What’s The Beef With Beef? Is There Meat That Is Good For You And The Planet? with Scott Lively

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

There's label claim overload going on in the beef industry. There's a million different claims, not GMO verified, humane, never ever, all natural, organic, grass fed. There's so many label claims and you've really got to learn to sift through that.

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Week'S episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to the Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, that's Pharmacy with a Place for Conversations that Matter. And if you are confused about meat, as many are, then you should listen up to this podcast because we're gonna be discussing all about meat with Scott Lively, who's the co-founder of Raise American, which provides 100% grass-fed organic American friendly beef to our planet. and he is an organic food producer, an entrepreneur, an absolute beef freak, which I guess is good, I guess somebody should be. He left a great career in IT to co-found what is now the largest organic beef company in the United States. He oversees a big portfolio of the company, private in labels and brands, and he's a self-professed beef geek. He boasts that he knows every cut of beef as if he cut it himself, and he divides the time between ScottsDellEr's own and Martha's Vineyard. He's an advocate of local economic development and regenerative farming practices applied to large agriculture. And he's offering a new book, which we're going to talk about today, for the love of beef, the good, the bad, and the future of America's favorite meat. Meat. Thank you, Scott.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate the invite.

Okay, great. So, Scott, I want to get right into it. There's so much confusing information about meat. And is it good for us? Is it bad for us? Is it going to destroy the planet? Is it bad for the animals? Like, what is the deal about meat? we should get rid of meat, we shouldn't eat meat. I mean, if you listen to sort of what a common meme is in society today is if we eat meat, we're gonna live longer, we're gonna save the planet from climate change, environmental destruction, and everybody will be happier, including the animals. So is that true? And tell us a little bit of an overview of how we came to see meat and beef as the number one public enemy and the most environmentally destructive and the least healthy of meat, and maybe why that's not so true.

Yeah, well, that's, there's a lot of really good questions there.

And once, yeah, I know, a lot, a lot. It's okay, you can take your time.

I'm happy just to, you know, freestyle. I think that if you look at beef, you know, look at big anything, look at big tech, look at big pharma, look at big finance, there's always a big boogeyman. There's a big, big bad guy. And big beef is an easy target. because they genuinely do have a monopoly. 85% of all the beef wheat in America comes from four companies, which makes them an easy target, a very easy target. I think that you've got to look at what it takes to make beef and why it's so intense. So, you take chicken, which can be done sustainably and organically very easily, just got to put it out there, call it free range, but a chicken's, you know, 90, 100 days old when you process it. The average cow is anywhere from 30 months to five years old. That's a long time to have a living, breathing thing on earth walking around, consuming resources, creating waste. So it becomes a very easy target. The amount of transportation involved in moving beef around is astounding. I mean, the animal from a live point of view probably moves at least two times before it's processed and slaughtered. And then another three to four times after it's a meat product. You know, you've got to move from the cow-calf to the finishing facility, then you move from the slaughterhouse to the further processor for the further processor to the retailer, retailer home. It moves a lot. There's a lot of impact on that product. Yeah. And I think basically, you know, you talk about the health attributes, you talk about what's good for you, bad for you. I can show you a thousand studies that says, you know, meat causes cancer and it got, you know, all sorts of issues. No one's talking about sugar or diabetes or all the other stuff you eat, but they're talking about red meat issues. But all those studies, if you dig into them, and I've dug into probably a dozen beef studies that said, you know, stop eating it, cut it out, you know, vegan's the way to go. They're all observational studies. None of them are actually following everything the person eats, following their entire food choices, their, their genetics, their, their, their, their background. They just basically say, listen, do you eat a lot of red meat? Oh, you don't feel good and you have heart disease. All right, you're dead. It had to be the red meat. I think beef has easily become the boogeyman. And I do, I love all sorts of beef. Obviously, I'm passionate about grass-fed organic beef. I'm really passionate about beginning regenerative farming, which I want to talk more about later. What is regenerative farming? There's so many, I'm so tired of all the buzzwords thrown around that are just meat. It used to be sustainable. What does that mean? And you know what? If you can't pay for it, the farmer can't live. Maybe it's not sustainable. There's a lot of other things that create sustainability in a supply chain. And I'm an advocate of grass-fed beef, but of course I do eat conventional prime ribeye once in a while. It's chocolate cake for me. It's going to be my indulgence. It's not gonna be my constant. It's gonna be something that I do once in a while as a treat. So everything in moderation, but as far as the impact in the environment, there are ways to do it really easily. We just need to start doing them.

So are you saying that you would limit your beef consumption because maybe it's not healthy for you or because some other reason? Or did I misunderstand what you said?

Well, I'm saying that my conventional beef consumption, when I eat, if I go out for a decadent prime bone-in ribeye, I'm not doing that for health attributes. To me, that's like dessert. That's chocolate cake. That's an indulgence.

On my daily beef intake, I'm doing grass-fed. I'm eating my ground beef. I see.

So what you're talking about is you're talking about if you eat non grass-fed beef. You're eating feedlot beef. When I go outside my purview for a treat, I'm indulgent. But, I tell a story in my book about my Thursday nights. Almost every Thursday night when I get home going back the last few years, I grill a New York strip with grilled onions and I have a little glass of bourbon and that's it. There's no greens, there's no nothing. That's my Thursday night and it's a grass-fed strip loin. It's one of my products. I love it.

It's lean.

It feels great. I'm ready to work out the next day. I feel, you know, just infused with energy. And that's my daily, my weekly beef intake. But when I'm celebrating, I might go outside and have enough to open the wheel of the beef industry.

I understand. Okay. Got it. Um, so, so tell me about the, the challenges with, the beyond the research, the challenges with our current meat system and why we need to reimagine it and what you've done in your career to actually help shift the beef industry in the right direction.

Sure. So I think the big challenges are, you know, anytime you take something macro and try to do it huge, you know, we have massive processing facilities. There are, you know, Mike, my company kills, I shouldn't say kill, I should say harvest this. I know that people are sensitive to that word, but we Harvest about a thousand animals a week. And there are Companies that do that an hour, you know, the big packers can do 12,000 in a day, like nothing.

Wow.

