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Where food opens the door to conversations about craft, culture & tradition.
The Wild Kitchen Ep 4 Jeff Senger
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Tiffany: [00:00:00] A number of years ago, I was watching From the Wild, a beautiful show about hunting, foraging, and food. When I first learned about Jeff Sanger, he struck me as a highly articulate and unapologetically passionate person. I'm very excited to have him here with me today on The Wild Kitchen. Thank you for being here, Jeff.
Jeff: Thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited about our conversation today.
Tiffany: You know, we were texting a little bit and I'm like, oh damn, I gotta get Jeff on here. I think when Travis, for people that, um, that haven't listened to your podcast with Travis on the Silver Core Podcast, um, I know I kind of sat back jealously a little bit.
I'm like, oh, damn. I wish I could talk to Jeff. I, uh, I get kind of fired up, uh, hearing other people that are passionate about hunting and food and butchery and all these things and, um, yeah. So it's very cool to have you here today and. Speaking of passion, um, [00:01:00] for anyone that wants to check out a cool Instagram feed, go to yours.
My goodness. You like, you are, I think unapologetic is the best way to put it. Like, you don't hide things from people. You're like, this is what reality is and this is what it looks like. And, and you, you really just kind of like put it out there for people to see.
Jeff: Yeah, for sure. Um, in the beginning, uh, after.
Transitioning away from accounting and buying a slaughterhouse in 2010. Um, I, I met with my, my, my soon to be partner, Kevin Cowan, and we hung out and did a lot of hunting from the wild. And, and that's sort of, um, what you referenced. And, and, uh, so, so part of me lives in the world of wild and wild food and filmmaking in, in that sort of context.
And Kevin and I had lots of, uh, late night conversations about what, uh, what of the process of hunting animals and doing the outdoor stuff, what should we show? What's, and, and, uh, [00:02:00] what we show, what we share, and how we approach the harvesting of live creatures in order to create food. And, um, and then sort of on the side, my, my full-time gig was learning how to operate and run this, uh, this slot, the slaughterhouse that we, that we bought on kind of a.
It was a bit of a whim. It was kind of a dare. I, I was working as an accountant, working as an accountant, and I thought, I'm tired of counting, uh, uh, people's money for them and, um, working with a lot of incompetent people in industry. And, uh, so I sat had this sort of, uh, life shift again. I was about 32. Um, my wife and I had transitioned to moving rurally from, from living in the city.
Uh, but, but, um. Uh, we were really passionate together, passionate about food, and that's sort of where, where the wild kitchen, uh, uh, transition or what do we call this? Like a, an an overlap, right? So there's food and there's wild hunting. Um, but my wife and I loved, loved cooking. We bought this farm in, in [00:03:00] 2006 and, uh, and left, uh, Calgary at the time started producing our own food and, and, and, and having kids and realized the importance of the quality of what goes into the food matters, what, how the food is produced, affects, uh, flavor, quality, nutrition, all that kind of stuff.
And, uh, and then I kind of dared myself to buy a small business after getting tired of their daily routine of working for, uh, pulp and paper and, and power and utility kind of sorts of accounting controllership roles. And, uh, this small slaughterhouse was up for sale in our community. I had participated in local economic development, uh, kind of work, and we knew that if our small, this town of Sangudo near where our farm is, if it lost that one piece of infrastructure, it would affect, um, all of the local area hobby farmers and ranchers and the, the larger, medium and large size, uh, producers because they wouldn't be able to take their animals to get processed, um, any, anywhere.
Near as close as the plant in Santo. So, um, we kind of put [00:04:00] together this plan. And then, uh, it was funny because we built a community financing model around acquiring the slaughterhouse. And I, there's 15 or 20 of us in the room, uh, small producers, uh, farmers and ranchers and just, uh, people in the community that didn't wanna see sangudo sort of disappear off the map.
And they said, yeah, well that's a great slaughterhouse. We kind of made a deal with the existing owner who is an old man in his seventies, who was notoriously crochety. And, uh, and the, the community said, yeah, but who's gonna run it? Like, who's gonna actually do the work? And it was one of those, um, all the other community economic development people took us a step back.
And myself and, and this other guy were kind of like, I, we looked at each other and, and, and thought, well, probably us. Like we could do it. We could. We're ready for career change. And so that entered into the world of, of, of me immersing into meat in the year 2010. Um,
Tiffany: so if it was like the local bakery in town, you could just as easily have been here being like, yep, [00:05:00] I am Sangudo Bakery.
I'm the one that, uh, you know, continued on in this path. Or was there something specific about the slaughterhouse that made it easier for you to take that leap?
Jeff: Yeah, I, I think that's where being like, I call myself semi literate, like having read, like having read some books. Yeah. And having a, like a profound curiosity about, I mean, about nature, uh, and about food meant that I read some books and, and followed some people, uh, um, online that were sort of key thinkers in the industry.
Michael Pollan sort of pops into mind and then a bunch of, a bunch of meat curing books, uh, both like old traditional ones and more modern books about meat curing and putting up game, um. And I mean, like, I had been hunting since I was old enough to, to follow my dad around with a 22. Uh, he, although we lived in the city, he hunted for two or three weeks every fall.
And I really liked that time of year and was [00:06:00] excited to do, as a kid, I was doing butchery in the garage with all the old guys chain smoking and, and, and cutting moose and deer in the garage. Um, so I had that sort of early exposure and then it, and then it kind of a deep interest peaked and, and then this, this absolutely weird business slaughterhouse comes for sale in my community.
The community kind of needs it. And, uh, I put together some spreadsheets and I'm like, this could probably make a living for a person who no longer has to, I, I didn't have to commute. Uh, you know, I was commuting into white court from our farm, which was kind of 40 minutes each way. I'm like, I could probably run that.
