The Meat Mafia Podcast

John Moody joins us to break down how to take back control over your family’s food, health, and education by opting out of today’s modern systems. If you’re ready to opt out into a more sovereign life, or simply want to learn about what it means to achieve sovereignty in today's modern world, this episodes for you.

What we cover...

The flaws in industrial food systems and regenerative farming solutions.
Why food sovereignty is key to local empowerment.
How families can opt out of traditional healthcare 
Educational sovereignty and what that looks like
How local impact & actions translate to larger scale policies

About John...

John Moody is a husband, father to four, small farmer, author, and speaker. He is currently the Executive Director of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.  John is the founder of the Rogue Food Conference and a leader in food sovereignty and self-sufficiency. John has been deeply involved in the small farming and food freedom movement, managing one of the largest local food buying clubs (Whole Life Buying Club), standing against unjust enforcement restricting access to real food, protesting FDA harassment of farmers, and speaking nationwide on food, health, and farming issues. Through the Rogue Food Conference, John provides real, actionable steps for breaking free from big systems and living with true independence.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Challenging Assumptions in Modern Agriculture
(14:51) Father's View on Home Birth
(28:32) Revolutionizing Food Culture Through Education
(35:06) Empowering Change Through Rogue Food
(42:51) Creating Change Through Local Action
(50:34) Building a Sustainable Food Future

Click here for tickets to the Rogue Food Conference in November! Checkout with MAFIA10 for a discount.


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Creators & Guests

Host
Brett Ender 🥩⚡️
The food system is corrupt and trying to poison us... I will teach you how to fight back. Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod 🥩
Host
Harry Gray 🥩⚡️
Leading the Red Meat Renaissance 🥩 ⚡️| Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod

What is The Meat Mafia Podcast?

The Meat Mafia Podcast is hosted by @MeatMafiaBrett and @MeatMafiaHarry.

We're two guys who walked away from the typical path to carve out something different. Based in Austin, we’re on a mission to figure out what it takes to live a fulfilled life in a world that often pushes us away from meaning.

We have conversations with people we believe can help us, diving deep into the pillars of health, wealth, and faith, as the cornerstones of our mission.

Whether it's challenging the modern food system, questioning conventional health advice, or building something from the ground up, we're here to explore the tough questions and share the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

If you're tired of the noise and ready to find meaning, tune in and join us!



themeatmafiapodcast.substack.com

J Moody
===

[00:00:00] John, how are you, man? Thanks so much for joining me. It is great to get to see you in person. I've seen a bunch of stuff from you all on X and then we have a few mutuals I've seen stuff from. Um, so it's just super exciting to get to finally chat. It's always great getting to talk to a fellow meat enthusiast such as yourself.

Um, so we have to thank our mutual friend Jimmy Song for connecting us. First of all, he's, he's been amazing. I know that he's going to be a, an important part of the rogue food conference as well. We've had him on the show a little over a year ago. We were lucky to go on his podcast too. He's a great thought leader in the Bitcoin space.

Um, long term carnivore, big into regenerative agriculture, and I, surprisingly, I'm shocked. I had never heard of the Rogue Food Conference, and he was like, you have to meet my buddy John. So I was doing more research on the website before we had our first call, and, you know, topics around regenerative agriculture, the food system, um, just so many things that we're passionate about.

I couldn't [00:01:00] believe that there was such a great event that was so up our alley that I didn't know about, man. And I think, you know, the timing of this episode, the election is coming up. People are starting to question things around the food system in general. I think this is going to be an amazing episode and we'll touch on all those topics.

Yeah. I met Jimmy just a couple of months ago. Um, you know, I spoke at a Bitcoin conference, but not to speak about Bitcoin. Yes. Yeah. I was speaking on, I was speaking on regenerative agriculture, rebuilding households. You know, basically my theme was, You know, turning um, digital assets into tangible assets.

Skills and stuff and community. And Jimmy was there speaking and we just hit it right off when we got to talk with each other. You know, he told me how he's raising beef and wants to, I think he's going to um, the Killin Grill. That we're doing before the Rogue Food Conference because he wants to learn to butcher and stuff.

Um, and it just always thrills me to see people who are working in [00:02:00] different areas. primary focus, but they're not neglecting other important issues. Definitely. And it seems like that's a huge part of the skillset that attendees are getting. It's very interesting to track different people's transformation.

You know, maybe you start changing the actual macro nutrients and switch to a carnivore meat based diet and you're just buying from the grocery store. Then you upgrade to Whole Foods. Then you upgrade to a meat subscription service. Then you upgrade to a local rancher. Maybe you start to learn some butchering skillset like Jimmy is doing, and then maybe you even get into homesteading too, or ranching.

It's a really cool timeline of where you can start versus where you can get up, end up in a few years of intentionality. And I'm sure you think about that all the time.