And so I think you've got people standing next to each other overcrowded, you've got cattle being finished overcrowded. So some of the issues we have are just limited of space. You know, the amount, we process millions of head of cattle a week in this country. millions. And that's a lot. And I think if you think about how could you do that on a more sustainable venue and how could you lower the amount, you're gonna have to pull back on consumption. And I don't think consumers are ready for that. I think people like their $3.99 hamburger, although it's probably more expensive today, beef prices are through the roof. So consumer demand is gonna have to change. And what has shifted, and I'll tell you what really, what what's happened in the last five to seven years is, you know, when I got into the business, and I'm actually in Eastern South Dakota right now. Wow.

Yeah, yeah.

It's pretty gorgeous outside, bright and sunny fields. When I got into the business back in 2004, I met with the big packers. I met with JBS, I met with Cargill. They laughed at me. They said, this is the dumbest thing. No one's ever gonna want organic. No one's ever gonna want grass-fed. It'll be too expensive. Don't do it. Every one of those large packers today have an organic offering and it's been consumer driven. So I think what's interesting about organic and grass fed is this is the first time the consumer said, Hey, you know what? What we really want is a healthier green alternative because we're eating this as a protein source. We're not eating this as an indulgence all the time. It's hamburger or it's taco meat or it's lasagna. And the consumer said, We want this. And Big Beef has responded. In the past, it was always, you want Angus and you want Prime or Choice, that's it. Here's your option. We'll tell you what you want. But I think raising awareness of organic agriculture and cleaner ways of raising livestock has gotten the attention that these guys are like, this is a market, this is real, and they're starting to go that way. I don't want to pick on the big beef all the time. I'm seeing them do things that are a step in the right direction, and I don't know if it's pure for marketing's sake, I don't know if it's purely for, hey, we're trying or maybe it's sincere, but I'm seeing them do things like add a little bit of dehydrated seaweed into their feed to cut down on methane emissions. I'm talking huge feedlots. I'm talking 20,000 head feedlots, which there shouldn't be 20,000 heads stacked together. But the fact that they're making a modicum of, I think it's good, JBS sticks out of they have a green initiative. They're trying to really reduce their carbon footprint. And, I'm not fans of these guys. I'm not being honest. I have nothing to do with them. they hate me. There's probably a target out there with Scott Lively on it from the Big Four. But they are, I think, making strides to at least appear like they're doing it right. And I think you got to encourage that.

Well, that's good. But, you know, it's a little confusing out there for the average consumer because there's like grass-fed, grass finished, there's regenerative, there's organic, you know, this whole idea about, you know, what you do with the animal during its lifespan really matters. What it's eating really matters. And Russ Conner said, who's a regenerative farmer, said it's not the cow, it's the how. So, can you talk about the difference between all the different types and what we should be actually focusing on? Why is corn-fed or feedlot beef not so good for you in the environment and why is grass finished actually- well, there's the obvious.

Much better. Yeah. The obvious health attributes of grass-fed are the Omega-3s. It's got more Omega-3s. But, it actually, if you look at the ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3, Grass Fed has like 20 to 1. It's insane how much more it has. Yeah. There's a fat, a healthy fat called CLM. You probably know this better than I do. And, I thought it was. Yeah, CLM.

Sorry, CLA.

Conjugated linoleic acid. Yeah.

And, it's a healthy fat.

It's a healthy fat that adds into a lot of digestion. I don't even think conventional grain-fed beef has that in it. I don't think so.

No, it doesn't. It's actually from, you know, it actually helps with cancer. metabolism, diabetes. So it's quite important.

Yeah. And we, omega-6 is an inflammatory. So it, there's, there's, there's the benefit, the health benefits, I don't think can be disputed.

I think we're, we're past that. The question is, there's also, before you jump on the next one, I want to emphasize that what the cow eats, if it eats a variety of plants, we've talked to Fred Provenza and others on the podcast about the phytonutrients in meat that we're just discovering, which is these plant compounds from animals that are eating a wide variety of plant foods that are medicinal. and so when you have a animal eating one grass, that's not good. But if you're eating 50 or 40 different types of plants, those plants actually contain these beneficial molecules that are upgrading our health all the time. So I think that's a, that's a pretty interesting discovery. And it may be more important than the Omega-3s or the antioxidants or the.

Increased minerals or the CLA in the, in the grass finished meat. Absolutely. And I think what you're getting back to there, when you're talking about different versions of grass and different versions of of feed ingredients. Let's just remove corn and soy from the equation and assume we're talking about grass-fed. You're getting back to soil health. You're getting back to the actual biodiversity and the health of the soil. A good complex soil system, that's where the supply chain starts. And, if it can grow a variety of different things and if you're returning nitrogen back into the soil, you can tell a really dark, rich nitrogen rich soil over just dirt that needs to be fertilized by looking at it. Those other plants and things like switchgrass, alfalfa, there's all sorts of different wild growing things. I mean, sometimes you can use Milo switchgrass, there's legumes, all of those things. And the more they eat, the better, but you have to have solid soil for that. And so when I talk about supply chain of beef, I don't just start with the bull and the genetics, you got to go back to the actual richness and the nutrient denseness the soil.

Absolutely. So the soil matters because that's what creates the phytochemical richness of the plants and that's the nutrient density of the plants. And if you're eating the right foods that have eaten the right foods, then.

Your health is upgraded, right? And, I would say it's as complex as the bacteria and the digestive good bugs in your stomach. I think, well, that's a whole other layer, right? Yeah. Your own digestive system has the same complex good bugs and bad bugs as your soil should. I have some soil here I was going to show you earlier, but this is what a regenerative good soil should look like. You can smell it, you can see it. I mean, this is, it's black, it's earthy. It's not, I mean, it's full of, you know, roots. You can see it. It's not just, if you looked at drove down most farm roads, you're gonna see brown dirt that has zero nutritional value. It's got to be enhanced with chemical fertilizers to get to grow anything.

And most of those are GMO.

Created crops so they're resistant to the herbicides and pesticides.

