"Supercharge" Your Diet: Regenerative Farming Secrets, *Power-Packed* Organ Meats, The Ecological Impact of Your Food Choices, & More With Robby Sansom and Taylor Collins

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast, when we talk about regenerative agriculture, using animals for positive impact, we look at how bison co-evolved with our landscapes, how predator species push those animals throughout North America, how they had high density for protection. So really strong uniform grazing, manure was deposited in high concentration, but that herd never stayed. It moved every day And then sometimes it would come back after a year, 2 years, 3 years, kind of depending on weather patterns. And so as modern ranchers, we've lost our apex predators. You know, fences are all over the place so the animals can't migrate up north naturally. We mimic that through biomimicry. We move these animals. And so bison for us have just been where we started. It's a really unique animal. No one else is doing it out here and it just speaks to us and through us.

Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization. Fitness, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this.

Well, if you're into meat and farming and the whole idea of regenerative ag, agriculture, this podcast is going to be pretty interesting for you. I mean, as long as you drop the phrase bison ribeye, it's interesting to me. And, I have been eating a lot of my guests' bison ribeyes of late. Robbie Sansom and Taylor Collins are my guests, and they head up Force of Nature Meats. I've got some in my freezer. I've been punishing some of the stuff they've been sending my way, and I give it a couple of thumbs up, I want to talk to you guys a little bit more about how you create such tasty stuff. But anyways, Robby is the co-founder and CEO of Force of Nature. And then, Taylor is, of course, also the co-founder but also the co-creator of something called Roam Ranch. And so, we're going to dig into what these guys are up to down in Texas, why they're making the meat that they're making, and what goes into starting a ranch and doing regenerative agriculture. So, guys, welcome to the show.

Ben Greenfield: Bro, happy to be here.

Yeah. And, of course, no discussion about food and meat would be complete without actually asking you guys what your favorite cut of meat that you have there is and how you cook it up because I'm a glutton for meat recipes.

Oh, man. I'll jump in there, dude. This is if I want to get, like, don't judge me here, but I get pretty basic on meat, right? Like, yeah, I'll slam some ribeyes and I'll throw down some tenderloins and the New York strips. That's good stuff. But at the end of the day, ground meat, ancestral blends. So put some organs in there. That's how I roll. That's what thrives my family. That's what fuels my family, grows my children. And honestly, I just feel like I reach my highest peak potential when I'm fueling like that.

Oh, we got to dig into details here real quick. You said ground meat but you make it ancestral. How are you actually adding the organ meats into it?

Yeah, dude. So, we blend in heart and then liver and we do it in the right proportional ratio of say you harvest a full bison. So, it's going to be about 3% of that animal, the hanging carcass, the meat is going to be about 3% heart, 3% liver. And then, we blend that in with the other trim and the other grind that you would commonly be accustomed to, but it's really like a modern take for us to, um, it's like a Trojan horse. So we're convincing people to try organ meats who are otherwise a little apprehensive, a little afraid. We're holding their hand and we're saying, we're gonna make this super easy for you, baby. Just cook it like you do your favorite ground meat recipe. And, uh, you know, like, I love the taste, but my body more so loves like those phytonutrients and all the good minerals from the, from the organs.

Yeah, my trick is butter, bacon, and onions with the liver and soak it in kefir for a day before, and that makes it taste pretty good. But, I have tried blending up, I have heart, kidney, liver, and then beef, and I blend them up before to make burgers, but I've never thought about those precise ratios based on the actual weight that the organ would take up in the animal. How important is that? Is there actual research that shows that if you get the ratio is right, your mineral fatty acid vitamin ratio from the meat is better.

I think there's, on the nutritional side, it's kind of interesting. If you look at a standard 4-ounce serving and you say a little under 10% of that is organs, it kind of ties right in with that like that Ty Beal study that he did on the critical nutrients of need and those micronutrients that are typically deficient in most populations and particularly women. That actually dials in right in like a serving of meat with a little under 10% organs in it hits that threshold to give a third of the daily value of those key nutrients. So, there is, you could say, some science there to it. There's also reality from supply chains. There's not a limitless amount of these organs, particularly now the most sought-after ones. I remember when we were launching Oregan bars and Oregan jerkies a decade ago with Epic, they would give these things away. And now, in many cases, it's more expensive than the actual meat itself, which is cool. It's great for farmers and ranchers, but you actually run up against the limit of you get 10 or 20 pounds of heart and liver for every 300 or 400 pounds of meat. You can't just have a limitless supply. And then lastly, going back to celebrating the whole animal, that ratio just seems to be like there's a natural ratio there of like, "Hey, this is what you get if you're going to honor an animal nose to tail and this is what we should incorporate in." So, it's a few factors there.

Ben: Yeah, yeah. And, that's Robbie's voice, by the way, for those of you wondering. I got Robbie and Taylor. And, the shownotes are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/FONPodcast, Force of Nature. Podcast. Yeah, liver's actually been on my mind lately, guys, because I have a disproportionate amount of it in the freezer. I'm the person who throws about 2 or 3 ounces of it in my morning smoothie, and I make myself liver about once a week. But my family is not as into liver as I am, so I laid down the gauntlet. Actually, just yesterday morning, I ordered us a liver cookbook And, I told the family that our task for the next month was to eat liver regularly and go head-to-head with the best of the best liver recipes. So, I think my son is actually already studying up on how to make the best liver pâté. So, that's the trick is just turn it into a competition.

Ben Greenfield: Let me let you in on a little liver secret. Maybe you already know about this secret, but we're about to let the cat out of the bag here for all the listeners.

I'm ready.

So, if you eat a hot liver, off of a bison or beef cow. So I'm saying minutes within the harvest and you bite into that sucker, it's about to transform your life. It tastes like a Pink Lady or a Gala apple. I'm talking straight fruit, fresh fruit. You get the taste of a Pink Lady apple. You get the snap, no texture of fresh fruit. It is unlike any meat you will ever taste. You literally blindfold test, you might actually be convinced you're eating fruit.

It's nuts.

Well, when you say hot, you're not eating it raw, you're taking it out, getting it fresh and cooking it, right?

Yeah. No, we're eating it raw.

Yeah.

Raw off the animal, never been chilled. And, we noticed that same liver when we put it in the refrigerator, an hour later it transforms, it turns into the liver that we're all familiar with that our families are challenged to eat. But, coming right off an animal is unbelievable.

Wow. Are you putting salt or honey or anything like that on it?