S: meat timeline, intentionality
---

Yeah. Well, that was our story. You know, I, we were living in Louisville, Kentucky. I got super, super sick. And had a professor at the school I was attending say, Hey, but before you go this route of pills [00:03:00] and procedures, you know, why don't you consider food?

Now, why don't you give Hippocrates a try and let food be your medicine. And we were shopping at Sam's club and Walmart and Kroger. And then we started shopping at Whole Foods and Wild Oats. And then we did a CSA. And then we signed up for a dark alley raw milk drop And then you know a few years later We bought 30 acres and we're raising and butchering our own animals and this and that I run one of the largest local food distribution Operations, you know on my side of the mississippi It's an amazing it's an amazing, uh, we Are you guys both going to do the pod?

Yeah. Little, little father, son, or little father, daughter podcast. I would love that. We, I tried to get her to do a podcast on Tolkien. Maybe I'll revisit it. That'd be more of her alley. We'd love to have her on in the [00:04:00] future for sure. Will she be at the, will she be at the conference too? We'll see, uh, in Texas.

So we'll see. I haven't decided quite yet who all we're bringing. Um, Yeah, so it's, you know, I have six kids, um, and who we bring to events, it's always a juggling act. Totally. If I'm bringing the whole family, because again, you know, we have a homestead. We have 60, 70 laying chickens, we have meat chickens, sometimes we have pigs, sometimes we have turkeys.

Um, so it's always, you know, it's a big life change. when you start adding animals into your life, which is why I'm always grateful for farmers and people who are selling meat, because a lot of people don't understand, uh, just how different a responsibility it is, said it is, to take on a lot of animals to feed other people.

Definitely. I can only imagine your [00:05:00] perspective on life, death, responsibility. We're going to dig into all of that. And I w I didn't, I actually didn't realize that the catalyst for this journey was you getting sick, which is amazing because a lot of times these negative, you perceive negative outcomes end up becoming this incredibly positive experience and gateway to transformation.

I always just think back to my pastor always says that God's plans for you are so much bigger than your own. And I feel like you're a really good example of that. Um, I'm just curious, John, what was the space in between you buying raw milk from the back alley dealer to you homesteading? What was that moment?

What was the decision like to decide, Hey, I really care about the food I'm putting into my system. I really care about this regenerative lifestyle. I'm now going to go ahead and start a homestead knowing that it's probably going to be a lot of work. The, the biggest problem for us is, you know, we're in Kentucky.

Um, the joke in Kentucky is, Kentucky is 20 years behind the rest of the country. Hmm. [00:06:00] And so I'm going to local farmer's markets, trying to find pasture raised non GMO animals in unsprayed organic fruits and vegetables. And so this would've been 2005, 2000, you know, 2004, 2005, and maybe one out of every 10 farmers.

Was anywhere close to regenerative, organic non GMO in how they were farming. And I started asking the farmers, why, why, why, you know, why do you have to give your cows corn and soy, you know, and not just, not just give your cows soy, but give them processed soy protein juice. Like, like, were cows dying in the field before this was invented?

Were they not making it to butcher? And, and none of the farmers had good [00:07:00] answers for me. A lot of them would just say, well, you can't do it any other way, John. Can't do it any other way. And I was just like, well, I'm just going to buy 30 acres of land and I'm going to see who's telling the truth.

S - "cant do it any other way"
---

Wow. It was really just that kind of mindset where.

I got so tired of being told, um, you can't raise animals this way.

Banger
---

You know, you can't raise chickens outside on pasture. They'll all die. Or they'll run away and join the circus. You know, you can't raise cows solely on grass and forage and stuff. You know, they have to have modern grain stuffs and processed protein supplements.

And it was just so baffling to me, but it's one of the challenges. If you're somebody who begins to deal with farmers in certain parts of the country, um, most people in America think all of human history basically started in the [00:08:00] 1950s.

Banger
---

You know, like the way we raise our kids where it's just normal to have to lace them with antibiotics once or twice a year.

Um, you know, earaches are common, being overweight, like all of these assumptions about modern life and modern farming and agriculture. They didn't exist before 70 years ago. And people treat them as, you know, a religion that you can't violate. That you're just like, straight out heretic if you begin to question these types of assumptions.

Um, and so my wife and I decided we would just question every single assumption, you know, so we're that homesteading, homeschooling, home birthing family, um, that Jim Gaffigan talks, tells jokes about in his comedy specials. Well, what I think is really cool is the space has made so many positive strides just the last three years alone, this [00:09:00] open questioning, um, decision to understand, Hey, Raw milk versus pasteurized milk, good quality meat versus the industrial model, sending our children to public school versus potentially homeschooling, bringing back God at home versus atheism.

Um, but when you started, when you and your wife started doing this, this is 20 years ago, right? It's crazy to think that 2004, 2005 is about two decades ago. How different was the space at that time? Like what was the perception of regenerative agriculture and homeschooling and a lot of these really important decisions you and your wife chose to make at the time?