It also depends on the cow, right? Because, you know, in the animal, I'm someone I know works with this breed of cows that sort of escaped into Mexico, the Haro Haro cows or Haro cows, I forget what I'm saying, right? Yeah, Haro cows. And they're these really hardy cows that live up in the high desert and they actually eat all kinds of wild plants and they've become wild, like wild horses. but they're becoming re-domesticated and they're very different in terms of their genetic makeup, the actual nutrient density of the food. So can you talk about how they're different and why it's different and why that even not only what they're eating is important, but the breed of the cow is important?

So absolutely. So there are certain genetic predispositions in livestock that do better in different climates and different geographic areas. so you'll find the traditional American Angus does really well in Missouri and Nebraska and that area where there's a lot of water. They're a hardy animal. And then you, we always talk about the Texas Longhorn that's big in Texas and dry. But the Texas Longhorn is actually a, a distant relative of a Spanish steer from when the Spaniards came into Florida and they had these work animals, these oxens with these long horns, and they migrated over to the dry Texas, which was more adapt to their, their, their bodies of being Spanish animals. And they thrived in Texas and they did really well. There's so much genetic crossbreeding that's been going on in the last 20 years where you can take, you know, look at why you with Kobe and American Angus. Look at, there's, there's terminal cross between Hurford's and Charlies. They're breeding Angus with Holsteins to make a stronger steer that grains faster. So in the conventional world, you can almost genetically create a cow or steer that is predisposition to grow in the environment you want it to. It's a little scary, actually, how that happens so much. It's just about combining genetics, a bull with a cow that have like traits. But there are absolutely, I mean, the type of animals and cattle they raise in Canada and Saskatchewan. are nowhere near the type of animal you're going to raise in New Mexico or Arizona or the Panhandle of Texas.

They're massively genetically different, different resources, different use of water. And that, and that affects the food and affects the quality of the food. I mean, and, and I think we know that particularly in dairy cows. You know, when you look at A2 casing cows, which are more traditional heirloom cows versus A1 casing, more holsteins, the milk they produce is very different. The inflammatory nature is very different. Yeah. And, you know, when we look at it, and I've talked about this in the podcast before, but you're looking at wild meat versus feedlot meat, very different effects on your biology in terms of inflammation, metabolic effects, hormonal effects. So it really matters what you're eating and the quality of it. And that quality is determined by one, the genetics to the environment that was raised in three, the, the things that might have been given, which is growth hormone antibiotics. Yeah. You know, I think the quality of the grass and the feed that they're.

Eating, that all determines the health of the animal, and that determines our health.

And you're eating with the animal eight. You're 100 right. Absolutely. No question. Let's talk. Let's talk a little bit about the environment because I think people are very focused on climate and we recently had the Glasgow Climate Summit. There was just a big push for being vegan and ending meat consumption or limiting it to save the planet. Is that true? Is it something we should be focused on or what's the deal?

Obviously, I don't think we should end meat consumption and I think that it's a healthy part of a good diet. That's just my opinion.

I think that there's, I wouldn't challenge you on that. I don't think it's your opinion. I think it's actually what the evidence shows.

I think that there is obviously more we can do in commercial feeding to make it healthier, more sustainable and cleaner. There's no question. Everyone thinks that water is the issue. Water is the issue, but cows don't actually go drink water. Cows get their water from their feed, from the moisture in their feed. they very rarely go and just start lapping up water. They're not like a dog. So I think that there's a lot of things commercially that can be done. And I don't think we're ever going to get rid of the big four. I mean, I don't think we're going to break them up. I don't think you're going to stop, you know, 80 million people in America eating beef every day. Not once a week, not occasionally every day. That's a statistic, 80-some million people. It's part of their diet. So I think what's gonna have to happen is the consumer is gonna have to start heading towards the way that they want the big packers to act. And everyone says, well, why are you always obsessed about the big packers? Because they're 85% of what we're eating. That's what's out there. You and I can talk and I can talk to my friends in Greenwich, Connecticut. They get to go to the local green butcher and they have the means to spend 34 bucks for a tiny piece of filet. But that's not the rest of the world. The rest of the world is eating conventional beef from safe way of brooder. And you have to reach into that pool of food support to make real change or you're not going to make real change.

And how do we do that?

I think one is, one is you vote with your pocketbook. I think if you start buying more organic grass-fed beef and asking for it, and I think if you start asking your local grocery, you're able to carry it, you'll see it happen. It's happened already. I think you can, it's, I would say put pressure on the big beef, but their lobby is so strong, their lobby is bigger than Big banks, I mean, they've got a lot of sway over the USDA. They have a lot of sway over like country of origin labeling. They have a lot of sway over the Packers and Stockyards Act. It's a very political business, if you put it that way. It's one of the only things that they publish the pricing of beef every morning and every night. And everybody knows what everyone's paying for cattle, for beef, for everything. And there's no secrets. And it's a really what I would do if I'm saying I would like to make it a personal impact is I really try to know the people behind my food. I want to know the farmer. I want to get to know him. I want to know who he uses processes cattle. And you can ask those questions. And I think you'd be shocked how many producers are probably not in your backyard, but very close to you within 100 miles of your house, where you could buy a locally raised or a locally processed piece of meat. It may not be all your beef consumption, but you could start there. You could start by trying to go a little more local and trying to get to know, you know, I always say it's not just the food, it's the people behind the food. Who did it and what was their intentions? And if they just want to make a cheap product and get 20 cents a pound and get out the door, maybe that's not who I want to.

Be doing business with.

Maybe I want to be doing business.

With a guy that puts his heart and soul into the product and he knows where it came from. There's a saying that you should always see the face that feeds you.

Yeah.

You know, I think that's a good one. I went to the farmer's market in my town. last year and I met the woman who was raising lamb. And, you know, basically you could buy a half a lamb or a quarter of a lamb or a whole lamb and put in your freezer, which I did. It was amazing and it was super relatively inexpensive. It was relatively expensive because we cut out the middleman. They butchered it, they got it to me and I picked it up at.

The farmer's market and it was awesome. And, the larger piece of meat you buy, the larger chunk of primal you buy, the closer you're getting to the producer. so if you're buying a cut steak or a hamburger, you're, you're way through the process. You're way to the, you're the end of the supply chain. It's, it's had a lot of hands on. If you're buying a whole Primal, you're a little closer, probably packing house farmer. And if you buy a quarter cow or half cow, you were literally, really helping that farmer, and you're buying a lot closer and helping that guy that raised the animal.

