Joe Rogan Experience #1478 — Joel Salatin Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Good to see you again, sir. and all the stuff that we've taken for granted for quite a long time now. supermarket system, basically, that's selling in their community and they're in their region, Yeah, these large meat processing places, they've been hit hard by the coronavirus. The difference in the vulnerability, in the exposure and risk factor between our little 20-person facility where we do, you know, maybe 50 to 70 beeves a week, 100 hogs, versus these mega plants that have, you know.

3:27 It's beavs. No. I never thought. So, you know, we do. And you've got three guys out on the kill floor. And so they're living in a house that we would live for in a house. The average poultry processing plant in our area, they say that every job can be learned in 20 minutes. So whereas at our plant, we cross, you know, we cross do, you know, we cut meat a while,

7:11 When you get a hamburger from us, it's one animal. of having 150 to 200 mega processing facilities doing 98% of the nation's meat, if instead that were 200,000 What are the conditions they're living under? And you get a better relationship with both the animals and the people that you sell this food to. the Tom-ness of Tom, the Joe-ness of Joe. Right. It's that affirmation. And and one of the things that we're seeing as a result, as we move into the kind of the social consequences of this whole pandemic is a is what there's there's a new phrase called the screen new deal where everything is

10:38 Everyone's separated from everybody. Zoom conferences, Zoom phone conferences, different things. Yeah, you want to take a pause and stop. All right. Your primary immune system, most likely, if you've been in contact with it, and his has. Yeah, we were talking about that. So I'm not saying that arrogantly or proudly. I'm saying it gratefully that I think there are things that we can do to really build up our immune system.

13:20 You know, I want all those bugs, all that diversity. We live in the most amazing microscopic soup. I'm going to take you down. Your immune system needs my bugs. My immune system needs your bugs. Your immune system needs my bugs. And so now, There's nobody next to me. She's fearful. And I think that's one of the things we're finding out from this crisis.

17:25 wrong to think that this the only way to solve this is to make sure that you stay Pastured meats. They have, whatever, 20 patent vaccines. I mean, how many kids in elementary school did you know that had food allergies? And, I mean, that didn't exist. on her neck, right? It's unnatural for people to be stuffed into a warehouse right next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, working all day.

22:17 is that there's no weirdness of the chicken. And so when you have those kinds of conditions and they're not getting exercise, they're not getting fresh air. down, look, if we wanted to sit down and say, let's say we had a James Bond conspiratist, you know, bottleneck in the food system right now, the reason the supermarket is low on meat, across the pasture. Well, yeah, you can get losses from raptors, but we use guard geese.

26:37 Right. What are they using when an eagle? It's just not just their vision's insanely good, The Hawks are the same way. Sure, sure. you know, music venues, you know, whatever. plants and we have way more people actually growing food, participating in food production You would require much more people. Like a cheeseburger really shouldn't be 99 cents.

31:28 right now. I mean, I'll just give you one example that probably nobody would think of. So we pay There's no dust. Yeah. Much of our increased cost has nothing to do with actual production cost. Is there a solution for that? get the animal processed, packaged under inspection, and put in for you. Let's open that up so that people can buy it by the piece. We're not going to ship an interstate. We're not going to sell it at Walmart. Okay. But if you and I as neighbors

36:51 that at some point when you have a very close, transparent relationship, one-on-one, you don't, because they know if all you're going to do is keep three in your homes, those parents, you're going to have a close relationship with them. She took care of them, three of them in her home. Let me ask you this. I just can't sell it. It's not legal for me to sell it.

40:20 drug, let it all go. So if it was really dangerous, you shouldn't be able to buy it. and you trade him some filet mignon for some tomatoes and you have a good deal there. All right. I mean, let's appreciate, too, for example, wildlife. But to do a chicken or a pig or a cow on your own and sell that, what is it about selling something that suddenly turns

43:14 The argument for regulation is when things scale up, when you need someone to step in they're stuffed next to each other in this large warehouse. They're not showing you the tractor trailers bringing in the grain and hauling out the manure and the square miles of fields to spread the manure. The difference is when you come and see our operation, you see all the land.