We'll put some nice salt. Yeah, we'll put some nice salt on that thing. Some good sea salt. And then that's it. You know, like if you really wanted to get down with some indigenous Comanche Indian wisdom, they might squirt some bile on it.

Don't do it. Don't do it.

We're not convinced. You know, that's the lore. That's like, that was what the Comanches, which were the most badass Indian tribes to ever roam North America, rolled back Western expansion, could shoot like 7 arrows in flight before one arrow landed. I mean, these guys were unreal. And so, we're not convinced that that wasn't a trick to play on the white man after we've done it a couple times. It tastes like—

I'm going to buy BileSquirt.com and start a digestive enzyme company based on bile liquid. Whoo!

Let's get down with that.

Bold move.

Bold move. Love to have you out to try it. Like Taylor said, hot off the animal, it's an entirely different experience than you'd expect. And, to your point on recipes, we have some heart tartare and liver tartare recipes that are pretty epic, no doubt. But yeah, no, I mean, you're not alone trying to figure out how to incorporate liver into your diet and for your family. And, that was the whole target with that Ancestral blend was like, how do we make it easy and convenient and palatable for most folks? But yeah, you could be pretty hardcore and get it right off the animal and it's a whole different level of experience.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, that's one of your guys' done-for-you blends at Force of Nature in case people don't want to fuss around with the ratios themselves. But, how about you, Robbie? What's your go-to recipe favorite cut?

Yeah. I mean, go-to is Ancestral like Taylor said just because we got a family and kids and we're busy and all that kind of stuff. And, it's just it gives you what you need and it's convenient and handy. But, if I'm going to try to impress somebody, I'm probably going osso buco. It's just this less heralded cut off the shank, but you get that tasty marrow golden treat in the middle. It's like a prize at the end with that buttery flavorful marrow. It's like one of those long braises, so it takes time and energy. But, when you put that much love into a meal, it's just so incredibly good and rich and nutritious. And so, I love the Oso approach when you have the time and you're trying to show off a little bit.

Ben Greenfield: And, for people who haven't done a long braise before, using a Crock-Pot or a Dutch oven for that?

Dutch oven.

How do you do it?

Lots of carrots and celery and onions and veggies and a proprietary— no, there's a good recipe. I think we rolled it out on the website, some seasonings and it's a long slow cook and then just let it really savor in all of those juices and get so tender that it's fork tender, falls off the bone. It's a shank, so it's a forearm. You're getting a bunch of that connective tissue and collagen. So, you're just getting so much of what the animal has to offer into one of these stick-to-your-side, soul-filling sort of yummy seasonal complete meals. Again, I don't do it very often because it's a 4-hour-plus process, but it's quite worth it when you get to the reward at the end.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, that's one of my favorite things to do in the fall or winter if I throw a dinner party is I do the old-school Julia Julie Childs, the French beef bourguignon where you brown the beef and you throw some bacon grease in the bottom of the pan, then you add your carrots and your onions and your bay leaves and everything and then put it all in there and add a little bit of wine, some vinegar, a few of the goodies and just let it stew for about 6 to 8 hours. It's incredible, especially when it thickens up. Put a little flour in there unless you're full-on carnivore to get even thicker. And man, it's tasty.

Yep, that's the one.

Yep. Yeah. Okay. So, guys, regenerative agriculture is something I've talked about a little bit before. It's kind of a topic near and dear to my heart because I'm trying to build a little permaculture regenerative operation in Idaho right now. But, if you guys were sitting next to somebody on an airplane and trying to explain to them what regenerative ag is, how would you describe it?

Yeah. I mean, it's one of these things we could have a whole conversation just on. You know, but I think I'm going to take a different twist on it because we're going to talk so much about what it can do and what it does. And really, I think it's farming and ranching in nature's image. So, you're taking the natural cycles, the natural processes within any functioning ecosystem, and you're celebrating them in the way that you practice agriculture, the way that you create food on land. And, I think what most people don't realize is that commonly, Industrial agriculture really breaks those cycles. You spray all herbicides, fungicides, pesticides to kill life. You till the ground to kill life. You disrupt the water cycle, the energy cycle, the carbon cycle, and on and on. So, it's a major juxtaposition to what is most commonly practiced. And, you can get into all along conversation, but I think the other thing that regenerative agriculture is, again, if I was sitting on a plane next to somebody that didn't want to hear about science or ethic or biology, is I would tell them it's what they expect from their food system. I think regenerative agriculture is the manifestation of what consumers desire from their food. They think of a farmer managing the land with several species and plants, and they think of a really healthy landscape and a really healthy community that that food is coming from. And the truth is, that's not where our food comes from today. Our food comes from monocultures of hundreds of millions of acres of corn or soy or wheat or a monoculture of cattle in a confined feedlot being fed unnatural diets and unbelievable amounts of antibiotics or other things to sustain life and to promote growth in an environment that might be incompatible with normal biology. And it's really taking a toll on the welfare of those animals and taking a toll on the welfare of the people in those in those operations and in those communities. And it is not this beautiful, worthy of celebration process that the consumer thinks and expects when they get a package from so-and-so farms or with a pretty picture on the front or a claim of natural or some other thing. You know, it's, it's sort of like McDonald's rebranding from bright red and yellow to earth tone green and beige. You know, it's lipstick on a pig. And so I think, yeah, Regenerative is really what consumers are looking for when they go and they pay a premium for something that says natural or organic and they have this expectation that they're contributing to a solutions-based system. They're generally not. And regenerative is that answer. It is that next step and that next milestone in delivering on what consumers desire and expect.

So, if I see natural and organic on a meat package at the grocery store, that doesn't mean it's regenerative?

Absolutely not. Natural means nothing at all. It is just propaganda to try to confuse and manipulate consumer behavior.

Ben Greenfield: So, I mean, this kind of idyllic idea of a farmer out working the land and raising animals and developing a somewhat sustainable environment in which food is grown, I think a lot of people hear that and think it sounds kind of cool, but not scalable. Like, how are you going to feed the whole country with an operation like that? Do you guys ever get that pushback?

Yeah, certainly. You know, one of the things I like to just clarify is, is we need to be careful about trying to scale regenerative, because if we scale any food production system, we're going right back into an industrial mindset. So like in the blink of an eye, you know, that happened to organic. It was scaled and it's been industrialized and now industrial organic is garbage. It's trash for land, it's trash for animals, the plants are suffering. I mean, the whole system's broken. And so when we talk about expanding the potential of regenerative agriculture become mainstream, we're really talking about producing replicable models. So contextual-based ranches all over the planet. And when we get to the point to where people are feeding their communities, we're going to be in a really good spot because we'll have more sovereignty, more freedom, more independence as collective communities, how humans have evolved for millennia.