And more deeply explore my curiosity and not just preparing foods and, um, especially peculiar foods, uh, like whole, like fermented sausage or dry cured whole muss pork, that kind of stuff. Um, beef Bria, those were all curiosities. I was fooling around with, uh, with, with moose and deer and bear and, and, and, uh, waterfowl at home and on the farm.
Um, but then, uh, you know, conventional [00:07:00] animals, uh, livestock animals, and we, we took a dip. Our, our gateway livestock on the farm were, were laying hens. And the lay hand is like a miracle because their, the nature of their eggs that they lay change. They're, they're significantly different and immediately different compared with the grocery store eggs.
Um, and they change, they can change daily depending on what the animal, the hen, what the hen is eating. And so we thought, well, if, if, if we can see this big a change when we feed some greens to the, the chickens or the, the chickens are out on, on green grass or eating grasshoppers or whatever, then and, and those eggs change that much, then does that also apply to basically every other, um, animal-based food?
And the answer is, yeah. And profoundly
Tiffany: is it, is it as immediate as a, as a chicken or are you seeing, you know,
Jeff: no
Tiffany: longer term? Yeah,
Jeff: I think, yeah, less. Um, the, the production cycle for conventional animals came into [00:08:00] question and became a curiosity that, let's say a barn raised pig in, uh, conventional hog grazing facilities, which are appalling.
Uh, the more I learned about it, the more turned off pork I or conventional pork I got, um. But that might be a six month turnaround from Pharaoh to fork. Uh, a pig, a pig goes from being born to being eaten in in about six months. Uh, beef might be man, like 12 to 24 months, and that's in, in a conventional system where they're really, really pushed.
And, um, so meeting producers through the slaughterhouse, doing custom work for local area producers and farmers. We got to see the insides of 10 or 15, uh, red meat animals every week that I was, uh, I was killing humanely in a loving way. Um, I brought them to sleep in my arm, in my big brown arms. I say that you carry them and sing to them.
But, uh, the most impact that a person can have, uh, in, in the, the in, in [00:09:00] society that consumes meat is probably in meat production. I, I meet a lot of people, um, that say at parties and they say, oh, I'm a vegan. And I'm like, that's fantastic. You should be a vegan. Because 99.99% of meat comes from, um, absolute cata catastrophic nightmare of production conditions and horrible treatment of animals.
Uh, even when they're doing the best. And the folks that run those, you know, that, that work in those, uh, the machines that bring us meat, uh, that work in the, in, in the. The val, the value chain, the meat value chain, even though they're trying to do their best, um, at, at volume, when profit comes first, uh, multinational corporations, um, produce a product that is food like, and it's, it's meat like, but compared to, uh, the meat that we produce slowly and, and, uh, you know, human at, at, at sort of a human level or a very slow and, and, and unprofitable level, or oftentimes low, low, [00:10:00] low, low margin and, and, and unprofitable, um, uh, very different product.
Tiffany: There's so many questions I have for you. Uh, I, one of the, one of the big things I was curious about was how much control or how much power the someone like yourself has to the end product. Like if, if you have, like, I've seen some of the pictures of the, like the beef that, especially the Wagyu beef that you have that's coming in, or the Wagyu beef cross it that comes in and you're just like, oh my God.
Like, something like that is. Like the perfect food for a chef because you don't mess with it. Like you have the perfect product and you just like treat it as simply as possible. But how much power do you actually have, um, when slaughtering and, and butchering an animal to improve upon a less than, less than perfect specimen that comes across your, your floor?
Jeff: Yeah, that's an awesome question. Yeah, we talk about. Um, I, I coined the phrase, it comes from my oil and gas accounting, but there's up [00:11:00] upstream, midstream, and downstream. Yeah. And, and so, um, there are those three stages in, in the meat product, uh, life cycle or the value chain Upstream would be, um, cal, in the case of beef, uh, cow calf operation.
Uh, the calves leave to go to, they get weaned and they go to a feed situation. And that can all happen on the same farm. But, and, and Heather and I, my wife and I, and our, our kids have had cattle for, uh, since oh six maybe, or oh eight, like, so I guess that's, uh, we're 10, 12 years of, of, I mean, four to six cattle.
I think we're up to 17 as a max and then shrunk back down. And we have four on the farm right now. But, so we've been experimenting and exploring on our, on our, just our little quarter section. Um, playing with the upstream part. And so how does animal treatment, animal feed and, and the cycle, life cycle affect the animals as they grow from, you know, zero months to 20, 24 months or 30 months, [00:12:00] and then they come into the slaughterhouse And I control, like, as the killer for, for, for the almost all maybe 18 months.
Um, I've, I took off, but, um, we had, this is year 16 of slaughter. So I've been the kill guy, uh, putting bullets or cap bolt stun rods into animals' heads for 16 years. And then, uh, the cutter and sausage guy. So we, we kind of, the company's a little bigger now, so I don't do every, I kept my favorite part, which was, uh, the slaughter job.
Uh, with our kids, the slaughter daughters, they were the best team of men that have ever worked to kill for
Tiffany: Sounds about right.
Jeff: Have and my kids. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of young men are a little rammy and they Yeah. But the, the, the, the slaughter daughters have been amazing. Um, two of them are in BC now, um, uh, and, and one's at Edmonton in Edmonton going to school.
And we just have the youngest slaughter daughter. So we're gonna have to, we're making a plan to transition away from just the kids working on the kill foot. Um. Uh, and then the, the downstream would be, uh, what do you [00:13:00] do after the animal's been killed, gutted, split skin and hung, um, how does that affect the, the characteristics of, of the meat and meat quality?
Uh, and then beyond downstream, it's kind of like speaking to customers and saying, what is it, what attributes are important to you in the meat that, that we're, that, that, that the value chain produces? Yeah. What attributes are important to you? And, um, something like Wagyu is, is a good example of a meat that's so well heavily marbled.