So I think I sent you a big Primal once. I think I sent you a giant tenderloin. You did. You sent me this giant thing. I'm like, what am I going to do with this? I need to have a party because otherwise I don't know what to do with this big thing.

Put the whole thing on the grill and let it sit.

Oh, really? That's at low temperature. Let it go slow.

I reverse sear those things. Just slow and low, then burn it at the end. You can do it.

Oh, there you go. Hey, everyone, it's Dr. Mark. Now, we all know there's a direct link between the way we grow and process our food food and how that impacts our health. But what about the other agricultural commodities we rely on? Well, conventionally grown cotton is one we need to think about. It's often sprayed with a slew of toxic chemicals, including the pervasive glyphosate, which is so dangerous that I've developed an entire podcast episode and actually a few to it. And these chemicals can persist on our clothing. Cotton also requires huge amounts of water and fertilizers and contributes to the pressing issue of soil degradation, so it's not a very environmentally friendly sound option. Now, to avoid all these issues, I try to buy sustainable, non-toxic clothing as much as possible. Bamboo is actually a great alternative to cotton as it grows rapidly, it needs very little water or chemical inputs, and as an added bonus, it sequesters a large amount of carbon dioxide, absorbing five times more carbon dioxide and producing 35% more oxygen than trees. My favorite bamboo fabric is from Cozy Earth. They make the softest, ethically sourced bamboo pajamas and loungewear I've ever worn. Now, these make a perfect gift to any of your friends or family. I love mine so much, I never wanna take them off. Another reason I love bamboo fabric is that it's temperature regulating. So the Cozy Earth pajamas are great for helping you get a solid night's sleep without feeling too hot or cold. Right now, you can try out Cozy Earth bamboo pajamas and loungewear for 40% off. Their highest discount ever offer. Just go to cozyearth.com and use the code HYMANPODCAST. That's CozyEarth, C-O-Z-Y-E-A-R-T-H.com with the code HYMANPODCAST. All of their products are covered with a 10-year warranty, but I know you love them as much as I do. Now, let's get back to this week's episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. Well, I think, you know, you're challenging a lot of our notions about meat, which is that it's bad for us, it's bad for the environment. and you're challenging the idea that we should not be eating as much meat. The challenge is that people are often concerned that we can't scale regenerative meat production, that we can't, it sounds nice, it's a great idea, yes, we want heirloom cows fed on 100 different plants, all with medicinal different properties, rich in phytochemicals and omega-3 fats, where the animals are killed humanely and everything's beautiful and it's all local. how do we get from here to there? Because, you know, we're, we're right. I mean, you don't want to, you don't want to have to spend seven dollars for a grass-fed ribeye and, and, and just like for a little piece of steak, you want to be able to have it affordable and accessible. Yeah. And these big four, these big four, you call them big four, jbs, Tyson, Cargill and National Beef are really monsters that have huge impact in, in Congress.

And, and just in the whole meat, meat industry itself. Yeah, I think that I'll talk really generally on what we can do and then I'm going to get a little more granular on what I think you can do, you know, today and immediately. And what I think the big four are starting to do, because they're waking up pretty quick. They're not going to, people aren't going to stand for today's beef prices at today's quality and then also not have the ability to know what country their beef came from.

Well, that's another problem, right?

I mean, the fact that they can put product of the USA on meat that was not born, raised and harvested in America. It's on another level of consumer deception, in my opinion.

But, yeah, for sure.

So what I think, and this might sound a little Pollyanna, is that we really need to create better agricultural departments in colleges and universities. Each one of those are obviously sponsored by Tyson Cargill Monsanto. But if you could get a sustainable department, sustainable agriculture, regenerative agriculture and start, you know, we lot of universities have agronomy majors where you're studying soil and soil conservation. But it's based on how to enhance the soil with science, not how to allow the soil to regenerate naturally through hooks and plants and decay and solar and there's all these things. I think when the universities start, you know, we got a really good opportunity and that the world's focused on climate change. The world is focused on huge. So if the agriculture departments would grab onto that and create some sustainable agricultural courses and degrees, I think you would attract more of these, I'm going to call them Gen Xers and Gen Zs to those areas of study. You know, sustainability is a major. I think my daughter's got a major sustainable CEO Boulder, but it's not an agriculture. So why aren't we doing that? Why aren't these universities and these I'm not going to say left, but these organizations are academic, focusing on sustainability in agriculture.

Well, to give a little history of that, I think the land grant colleges, which are the colleges established under Lincoln to bring research and innovation in agriculture, were funded by the government to help advance agriculture in America. Unfortunately, those land grant colleges have been highly funded and co-opted, not just by the government, which is hopefully to do the right thing, but by industry. And so a lot of the research and a lot of things that get done there are really driven out of the food industry, the beef industry, the ag and chem industry, just like at major academic institutions in America. Most of the research is around pharma and pharma companies provide the funding for the schools, whether they're public or private universities. So we have a lot of public land grant colleges all across America that are established under Lincoln. and I went to Cornell, they had the Cornell Ag School, which was a state school, and yet they're really not focused on this. They're really focused on practices that are pretty outdated and they're destructive and they're not bringing up a new generation of farmers. It's really thinking about how do we create a more regenerative system that actually is not extractive and destructive, but actually creates more abundant food, better food, higher quality food. It's better for the planet, it's better for humans, it's better for the animals. It's kind of a no-brainer, but We really don't have the incentives aligned and that has to change. And I don't know if you have.