Well, it sounds to me like as a part of this, there's obviously kind of like an educational experience that a lot of people are going to have to go through. How did you guys learn this?

Well, I think on that scaling piece too though, I think one thing is important to know, we have the very Western perspective on what should be done and what can be done on so many of these questions. And I think it's important to point out that, you know, over 80% of the world's food is coming from farms that are less than 2 acres. So, so it is being honest from a scalability perspective. It is being, it is being done. But like Taylor said, we got to be really careful about the tradeoffs we make. And as we approach it here in the States, and the other thing I would add is that like the status quo, the current system is failing across a wide array of key areas, and it is not sustainable. We are losing too much topsoil to be able to sustain the current industrial model. The food is actually poisoning us, and that's not sustainable. And we're losing the nutritional density in the food. And, you know, we're killing off all the animals and we're losing pollinators. There's so many things that are happening. Like, so I want to be really careful. To your point, we do get faced with that question a lot, like, is it scalable? And I think you have to point out that like, hey, the current system is not scalable. So amongst alternatives, which is what is the best path? And I think undoubtedly following the blueprints and the wisdom that nature gave us that says, hey, this is what it takes to invest in these systems so that you can appreciate and receive their bounty in return is the most logical and efficient path. But, but to your question about like learning all of this and where did the background come from, you know, I'll let Taylor probably take a little bit more of that story and that history, but it really goes back to our own soul searching and journey of trying to figure out what is healthy food and where does healthy food come from and the recognition that whether it's plants or animals, healthy food is coming from healthy ecosystems and healthy ecosystems are coming from healthy soil. And, that's a very circular reality where each of these things is playing keystone services and giving and investing in this bountiful rich balanced ecosystem reality.

Ben Greenfield: Now, Robbie, did you grow up on a farm or something like that or did you have to learn all this yourself?

Robbie Starbuck: Neither of us grew up on farms. I've had family with land and got to spend time out in the outdoors and gain an appreciation for nature. But, No, this has been a decade-plus-long journey of traveling and going to farms and reading books and listening and learning and spending time on land. And, in Taylor's case, lots of practice and blood, sweat, and tears at Roam Ranch certainly.

Yeah, yeah. I want to hear about Roam Ranch, but Robbie, what got you interested in this?

I think like Taylor, we could get into the origin story of EPIC and how that kind of transitioned into Force of Nature, but I think so many people in life and in general are trying to figure out how to find a path that they can thrive and succeed and promote life. And, for me, I've always been in business and loved it, but my passions have always been in the mountains or on the beaches and in the water and in these wild places interacting with land and animals. I suspect it's a very primal sense and desire to connect with nature and to be what a true human animal is. And to exist in the most, like you said, primal and evolutionary consistent way. And, as we began working in the food system and realizing that we're not part of this separate human reality totally separate from nature, we're part of it and our food system should be part of it. And, recognizing that work and profession overlaps with our fundamental biological reality and getting to just explore how we could celebrate both in business and in life has been a really foundational part of that journey. And I think, like I said a second ago, being in the food industry and getting to dig deeper and deeper into where does food come from and, oh my gosh, there's these major challenges that our current food system promotes and has created at a global scale. And this is a massive scale, billions of acres, you know, 10%, 30% of all global lands tied to food production in some way, shape, or form. And, the devastating consequences are so concerning and in many ways terrifying. And yet, the opposite side of that coin is that at that scale, at that size, subtle changes for the positive, for the better are so profoundly impactful and healing and regenerative and good, it's easy to get inspired and become passionate and just want to dig in deeper and deeper and invest your time and energy into being a part of the solution.

Yeah, you mentioned Epic. I didn't even talk about that when I introduced you, Robby, but that's the beef jerky addictively good crunchy pork rind company, right?

It started more than that, but yes, yes, sir. That is one of the expansions of our whole animal initiative that we created when we started Epic. But yeah, the way we thought about it is a whole food protein bar that was consistent with our evolutionary biology. So, if you're going to eat a protein bar, if you're on the go, you don't want to cook bacon or ribeye and put it in a Ziploc bag in your pocket, then we got your back. And so, we made these protein bars out of bison meat, beef, turkey, chicken.

Ben Greenfield: They're the ones you can see at Whole Foods or whatever where you got the one with the picture of the bison on it and one with the picture of the chicken and the cow. They're energy bars if you want to call them that, but they're actual I just call them jerkies. That annoy you guys?

No. Yeah. I mean, Epic was creating impact. It was regenerating land one bar at a time, which would have been like, you know, 1, 1.5 ounces of meat at a time. And Force of Nature is just the expansion. It's us doubling down on this, this idea. But instead of doing it ounces at a time, it's creating supply chains, managing land, creating impact, empowering consumers. By pounds at a time.

And you guys started Epic together, the two of you?

My wife and I started Epic. We saw you, Ben, probably at the first Paleo FX.

I remember it was like a little party when you guys were launching.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was pretty hot back then. And then Robbie is a childhood friend that came on board very early on. And the three of us ran that business. Through and through and through.

When it went from a vegan energy bar company to a meat bar company is when I joined.

Was it actually originally a vegan energy bar company?

It was, yeah. We had a vegan energy bar company and then we actually raised money for that company. We were going to save the world and then we stopped, you know, hard stop on our vegan diet, our own vegan journey. And we were like, how can we, how can we be selling a product that we won't even consume? We won't even get near, don't even want to be in the kitchen when it's being made. And took all that knowledge of manufacturing and consumer packaged goods and started Epic. And so we had some really awesome angel investors who said, you know, like, I'm going to— I'll write you guys a check. Yeah, this vegan thing's cool, but, you know, like, I want you guys to go hard with this meat bar. And so, funny enough, it was the same company for a long time and then we split off and we sold Thunderbird, which was that vegan company. And now, yeah, it just grew epic.

Okay. So, that was your brand too, the Thunderbird Bars?

Yeah. That's like our journey, man. It's funny how that's happened.

Is Thunderbird still a thing?

Thunderbird is still a thing. It's going strong. I saw some little kids out at the ranch the other day eating Thunderbirds in the wild. I was like, "Let me tell you something, little child." My wife and I used to Used to make those with our own hands.

Trading for some hot liver. So tell me about the ranch, guys.