That's what it's shooting for, is to be a heavily marbled, tender meat. Um, that's, that's rich and full of flavor. That's not everybody's cup of tea, and that's just one stream of the animals that we process.
Tiffany: Hmm.
Jeff: Um, and it's, it suits a very specific, um, market demand. One of the things I love the most about those heavily marbled.
And, and, and, and I wanna say genetically engineered, but not with genetic engineering, with just selectively bred in order to, to, to store fat in muscle. That's, that's what Wagyu Wagyu beef, um, are famous for. Um, it makes a product that's very [00:14:00] hard to screw up when you're cooking. There you go. It's difficult to overcook or, or, and, you know, we, we like to eat things, um, uh, medium rare or rare.
Um, so we don't overcook it to begin with, but because, uh, there's so much intramuscular, uh, fat in, in, in a, in a breed like that, um, that. There, there you almost always have a positive result. And, uh, taking a dip into the retail side of the meat business with modest meats in Edmonton, a two year adventure that ended in, in fa in basically failure.
Uh, it's closed now, but, but it was interesting 'cause I worked there. I dealt directly with customers and listened to what they had to say about what was important to them. So wa you scratches this itch for a particular, uh, demographic of meat aficionados. Um, but just as relevant, uh, would be an say an all grass fed beef, which is my.
My specific, uh, favorite, um, they're really expensive to produce. Uh, typically those animals are over 30 months, like over approaching [00:15:00] three years of age. They get 1, 1 1 extra summer on green grass. And, and, um, the most beefy flavor comes that I've experienced over these 16 years have been beef that have been eating, uh, rapidly growing high sugar grass in, in June?
Slaughtered in June. Yeah. That's where the flavor lives. If people are after flavor, um, and they can marble as well. Uh, beef can marble on grass. They just need an extra year to do it and, and, and, and, and sort of the right genetics.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: Um, but that's where flavor lives. So, so that's another, um, niche market that we can fill because I can sort through animals that come through on the rail, like a library, and then, and then select that the.
Um, you know, select the, the book that best meets the need of the, of the, of the end user, of the family that wants to eat that. So they can say, I, I need something that is certified organic, or I need something that's ultra lean because I work out, so maybe I want to buys it like a lean buys it. Or a, an animal that's a bull tend to come in a lot [00:16:00] leaner.
And then there are people that, that, um, that want something easy to cook or the best beef in the world. And that's typically, um, stuff that grades prime or better like prime. And into the way you scale of grading.
Tiffany: Is there an internal fight in you where you're like, this is what the customer says they want, like, they want, I want a nice lean.
Loin of pork and I'm gonna cook it. Well done. And this is how my mom made it. And like, this is, this is what I'm used to. And you're like, well, I think I'd like to introduce you to something else. Like do you, do you just, do you give the customer what they want or, or do you, do you fight and kind of push some to explore new things from your expertise?
Jeff: Oh, yeah. Um, in the retail world, both. Uh, one of the fellows we work with at North Country meets it's operating a, a booming retail. Uh, we do all of his, his killing for him. And, uh. Uh, as, as our retail friend, retail partner. And when I was, uh, working at our own little, uh, experiment at Modest Meats, we absolutely push people to try cuts that, [00:17:00] that, uh, would be especially in the, in the, in the, in the, the price that we're at today.
So, um, for those people that don't know, it's 2025 and the, the, the market price of cattle in North America are higher than it's ever been in, in the history of Earth. And that comes from a series of droughts, unexpected, uh, volatility and climate and people, uh, an aging population of ranchers and farmers.
So people retiring and dying on the farm and, and then their family selling out the herd and selling the land off to corporate farmers. That something that's a lot more predictable is, is in our area, is grain farming. And so a lot of stuff that had been pasture land is now, uh, chemically farmed. Grain grain, a lot, a lot of transition into grain farming.
So there are fewer beef and the prices are very high. Um, so we have, we in the retail world, people come in and they heard it on tv or they saw it growing up that, like you said, a well done tenderloin is the best cut of meat out of beef. Do you, you guys got tenderloin? You guys got tenderloin. And as butchers, [00:18:00] we, you know, we laugh and, and, and say that is a lean cut that has the least beef flavor of the entire animal.
So Tenderloin, um, easy to sell, but, but not my. My pick. Um, we would turn people onto bts and skirt steaks and hanging tenderloin or butcher's tenderloin, which are fun. Um, a lot of cuts out of the shoulder that we sort of discovered in, in books and, and, and wanting to read books and learn more about the craft over the years.
So, uh, Denver's and petite tenders, um, um, flatirons come out of the shoulder, which, uh, the flat iron is the second most tender, uh, stake on the entire animal. And then also acro, like I was saying earlier, just across, across how the animal is handled in terms of feed, age, gender, sometimes gender really affects.
Um, a bull is not the same as a steer. So a steer is a castrated bull. Uh, heifer is not the same as a cow. There you can feel the muscle rigidity. In animals as you're butchering them, like, uh, with experience, it's, [00:19:00] it's so obvious, like, uh, this one's going to, this one's gonna be like ground up car, car tires.
And it's so funny because, uh, growing up we always put in for bull moose tags. And growing up I hated eating moose, uh, unless it was in sausage. Because it was ground up car tires. It was dry lean because the, the men of, of, of the, my previous generation, previous to me were like, the bigger the antlers, the better the trophy.
And then, uh, Kevin Cowan and I threw from the wilder exploring, uh, wild food through a culinary approach, a culinary lens. And he and I started shooting antlerless whitetail deer. At, at a young age, like if you have a chance to shoot a dough or it's fawn. We were shooting the fawn because that the, the, the eating experience was so, so much better than eating an old buck in, in rut.
