70. Shocking Food Industry Secrets: The BIG 3 Ingredients to Avoid with Kettle & Fire’s Justin Mares

What are some of those things that we should know about our food industry?

I think the first one is avoid what I call the big three, corn, soy and wheat. These three things are super cheap to an artificial degree. And because they're so cheap, they're used by big food and put in everything in their most highly processed form, bottled water and plastic. Don't do it. Anything that comes in a flexible plastic packaging is something that I would recommend staying away from a microplastic sort of exposure standpoint. I think the final one is.

Ultimate Human. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human podcast shorts. I have a really interesting twist for you today. I just ran a podcast with Justin Mares from Kettle and Fire and True Med. We talked all about the food industry, the benefits of bone broth. But I thought it would be really interesting to do some eye opening statistics today on today's short about the food industry. Some things that you may or may not know and some quick actionable things that we could do to address these in your daily life for your family. So welcome to a twisted version of Ultimate Human shorts. Usually these are me just all by myself, you know, talking about a topic into the camera and they, they, they really have a lot of traction with my audience. But I wanted to have you on because you really brought to light some really, really fascinating stats about the food industry for me that I found shocking. I think the audience is going to find shocking. And then what's some actual steps we could do? So what are some of those things that, that we should know about our food industry?

Yeah, I think the first one is avoid what I call the big three. Corn, soy and wheat. Basically, the US over the last, you know, 25 years has spent $209 billion subsidizing these foods, which means $209 million subsidized farmers. 209 billion subsidized billions billion subsidizing farmers. Which basically means that these three things, corn, soy, wheat, are super cheap to an artificial degree. And because they're so cheap, they're used by big food and put in everything in their most highly processed form. This is why soybean oil is making up almost 20% of the average American's daily caloric intake.

It's in every salad dressing, every oil.

Yeah, exactly. And so my strong viewpoint is that if you want to be healthy, avoiding the big three of corn, soy, wheat as often as you can, especially if you're buying any sort of packaged food is, is a must.

Okay? Corn, soy, wheat, and these also have a tendency to be the most genetically modified or genetically engineered foods. I mean, it's well known about corn, but soy and wheat are also, as I dug into the research on those, very often the most genetically modified or genetically engineered.

Yeah. And because of that, they're also the most sprayed with glyphosate and things like that. Like the, uh, there was a study that came out recently that found a hundred percent of cereals tested for above the US limits for glyphosate contamination.

Wow.

Uh, they found that soybeans were having an 1100 times higher glyphosate concentration than the EPA limit for tap water. And the EPA limit is already 700 times higher than the what the EU allows for glyphosate in terms of tap water exposure.

Wow.

So it's just the. These toxic chemicals are already. They are so heavily.

It just takes some of the micro load off the exact, what I call cumulative dose toxicity rather than single dose toxicity. Wow, that's a big one. So what are some other things that we should. We should be aware of?

Yeah, so that's a big one. All right. The second thing I think is, the second thing that is becoming a bigger deal is you're seeing a lot more around pfas, polyfluoro alkyl substances, also known as forever chemicals, and microplastics. I think that these compounds definitively have impacts on your system, your biology's development, your. Or your hormones, your endocrine system, things like this. And I think that we are certain it is early, but it is already we have enough evidence that you should intentionally avoid anything that comes in, like bottled water and plastic. Don't do it. Like anything that comes in a flexible plastic packaging is something that I would recommend staying away from, from a, from a microplastic sort of exposure standpoint.

And, and is there a test that we can do to test for microplastics?

There, there are some. There are some tests that you can do. I believe Vibrant Wellness runs some. There's a couple others that you can find online. Unfortunately, it's relatively hard because we're candidly just not sure yet where microplastics end up settling in your system. Like, if these things are not circulating in your blood, but they end up in your organs, which is like what we're seeing with some of the autopsies of animals and others that are exposed to these compounds. It's just really hard to know, you know, Gary, how many microplastics do you have in your liver right now?

Yeah, yeah, right.

I have no idea. Sure.

So just Avoidance is a, is, is a good thing. So, and I, I, I turn towards glass anyway. You know, I drink Ofora and, and Mountain Valley spring waters and some of those that actually do come in glass. But I, I will tell you, when it's traveling, it's really hard. You know, I, I, Paul Saladino was over the other day and he actually travels with coconuts. I didn't know you could actually bring coconuts on, on an airplane. And then he taps it on the airplane and drinks it. And I was like, that's a cool way to circumvent the system because you can't bring liquid through tsa, but you actually can bring a food with liquid in it. So I mean that's a pretty, pretty extreme hack. But it's delicious and, and it's nutritious. And I think little steps towards saying I'm going to really try to migrate towards glass or even, even al. Yeah.

Although a lot of aluminum cans actually have a thin polypropylene or BPA BPS liner on the inside of most do this.

You want to see the BPA free ones?

Yeah, ideally, but, but for example, there's a lot of like mini Coke cans have a thin layer of plastic that it separates because otherwise you get the like tangy aluminum taste in your mouth when you're drinking it. And so it's this, this oxygen barrier that prevents the product from tasting like aluminum. But what that means is that when you know, these Coke cans are being transported and stuff, you're having this BPA or BPS lining leach into the actual product. Wow. And because it's so thin, it's very.

So really gravitate towards glass.

Yeah. So really? Yeah, exactly.

And, and what's our final tip and twist of the day?

Yeah, I think the final one is basically buy local whole foods as often as you can.

Dude, I love that, man. I support a local Amish farm here and, and I love their meats, their dairy, their cheeses, the goat cheeses. They taste amazing. And my gut is very calm. But if I, I try to eat those foods, you know, very often on the road, it's a completely different story.

Completely. Yeah. And so when you're buying local, almost always that food is more nutrient dense, either because it's less processed or because it's just fresher. So the nutrients have had less time to decay. Almost always it tastes better.

Yeah.

And almost certainly because you're buying from a local smaller farmer, you have not had to put a bunch of processing chemicals, a bunch of like processing packaging, a bunch of artificial flavors, artificial preservatives, like all these sorts of things.

You need to preserve the transport and the storage and all of that.

Like you need to take a piece of spinach from California and get it into your mouth in Miami three and a half weeks later. You need a lot of food science and a lot of chemicals to make that happen to you. To get a piece of spinach from 60 miles outside of here into your mouth within 48 hours. Basically, nature just handles that itself. And so I think that if you eat primarily from local food sources where, where possible, especially the staples, so like meat, veggies, fruits, you are basically absolving yourself and not exposed to a lot of the risks and downsides endemic in our very broken food system.

Wow. So, so eat local, drink out of glass, and avoid wheat, soy and corn. Corn, especially if it's the GMO or genetically modified or genetically engineered version. Very quick, very impactful. Short. I hope you have you guys enjoyed this. We did it in under 10 minutes, but I just thought it was fascinating to bring some of the stats out of our podcast and put it out into a short, because I know the attention span of a lot of you guys is, is very, very short. So I wanted to hit you with three impactful scientific facts that we could also have actionable items from. And as always, that's just science.