you harvest this food? Is this your food?

They know what you're asking. Trust me, they know.

So. Don't get taken. Just saying.

Next you asked them, how did you grow this? Did you use any chemicals? Did you use fertilizers? I did. How, how, what, tell me what you did. What was your process? Uh, otherwise. There's no difference between going here. And is going to the grocery store.

The reason why you want to buy local and especially places like farmer's markets. It's because when you grow food in your local area or your region, There are. It's not esoteric, but hear me when I say this, there are energies in food. There's energy in the animal. They are susceptible to their environment. This is why bananas won't grow in Michigan. They can't. The energy is different. You have temperature. You have. Moisture in the air, rain, all kinds of things. when you are buying food locally at a farmer's market, you need to buy seasonal.

Outside of seasonal. Only very small amounts. That's not how you are. At that time of the year, let's say, it's fall. Why are you buying spring foods? From south America. You should be eating things in the fall that grow in your local area.

It's an energy thing. Oh, Erik. I'm serious.

The food takes on what's going on around it. That is why cruciferous vegetables like to be grown at the end of the season not at the beginning. Things like this.

It's important. learn how to buy at a farmer's market. And things like honey. Or fruits. All of it. You need to know. How they harvested it. Are the organic, all of it. If you don't care about organic, that's fine. You don't have to be. I'd rather have you do non-organic at a farmer's market than non-organic at a grocery store because the grocery store, God knows where it came from. Here, you know, it came from your state.

What are the ways that you can, um, start consuming foods.

Local is a certain making it yourself. Like butter. Do you have 10 minutes? That's how long it takes. It's so easy. So if you can get raw dairy, You could make your own raw butter. The by-product of raw butter is skim milk. So you still have the skim milk you just took most of the fat out of it. Isn't that excellent. Why not make your own butter?

I can't wait to get raw milk and make my own butter. That is going to be fun.

I'm just saying. Why not make some of these things yourself. It takes 10 minutes.

Erik. I don't have time. To make things like that. Average daily time spent watching television. In the United States from 21 to 25. Three hours. Three hours, three hours, three hours, three hours. So each year. Three hours a day watching TV, and we don't have 10 minutes to make butter. Which. Everybody says tastes better when you make it yourself. Literally tastes better.

I think that's pretty excellent.

So I shouldn't leave out grains in this episode. I should. I give you a source for grains because. If you're going to make things like bread on your own, or you want to make your own pasta or these other kinds of things, you need grains and you have to be careful what you're buying.

Bluebird grain farms.com.

These are the best grains you can get. They have everything you're going to need, but more importantly, they have ancient grains.

What's important about that. They're grain. As you can see here properly. Cleaned. And this is what you get in stores. You don't want this one on the right. It's called pearled. You don't want a pearled.

So they have Emmer wheat. That's an original. Um, Ancient green. Fantastic. Low in gluten. Good protein.

But the best one is known as iron corn. E I N K O R N. Wheat. This. They not only is this the best you can get. But the way they grow it. Is even better.

Fantastic. And then of course, spelt is the other ancient grain. How these guys. Harvest and grow and handle. And the, and the. The form that they grow is phenomenal. It's the best you can get this year, the best grains you can get is from bluebird grain farms. I have no affiliation at all. They're the best. Take my word for it.

if you've never made your own bread, this is sourdough.

See all those holes. That's what you want in good quality bread. Does that not look delicious? That's the best looking bread. I think I've ever seen. But that sourdough. Sourdough, it takes a long time to make, but it truly is a real bread. Now. I still don't eat bread. But if I did, it would be true sourdough.

I would make it myself unless I could find somebody locally. It knows exactly how to make it. And they're going to source. I in corn wheat. Otherwise, I don't want it. It's just carbs. This has less impact on your body. I'm still going to have fiber things like that, that I don't want, but my point is, The best breads are sourdough made properly.

It takes a whole day to make a loaf. And it takes. Like eight to 10 days to make starter.

Either way.

I hope you found something interesting out of here. What I want you to really truly get out of this whole thing. Is, you need to know where your food is coming from is the most important thing. We'll go next. Yeah, let's do it next week. How to buy food? And not spend a fortune.

But honestly, This connection right here. Between the couple. And their cow. Speaks volumes to your health. That's what you want. That's how you get quality food. They do the same thing when they're growing their grains. They take care. To grow them. These guys are taking care. Of raising that cow. With the best possible life.

It's okay. If you can't afford a $35 ribeye from this animal. There are other cuts that you can do. By the way it can be just as tasty. But this is why it's important.

I wanted to bring this episode to you because it's really easy to tell people how to eat. And they say, well, where do I buy that stuff? Well, Now, you know, go to eat wild, go to local harvest.com. Th all your local sources where you live will be there. plus, you could just do a normal internet search around you and find farms that have exactly what you want. So I recommend doing pastured. hens, pastured. eggs. Pastured beef. pastuered goat. Pastured pig. Even bison. They regenerate the land. They help with soil. They do not harm the planet at all whatsoever. And they give you fantastically healthy food. What more could you want? I appreciate you listening. 📍 Do you have any topics you want me to, to cover? Let me know. Otherwise. Take care of yourselves.