Tiffany: It's funny you say that 'cause Trav and I were just in Sweden and their perspective on, on hunting is like, it's like the [00:20:00] polar opposite of ours. Like, here you shoot, well if you're gonna post it on social media, you're, you're, you're showing people that you shot the animal with the biggest antlers or horns or whatever it is there.
They're like, no, from a conservation perspective, why are you shooting those breeding animals? Like, you let those go, you let them breed. The, all those qualities are kind of come out in the next generation of animals. You, they're shooting like. I know there's, there's a lot of invasive, like in pigs and things like that, so it's slightly different.
But like they're shooting, just like some of these animals still have spots on them. You're like, oh, like you're not used to it. But my goodness, the meat they eat and everybody, it's wild meat over there. It's an accepted practice. Hunting is is not like, it's, it's viewed very differently over there. Um, and, and it's, it's more conservation minded.
That's how they see it. You gotta shoot the, the small ones and the the females because you wanna let the big males go. Right.
Jeff: Yeah.
Tiffany: It's crazy.
Jeff: Yeah. And us exploring culinary, uh, if you look [00:21:00] at the age of domestic livestock, when they're slaughtered from, from chickens and, and turkeys to, to pigs, uh, and, and beef, um, they're, they're all absolutely, uh, just, you know, they're just, just outta
Tiffany: diapers,
Jeff: just outta diapers, just into adolescents, you know?
And, and that's an ex, that's because, uh, meat in, in almost all animals does toughen up as they get older. Um, so, um, in our work with, uh, we do a lot of custom work where a reseller will bring in half a dozen beef in the fall, and then we slaughter them and they're, they're selling them at farmer's markets or direct to family in the city.
Um, that's always been a big part of our business, uh, at least 50%. And, um, interesting, just the conversation. You kind of, uh, triggered a, a memory and that's that we, we do get upset. I mean, when a customer wants a tenderloin, we, we, uh, we encourage 'em to try other cuts and then we sell 'em a tenderloin. There, there's, there's some people that are cut curious and species curious or breed curious, but others that just aren't, there's no budging them.[00:22:00]
Um, but, but also as a, as a midstream kind of operator, um, we hate when we see, uh, resellers bringing in animals that aren't prime or that aren't a, a high grade, but because, uh, big meat, big multinationals keep prices down. A lot of times those producers have no choice but, uh, present that present their beef as something that it oftentimes it just isn't.
So they, they, they're unable to be objective about their, about their own meat and, and how it scores or how it grades, um, because they've, you know, they're selling themselves, they're selling the story of themselves as, as a small, uh, farmer that, that can sometimes produce, uh, out of this world beef, and then oftentimes it doesn't.
So, so we, well then we'll see the cut instructions for the, the buyer. And they want, uh, we'll have, I mean, a, a good fat finished beef on the rail is approaching a thousand pounds of hot hanging grail weight and. The PR [00:23:00] hobby producers are people that are gonna get rich quick, uh, by owning a few acres and producing beef in Alberta and enjoying the living the Alberta Dream.
Um, they'll produce animals that come in at, at, at 300 to 600 pounds on the rail, uh, which is, yeah, often less than half the size of a, of a beef that's, that's fully finished. And then they'll be selling this premium product at market, and they want all their ribeyes, they want, you know, 40 ounce ribeye steaks cut two inches thick, and they're kind of the diameter of a, of a tooney, uh, because they're, they're, they're kind of missing the boat or not doing the, the book work that, that people should, producers should be doing that, especially a direct selling.
Um. In order to read about meat attributes and then, and then fairly evaluate their product against, um, the ideal to then say, okay, we are producing that, we're meeting that standard or we're not. So a lot of it's, it's, it's sort of a, a, a, a tough position to be kind of the middle guy where customer comes to pick up the beef that, that this producer produced and sold it to them as this amazing, uh, thing.
And then [00:24:00] the eating experience is kind of horrible because it was a bull and they failed to castrate it. Or, and, and you're like, man, it, it, it's, yeah, it's a tough position to be in. But
Tiffany: yeah, as a consumer, it's, it's challenging. You know, you, you wanna support, and I, you know, our family, we, 99% of the meat we consume is wild.
Uh, when it's not wild, it's, it, we, we buy it through friends or, or people we know and we trust that raise their own meat. Uh, but there was definitely like quite the steep learning curve and like. I remember buying these chickens from a woman from Facebook when, when we first had kids. I'm like, I'm gonna gotta get good meat for our kids.
Not gonna buy chicken from Costco or Safeway or whatever, right? So I go buy it from this woman. Uh, she has this whole story about what her chickens are like. I go pick 'em up and I swear to God, they must have been like 10 pounds a piece. They were like the biggest oldest stewing hens I've ever seen in my life.
You couldn't, like they were, they were good for a pot to make chicken [00:25:00] stock and that was it, but she sold them. It's like, oh, these are beautiful chickens and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and this whole story. But like, you, you couldn't eat them. They were like, boil, boiled boots, right? Yeah.
Jeff: Yeah.
Tiffany: And it was, and, and that's the thing, like we, you know, we've, we've got our trusted suppliers for beef, but that's after going through a few where it was like, uh, I don't know, this, this just, it's not what I had hoped.
Right?
Jeff: Yep.
Tiffany: So you, you gotta go through it.
Jeff: I think sometimes knowing the processor, like becoming friends with the midstream guy and like, I don't, I don't, I'm indifferent and, and, but I'll tell the truth about, uh, this producer had a good year last year, kind of like a vintage of wine and, and we have friends that produce wine in the Okanagan and, and, and, and learn a thing or two about, about.