I mean, in our part of the country, most people thought we had lost our minds.

banger
---

Um, you know, so we didn't plan to have our first daughter, Abby, at home. We were going to use a midwife in a hospital. And. Um, I guess it's around 26 weeks of pregnancy, they make you do a gestational diabetes test. And what [00:10:00] they make your wife do is they make her fast for 12 or 14 hours or something.

So she's, you know, she eats an early dinner the day before. She's not allowed to eat again until after this test. They take her, you take her to the hospital and I mean I could almost pull a, I got a copy of the ingredient label of the drink they make your wife and unborn baby drink. It's like 83 ingredients, utter crap.

And then they see how her body responds in terms of its glucose, insulin, and other response to this crap drink. And then they decide if she has a risk of gestational diabetes. So I was looking at this test and look and I just said no said I'm not having you do this to my wife and my unborn child in the midwife And people had never had anybody tell them no before.

Yes And they actually fired us. Um, they sent us a letter saying they [00:11:00] had fired us as clients um, and and that really Put you know, that's what really propelled us even harder. So we're like, okay Well, if they're not going to respect us on this, what's it going to be like during labor and delivery? You know, and so we just plunged all the way into doing home births that everybody thought we were.

You know, the number of people who didn't think we were nuts was

banger
---

minuscule. And now, you know, at the church we go to, probably the majority of women are doing home births who have babies. You know, that's the sea change in two decades. That's it. That's incredible. It sounds like there was a lot of faith behind your decision making process between both you and your wife.

And it's crazy to think that you literally got fired as a client for questioning the efficacy of an 83 ingredient drink that your baby is also going to be inheriting

banger
---

too. Yeah. It is, you [00:12:00] know, just the whole, you know, that's why I realize agriculture is where energy needs to go because fixing the medical system is gonna be really, really hard.

S2
---

Mm-Hmm. . You know, there's a number of areas that, because of the regulatory climate, because of the power of the corporations that operate in these industries. Making substantive change is going to be slow until those systems break so badly that there's no choice. But I'm like, you can make change in agriculture.

Because, you know, I can't change a hospital, but I can change a farm. I, I can't change, um, you know, standards of care that insurance companies impose on doctors. But I can start a local food buying club. And change the diets of 4, 000 people a month. John, have you heard of the company called [00:13:00] crowd health before?

I have. Yeah, they're, um, they're so up your alley. It's crazy. Their founder, Andy's been on the podcast three times. He's done the hat trick. And it's really just, I think how insurance was initially designed to be where it's a, you know, it's a community. I think they have And they have 8, 000 members. We all pay to be a part of the community.

They have a Bitcoin crowd, a carnivore crowd. You and I, we might know each other, but we might not. But we can assume that we have a similar ethos with that libertarian perspective. And I think they have a 99. 8 percent success rate in terms of bills that are covered. And they actually, they had 30 members go through the home birthing process in 2023 alone.

Oh, and that's the crazy thing is, you know, my goal is to re empower people, you know, like, um, it's like a hospital birth now probably costs 15, 20, 25, 000 bucks, depending on where you live. Yeah. [00:14:00] And you know, he, back in 2004, I think we paid 1, 400 for a midwife. Um, you know, when I, one of our favorite home birth memories is my son, Noah, who was born Christmas Eve, 2011.

It's like my, my wife wakes up at four in the morning and she's in early labor. He gave birth probably around nine o'clock and at 1130, she's laying on the couch with my newborn baby. I'm making pancakes and waffles for the family. And it's just like, everybody's so happy. Nobody's trying to steal our baby, shove it under McMuffin lights.

Um, you know, it's, and to have that back in your family, to be like, man, we can do these things. Um, they can actually be affordable. We don't need to be chucking out huge amounts of money. We don't need to be treating everything as a disease. [00:15:00] Um, you know, You know, it's just such a game changer when you expose people to a different paradigm.

And as you said, you know, the 2020 on was such a sea change and people going, man, maybe I do want to consider getting my meat directly from a farmer because the grocery cases in the grocery store are suddenly disappearing. You know, maybe I want to consider having a home birth because. Maybe all the things they want to do to my wife and baby Aren't actually necessary.

Maybe they're actually possibly harmful even

Banger
---

Yeah, it's it's a great point john how all these different pieces are connected and we have had a few females on that have either multiple home births or their duelers or midwives or specialists in the home birthing process. But I'm curious,

M2
---

what do you think men should know about the home birthing process for new fathers or people that are, that want to be fathers?

Like I'm curious the male [00:16:00] perspective on this whole thing. Yeah, it is. So I'm a, I was born in 1978 there. So I grew up watching mainstream media, 80s and 90s. And. You know, uh, what was that really popular show? ER. Um, and then a lot of the family shows they treat birth as a disease. They treat birth as a dangerous medical condition or possible disease that without a doctor's intervention will lead to disaster.