Yeah, Roam Ranch. When we sold Epic in 2016-ish, we doubled down. Like at that point in time, truthfully, like myself, my wife, Robbie, it was a blank slate.

And by the way, I just say it appropriately, you guys made pretty good money off Epic.

So the rumors go. I don't know, the way that we think about money, we think about money as like energy. And so, we received more— an infusion of energy I never imagined I would ever have.

Enough to start a ranch.

Yeah. And with that, it's like, "Well, what do we do now? Do we put that in the stock market? Do we buy a bunch of gold? What do the smart investor people do?" And we're like, "We're going to buy land because we believe land is the essence, the truest value that will never depreciate." that will always provide that sovereignty and freedom that we seek in our life, allow us to co-create with nature, grow our own food, raise our family out there. And really, that realization came from our time when, you know, myself, my wife, and Robby, we were visiting each and every one of our suppliers at Epic, spending tons of time on these ranch lands all over the United States, earthing on these properties, just breathing in the microbiome. Receiving like full spectrum sunlight and just really appreciating the different energetic state that these regeneratively managed ranches were. And just real recognizing that these guys figured it out. Like, this is the highest calling. If we could ever double down, put our money where our mouth is, be a part of the solution, we're going to do that. And so that, that was right after we sold Epic. We bought this ranch, which is a 900-acre multi-species ranch about an hour from Austin. In Austin, Texas is where the 3 of us, Robbie, myself, and Katie were born.

So, are you guys actually like working sleeves rolled up on the ranch on your day-to-day or are you more in the business backend side of things?

No, man. I mean, Robbie, we entrust Robbie. He's running the show at Force of Nature right now. And so, he's for sure like— he gets to come out to the ranch every now and then, but my wife and I live out here and we're every day, yeah, literally stepping in shit, working with animals, building electric fences, fixing water lines. I mean, that's just our reality. And then participating in Force of Nature at a high level. But it's a really great balance that we have right now.

You know, I have some animals in the bison herd there. So I get to come out and work the animals every once in a while. And we'll host events or like we mentioned to you earlier, one of those, you know, bison harvest. It's like a treat for me to get to come out or bring our team out. And it's And it's sort of like a refueling to get to connect to the land and be there. But, you know, like Taylor said, like, we will definitely loop them in on calls and stuff. And they'll be, you know, in the field building a fence on a conference call, or Taylor will be tilling in some cover crops, or you never know. I mean, it's a ranch, right? So it's always something crazy and chaotic.

But I'm laughing because I was watching my son Terran this morning. He was doing all the chickens and the goats and the feeding and the alfalfa and the watering and gathering the eggs. And, he was on his first call for school while he's doing all that. So, my sons kind of live a similar lifestyle to that.

Yeah, totally. No, I mean, it's cool for me to watch because they're like, not only is there not a ranch manager, they do it all and they're doubling down and becoming Master Naturalists in the state of Texas, and they're hosting the Southern Region of the National Bison Association conference. So even within a peer group of ranchers, they're really setting themselves apart, and it's incredible to get to watch.

What's a Master Naturalist?

So each state has these programs, and they're really based on the regionality, the complexity, the biodiversity of different regions within your state. And it's a group, it's an educational group where you can get trained to be an expert in your own ecoregion. And so this is really like an ecological-centered focus perspective of the world. So you learn about native flora, fauna, you learn about native water systems. The point is when you graduate from this very extensive program, say a landowner who just purchased a ranch, can approach you and say, where do I begin? What do I do? Where do I start? Or if a consumer says, hey, I really want this endangered bird to be a part of my backyard garden. How do I track that bird? So it's a comprehensive, holistic understanding of your ecological context.

How long is the curriculum to do something like that?

It's about 6 months. Yeah, 6 months, weekly classes, and then you have weekly field trips too. So you get to go out to all these amazing, you know, archaeological sites and natural resource sites and learn from experts that have been doing this their whole life.

Sounds super cool. Is there, is there like a website for it?

Yeah, you just look up, uh, like the state that you're in. Um, so for us it's Texas Master Naturalist and then you go to your ecoregion and you apply just like you would apply. And, uh, and then when you graduate, there's a commitment to volunteer hours, which is very service-oriented, giving back to the community, helping to create positive change through education.

Man, sounds like the type of thing it'd be fun to do with my sons. That sounds super cool. I'll have to look up the Idaho version of that. Now, you mentioned, Robbie, you mentioned a bison harvest. What's a bison harvest look like?

Yeah, it's something that is really cool that we do out at Roam Ranch. Taylor leads it and he puts it so beautifully, but my perspective of it is it's really introducing a group of folks to the most natural primal reality in our food system. It's connecting them with the land, it's connecting them with the food they're going to eat, in this case, a bison, allowing them to form the deepest, most true and real connection and bond and be in relationship with an animal and a herd of animals and learn the story behind the food by joining in community, coming out. Taylor often has folks write a letter to the animal that's going to be harvested or create a set of intentions or read some poetry. Taylor always has a prayer regardless of what your religion is or what you believe or don't, just connecting with a greater spirit and really trying to create this connection and reverence and mindfulness going into this group of people going out to a field and a herd of bison and watching the ranch manager shoot or the ranch hand shoot one of these bison and truly kill it and harvest it in the field, being quiet, phones down, present in the moment as the rest of the herd comes around and acknowledges the transition, the energy force of that animal leaving the herd and the rest of the herd kind of rebalancing out and the order of lead animal and following animals kind of shifting and then going into the field and putting your hand on that animal and maybe tasting its blood. And again, really feeling a sense and the full weight of and the magnitude of that loss, but then really quickly recognizing that it's not a loss. In fact, it's a beginning. It takes life to beget life. And, this is the natural order of things. And, this is not just okay, it's to be celebrated. And, we should honor that animal, celebrate its life, and appreciate it as we begin transitioning it into food and apparel and the other things. And, that group of folks gets to participate in the evisceration and breakdown and get their hands in the meat, try the organs like we talked about, get as wild as you want. You can put that bile right there on the liver yourself and give that and decide if you still want to buy that domain name or not, which then I'm pretty sure you'll come up with the same conclusion that we did.

Yeah. I don't know. Hot liver bile sports bisonherds.com sounds like a questionable website. But, why do you guys go with bison instead of cattle?