You know, there's the telling the story and selling the story about this vintage of this varietal and where it was grown and how it was grown this year. But then also, I think that the wine community is better at accepting when, when this year's vintage isn't up to [00:26:00] snuff, you know? Yeah, totally. And, and, and sometimes that the, the, the buyer, I'm the wine buyer or sort of the middleman can say, while last year's beef for sure, from this customer did, you know, did meet your check boxes in the, in the categories that are important to you, I don't believe those beef are gonna meet those check boxes this year, and here's why.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: Maybe you want to go with this producer. And so, so I think that the, the, the, the, the butcher and the butcher is an important part of the food community. Because they can objectively evaluate kind of what's coming in and what's going out. Mm-hmm. Whereas, um, in, in, in its adolescence, the food culture of, of the west, uh, of, of Canada, basically, of, of the west of western Canada, and, and, and, and the United States, um, have kind of been, uh, horn swallowed by JBS Cargill and the, the mono monoculture monocrop folks.
Yeah. Um, that don't want the f the meat world and the meat buying public to think of beef as regional [00:27:00] specialties as produced by different farms. And, and that each one has a different flavor, d based on, on, its, its varietal as it were. Its, its terroir. Um, early on, Heather and I went to a, a, a conference in, in, um, in Turin, Italy, uh, put on by Slow Food International, uh, called Terah Mara.
Yeah. And just getting over to Europe and really immersing in the food culture that, um, in, in an older food culture, a more established food culture, you're like, my God, how come we're not, uh, how come there isn't an incentive kind of, or how come folks, uh, back home in Alberta, um, are not mm. Aware of, of, of sort of the varietal and the nature or the subtle differences and the nuances of, of, of, of meat, uh, in, in the, in the grocery store, it's 'cause just look at the grocery stores, like they, they're questing after their next billion.
And so, um, if you think about they, they need to make things as homogenous and, and commod. [00:28:00] They have to commodify food and, and commodify food. It requires to commodify life. And then they commodify animals. And that's kind of a dirty mess that, that you end up with, uh, consistently low quality, high profit, uh, meat rather than the opposite.
Tiffany: I struggle. Quite honestly, really struggle finding a good butcher around us. I find that I get very frustrated. I'm willing to spend a lot of money to get something good, and when I go to the butcher and I get into an argument with them about what Sue is, I, I like, I just, I like, why, why am I arguing with you about Sue?
I, I need Sue. I have to make, like I'm, I'm making my mince meat pies. They have to have Sue, and you're going and you're like, cutting the fat off the back of a roast. I'm like, that's not, that's not Sue. Like, if you don't have it, that's fine. But they're bringing in packages. Cryovac like big, you know, like.
Absolute. Absolutely. And it's, it's not what I'm looking for, right? Like I can, [00:29:00] I can go to a major supermarket and get that and get it cheaper, but there's sort of dress, they're putting lipstick on a pig at a lot of the butcher shops we have.
Jeff: Yeah. I think that there's, that, that's sort of the quiet scandal that people that dig just beneath their scratch, beneath the surface.
Um, not all retail, uh, meat shops or retail meat departments are, are, are created equal. There's a lot of greenwashing. And, and we have fr friends in the states that are, are, are a little more, uh, a little ahead of, of Canada and they, they realize that, that some really big brands, they were carried by some really big, in some really big retail chains.
Um, were, were exactly as you say, they're buying box meat and they're peeling the, the plastic bag off it. And they're calling themselves, uh, butchers. And this is interesting because as a slaughter, uh, from live animal to, to steaks and processed meats like sausages and jerky and, and stuff like that, um. Uh, I was offended by people in retail stores that basically, uh, repackage, uh, stuff that's [00:30:00] out of the federally inspected meat system.
Uh, and they repackage it and then they call themselves butchers. And our derogatory term that evolved over time for those folks are portions. That's
Tiffany: a hundred percent what it is.
Jeff: They buy a, what, what is like a loaf of bread? Uh uh, so that's a, uh, a de-bone strip loin, and then they cut it into slices.
They're, they're not baking the bread in the case of strip loin. They're, they're not involved with any step other than taking the plastic bag off of it and then cutting it into slices for you. And, and that's, unfortunately, that's a lot of how butcher shops, uh, make their money, is they have predictable, uh, predictable commodified, um, consistent and homogenous product coming in from a federal, a federal plant that has worked hard to homogenize, uh, the stream.
And then they're selling at a premium price, even though that meat is exactly what you'd get at the grocery store. Uh, but maybe they buy a higher percentage of, uh, AAA graded. Um, but it's exactly the same, the same product that you, you're getting at your grocery [00:31:00] store, but just gr kind of green greenwashed or like art artisanal washed as something special.
And, um. And it, it's unfortunate, but because it's such a tight margin business, uh, we're not selling Mercedes with, uh, with higher margin. Um, I think a lot of the financial reality is, is sort of that education piece so the consumer knows what's up. But a point I wanted to make too is, is the, the education of, of retail butchers has kind of also been infiltrated by big business.
Uh, we've hired kids that have gone to a technical college called Nate, or sat in, in Alberta, in Calgary and Edmonton, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Southern Alberta Institute, two to technology that have retail meat cutting programs. And also old college has a, a retail meat cutting program that in includes some kill floor stuff.
So we've had. People work for us over the years from e, from all of those programs. And the programs are kind of funded by big, big agra, big, big food and big meat. And so the kids have seen equipment that we at a small provincial [00:32:00] provincially, inspected ATO avatar like ours could never afford in a million years.
Um, they have x-ray machines and they, they're kind of training a fleet of meat cutters to be portions working for, uh, large grocery chains because that's where most of the jobs are. To be fair, that is where most of the jobs are, is just working at in Costco meat department. And those kids, oftentimes, if they didn't read the sticker on the box, they couldn't look at the cut and tell you where on the animal it came from.
So if there was a mislabeling issue, they would sell strip loin as, as outside rounds because they had no idea and didn't have the time in the course to sort of fall in love with the art of the practice of meat cutting. They're pretty, they're kind of just producing, um, store clerks that, that are portions.