Homebirthing shorts
---

And what birth is, Is a slightly risky normal life event, like driving your car that requires proper preparation and planning to help ensure it will go right. Um, you know, that, that, that birth is something your wife is designed to do. You know, it's, it's not a problem [00:17:00] with your wife. Her body was made to give birth to a baby.

Um, it's a natural process that your wife needs support during, um, not to be stressed out during, you know, the other thing I always tell men is even if you think home birth is best, unless your wife is on board, it's not likely to go well. Um, you know, normally it's usually the wife who's very gung ho, maybe about doing home birth and the husband's a little bit nervous about it.

Um, My wife and I, thankfully, were both totally on the same page, especially after interactions with the hospital midwife and stuff. Um, but what really makes Homebirth successful is both of you feeling confident in that choice, and then both of you investing the time and planning to make that choice go well.

Um, we've had a few friends over the years, We've let be [00:18:00] here during home births, some female friends, obviously. And every single one of them who was here during one of my wife's births, they were utterly blown away by how different it was. Um, cause some of them were older women who had had hospital births.

Um, some were younger women who had never even been pregnant yet. And every single one of them was just like, Like, this is how birth was made to be, isn't it? You know, it's a woman surrounded by other supportive, caring people bringing a new image bearer into the world in a loving, low stress, joyful environment and being cared for.

Um, you know, so it's super, super cool once you get over the stress factor. No, I, there's so many good pieces of, there's so many good pieces of information you just dropped too, and I think you very astutely pointed out, it's like sometimes we just [00:19:00] forget common logic and how God fundamentally designed women to be able to give birth to children, and all of a sudden we think about any time period before the 1950s as the dark ages, and it's actually, home birthing is not super dissimilar to our perception on red meat, where it's like, We've thrived on red meat for 2.

5 million years. We didn't just stop the ability to metabolize it effectively in the 1950s. We've always been designed to eat it. Just like we've always been designed for women to deliver children through the home birthing process. Yeah. And when our bodies have always been designed to be able to fight off infections, you know, it's, it's like we've, we've normalized the unnatural and criminalized the The

banger
---

natural, which is really baffling until you know, just kind of understand the arc of the last hundred years of American history.

Well said, John. I'm curious from a homesteading [00:20:00] perspective too. What animals did you start with? And, um, 20 years ago? We started with animals like these. Who's this little guy? This is our youngest, my son Daniel, who just had to be gotten out of bed at the end of his nap. He's not, not too excited to be awake yet, but he will be soon.

Yeah, for the, for the listener that can't see on camera, we've got this awesome roster of your, of John's children just flowing in and out of the podcast. It's actually incredible. Yeah, it's, you know, we, you know, we have a real, that's the other thing I love about our life is, um, Yeah. You know, most people's homes are empty castles of consumption.

We've gotten bigger and bigger homes over the past 50 years, that people spend less and less time in. And when they are in them, it's not like they use their homes to do [00:21:00] anything productive anymore, which is such a sea change from all of human history that it's really hard to get modern people even to imagine.

how different homes were a hundred years ago. I'll send you a quote after the interview from the 1933 President Hoover's report on social trends in America. This is almost a hundred years ago. It's a report on the changing nature of the American populace and society. And there's this quote in there. I'm going to paraphrase.

It basically says gone from the home were all of its traditional function. And then it lists all of these functions and it lists things You and I would never think were the responsibility of a home education Security and protection, you know, like like if my home's in danger, I gotta call 9 1 1. That's not my job [00:22:00] um Religious duties, but like it just it just lists all of these things Um hospitality, you know, where did hotels come from?

Like hotels are a relatively modern invention, especially the scale we have them. Why? Because traditionally you stayed with extended family. Like hospitality was a duty of your family to show to others who you knew. Um, and so we just love having recaptured Some of that nature of what a home really is supposed to be and what a home can be.

S3 home
---

Yeah, it makes me think about, you know, the traditional modern family usage of a home. Hopefully there it's cooking and sharing a meal, which is good, but probably the majority of meals aren't really being prepared from scratch. The connection point is probably in the family room over television. Maybe there's some light conversation.

But now it's really transitioning [00:23:00] towards all the children being in their rooms, just mindlessly scrolling on social media and there really is no connection. So, and then sleeping. And those are really like the four primary functions now contrasted to this comprehensive list that I haven't even thought about that you just presented.

It's pretty amazing. Yeah, it's great. And, and, you know, so for us, you ask what animal we did first, everybody does laying chickens first. Um, you know, egg laying chickens are the gateway drug. To all sorts of other excitement with animals. Um, and it makes sense. It's low cost to get into laying chickens. You know, if you have a chicken die, it's sad.