Ben Greenfield: Well, at the ranch, you got to recognize the North American bison, that is not only a keystone species, which a keystone species means it has a disproportionate positive impact on the ecosystem. So, not only is it a keystone species, but it's our native large mammal. It's the largest land mammal in North America to survive the last ice age. We think about bison as they are the architects of our most fertile food system the planet has ever seen. How did that happen? Well, through positive animal impact, through co-creation with Mother Nature, symbiotic relationships. And so for us, you know, bison, the flight of the bison, they were almost eliminated off the face of the planet at the early 1900s. And so they would have been a really important part of our eco-region, yet they've been removed. So we're, we're like one of the largest bison ranches in Central Texas now, but it just made sense to us as a keystone species to bring that, you know, sacred animal back and allow it to express itself and us sit back in admiration and wonder and watch Mother Nature's complexity unfold. Watch birds come back, watch reptiles that we had never seen emerge out of seemingly thin air, watch new plants germinate. The seeds had been in the soil for maybe 100 years, waiting for a freaking bison to poop on it. And that microbiome from the bison manure woke that little seed up for the first time. And so it's just been a really— it's a blessing to co-create with those animals. And, you know, bison, they're just— for us, it's like they speak to us, they speak through us, they resonate with us. We love beef cows too, and we think beef cows or sheep or goats, they're all awesome. People think for some reason that bison are inherently regenerative beings. Which I would argue that is true. However, through our common mismanagement of livestock, they can be degenerative just like beef cows, sheep, and goats. And so, it's just how you manage, how you work with those animals. And, when we talk about regenerative agriculture using animals for positive impact, we look at how bison co-evolved with our landscapes, how predator herds or predator species push those animals throughout North America, how they had high density for protection. So really strong uniform grazing. Manure was deposited in high concentration, but that herd never stayed. It moved every day. And then sometimes it would come back after a year, 2 years, 3 years, kind of depending on weather patterns. And so as modern ranchers, we've lost our apex predators. You know, fences are all over the place, so the animals can't migrate up north naturally. We mimic that through biomimicry. We move these animals. And so bison for us have just been where we started. It's a really unique animal. No one else is doing it out here and it just speaks to us and through us.

And for people who haven't had bison before or experienced that meat, how do you describe it to somebody like a bison ribeye versus a beef ribeye, both in terms of the taste, but also I'm just curious if there's any nutritional differences.

Yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll take the taste, right? So like when we field harvest a grass-fed, 100% grass-fed bison, right? That was born on the ranch, lived every day of its life on the ranch. Say if we grind up that entire animal, which we don't do, right? So like if we put all the prime cuts, all the trim into a grinder, it would come out 97, 98% lean, which is nuts. And so if you did that same thing with a domesticated, a domestic beef cow, you might get 80% lean. And so bison inherently, they're just more athletic. They're the second fastest land native land animal in North America.

They can— oh, no way.

Yeah, they can jump over a 7-foot fence from a standing start.

I mean, I gotta ask you real quick, what's the first fastest?

What do you— any guesses?

Uh, I mean, I, I was gonna say the peregrine falcon, but that's not technically Earth, so that would, that wouldn't win. I don't know, I'm gonna say the grizzly bear.

I think grizzly bears had really high-end speed. And, when we talk about second fastest, we're talking about endurance speed. And so, yeah, so not sprint speed, but it would be the pronghorn antelope.

Okay, antelope.

Yeah.

Close. Yeah, species that co-evolved with the bison. I mean, there would have been 40 to 60 million bison on the Great Plains and there would have been 20 to 40 million pronghorn antelopes right mixed in with those bison. And, the pronghorn antelope, it evolved, it co-evolved. There used to be a North American cheetah, like a large apex cheetah in the Ice Age. Oh, really? So, those animals evolved to outrun the cheetah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I've experienced that a little bit when I've hunted axis deer. Those things are wiry. I think maybe it was Joe Rogan who described them as like whitetail deer on crack. And, having hunted whitetail up here and axis down in Hawaii, I would agree. And, I believe the axis deer are kind of like a cousin to the antelope.

Yeah, the axis are from Asia. They evolved to evade tigers. So not far off.

Yeah. I think the closest relative of the antelope is the giraffe from what I have, which is super odd. But so bison are inherently leaner. So it really comes down to your preference. And some people will say bison are healthier because they have less fat. And I think that's bullshit. Like I'm not going to get behind that bandwagon. But the other thing that I really admire about bison is A grass-fed bison takes 3 years to finish. You can get a domesticated beef cow and you can finish that animal from birth to death in 16 months if you really push it.

Even if it's like grass-fed, grass-finished, you can do that fast?

In certain circumstances, yeah. Like, in an organic context where they can be confined and fed organic alfalfa their whole life in confinement, they can get fat really, really fast. And, you got to keep in mind those animals, the domestication of cattle, they've been bred for millennia to have extremely high yields very quick. Bison have never been domesticated, so they retain all their wild genetics. So, what they express is strong bone density, strong muscular growth. They're athletes, right? And so, they're not your sedentary kind of morbidly obese beef cow that can get fattened up really quick.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, kind of reminds me, by the way, of wheat, the wheat that's bred for high-yield crop being more concentrated in gluten, lower in antioxidants. Versus like a wild crop or an old world crop being higher in antioxidants, lower in gluten, and generally a little bit more digestible too.

Ben Greenfield: Bingo, baby. Yeah, that's exactly right. And the other thing about, you know, because they take longer to finish, they have more of an opportunity to express their innate biological potential and their own instincts, which is to graze on a very biodiverse array of forage. And so they have time, more time, sometimes twice as much of a lifespan to fix minerals and to fix nutrients. And so the flavor is always going to be richer within a bison compared to a beef cow. Uh, the color is going to be darker, it's going to rate higher in some minerals, but from an overall flavor profile, I, I prefer that. I think it's a reflection of how that animal was raised in the ecosystem it was raised in.

Well, I would think based on that grazing time, the fatty acid content has got to be a little bit different too. In terms of the omega balance. Do you know, Robbie?