Tiffany: So what's, what's the solution there? They go to Italy or they come work for you, or
Jeff: they all come work for me. No, no thanks. No, thank you. I think that improving the, you know, improving the education system really [00:33:00] matters, and in order to do that, you probably have to get corporate dollars out of supporting the technical colleges.
Yeah. And that's a hard thing to do because they love their money and they love their quarter million dollar de-boning machines. And so, oh, a hundred percent. So doing it, they, yeah, I think so. It does exist in Europe. So kids doing STAs in, uh, butcher shops and retail meet, uh, um, uh, outfits in Europe and in the, in the eastern United States.
There was a guy I met from Beast and Cleaver in, in, uh, Portland, uh, called Dylan. And he, he was excellent. So people that sort of think alike and, and believe in the artistry of Butcher and also our, our kids who are, who are literate and wanna, like, they have passion and the ability to read books and on topics of, uh, uh, meat and meat cutting and curing, those are sort of good indications that that kid isn't going to substitute a, a strip loin for, for an outside round.
Um, that's fair. Yeah.
Tiffany: It's like, it's like anything, right? You've, you're in it because you love it. You [00:34:00] have a passion for it, you're probably gonna make good choices 'cause you care. Right?
Jeff: That's that. And, and it's a struggle like our, our, our initial, uh, years, uh, Heather was subsidizing the meat shop with my wife's a teacher.
And we are subsidizing in all different ways just to stay like to, to, to keep afloat because again, people can't wear what they eat on their sleeve. So sometimes when there's an economic downturn, the first part of their, their, their budget to get cut would probably be eating out, you know, restaurants, um, vacations and, and then paying extra for a higher quality food isn't something that you can show off.
Whereas, um, Rolexes and cars are things that you can show off. Also, we don't have payment plans on beef. Maybe that's what we're missing.
Tiffany: There you go. You gotta do that. Uh, what I can't, Klarna or whatever on your, on your website where people can pay it off. Like,
Jeff: that's right. No money down.
Tiffany: Yeah. Three bucks a day.
Jeff: Easy, easy. Monthly payments on, on an attributed beef
Tiffany: have a calculation for, uh, reduced chance of. Colon cancer and like all, all the [00:35:00] health benefits that are, are getting, you know, put into their life because they're eating good food.
Jeff: That's a really good point. And I mean, like, that's when, when our family selects what, what it is we're going to eat or what it is we're gonna plant in our garden, or whether our garden is, is worth it.
Um, you do have to come at it not from the dollars, uh, not a, not from a dollars perspective, not when it affects your health. Um, it's, it's better to come at it from a, a health perspective and what am I getting in addition to this spinach when I buy it from the store? And then what am I when I eat a carrot out of our garden?
It's just a carrot. Yeah. But when I get a carrot from the store, it's, it's, uh, it's different. It's a carrot plus other stuff that oftentimes doesn't have to be on the label. And, and meat is, is ex is exactly the same. Um, when we have, when we have a crisis at home, like we're outta ground beef or we're out of food, I'll, I will choose not to buy it from the grocery store.
Uh, again, back to the, um, folks telling me they're vegan or vegetarian, and I say, I would be too, [00:36:00] we would rather not eat meat than buy something from the, the, the federal system. Because of being in the industry as long as we have, we understand the corners that can be cut. And the, the easy way to make money in meat is, is basically, is morally not great.
It certainly helps the bottom line, but it's not morally great and it doesn't improve food quality or, or lower the risk of you getting sick from, from, from eating a lot of the products that are produced by the kind of the chemical food industry I would call it.
Tiffany: Well, I mean it brings to mind the recent thing in the news and, and I, I don't even know if it was real, but it, it was circling around quite a bit about the Campbell's executive that got recorded saying that their meat in their chicken noodle soup is 3D printed.
Did you hear about this?
Jeff: I had not, but that's,
Tiffany: yeah.
Jeff: Sounds like an expensive way to get meat, but
Tiffany: I don't know the, some disgruntled employee apparently recorded his boss screaming at him about, about how crappy their, [00:37:00] their soup is and how he wouldn't eat it or feed it to his family. And they all know it's 3D printed meat or.
Yeah, it's, it's horrifying. Well, it
Jeff: brings up an interesting, yeah, I, I, yeah, like, I mean, I don't know, man, if, if 3D printed meat was less expensive, but I don't know on any planet how that would be. But very interesting about, about the, the world of soup and secondary, secondary and, and byproduct foods. Um, which is that, this is an interesting, uh, quote, I'm gonna try that I've invented in my own, the voice in my head has created this thought, uh, a long time ago.
But it was the, the more sophisticated food, chemical science gets, um, the lower grade. Meats are included in everyday products that you're used to eating from, from childhood. So what used to be, uh, floor sweepings, you know, like what, what used to be like substandard cuts would go into hot dogs and bologna, and then.
As science, chemical science and AgriFood chemical science advanced, uh, lower and [00:38:00] lower quality bits and pieces could be included in the secondary process, sort of, uh, products. Um, so that what used to be floor sweepings or what used to be dog food, you know what used to be floor sweepings is now, uh, that's fair game for hot dogs because science makes, uh, chicken and Turkey skin quite edible.
And I've done some experiments where I. For, for just trials, uh, kind of to be funny and kind of to explore where food comes from. Um, I did an all chicken skin hotdog. It was chicken and Turkey skin, like 10% meat. And then I did a blind taste test for our staff when I was feeling particularly crafty. And they said, I said, which hotdog is the best hotdog?
And they're like, that one for sure. It's just like at the, you know, it's a ballpark Frank, that's a Costco dog or whatever. And I'm like, uh, gross, because I'll show you a pile of what was included with like, some small batch chemicals that made that, that protein bind to the fat to make a real, a delicious, rubbery hot dog.