If you have a cow die, it's a financial setback. Um, you know, and so we started with chickens. We've done chickens, cows, pigs, turkeys, ducks, um, meat birds, rabbits. Trying to think if we've raised any other animals [00:24:00] at this point. Um, yeah, we have a rabbit too. You want to tell everybody he's now ready to talk a little.

You got a little rabbit. Yeah. So you can sit a little higher. You got a good smile. He's got a great, he's got a great smile. He really does. He's Oh, animal in the wild that came from the wild there. Can you say hi? Yes. He's a little shy. Yeah, he's just waking up. Yeah, you know, so we started, you know, we started with easy animals.

We took our licks on those. And then we would just expand when it was appropriate. Um, you know, we'd love to get back to doing cattle again. Because beef cattle were absolutely our favorite. Um, we just, we realized we'd have to re fence. A good portion of our property and we're like that's gonna take some time and a fair bit of [00:25:00] money So I think we might add land back next year.

That's awesome. So end of milk cow So we're looking at getting our first milk cow now that we have old enough kids Well, we need to fuel your raw milk ice cream addiction. So And so you were saying that when a cow dies, it's a financial setback because of the resources you're investing into the cow and then the potential money that could be made harvesting the whole animal.

Is that correct? Exactly. You know, if a laying chicken dies, the most you're going to financially lose is like 20 to 40. You have an eight month old cow die. You might've just, you're looking at a thousand, a 1, 500, a 2, 000 loss. You know, which is why I always tell people, unless you have animal raising experience going straight to cows, unless [00:26:00] you're well capitalized and can eat the risk is not where I would suggest starting.

Um, you know, because again, if a chicken gets hurt or something and it dies, you know, you just get more baby chicks, you raise them out. But if a cow gets injured, you really have to have medical knowledge for cows. Or you're going to be calling a veterinarian in a, you know, my area, a minimum vet visit, like base vet cost is 160 just to come out and look at the animal, not even treat it.

Um, Um, you know, so cows and other animals are just absolutely fabulous, but it's good for listeners to realize, you know, people who are raising our food take on real financial and other risks because they're caring for living things. How is your perspective with life death changed since homesteading [00:27:00] 20 years ago?

It reminds me of how much as our society has became less agrarian and less connected to nature and reality. Um, why it's so hard for us to talk about so many subjects. You know, my kids grew up watching animals live, die, be butchered. That, you know, so, so. When the Bible talks about death, it's, it's, um, it's something my kids already have a, an inherent understanding of.

Everything dies. And, and, and you're not hiding it from them, like modern people who tend to try and hide themselves from these truths. Or you talk about things like mating, sexuality, and stuff. Like, my kids are breeding animals. So, Um, all of these subjects that are so awkward for parents [00:28:00] to try and talk about with their kids, they wouldn't have been awkward until very recently in human history.

Because you're literally, you know, most parents a hundred years ago were saying to their kids, Has the bull bred the cow yet? You know, most people would blush their ears out to hear that said at a dinner table. But when you're a farming or homesteading family, It's, it's just, it's normal life. It's no longer a kind of an odd taboo subject.

Um, and it's no longer, Oh, this big blushing subject. Yeah. There's no morality around it. It's just how life is created. Yeah. You know, and then it gives you a good opportunity to, um, transfer into what the Bible teaches about these things. You know, why is there death? Well, there's death because of sin. You know, what is the purpose of procreation?[00:29:00]

Um, so it gives you opportunities to have discussions with your kids that are really natural instead of so many people who are like trying to find the appropriate time to finally talk to their teenagers about such stuff. Hmm. Yeah, and the beauty of how connected you are to the homestead and to these animals.

I don't know. The one thing I will, I will say, I will admit I've never, I have never gone hunting before. It's definitely a goal that I have in the future. And I know a lot of ranchers personally and homesteaders, but I've never done, you know, I don't have my own homestead, but I will tell you with a lot of the meat that I've bought from farmers that I am friends with, or even some of the harvests I've gone to, I remember just feeling almost like this connection to the meat and the animal and this responsibility of like really clearing my plate and also inheriting those nutrients and going out and doing something really just, just meaningful in the world because, because the animal is forfeiting their life for your [00:30:00] nutritional gain.

So I can only imagine the responsibility and the level of connection that you and your family feel. I'm doing this for 20 years and being so close to the animals. Yeah, there's a great quote. I can't remember if it's C. S. I think it's C. S. Lewis, but it might be Tolkien, where he talks about this level of connection when you truly live somewhere and where you live is what feeds you.

Um, you know, he basically says, you know, no wonder people describe the trees as talking. Um, And the streams of singing and stuff because they had such an intimate relation with their ecosystem because in a real way, that ecosystem is what gave them life. Yeah. Well said, John. Um, I would love to just for the listener, cause I think our listeners are going to be really interested in this.

When did the inspiration come for the Rogue Food Conference and [00:31:00] why did you think it was something necessary to create and put on? Yeah, so Joel Salatin and I became friends back around 2012, uh, trying to get arrested together. Yeah. It was the first time I ever met Joel. Best way to make new friends. Lot of, yeah.