Any insight about that or if you think it's just going to be. It's very personal to me. Yeah. My son goes to University of Montana, Missoula, which was a land grant college. It was a land grant college. It was a great university. He looked at the agriculture department. He went and met, he talked to advisors. He's like, Dad, I really don't think you want me studying here. I think I'm going to be completely the opposite of what you thought I would get here. And it wasn't bad. It's probably a great program for what they do, but he decided to study business instead. He's like, I just don't think this is the doctrine that I grew up for the last 18 years of my father being an organic beef wanting to study. And I hear you on that. I think when those departments, those agriculture departments realize that they are there to create better ways of agriculture, not just bigger, faster, cheaper, And, there's actual study done into, you know, how can we, you want to reduce emissions, go to the Ag Department. You want to create better health or food, go to the Ag Department. Stop depending on the science department, tell you how to do it. And, I think that there's some really talented, intelligent people out there that should be teaching and involved at the academic level that just get shut down.

Absolutely. And, I also think that the government has a role because if the is funding a lot of these Lady Grey colleges, then the opportunity is really for them to change their funding to make sure that it actually is required for them to do some of this in their curriculum.

A portion of it. Yeah, give us a percentage. Exactly. You know, it's like you can't, I don't think you can even get government crop insurance if you don't spray for weeds. So how is that incentivizing anyone to go organic if they have a financial Well, I didn't spray, oh, you don't qualify for cooperative crop insurance. I mean, things like that.

You can't have animals. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, the USDA organic seal has become a brand in itself. The US Department of Agriculture has had a great time divvying that out to people that have, I mean, most of them are owned by Hain and big business and, you know, big food companies. And it's a process to go organic. It's a process to go organic certified. but it's not hard anymore. It can be done by almost anybody. Proving you're grass-fed and proving you've done it from birth to slaughter is a really difficult thing to do.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of sort of opponents of eating meat, right? So, I think whether it was the recent Glasgow conference or Atlantic Eat Atlantic Commission or you got movies like Game Changers and what the health and others that are out there that are really influencing people. What are the main arguments you use to kind of address these concerns? Because I think they're really real for people.

I think when people say that, sorry to interrupt you, I think when people say that, you know, I'm gonna go to the argument I think they make. They already, they always go quickly to these meat substitutes, these plant-based meats and these beyond and the impossible and stuff. And, yeah, in my mind, it's like, I don't wanna eat 46 different chemicals. I'm a minimalist. I wanna eat less. I don't tell me it's made out of peas. It's made out of a pea protein, you know, it's not peas. And I get them two mixed up. One's a bit heavy, soy.

Beyond beef is, I think, was it Beyond Meat? It's called Soy Leg, and the FP, pea protein and Impossible Burger is from soy. GMO soy. Yeah.

Yeah. But, it's a bioengineered soy.

It's not just soy, it's not tofu. Let's be honest. No, definitely not. Definitely not. I mean, there's 47 novel proteins that they've discovered. And, some they won't even identify. Right. And so, I mean, maybe they're okay, but if you think food is information.

What are those proteins saying to your biology and how do we regulate that? Okay, when I pick up a box and I look at the back of it, if I see more than six ingredients, I get a little concerned. you've got 46 different proteins and some of you won't identify. I'm not sure I'm ready. I'm not sure that is a meat alternative. That's food science.

And I, I, I think what it's doing. It's a science project, for sure. And the question is, what is the health risk and what are the environmental risks? And I even, you know, you see, you've got all these different meats. You've got the plant-based meats, you've got cell-based meats, you've got the conventional meat, the regenerative meat. Right.

And, and, and I think a lot of people are looking towards some of these other solutions, like lab-based meats.

What do you think about that?

You know, I, I just started doing a lot of research on that because as I told you earlier, I'm looking at a second book on all the different types of beets. And what I know is that protein requires an amino acid and a chain to grow. And I'm just really interested in how that happens at a lab level, how they create a, a, a, a protein growth of a red meat tissue and how you classify it. And if it is red meat and if it is lab growing red meat and it starts with amino acid, it's got a protein strain and it's growing around that. which I'm not up on the science. I'm gonna be honest. What are the food safety implications? I mean, we struggle with fighting E. Coli in the beef industry, but I will say we do a, we process millions of pounds of burger a day, and we do a really good job of keeping people safe. And E. Coli 01753 is a very unique foodborne illness. It's a very unique pathogen. I'll talk about that a little bit later. But, I mean, you know, what is the food safety ramifications of bacteria growth? And you're not going to get E. Coli from it because it's not been near Slaughter or. hides and stuff. What's in it? I mean, is there temperature controls? Is there, I just don't know enough about it and I'm dying to know. I'd love to be invited to one.

Of those lab plants and told all about it. I mean, right now it's super expensive to produce and I think the things that concern me most about it are, you know, things that we don't know, the unknown. Yeah. Unknowns, right? So, one, what is actually the full metabolomic profile of a fully regeneratively raised cow that's eating a hundred different wild plants, what is that metabolomic profile and its health benefits compared to, for example, a lab-grown meat, which is just using the basic things that they put in, basic protein, fats, carbs, whatever they're feeding the meat. So, that's one key point.

You have to feed that meat. That meat has to be fed to grow. So, you make a really good point there.

I mean, you think about, you think about just with humans, you know, when we, we started refining foods, we didn't really know what we're doing, and, and we didn't realize that, that we were causing all these massive vitamin deficiencies. And how they discovered vitamin deficiencies were because they were providing the refined grains to, to prisoners and, and, and they were getting super sick into chickens, and they were getting super sick, and they, and they were all suffering from severe vitamin deficiencies. And they realized there was something that they took out of a whole grain that was vital, a vital amine. And then there's vitamin.

Yeah.