Absolutely. It definitely tends to have a more favorable omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. Again, I think what Taylor is saying is we definitely wouldn't want to discourage anybody away from beef because it's incredible. But, I think the omega ratio is specifically one of those areas where bison is tangibly different from beef on the aggregate. And then, yeah, you kind of noted it a second ago, been on the selective breeding of wheat or some other things, right? Beef doesn't exist in the wild. It would have been selectively bred through many generations from these classic extinct, now extinct animals called aurochs from Europe. And, what's been traded off as we've created an animal that gains weight rapidly and is more domicile and easier to manage and what are those second and third order effects? It's It's hard to say on a macronutrient and a micronutrient basis. They're more similar than not. We've talked about some of the nuance, but I think if you're really into the primal lifestyle and being hardcore and you want what would be most natural and what our ancestors thousands of years ago or tens of thousands of years ago might have evolved, bison would be more consistent with what that is.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, yeah. I'd say the only exception to that rule might be the scrub bull. Down in Hawaii, which I've also hunted. And, even with 3 relatively well-placed arrows, I was having to be on that animal for about 3 miles of tracking and then I had about a mile-and-a-half pack out with hundreds of pounds of meat from this big old scrub bull. They're just basically wild cattle that roam native on the lands out at the base of the volcanoes in Hawaii. So, that's probably a rare example of what a wild cow might be like.

Still badass animals. You got to give them credit, no doubt about it. And beef aren't like chicken where the life cycle and lifespan and reproductive cycle is so short we've effectively bred them into almost non-biological beings at this point. So again, love both beef and bison for sure.

Ben Greenfield: But you hear this about the cows and I'm sure you guys get pushback on this with the bison too. You hear about the methane, the impact of the methane on the climate. What's your response to something like that?

I think methane and water, I think there's a lot of issues, but the top ones that I think are just complete BS when attributed to cattle or agriculture is— or animal agriculture, excuse me, is methane and water. Methane, particularly biogenic methane, meaning like, hey, ruminant animals like Taylor said are keystone. They evolved in symbiosis with, with functioning ecosystems to be necessary and provide critical services to those landscapes. They've always been around. Their rumen, aka their multi-chamber stomach, which can break down grasses and certain things rich in cellulose, which humans can't eat through a fermentation process. It creates belches, it creates methane as a byproduct. And in functioning ecosystems, there are methanotrophic bacteria in the ground and in the air. I mean, and there are cycles that exist to manage this, again, natural recurring, appropriate, necessary contribution of methane. You add to that that the half-life of methane in the atmosphere is something less than 10 years. And so methane is breaking down so rapidly that as long as the herd of animals contributing to that biogenic methane isn't rapidly growing, it's in a state of homeostasis. Versus carbon dioxide, which can sustain in the atmosphere with a half-life of greater than 1,000 years.

And carbon dioxide, by the way, would be one of the main gases produced by more of a commercial approach.

Yeah, carbon dioxide, CO2, you get from tilling the land. A third of the legacy load of human-caused carbon dioxide is from oxidizing living matter, biology, carbon, and soil.

Making vegan energy bars.

Right. Yeah, exactly. Or cars, transportation is a huge contributor and so on. But again, methane from animals is totally in a state of homeostasis. What's not is the primary contributors of methane. More methane than comes from cattle comes from rice farming. More methane than comes from cattle comes from landfills and waste sites. These are all human endeavors producing non-biogenic methane in disproportionate levels to historical levels which get no recognition or acknowledgement. So, to me, this is just a distraction. It's a nothing burger that is completely part of the propaganda profile that this vegan religion is trying to perpetuate at the expense of the meat industry. And again, it's a religious idea. I think on the similar token on the waterfront, it takes 2 times as much water to make a pound of rice as it does to make a pound of beef. And however you look at it, 92% to 98% of the water that is attributed to the creation of beef is literally rain. It is water coming from the sky watering fields of grasses going into tanks that these animals will then drink from or that causes the plants to grow. It is 100% a natural cycle. It is no mental gymnastics necessary. It's exactly what you would expect to be celebrated as a system in balance. And then, that's called green water. What's called blue water is, yeah, there is in some instances water being pulled from the ground per se, or pumped out of some other place per se, that's a tiny, tiny, tiny, that's like less than 1 or 2, certainly less than 5% of beef production. And even what of that, you got to think that these are living animals. So, they're not just retaining that water and growing and ballooning out, they're redepositing that across the land and watering and creating. Again, they're part of a functioning water cycle. So, like, water is again complete non-factor. 70% of the world's freshwater withdrawals go into irrigation of crops. If you want to bring up methane and you want to bring up water, you should be pointing them at the plant-based production system. Or I shouldn't say plant-based, right? Because I think at Force of Nature, one of the things that we really try to do is educate consumers on issues in food. And I think one of the biggest distractions in food right now is this idea that it is plant-based agriculture versus animal-based agriculture. And I think when you take a regenerative mindset, you recognize it's not plant-based versus animal-based, it is an industrial agriculture versus planet-based agriculture. Agriculture as should be common on this planet involves plants and animals in harmony and functioning ecosystems. And so, all of this rest of this stuff is propaganda and distractions and misinformation designed to manipulate and confuse consumers.

Taylor, related to the green water that Robby was talking about from the rain, do you guys implement some kind of like a rainwater catchment system or something like that at Roam?

Yeah, man. So, this is a terrific question. And so, when people are managing landscape, you got to look at the context where there's a lot of elevation change, there's tons you can do to slow down rainwater and to catch rainwater whether it's building ponds on contour lines or doing keyline.

And by the way, just real quick, that's what I'm doing in Idaho is I'm building a lower pond on my property as a rainwater catchment system that even includes stuff coming off the roof of the house.

That's just beautiful, man. Like, yeah, that's, that's, that's fantastic water coming from the heavens that you can use to grow food or to sustain your family. That's like as good as it gets. What we do, we're in a little bit flatter of an area. We're in a river valley. And so, the way that we perceive our ability to capture rainwater, utilize rainwater, get it in the soil is to grow green growing plants, have a living root. So, out of the 900 acres that we have, 450 acres when we bought the property was the moonscape. I mean, think about the worst example of chemical industrial extractive monoculture agriculture you could imagine. That's what half this land looked like. So the water cycle was ineffective. It was broken. Anytime it rained, the soil had hardened, it capped, and that rain washed away. And what topsoil— topsoil was already gone. It was washing away subsoil after 80 years of this type of management. And one of the really— it's just like the coolest example in my mind of these regenerative systems working and coming to life is in 3 years, we've been able to cover most of that bare soil. It takes time.. But we're finally infiltrating rain for the first time in 80 years. We have neighbors. God bless Myrtle Pfeiffer. She'll come over here in a heartbeat if we need her.

Good old Myrtle.