Let's, let's violate some federal laws and see what happens. And so, um, Joel and I became friends and became more friends over the coming years. Sometime around 2017, Joel and I were having lunch together at a conference we were both speaking at. And, we're having lunch, shooting the breeze, getting caught up on different things.

And, you remember? You weren't even born. My little three year old, I remember that, and I'm like, no, no, no, you weren't there yet. Um, and so, Joel looks at me over lunch, and he goes, he goes, I'm just so annoyed. He goes, just once, I want to go to a [00:32:00] conference, where instead of teaching me how to jump through the newest set of circus hoops that the government's trying to oppose on people, they teach me how to not comply.

They teach me how to walk away. They teach me how to circumvent the silliness. And I looked at Joel, and I go, Joel, nobody is ever going to put on this conference. Like, like, nobody in their right mind will ever put on this conference. And you might be like, well, John, why would you say that? Go, go look at any agricultural conference and look who the sponsors and vendors are.

The sponsors and vendors are Cargill, and Monsanto, and Farm Bureau. And the land grant universities, and your state ag department. Like, all of the people who are coming up with these rules, and [00:33:00] benefit from them, are who put on events like this. And, you know, so I say this to Joel, And Joel takes a moment.

And if you know, Joel, he used to all, he used to often or always wear suspenders and he sits back in his chair and he puts his thumbs in his suspenders and he runs up his suspenders and he goes, well, then we will. Um, and so I got voluntold by Joel Salatin. Um, and we spent a few years kind of thinking and planning and talking.

And then 2020, January, 2020, 2020. Right before all of the lockdowns and craziness is when we did the first event. Wow. So talk about the best possible timing ever, because you have all these people there that are interested and then a few months later they can apply what they're actually learning. That's incredible.

Yeah. Well, and it's, you know, so like this Texas event we're doing in November, the family who's doing the food for Saturday and [00:34:00] who are teaching the ultimate killing grill. They came to that first road food in 2020 and they were so blown away. They went an apprentice under a butcher and now he is going to teach people how to feel harvest a steer, how to feel dress it and how to do a whole steer cook to feed a large gathering real food straight off the farm.

Wow. Um, and that's been the real blessing for Joel and I. It is to, you know, every year we do one or two of these events. Every year we're just trying to faithfully plug away. We go to different parts of the country every year with the event. And show people, this is what's possible. You can build a local food buying club.

You can start a food church. You can build an educational butchering operation. Um, you can start an on farm membership [00:35:00] club. And then feed people pizza because you're not selling them pizza. They're buying a membership in your farm. You can circumvent and not comply and move the needle, you know, move the game piece down the board to where we want it to be.

And to see people who came to Rogue in 2020, 2021, 2022, who did that. They went back to where they were from. They built things. They started things. And they're changing the landscape around where they are. Just tickles Joel and I to death. And, you know, now some of them are becoming our speakers. Some of.

All right, John. How are you, man? Good. How are you?

I'm doing great so, the listener is going to notice that as we're picking this episode back up, you got cut off halfway through your sentence because there was a very severe outage where you were living. Um, your family's okay. There were some [00:36:00] trees that went down, some road blockages. We're super, super grateful that you and your family are doing okay.

Okay. And then you and I picked back up part two for the last 20 minutes. You were spinning some incredible knowledge out and then my bonehead didn't record it. So this is part, this is potentially part three. So we've had a lot of barriers to get this episode out, but I think it's going to make it that much better.

Yeah, it's, it's great to be back. Thanks audience for understanding. Um, you know, our hearts and thoughts go out to people affected much worse than we were. Um, so we just had a little bit of, a little bit of roof damage, some trees down on roads, and a few hours without power, um, which is no big deal. Um, other people have it a lot worse, but it's great to be back.

We're, we're, we're very grateful that you and your family are doing well, and We were saying that I think what would be great for the audience is for you to just break down a little bit, just who would this conference be good [00:37:00] for? You know, what are the big learnings and takeaways that they could expect, um, by attending Rogue Food in November, on November 8th and 9th?

Yeah, so the biggest thing I usually hear from attendees, uh, regardless of if they're just an eater living in the city, Or a farmer trying to make a living on their land or a homesteader. Um, the biggest thing I hear from people is that they leave the event feeling hopeful. You know, we're in a day and age where hope is at a premium.

You know, you look at what's, you look at what's going on internationally. You look at what's going on nationally. You look at the national debt. You look at our national government. You look at what the USDA and the agricultural sector is doing. You look at what's going on in pharma. And it's, it's just like, for good reason, it's just discouraging.