45:25 No, ours is too. free, non-genetically modified, GMO free grain. And we give them more than they would on a That's what happens. But first, let me just say that if California, for example, did not export, I don't know what the percentage is, but it's huge. And they only eat, only 10% of the food consumed in Iowa is grown in Iowa and processed in Iowa.

47:52 I mean, and this is one of the reasons that we're having this, I think, this blowback but nearby. So you don't have all this transportation. What you have is a fundamentally I think I don't have a figure for – I'm not a scientist. Oh, man, where do you start with this? Our dinner doesn't do drugs. All our costs are in. Today, that's 18%. You can track all of these things right through from that time.

52:11 Like how is it possible? but the opioid crisis has been primarily a rural situation. Why? Because folks feel disaffirmed. I mean, one of the biggest things that this virus has brought out, Because that's the thing that people are having a hard time with is digital detoxing. put it in a warehouse, and I'll tell you where to send it when I get myself situated. I mean,

55:54 Yeah. I was watching this documentary on the construction of viruses, this piece, What is the flu shot, then? That's one opinion. When this all broke, we sent a letter on that offer? Oh, yeah. It's great. I mean, I'm still waiting for when they do the daily briefs up there in the White House. but enough is enough. And are we in our kitchens? Are we actually getting good food? Are we

59:19 and you're getting six hours of sleep? Yeah, yeah. Let it go. I'm not trying to be political. I mean, I don't know if this is true, but I would imagine that the immune system is like your cardiovascular system. I would be interested to see what's going to, I'm sorry, but what's going to happen when people do go back to normal life with these compromised immune systems from being inside all the time, whether or not just regular common cold kicks in on a larger scale.

1:03:09 including frontline hospital workers, which, you know, you look at that and you say, well, It's only when I come in and turn on the news or look at podcasts that I'm besieged with Thank goodness that that has sort of calmed down, even in New York City. We've just been feeding them fear. Yes, that's right. It's been a feeling of fear. And so, She from this chemistry standpoint, me from a farmer standpoint, trying to cut through this.

1:07:08 Okay, let's just the mind-body connection, what that does to your body to suddenly get a burst of hope as opposed to a constant diet of despair. the lockdown was first ordered and everyone was at the supermarket, no one was wearing So I remember lying in bed at night and like testing my breath. this is nice to know that I don't have it currently. Maybe if I just keep doing what I'm

1:09:32 It's like it's like instead of just people. Yeah, we do drop dead. Instead, every death is some sort of a failure of our techno-sophisticated cryogenic system that's supposed to keep everybody And, of course, my family knows that when I go, they're supposed to put me in a compost pile. I think they have to pump you up with chemicals first. because you know what no no um what we did have to get was a special use permit for a family

1:11:20 Yeah. mine happens to be Judeo-Christian ethics, so I think there is an afterlife, It's compost. It's everything. And when we get sterilized and move away from that, I think we lose the beauty of the transformative capacity of that part of life. But then the problem with that is if you look at the overall numbers, the average age that If you eat too much sugar.

1:14:26 How many goddamn heart attacks are there? it's an elective thing. You're allowed to do it. How about that? What a faster way to whatever, deaffirm a person than to tell them you're not essential. So we've gone now from that white hot 3.5% unemployment to now what, 18.5? people a year you know uh dying from from external ramifications of of being uh

1:17:29 You're saying the economy is more important than people's lives. Jamie and I have been going over this. You've got to figure That's where they make their money? Not 10, 10, 10 chemical fertilizer, carbon. I mean, it's the ultimate, you know, boy toy. so we integrate fighting wildfires? And how much are we losing fighting all these fires? I mean, we're in

1:22:01 We don't have erosion because our organic matter is up. On our farm, using these principles, we've gone from 1% organic matter to over 8% organic matter in the soil. So it sounds like your method could keep from the situation they find with some farms of the rotting topsoil where they have to constantly supplement. You don't have those monocrop agricultural situations.