Myrtle Pfeiffer with no teeth. She just shows up when you need her. And, you know, like there's a creek on our ranch that was on all the early settler pioneer navigation maps. It was really important for a water resource. It was important for navigation. When we bought the ranch, it was dry. And we were told by everyone in our community, that creek has been dry longer than any living person. It will never run again. Well, Ben, it took us 3 years of effectively catching rainfall for the first time in 80 years to recharge our aquifer levels to where water literally emerged from rocks, seeps formed. And these were ancient seeps that had been there forever. But through human mismanagement, the water cycle was busted. And so, I mean, this is like, it wasn't us that did it, it was the bison. Like, the bison sung the song of the water. Yeah, I mean, it's beautiful, man.

One of the things we talk about, Ben, that this kind of ties into, and I mentioned, you know, tilling, releasing, you know, killing the life in the soil and releasing it as carbon in the atmosphere. But, you know, historically, areas like where Taylor are would have had, you know, 7% organic matter in the soil, right?, right? And organic mat— we're all carbon-based lives, so organic matter is largely carbon. And when they purchased that land, it was down to below 1% organic matter. And so what does that mean besides that a bunch of carbon was released into the atmosphere? Well, it turns out that for every 1% organic matter in an acre of soil, it can hold an additional over 20,000 gallons of water, which is roughly about a 1-inch rainfall event. And so they lost the capacity to hold almost 200,000 gallons of water per acre. So, to Taylor's point, not only are they effectively capturing more rain, they're allowing more rain to infiltrate into the soil and they're holding it there in reserve to fuel the water cycle of their ecosystem. And then, part of that is seeping out like he said through these cracks and fissures into becoming primary water sources for wildlife. It's really awesome to see nerdy science like that play out in practice and a beautiful outcome.

Yeah, it's super admirable how you built that up. Yeah, I was on your website just kind of surfing around looking at some of the other products on there. You have elk. Are those actually from Rome Ranch?

No, the elk we source, elk and venison both come from New Zealand. I think one of the realities is in the United States, we led the world in so many innovations and one of those back in the '40s and '50s was the Green Revolution and the industrialization of agriculture. And so many places around the world weren't able to keep pace with us as we went so far down what we would consider to now to be the wrong path. New Zealand is an example of one of those. And in fact, they've built a major agriculture industry around venison, elk, and lamb out there. And, they do a really incredible job raising and farming those animals in harmony with nature. And, there's just nothing like that, their operations in the U.S. You mentioned Hawaii. There's operations out there with Axis Deer. But again, from a farming perspective, there's nothing quite like that in the United States. And again, for Force of Nature, we're about creating global regenerative supply networks. So, if there's good actors producing good products, we want to try to find a way to support them and work with them. And, the work being done out there is something that really— it's really incredible and really proud to be partnering with them.

Yeah. People might call me out on this because I wanted to ask you what you think about flying meat all the way over from New Zealand because, yeah, I do hunt in Hawaii and obviously have to fly there. But, I can kind of do a meat-a-palooza of sheep, goat, turkey, pig, axis deer, I buy soft coolers at Walmart or Costco. I check it in on the plane frozen and am able to come back with a lot of meat without probably burning through too much jet fuel. But, as far as New Zealand goes, do you guys ever get pushback on bringing elk and venison all the way over from New Zealand?

No, it makes total sense. I mean, especially if we're sitting here talking about carbon and if you're flying stuff back, I mean, that is a very inefficient means of transportation. That's why all these billionaires that are going around trying to create policy they impose on the rest of us take so much heat for being so reckless themselves. But in this case, no, we're shipping this stuff on boats, which is the most efficient form of transportation. It's like 100 times more efficient than even the trucks that we're shipping stuff on whenever we, whenever we, you know, source domestically, which we do for most of our supply chain and ship it domestically. And so it's actually incredibly efficient to ship stuff on, on, on, on on both. But, yeah, I mean, it's something that we have to keep an eye on and it's a fair call-out and something I think folks should be mindful of for sure.

Now, what else beside elk and venison do you guys have? Obviously, bison we talked about, but what are some of the other main cuts that you're selling?

Well, beef. And, we historically have dipped our toes into pork and poultry, these monogastrics. We're very, very light on those. I could elaborate why we have them and we'll continue to plan them. But man, I kind of touched on it a second ago. You know, the industrialization of agriculture, particularly animal agriculture, has made some major tradeoffs. And I think the biggest tradeoffs— the smaller the animal and the shorter the lifecycle, the more harm I think we've done to land and the more harm we've done to the animal. Poultry being the worst. Than pork. I mean, these animals are often treated like cogs in a machine. They're inside completely synthetic environments, never seeing or touching the outdoors. The breeds don't actually procreate. They don't even have natural behaviors like to evade predation. As another chicken comes up behind one and starts to peck it and eat it alive, it'll still just sit there and gorge itself. Yeah. I mean, they're basically biological feed conversion units. And, it's sad because they're still sentient, but it's just the nature of kind of what I said, the industrialization. And, what we've done is, and the reason that that's been done isn't just some evil person trying to think of what's the most awful thing I can do, it's in the pursuit of cheapness. How do we compete solely on price? How do we drive price down to such a low level that we squeeze every single fraction of a penny out of it. And the trade-offs, the massive trade-offs along the way have been in value. We've lost the value of life, the value of community, the value of nutrition, the value of welfare, all these externalities that don't get calculated into that cheapness of today that become massive costs and consequences to tomorrow. And you've created a situation where, where, you know, poultry is so cheap, you can go to Costco or wherever and get a $5.99 rotisserie-cooked bird and then Ben, as you'll find out when you're running your own operation, if you really want to have a heritage breed chicken that you grow and it becomes the true manifestation of its potential to contribute to the land and then ultimately your life and diet and energy, to sell that on the market would probably cost closer to $30. And so, that price disparity is massive. And, what most farms and ranchers have to do is they're faced with the real challenge like, hey, what's How do I make this work because I have to be able to pay my bills and feel good about it? And, there's been the most trade-offs and the most compromises made there. And so, for us at Force of Nature, we're not willing to go below a minimum standard and we have a really high minimum bar that is pretty challenging for the industry to meet. Right now, we finally reached a scale and size where we're putting some new protocols out there and we're having folks come back to us and see if they want to create a custom program for us for both both pork and poultry, but they're very challenging to do, I think, ethically and healthy and regeneratively and so on. So, we don't do as much of those. But again, beef, bison, venison, elk, wild boar, really cool wild boar program. Taylor should highlight that.

Yeah. Don't forget the wild boar, man.

You're holding out on me, guys. I haven't tried the wild boar yet.