And, uh, I'm like, I can [00:39:00] never eat chicken dogs from the store again. Uh, we've ruined a lot of foods that way.
Tiffany: Well, it, it brings to question, what is food right? I, I think there's a time when, like you, you look at different cultures and the food they eat and, uh, the term living high on the hog, right? Like that the rich people got to eat higher, higher on the chain of, of the pig.
And, and the poor people ate the, the guts and like the all awful, right? Totally. And through that they had to be creative and they had to cook it intelligently and usually over a long time with spices and flavors and, and those foods are coming back and like, I mean, you look at oxtail like it's like 50 bucks a pound or something stupid like that.
Like it's, it's one of my favorite cuts of meat on, on the beef. But it's so expensive 'cause there's only one tail and it's become trendy now. People love it, but. It's different than taking subpar quality food and things that people really shouldn't eat if they knew what was going into their food. [00:40:00] That's a very different story, right?
Like, like you said, floor sweepings and food that's garbage and should be fed to dogs. And we're, we're processing it so much that you can't even tell what it is. You can't tell if it's chicken or beaks or whatever. Right. There's enough salt in it. People are like, oh, this is so good. You
Jeff: know? Yeah, yeah.
And you touched on so many points that get me excited and, um, the North American Palette sort of designed, you know. Intentionally designed to trigger on sugar, salt, and fat. And, and that's kind of it. So, um, we raised four daughters and we wanted them to explore food and, and so we put things in front of them that would challenge their, nor like traditional North American palates.
So they definitely ate ketchup chips and Hawkins cheese, but then, um, they had blue cheese and gorgonzola and dry cured fermented meats. Uh, growing up we had a family milk cow and, and we all shook a mason jar full of cream to make butter. And, and all of those sort of miracles of Yeah, [00:41:00] a food transformation, um, meant that they, they can speak, you know, somewhat intelligently, uh, like I can just, just barely, we're just barely literate in the world of food.
After a 16 year dip for me and, and, and their entire lives, they're, they, they know where, where, where good food comes from, and they know what you kind of want to avoid, uh, whenever, whenever possible. Um, particularly the non-food ingredients that are included in industrial, uh, low quality food, and that includes whole, whole meat muscle, um, and the way that they're processed.
So boneless, skinless chicken breasts is a misnomer about, that's the most healthy thing that you can buy. Uh, have a friend that is a body was, was into bodybuilding and he does competition weightlifting and stuff. And he's like, boneless chicken, uh, boneless skinless chicken breasts. And I'm like, um, we call them boneless skinless tumors because a chicken that grows that fast is basically growing faster than a cancerous tumor.
And then when the chicken, when they're processed, those chicken breasts go into a, a cold [00:42:00] water bath where the muscle fiber drinks up the slurry of water and other things that are in that cold water bath. Oftentimes when you're processing a lot of chickens very quickly, like at a federal plant that's doing a million chickens an hour, um, things that you don't want in that cold water basket in there like chicken feces.
Um, so that, that's in, in the water bath and, and your chicken breast muscle fiber, uh, is, is being chilled in that water and ice bath and it's drinking up some of those feces. So big industry says, well, we want to avoid getting feces in the bath, but we don't wanna slow down the lines so we can just add a chemical to the bath.
Kind of like chlorine in a swimming pool.
Tiffany: Oh, awesome.
Jeff: That's my story that turned off my brother-in-law from eating chicken breast. It's like,
Tiffany: oh my God.
Jeff: Once you accept that people shit in swimming pools. Once, once. If you, if you, then there's only a few options. Don't use the swimming pool or chemically, uh, inoculate the swimming pool and just accept there's a certain amount of feces in the swimming pool.
And, and, [00:43:00] and producing for profit first, uh, what did you think they would do? They, you know, they need to maximize, uh, shareholder return. They, they, they're not the goal of a, of a massive meat produ production company. Uh, if you can read their mission statement, if you read between the lines anyway, it doesn't say to make the most nutritious, delicious food that has ever existed on the planet.
And, and at an order of magnitude that's a hundred times more nutritious and delicious than the, in the, in the 16 hundreds, uh, said, no food company ever. No under, under our current market system for producing and, and distributing food. Although you and your garden. You know, EE every ex exploratory, you know, chicken rancher that has a lang hen or six or asparagus grower in their backyard garden or wild blueberry picker says this wild blueberry is the most, uh, pronounced blueberry flavor I ever dreamt of or imagined in a blueberry.
And then you go to the whole food store, you buy organic blueberries, and they're as big as, [00:44:00] as eyeballs.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: And you pop it in your mouth and you, what is this? It has a texture. Uh, even the organic ones, they're, they're grown in an, at an industrial scale and kind of pumped with water. Um, whereas in, in different years, uh, in infr from a history of foraging, uh, you would say this a particularly dry year.
So they're gonna be fewer wild strawberries, but they're gonna be so flavorful. Um, whereas the, the, the, the Southern California or Mexican produced strawberry or, or wherever Peru strawberries from Peru are always this, the, the consistently homogenous, uh, it's a commodified food, and that exists all the way through from, from honey, uh, honey nut corn flakes to, uh, milk.
The goal is to homogenize it. That is to make it exactly the same, uh, independent of where it came from and independent of which, what year was it? A dry year or, or heavy rainfall year. It's, it's all supposed to be the same,
Tiffany: and it's supposed to be beautiful. Like our, our food is always beautiful. Which [00:45:00] circling back again to, to your Instagram feed.
It is, your Instagram feed is beautiful, but for people that know what they're looking at, it's like it's blood on the killing floor, right? Like you're, you're shining a light, no filters. I don't know, maybe you use filters on it, but like, unfiltered, right? Like this is what, this is what death is like. You guys need, if you're going to eat beef, you need to understand this is the truth of it.
And I read that you allow people to come in to actually view what it's, you know, the situation on, on the, on the floor.