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It's discouraging to see so much stupidity. It's discouraging to see so much [00:38:00] needless drama. And people come to Rogue. And they, they meet people, um, who are hopeful. And who really think we can make a difference. Who really think. You know, maybe not nationally, may, you know, maybe not internationally, but what a difference you can make in your state, in your locality to to hear speakers who have literally reshaped entire state for the good of everybody in that state in terms of diet, economics, farming freedom, homesteading freedom, and to walk away and be like, I can be that person.

I can be that person who literally changes my community, my county, maybe even my entire state in ways I would have never dreamed of. I love that. I, I really do think that, I think anxiety comes from, [00:39:00] knowing the information or the playbook that you should be following yet not taking action on it. So I couldn't agree more, especially in this age of social media where I think a lot of people are coming aware of, you know, 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese.

85 percent of all the meat in the grocery store is, you know, it's monopolized by four large Packers. It's like we can cite these statistics. And it's very easy for that content to go viral. But then I think it's important to understand why the system currently is the way that it is, but we're missing that second part, which is actually taking action.

So you're the type of person where you enjoy the type of people where you're just putting on these events where it's like, Hey, come for two days, we will teach you as much applicable information as possible. And then you can create those ripples back in your local community where if you're someone that wants to homestead.

Or you want to understand the economics and the profit of building a successful, a homestead operation or butchering an animal, you can come to this event, learn all of [00:40:00] that, and then actually create that action that you're craving so you don't live in this place of fear and anxiety. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of what we teach applies to other, other nitty gritty areas.

So we've had doctors and other people come. And now they're experimenting with using protections of membership associations. Uh, food church, you know, instead of a food church, a medical church. Uh, hilarious story. Many, many years ago, a Native American tribe, after the federal government raided my buying club, they heard about my work in food and farming and ecology.

and they offered me membership, um, to be, to become a member of this Native American tribe. Wow. Because of some of the protections it affords you, you know, which I just thought was like super cool. Um, and so there's, you know, just stuff like that. You know, you don't, you don't have to [00:41:00] be a farmer or homesteader to learn how to make change in an area that might be your primary focus or passion.

John, um, tell the audience a little bit about the food that you're going to be providing at the event too, because this is incredible. Yeah. So, you know, first time I ever heard Joel speak in person was at a conference here in Louisville, Kentucky, or even knew Joel. Um, he was the keynote speaker and I was a speaker on a local food panel at this local food event up in Louisville.

And imagine you're the dude who hired Joel to speak at this event. And we're all sitting down for the lunch during the keynote. And it's like all Cisco boxed food right off a Cisco service truck or whatever. And Joel gets up and he's working through his speech and he goes, Why are we eating processed Cisco food from local food conferences?

[00:42:00] Why is this food going, why are the leftovers going in a garbage can instead of recycling bins to go back to the farms And put the fertility back where it belongs. And you know, I was looking around for the organizer, trying to see like how he was feeling about being called out by his keynote speaker at their event.

But you know, Rogue has always been built on two principles. The people we platform really do what they say. You're not getting somebody who threw up a YouTube channel six months ago. It is really good at video production, but it's homesteaded for eight, eight months, two months before they were on YouTube.

These are all people who have done what they've been doing for many, many years. Um, and then the food we serve at the event matches our values. Like, yes, it's a bit more complicated. Yes, it adds a little bit [00:43:00] to the cost of the, I mean, you know, the cost for what food is for us at Rode. is less than eating out at Chili's, per person.

Um, and so this event, uh, Sean and Amy Kelly, Crunchy Mama Farms, they're doing a butchering class, uh, for the three days before the event. You know, it's Wednesday, Thursday, part of Friday. And the people who do that class, it's called the Ultimate Killin Grill. Uh, you're gonna learn how to harvest and prepare a whole steer, a whole pig.

and something like 45 chickens. Wow. So over those three days, you will get the trifecta of butchering experience. And you'll also see how to do high quality food at scale for a larger number of people, which is of itself is a huge business opportunity. That's amazing. It's just, it's just Yeah, you're just doing the [00:44:00] necessary work of teaching people the skills that you guys have cultivated for multiple decades.

That way we can learn these things, pass it on, and actually have the change that we want to be. So I think hopeful is probably the perfect word to describe it because when you, when you understand what's possible with this skill set, How could you not be hopeful for the future because you're really just it's it's really biblical You're living in line with god and eating god foods and respecting his land and yeah, it's pretty incredible Yeah, you know the other thing we really hope attendees will get out of the event Is the need to just go do it?

You know, so when you look at the states in america Where people enjoy the most? Food and other freedoms. You know, you look at Wyoming, you look at South Dakota, you look at Maine, you look at Tennessee, you look at Utah, and people are like, well, why can't my state be like those states? What's the difference?

Well, the difference is you. [00:45:00] The people in those states just one day woke up and decided, and it wasn't even that many people. Um, but, but a significant number of people woke up. 3%, 4%, 5%, 10 percent just one day woke up and are like, I'm going to buy that chicken pot pie from my neighbor anyway. I'm going to sell produce on my street anyway.