Oh, dude, you're a mind blown. I mean, this is the last— think about this, this is the last feral or wild land animal in the United States that could be used to feed a population. Otherwise, like, that doesn't exist. I mean, there's something like 6 million of these pigs across the country, located in 35 states. The 3 most impacted states are like Texas, Florida, and Georgia. There's over $1.5 billion of damage done in agricultural lands annually by feral pigs. Wild pigs, and they're not even native to North America. They were brought over to the US in the 1500s by the early Spanish explorers.

So they're like, they're like the cousins of Iberico, acorn-fed pigs in Spain, right?

Yeah, dude, they're like the bad cousins that joined the gang and like the motorcycle are hitting the weight room every day. And just like, these are the ones you don't want to meet in a dark alley. And so at Force of Nature, it's like let's take this amazing resource that is commonly perceived as, uh, an invasive species. Like a lot of our ranchers in our community, they'll say like, it's not even worth the bullet. Like, I'm going to, if I shoot, if I see a wild pig, I'm going to shoot it. And I'm going to place my shot where it doesn't die on my property. It runs off on someone else's land. So we're saying like, hold on guys, this is, let's, let's actually celebrate this resource. They are sentient being. Sure. They're undesirable. But, why don't we trap them? And so, we work with Texas trappers on these true free-range wild animals and we process them and celebrate them, share that meat with our community. I think it's some of the best pork you'll ever have in your life.

And obviously, you got to be careful because it concentrates a lot of toxins and metabolites in the fat what the pigs ate. So, when you're harvesting a wild pig, do you know what it's been eaten if it's been in the trash over at the neighbor's commercial farm or something like that?

Yeah, the pigs that we're trapping, they're typically in agricultural production lands. And so they're typically like, they're, they're negatively impacting the ecosystem by decimating cropland. So when like a farmer plants, you know, like a couple hundred acres in beans or peanuts or corn, they'll just wreck those fields. And so they have a very diverse diet. When we shoot them out here at our ranch, we love opening up their stomachs. And dude, we find the, the most common things we find are turkey eggs, which, shit, man, we want our wild Rio Grande turkeys to proliferate. So that's a problem. We find turkey eggs, we find like spaghetti earthworms. So they're literally rooting, eating beetles, eating all types of soil.

You got some Texas Italian pigs down there.

Yeah. And then pecans. I mean, yeah, like the nuts, the acorns. I mean, the things that drop off seed, that's really how they sustain themselves. I think it's a misconception that they're digging in trash cans. And we, we have a USDA inspector on site inspecting each animal for health, looking at its organs, which is a representation, a reflection of its diet. And we're only putting the ones in our product that pass that inspection process.

But Ben, I think to your, to your point earlier, like having not tried it, you got to try it, man, because, oh man, it is— I mean, for all intents and purposes, these are the descendants of domesticated pigs that have been allowed to run wild on the land. And so, if you've ever eaten pork and like pork, you're going to like this profile, but the reality is it is so much better. I mean, these are thriving animals. They're living their full potential end-to-end on the spectrum of life in a way that they just like that energy force and that, again, not having just been fed corn and soy and grains their whole life but having run around and had to live life to its fullest, you taste it. The number of people that have come up to us and said, "Man, I've had the ground wild boar and it's the best pork I've ever had. What do you all do?" And I'm like, "That's what healthy thriving animals taste like." Ben Greenfield: Yeah.

I'll have to hunt down some banana leaves or cabbage leaves and have a little pork luau. So, I'm game to guinea pig it, pun intended. So, guys, there's companies like ButcherBox and these meat shipment services. Are you guys doing stuff like that like subscription-based service boxes that people sign up for? Because I'm going to put links. I know we got a discount code for your guys' stuff if folks go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/FONPodcast, Force of Nature Podcast. But, how does it work when people order?

Yeah. So, there's a number of ways to get Force of Nature. Yes, we do direct-to-consumer. So, you can go onto our website and enter that discount code through your discount code, Ben, and you can get a discount on ordering and we'll ship it to you. You fill a box up and we'll mail it to your house. We're also available at a bunch of grocery stores all over the country. And we have a, we have a where to find us section on our website. It'll tell you what products we have and what stores near you. And the chances are there's, there's a lot available. And then the same thing with restaurants, we're trying to be available in restaurants. I think the idea there is we recognize, you know, with Epic and through our history that, you know, the opportunity for regenerative is very real and important. And we can scale supply chains and have this positive impact rapidly. But The more involved consumers get, the more demand that we can help accelerate, the more good we can do. And quite frankly, the more that benefits other meat companies that aren't ours, the small local farmers that you should be supporting too in your area. And Ben, whenever you have— make more product than you can produce on your ranch, the community near you should be supporting that, no doubt. But, with Force of Nature, it's how do we create more awareness and more access? And so, being available in so many different ways, is a way that we can make it easier and easier for consumers to at least find something if they can't find it locally first or produce it themselves or hunt it themselves first. But yeah, forceofnature.com is our website where you could go to order a box of meat or you can follow us. Even if you don't buy from us and you have the perfect regenerative rancher near you that you're supporting, fantastic, keep supporting them. Go to @forceofnaturemeats on Instagram or go to Force of Nature meats.com and follow us on our, on our blogs and information. Like, we just want to connect you to the truth. It's not our job to tell you what to believe, what to think, or what to do. It's to give you the information to make the best choice for yourself, to tell you the truth and create transparency in the food system so consumers can make sure that they're complicit in a system that they're proud of and not one that represents the opposite of the very things that they think are in their best interest or their community's best interest.

Yeah. Cool, guys. I dig it. I'm going to be coming down to Austin on June 8th to race the Spartan DEKA FIT with my twin 16-year-old son. So, maybe if the stars align, we can come out and check out the ranch and get out of town a little bit. So, we'll have to keep in touch. And folks listening, that means you might see a picture of me on Instagram with Myrtle the Bison.

We'd love to have you out. Come do it, dude.

Cool. Well, guys, this has been tremendous. I really like what you're doing. Your meats are super tasty. And folks, if you want to try the elk, the venison wagyu, the bison particularly, the beef, all these cuts, they just taste amazing. They're melt-in-your-mouth good. And you can go over to the Force of Nature website at forceofnature.com. You can get discount codes, resources, other podcasts I've done on regenerative agriculture if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/FONpodcast. Robby and Taylor, thank you so much, guys.

Thank you, sir.

Thanks a lot, Ben.

All right, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Robbie and Taylor from Force of Nature Meats, signing out from bengreenfieldlife.com. Have an amazing week.

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