1:24:11 Ethanol is a byproduct of what we used to think that we needed ethanol because we thought we were running out of oil. Exactly, because we were running out of gas. No. And then another huge percent goes to hogs and chickens, of course. City Chicks, and she's talking about urban chickens. And Pat's done all the math on this and shows that if one in three households

1:26:55 So they wouldn't have an egg industry But that's our herbivore of value. You don't need the petroleum. Okay. So you're essentially saying that they have to convert to not just growing So the soils are worn out destroyed the soils. And what you're saying is, no, we just can't do it this way because this way is unsustainable. This is sunlight that's supposed to be decomposed.

1:31:25 And, I mean, just another one, for example, is ponds. I'm sorry, 8%. And we now know archaeologically digging up skeletons, some of them were as big as a Volkswagen car. So when we look at the megafauna that was here, few extra dollars, we build another pond. Now, we're not beavers, we should not be depleting the commons. and when they're trying to detect methane, they're finding it's landfills.

1:34:51 It's not a zero. Today, we would not have all that methane. dolphins in Venice again. because normal was this foot on nature's neck saying, you know, we're going to. And the federal forests are atrocious. And it would affirm people who want to work outside and have calluses and blisters on We've got to dominate and conquistador. Right. That somehow, that has to be made.

1:40:58 We had no idea that it would launch in the middle of this. We were in it before organic was cool. But so for the first time in half a century, we're actually rationing. You want to get on our business class list, so you always have a seat, pay us $500 a year We've got to have enough land base to scale, and we need a bigger team. So we're building up these mountains of shipping containers.

1:44:37 And his blog is thinking inside the box because his thing is planting a box. There's a sweet spot. And it's a sweet spot that the industry doesn't have. That's the bottleneck right now in our in our fragile system. And so if we can if we can do an integrative approach and and have a democratized, decentralized approach, then suddenly we have an ecological, humane, people-friendly, community-friendly, nutrient-friendly system.

1:46:50 Yeah. I mean, the idea of – I mean, you're familiar with urban agriculture. So there's this vacant lot. It was, you know, half an acre. It wasn't very big. the plants growing, they cooked stuff. And I was there, you know, I was there with them for a the big mega stuff, the most extreme situation. And you know what? I don't somebody starts throwing at me the most extreme situation.

1:50:53 And she just had this epiphany one day. All of her tools were on the side of her bicycle. And it's not that we don't have time for it. That's a large bump. But yeah, if we can restructure what's valuable to us, it's very So Alcoholics Anonymous is not allowed to have their meetings, but liquor stores are They open Walmart and close the farmer's market.

1:53:38 But boy, fear, you know, fear spawns things that we can't even imagine. Not that the government could have ever taken that away, but anyway, that's the narrative. process yeah it is in some places texas is pretty wide open texas restaurants hotels everything's And we don't drive fast. That's the plus side, right? Most of us like to see people. One of our problems is that we haven't done controls.

1:57:35 I mean, we really don't know what that number is going to look like here, and it could be absolutely devastating. That's crazy. something like that. Same thing in Spain. And then you've got the cigarettes and the no exercise. So as we go forward with this thing, I look at this and say, well, let's at least wipe ourselves off and say, okay, what can I learn from this?

2:00:01 You don't have to go to the grocery store three times a week. That's how you eat well, okay? You know, I mean, you start talking about nutrition. domestic culinary arts, okay? What you're saying is great on paper. Bush? Their biome is accustomed to that terrible food. You know, one of the things that farmers like me that direct market to people, one of our

2:04:13 I mean, fresh garden picked asparagus. Oh, man. Powerful thing, you know. Oh, yes. It's a wonderful thing. That's huge. to stockpile. So that was one of the things I was saying. How do we go forward? respecting 10,000 people, and we had to cancel. There's so much. I think that's a great point and maybe a great way to end this. My pleasure.