That, that was super important for health. And, and so when they just sort of build it down to the basic building blocks like we do in agriculture now with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium or NPK. Yeah. That's just a little bit of what is a plant needs. There's all these other compounds that are in soil that are super complex that we don't probably even figured out or know yet. There's literally more organisms in a thumb. thumbnail. I mean, a thumbnail full of soil. And there is people on the planet. And there's also all these other compounds in there that are, that are being extracted and given to the plants to produce these phytochemicals. Is that going to happen when you have a lab meat? And the other, the other thing that I, I'm concerned about is the inputs. You know, when you look at, for example, the, these impossible Burger, it's GMO soy. And so there's, there's tremendous amounts of environmental impact using GMO soy spray with glyphosate, which destroys a microbiome of the soil, contributes to climate change. I mean, there's so many issues with it. not to mention all the downstream effects that are coming from that kind of agriculture and mono row crop agriculture, which is highly extractive and destructive. And then just to finish on the lab-based meat, and I've talked to Uma Valeti who actually founded one of the most important companies of cell-based meat. I think they're trying to do the right thing. He's a great guy. He's a cardiologist from Mayo, smart guy. and doing the right thing, but you have to consider, you know, what are the inputs and also where those inputs come from. In other words, if you're feeding the meat, let's say broken down amino acids or fats or carbohydrates, where are those coming from? They're usually coming from industrial agriculture. So you're growing, you know, using massive inputs from industrial agriculture to feed that meat. It's not that different than feed lot meat. It's just, you know, you don't have a cow, it's not alive. And then the third thing is, is where do they get the energy? Because the bioreactors that are required to actually create this is very energy intensive. So is that coming from fossil fuels, coal, carbon source fuels, or is it regenerative fuels or renewable fuels like solar, wind? I mean, so we just have so many issues that we're really not even grappling with when we look at the, the, the, the story. We have to look at it as a really a gestalt and as a systems problem. And I think we do that, we can start to sort of, we can start to try to, like, look at, okay, well, how do we balance this out? Because, you know, in, you know, a lab-based mean is not going to restore the soil. It's not going to restore ecosystems, it's not going to increase biodiversity, it's not going to improve our watersheds and it's not going to actually do the things.

That we need to do in order.

To restore environmental and climate health. We don't know where it goes to us.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, maybe, it may be.

A great source of protein. It may be healthy for you, but it may not have all the adverse effects of, you know, feedlot meat, maybe. But we don't know. I mean, will I have the beneficial effects of eating a wild elk or a wild, a wild kangaroo? I mean, I just found this great source of, of elk online. I think it's not wild. They, they farm it, but elk and Bison and. It's really great. I'm so excited because I love elk.

It's my favorite wild game.

It's hard to get. It's hard to get. So I usually am lucky if I know someone who was a hunter and got it, but it's very different. And I think we really have to sort of rethink our whole focus on meat and get out of the sort of meat bad vegetables good argument because it's overly simplistic and it doesn't take into account one, how we grow things to the quality of the meat, three, you know, what people's individual needs are, and four, you know, some of the, the environmental and climate consequences of, of needing animals to be integrated into, into agriculture in order to help restore and address some of the big problems we're facing environmentally and climate wise. I agree.

I agree 100. And I didn't know the story about the prisoners and the nutrient deficiency. That's a really good story. The amount of I guess I call it glycophate allowance or 2.

Glycophate. Glycophate.

Glycophate. That is allowed in cattle feed versus what's allowed in human feed. It's almost like a 20 times.

Oh my God.

And so, you look at that and you say, but you're allowing that to be sprayed on my food's food, but you're going to limit mine by 1/20 of it. And, I think there's such a, I don't want to use the word dichotomy. It's just, it's, there's a disconnect before, between what we're allowing cattle that we wouldn't allow humans to eat, but we're eating that same cattle.

So, so true. And I think, you know, you're, you're, you really help people sort of navigate buying beef. So can you guide people through if they're going to try to get the right kind of meat? How do they do that?

Sure. I think the first thing you've got to remember is that, you know, There's label claim overload going on in the beef industry. There's a million different claims, not GMO verified, humane, never ever, all natural, organic, grass fed. There's so many label claims and you've really got to learn to sift through that. And I think the book gives you a guide on what these mean and how much teeth they have in them, no pun intended, because some of these are just things you can apply for. pay the fee and you get the certification. It's not difficult to get. I think the second thing you can do is you need to, like I said, you need to know that you said the face behind the food. You need to know who processed your meat. I tell this analogy and I joke around a lot. If you and I sat down at my favorite steakhouse and we both got a flamignon and it was 56, 60 dollars. And let's just say it said, let's just say it said grass fed or maybe it was grass fed wagyu. Let's give it something crazy. Let's give it, you know, we indulged. and we would fine, whatever it says it on the menu, I'll take it. We don't ask a second question. And chances are the waiter doesn't know anything about it, right? But that $35 bottle of wine we're gonna share, we want to know the vintage, we want to know the year.

Where it came from.

I gotta know everything about it. But this living, breathing animal that died so you can eat it, you don't ask two questions. You don't care.

Yeah, I'll take it.

It's like, give me the prime Angus. All right, great. Are you sure? Show me the box. I don't know. But we're gonna go create. So we've been conditioned on things like wine to ask third and fourth questions. But beef, we just take it and swallow it, no pun intended. So the consumer can ask questions is the first you can do. You can go and ask your meat manager or your local retailer questions. Where did it come from? How do you know? You know, there's a chapter called Butcher your Butcher with Questions. Ask those questions. You're not being a jerk if he's a reputable guy and he knows and he's a true craft. He'll tell you, it's all natural, it comes from this ranch, we know. The second thing that's easy to do is every piece of meat that's sold in retail, every piece of meat has what's called an establishment number. It's usually on the front and it says EST and it gives a series of numbers, establishment, USDA, whatever. You can Google that. It'll tell you exactly where that meat came from. It'll tell you if it was ground meat, where it was ground, where it was last touched, if it was steak, where it was cut. It'll give you the source of where that meat came from before it hit the grocery retailer. And that'll give you a good indication who you're dealing with and where it came from. There's a lot of really crafty brands out there that are just these really folksy, farmy, you know, warm, fuzzy brands that's just Tyson, JBS, and it's the same guys just branding it really well. So dig in, search the establishment numbers, ask your producer, and don't think you.

Can just Google that and Google the.

Establishment number and it'll show you exactly what planet came from. It'll say JBS, Grand Island, it'll say whatever it came from. It'll say Fresno beef. It'll tell you exactly the last person that touched and handled and packaged that meat. And it's been there forever.

Amazing.

No one knows it's there.

Amazing. I remember going to this Japanese restaurant. It was a very fancy Japanese restaurant. And we had, I think, Wagyu beef or something like that. It was quite a special treat. and they came to the table with this little certificate which had the nose print of the actual animal and where it came from and where it was grown. And it was like, really, it was like a little confronting. It was like, oh gee, I don't know if I want to see the nose print of the animal I'm eating, but it was real. It was real.