I'm going to support my neighbors and my farmers anyway. And eventually the states had no choice but to recognize it legally and otherwise. They just realized. It was a losing battle to put moms in jail over making tortilla chips for playgroup in their home kitchen. Um, and that's what Joel and I really want people to realize is, you know, you, um, we tend to focus on things that matter the least and that we can make the least [00:46:00] difference with.

Totally. You know, this is one of the, you know, we focus on International politics and national politics and what these massive corporations are doing. And I'm like, I, I can't do anything about that, but Yeah. I can totally change my local community. I can change my county. Um, I, the, you know, On a, on a road like ours, three or four good families who are ready to clear trees and help neighbors can, can completely change the culture for the better.

of a three mile county road, and that's what we really want people to realize is, um, you know, you, there's just so many things you're not going to be able to affect in life, but like Symbria and Sarah Patterson who spoke at Rogue at Polyface two years ago, this is just a mom and a daughter who had a small farm and have completely [00:47:00] remade, I think they're now responsible.

For getting over 40 or 50 bills passed at the state level. That's amazing. Talking real change here, man. Yeah. And every state where that's happening, it's just like really typical average people like them who just realized I can do something other than complain. I can actually be change. I want to see.

Yes. It's like we were saying when we realized we weren't recording. We can sit here and complain about the Siete PepsiCo acquisition. And like we said, it's a very gray issue. There's, it's very, it's not simply black and white, but let's actually focus on the things that we can control. Yeah. And that's it.

It's like, if you, if, if you're worried about the Siete Pepsi, Pepsi acquisition, there has to be somebody, you know, who would love to learn to make tortilla chips and sell them in your community. [00:48:00] You know, there are those people. You just have to make it possible. Just, you know, um, this is like, um, cottage food, which has grown immensely in America over the past 20 years.

Yes. Cottage food laws. Where did these come from? Because people wanted to buy stuff from their neighbors. They didn't just complain about the problems and distrust. They had for the foods at the grocery store, which as we talked about is at times really warranted, but that they just started buying things directly from people and the states had to adapt to the reality of our choices.

You know, people have to remember the government exists to serve us, not us serve the government. And when the government is not serving us, the right response you. Is to do what's right and good anyway until the government gets back in line That's a really [00:49:00] powerful and helpful mental model.

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Um John, I would love to just point our listeners in the right direction for someone that Is getting internally motivated and fired up and excited by what you're saying and they might be interested in going to the rogue food conference in november What's the best way for them to uh to purchase tickets?

Tickets are on our website, which is roguefoodconference. com. Um, and we set up a discount code for your listeners of Mafia 10. And that'll give you 10 off any ticket type. Um, even including the VIP tickets for the Friday night VIP dinner. That's awesome. And the dates are November 8th and 9th, correct? Yep, November 8th and 9th.

Um, it's on, it's north and west of the airport. Um, so it's a beautiful church called Met Church. that is on the northwest side of Dallas Fort Worth, um, and then Crunchy Mama Farms where the Killen Grill and, um, the VIP dinner and stuff is [00:50:00] happening. That's northwest, uh, out of the metro area. That's awesome, man.

Well, at the time of releasing this will be a month out, which is perfect timing because we do have a lot of Texas based listeners, but I'm sure there are people that will be listening all over the country that will want to fly in for this man. But, um, I'm so glad that Jimmy was able to connect us. I'm so glad that we're friends now and I get to know you and get to learn from everything you're doing.

Just really inspired and energized. And that's really why Harry and I started this podcast is we just wanted to learn from guys like you that have done the really rewarding hard, um, work for the last two decades, man. So just thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for putting on an event like rogue food and just thank you for being on the podcast, brother.

I appreciate it. Yeah. Well, we, we so appreciate what you're doing. Um, you know, it's one of my greatest joys in life. Is going from like one of the toys on the aisle of misfit toys Because when my wife and I [00:51:00] started this 20 years ago, you know people heard we were home birthing our kids and they were just like You want your children to die?

um, and they saw us shopping at the local farmer's market and no longer buying boxed processed foods and And now you know guys like you are doing the really hard work Again, pulling more and more people into the system. We really want to see be the future of our country, future of our community, future of our families.

And so thank you all so much. Thank you, man. No, it's, um, I think that what I can say is we've met many of our closest friends and mentors through doing what we're doing. And I think the tide has already been pushed forward in a massive direction the last three years. And, um, it's going to be exciting to see where we're all at a few years down the road.

And I think you nailed it earlier. I think everyone just needs to be hopeful for the future because God's [00:52:00] plans, number one, are just bigger than our own and he'll provide for us. And number two, all the, all the right information is out there, man. It's just up to us to listen to it and actually do that action like you're doing brother.

So thank you again so much. Great, man. Thanks for having me on. Awesome. Thanks, John.