I've seen that too, and I'm like, maybe, I mean, I'd like to see four or five of those because there's very little Kobe that gets into America.

Yeah.

There's, there's a, there's a, there's a tariff on it. But, you know, why do it kind of cracks me up, too? How do you know? I mean, is it just fatty meat.

Or is it really wagyu?

We don't really know. We don't have any way of really. We don't know. And the fact that they've now done that, they've overturned country of origin labeling laws that in 2008, they had them, or you had to put the country of origin of the beef. The problem was when you went and bought hamburger, it would literally say, Australia. Uruguay, Canada, Mexico, USA. People are like, how can there be that many countries in one pound of ground beef? It was off-putting to people.

And it can be because it's like a hundred cows.

You mean it could be thousands.

Thousands of cows in your burger?

It could be literally thousands of cows and. And DNA into one brick of beef. Doesn't mean it's not safe. Just. It could be.

It's a little crazy.

Yeah.

Amazing.

So.

When you were, when you were 32, you basically were working in an, in it, and you bought this old out of use meat packing facility in Howard, South Dakota, knowing nothing about the beef industry. So what, how did you take that leap? And, and how did you go from there over the last 15 years to create something called raise America, which is this, raise American, sorry, which is your company that, that is really providing people with a source of reliable grass finished meat. So tell us about it.

I was young and I sold a couple of software companies and was not being overwhelmingly fulfilled by the tech world. Nothing against it. I just wasn't firing my passion. It was a great job at a college. It was during that.com bubble where it was very easy to make a lot of money not doing a whole lot. and I, I did have an early passion for the meat industry. I loved beef. I loved going out for steakhouses. I really loved. And I was interested in what made beef taste good. And I guess that's a lot of what started it. And I remember very vividly watching a segment. I think it was on an NPR, like a Market to Market or something. I don't, don't quote me on that. I don't remember, but. And they had two back-to-back segments. One was on the explosive growth of the beef industry. against pork and chicken because of the Atkins diet fat. Atkins had exploded around that time, 01, 02, I guess, and everyone was eating this lean Atkins thing and it was huge. And beef surpassed chicken and pork in total volume sales for the first time in a while because of this, hey, eat Atkins. The very next segment, I think, was about Whole Foods IPO or something about how what their stock price had been doing and it was explosive. And the caption was fastest growing segment in American grocery is organic. And the one before that was fastest growing segment in agriculture's beef. And I remember just like, is anyone doing organic beef? And there wasn't. And this was before Google, so I think I was on like Ash Jeeves or Yahoo or some crap like that. And I started searching and I found a guy in Seward, Illinois. Joel Rizman, I don't know if he's still around, bought 30 head of cattle from him and a partner and I sold them door to door to Chicago restaurants and literally created this business called Dakota Beef and it grew and we raised private equity and became a real thing. It's been through a few iterations and I've had a few really horrible partners over the year financially that really like the business side more than the lifestyle side and I've had to balance that a lot because it's really easy just to cut corners and do it do it just enough to be covered documentation wise when there's a right way to do it and we're going to stick with that and current partners are great people. It's now headquartered in Gordon, Nebraska. It's called raiseamerican.com and it's been, I guess I would say 18 years of my life wrapped up into one business that really tries to source verify the product it gets really, really goes the extra mile to check and verify the claims by producers and give consumers what they're looking for.

So you aggregate other ranchers and create a distribution channel for their meat.

We contract with hundreds of producers that give us, you know, what we'll do deposits or we'll do whatever and we'll advance them to give us their cattle. We couldn't do it ourselves. I mean, you're looking at 4,000 animals a month plus, that's a lot of animals and the infrastructure, the land, and also knowing it's done right, you don't want to just go and start doing it in feed yards. What's the point?

Keep it for sure.

I'd rather have a hundred really good producers than each doing 100 animals than one guy doing 1,000 just okay. And so, you've got to spread it out. we've managed to create a really good business around, I think, doing it right.

And you talked about organic and grass-fed. So what can you explain the sort of differences in the terms and is it regenerative? Is it just grass-fed? What's the difference? Can you sort of help people understand that?

Great, great question. So the first thing is, is that, you know, organic is, is, is five years ago, maybe eight years ago, organic was the leading claim people looked at. There's this great report called the Power of Meat that talks about what consumers look for when they look at packaging. When they go buy meat, what are the top 10 things they're digging into? Believe it or not, the first is product of the USA. People want to buy American product. That is a fact. People look for American product. They don't know that half the product they're eating didn't come from America, but that's what they look for. Then it's no antibiotics or added growth hormones. Then it's grass-fed. Grass-fed is becoming, it's grown seven times in the last couple of years. It's a seven times multiple of growth in grass-fed beef. doesn't have to be organic to be grass-fed doesn't have to be grass-fed to be organic. And there's two different attributes. You've got to decide what's important to you. I know a lot of the American grass-fed producers aren't organic, but they produce great quality meat. And I look for that symbol a lot. I really do when I'm shopping myself. So all organic means is no antibiotics, no added, no added growth hormones, because all cows have hormones. Just like you and I have hormones. It's just. added hormones. And if an animal gets sick, you got to treat it. But the other part of organic is the animal has eaten organic certified feed its entire life. That grass, whether it was grain-fed or grass-fed, that was certified organic and it wasn't sprayed. So that's a huge thing. Now, I think most purists on the grass-fed side would go ahead and do that anyways. They just don't, they care more about the grass-fed and the quality of the product than they worry about the USDA organic symbol to them. But I would say that that's a good thing. The difference between grass raised and grass finished is simple. All cows eat grass. There's no legal definition of grass fed in America right now. There's no USDA, that's it. So to be grass fed, grass finished, you've got to prove beyond just an affidavit that you really finished that animal only on grass. You've not put any grains in. You haven't tried to get a boost at the last 90 days of its life that it's been a pure grass program, which would take longer, which would be more expensive because it's more labor intensive. and more resource intensive, and it would have a different taste. I think a lot of consumers think they want grass-fed until they taste it and there's a little bit of a change in, okay, I got to be ready for this. I like it now. I mean, I've adapted the taste. I can taste grass-fed. I'm excited about grass-fed when I get it. So, I think that there's still that person that has been conditioned to like a certain flavor of beef, just like I talk about my chocolate cake is that ribeye that's prime that's got nothing to do with organic. I just like flavor, but that's not going to be my main sustenance of protein and that's not what I'm going.

To go to on a daily basis. Do you think this whole move toward.

Regenerative agriculture is scalable? I do. I really do. I think it's got to be stepable. So, I think first of all, we got to look at the type of land we're using. I think a lot of land has been over the past several decades has been turned into crops and has been farmed where it should not have been. It was pasture land, it was prairie land, it should have been left alone. you know, we can go back to the Dust Bowl and look at what happens when you over farm a region, a huge region, we gave people huge plots of land to farm. It was prairie land, should have never been farmed. And then we had some chemical fertilizers, and then we had a few years of drought. Well, the entire topsoil just took off and headed east and covered the entire nation with dust. So there's types of land that should be grazed and types of land that should be farmed. If you look at some of these hillier areas, Instead of trying to grow a crop on it and destroying it and eroding it, that's great pasture land. I think we need to take a look at programs like the CRP, the Conservation Reserve Program, that was put in place after World War II to pay farmers to not farm. Maybe millions of acres in CRP. You can Google it. You should pay them to create pasture. Oh my God, yes. To get a soil expert out there and grow some grass that matters to livestock. and you want to do regenerative, you've got to get the nitrogen back in the soil. So get livestock out there, which are natural grazers, the natural roamers, start doing rotational grazing. And I would pay those same people to do that, probably paying more. The last I checked was four years ago because I was trying to go to these people that own CRP and saying, Hey, listen, take it out of CRP. Let me organic certify it. I'll lease it from you. I'll put cattle out there. we'll create a business, had some takers, not a lot. Most of these people were older generation, didn't want to mess with it, hey, I got a good thing, leave it alone. But as it's falling out of CRP, the government's not renewing it like they used to. They're not just automatically renewing. So it's becoming available and that land would certify organic instantly without a three-day wait. Because you could prove it's never been sprayed, it's never been farmed, it's just been in CRP. The whole point of CRP. Don't touch it. So this way, you would have instant organic certified land. You could raise cattle on, you could do regenerative farming. And last I checked, four years goes 1.4 million acres.

That's a lot of past- I just looked it up and in 2021, it was 5.3 million acres.

Okay, there you go. So yeah, I think that that's how much acreage is out there that they're getting paid to not farm.

And when you're saying some of these areas are a little marginal, but they would be better for grazing.

Right.

So you could actually, yeah. Well, Alan Williams talks about this. I don't know how accurate his data is, but he talks about how we, you know, we do about 20, I don't know, 29 million cows a year in America that we slaughter and that if we scaled up the conservation land that is existing, the Bureau of Land Management, if we convert some of the soy and corn ro crops to grass-fed regenerative farms and using other degraded lands that we could literally raise almost double the beef, about 59 million cows a year. Do you think that's accurate? I don't know. I'm gonna be honest, I've never heard.

That statistic, but I'd love to believe it. I think we can do it.

The whole idea is that we can't, if we do regenerative, we can't, it's expensive, we can't feed the planet, it's a growing need, we need the volume. These are all the arguments by the big four meat companies and even by the government who's heavily lobbied by them and his opinions are often shaped by them.

But the government still gives billions of dollars away for useless programs that don't create anything. So if we could redirect those funds to lowering the cost of regenerative agriculture, creating more programs, allowing farmers to get in and do it a little bit better and create better soil, yeah, I think you could do it better. There's a lot of people not raising cattle not because they don't have the space of the land. It's just not worth it to them. It's not enough money in it. You got to remember, I don't want to go back to the monopoly and I hate picking on the big beef guys, because I have so many friends that work for JBS and I have so many good people in big beef. But when the Packers and Stockyard Act was passed, I think it was 1921, I think it was Wilson, Woodrow Wilson passed it. They were worried because the Packers were above 14% control of the industry and in fact they had 25% control. So like we got to do something and we got to get these big packers in control because they have monopoly. Well today it's 85%. So they've gone from 25 to 85 of total control. That's not going to be given up. So what is their mission? Their mission is to create the fastest, most efficient, cheapest protein they can and sell it for the highest price they can. Any business would. That's what the guy that built this phone did. Okay, how do I do it cheap and how do I sell it for as much as I can? You know, that's not going to change. So until there's economic incentive and Government absolute, I don't want to say oversight, I'm gonna say government support to create these programs that could easily be converted to a regenerative farm, to easily be turned to an organic farm and raise something that contributes back to the soil. It's not going to work. It's got to come from the government. It's got to come from funding because small family ranchers can't do it.

Well, your work is really important. I think your company, Raise American, is providing Great sources of verified grass-fed beef. I think your book is really important too, to help people understand some of the nuances and some of the challenges that we have around this simplified conversation about meat. I know you're working on another one, but in the meantime, people should get for the love of beef. The subtitle is the Good, the Bad, and the Future of America's Favorite Meat. Go to raiseamerican.com to learn more about the company that actually provides sources, and there are many other companies as well, but it's worth checking it out. and Scott, thank you so much for the meat you sent me to try. I really appreciate that. It fed a lot of people and I just thrilled that you're doing this work because we need more and more people actually taking the risk and doing the work and making the changes that we need to see in our food system. So, thank you for doing that.

Well, Dr. Mark, I appreciate you and thank you for your knowledge. I love talking to somebody that knows as much or more about this than I do and it really means a lot to me.

Well, I don't know. I'm sort of a dabbler, but I know enough to be dangerous. I appreciate it. Yeah, of course. And everybody listen to this podcast. If you, if you know anybody who's confused about meat and wants to learn more, share this with them on your social media. Leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you. What's your perspective on all this? Share, subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

And we'll see you next week on the doctor's Pharmacy. Thank you.

Hey, everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into the doctor's pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays. Nothing else, I promise. And all you have to do is go to drhyman.com/pix to sign up. That's drhyman.com/pix, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter and I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer.

Hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.

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