Jeff: Um, yeah. Once you've, uh, processed as many animals as I have, and, and it, I mean, it, it's, every day comes with a weight and a gravity. Um. And it's a lot to carry around as a, as a murderer, uh, that, that's my job.
And, uh, I take it really seriously. And I want the animals to, um, not know what's going on. They're con, they're confused, and then at, and then at [00:46:00] ease, you know, that's the whole goal, uh, confused and at and at ease. Um, so, uh, to some extent for my daughters and I, or the people that worked kill for, and I, it's kind of like shucking corn that twists, snap crack, you know, and throw that part over here and throw this part over there.
Um, but, but yeah, whenever we get the chance, um, we would, and we, we find someone who is, uh, food oriented and food curious. Uh, we've had chefs that we deliver to for years say, could I come and watch on the kill floor to see how it happens? And I'm like, you can come to the kill floor. And if you're comfortable handling a firearm or a a cap bolt, stunner, you can kill an animal.
Uh, I'll show you what to do. We'll make sure that there, you know, we're, we're, we're de-risking that activity. Um. As, uh, Kevin Cowell and I found in filming and shooting from the wild, that you could change someone's life and their, uh, and their understanding of their relationship with food and nature by taking them on a camping trip and shooting their first white tail or, or shooting at Gross that they would have, we'd have emotional and mental [00:47:00] unstaged and unscripted mental collapses where people are bawling their eyes out, not even because of the sadness maybe of, of taking a life.
But that's partly there too. But that sort of the tsunami of emotion, uh, about death and then like realizing, oh my God, every Big Mac I've ever had started out every chicken McNugget that's unrecognizable in its form or, or like lifesavers or anything with gelatin and know like every capsule,
Tiffany: oh God,
Jeff: every, every vegan don't
Tiffany: tell them about gelatin.
Jeff: Yeah, gelatin is grossly in a lot of things and that comes from a horrible, like a horrible, the ugly process to get nice, clean, shiny, uh, uh, lip balm. Anyway, lots of stuff is made out of animals where we're, it's not really that obvious. If you're not eating whole muscles, you think, oh, I'm, I'm not, I'm not involved.
But our society, unfortunately, or fortunately, uses a lot of products that come from animal sources and, uh, and then that, that moment where they, where they see, okay, so a steel rod goes into this animal's [00:48:00] head in order for it to be made into, uh, lip sal and pork chops. Um, that's, that's what is, is profound.
And so, yeah, we, we encourage, we kind of, we don't want to create, we don't want any ecoterrorism or vandalism, so we don't wanna open the doors to have people that are really, really upset, that haven't, um, sat with the idea that society, whether you like it or not, does consume animal products. Uh, but, but folks that are sort of in the industry and, and, and want to see, um, I think it's been an important part of the work that we've done.
Maybe more important than. The economics of running a, a meat shop, or the economics of Kevin's filming. It's, uh, opening people's eyes and minds to where food comes from. And then that appreciation may translate down the road into how they shop or the activities they, they they pursue. So maybe, maybe golf is switched out for a hunting trip or a fishing trip,
Tiffany: hopefully,
Jeff: and they, yeah.
Yeah. I, I think it's, it's good. As you've seen through Silver Core, uh, I'm, I'm positive that the folks that take the firearms training [00:49:00] course, um, that Travis puts together, um, maybe they're there because they, they, they want to buy a wicked shotgun because they saw it in a video game that was wicked cool.
But I think that, you know, like, like, oh, that's cool. We, we know a lot of gun collectors that have never been hunting. Yeah. I'd say any weekend at Cabela's, especially pre-Christmas, you're like, there are thousands of guns being sold today, and these guys will, will never just like the, yeah. The, the number of camel outfits that leave, uh, a whole or a retail, uh.
Sporting goods store is preposterous because, uh, the, the back roads that I hunt on aren't much busier than they've been.
Tiffany: No, yeah, no, no. I think any, any way to get people to just be more conscious of the decisions that they make in the store and their purchases they make how much power they have. Right.
Like, man, I, and I don't know if, no, you know what, I didn't. I, when, when my kids were young, like quite young, Travis and I took, brought them along with [00:50:00] us when we went to a friend who raised pork for us, and we were going up there to kill the pig and then butcher it. And we wanted the kids to see, because.
I wanted them to be aware of the meat on their plate, what, what that meant. And so they, they weren't cavalier about it. Right? Like their, their friends that when they, even when they were older, didn't understand or comprehend that, like, chicken fingers came from a chicken, like even it was called chicken, but they hadn't connected that animal.
Is it part of like, this is the chicken finger. It came from that animal. They, in grade five or six, they still hadn't put that together. So I, I didn't want that for my kids. I wanted them to be very conscious and aware, and I was surprised. I was expecting tears. And there's nothing. It's just, it's normal if you introduce it to them at a young age and you're respectful about it, it's just, this is how it is.
Why it, we get it [00:51:00] in our heads that it is unnatural and it's scary and it's sad and it's traumatic and all these things, and it really doesn't have to be right. I think the more we, it's, it's hard. Uh, I, I like people crying after they shoot their first animal. Is a, I think a totally normal experience.
'cause it is, it's, it's a massive thing. You've killed something, you've taken the life of something. But, um, I think it's so important, especially for kids to get them in there and like see these things.
Jeff: A hundred percent that, that was the same for us. We took it a step further and bought a, bought a farm and then a slaughterhouse.
Like we just kept going deeper. Like, uh, yeah, like we were, you were addicted to the process. But yeah, milk a cow, collect a warm egg. Probably like if, if, if, if a listener were like, yeah, that's fine, you're, you know, Jeff is clearly not right in the head and what he and his family did, they, and, and I'm never going to do that, but so, so what can I do?
And I think, you know, growing a garden and a garden [00:52:00] can be some dirt in a pot on your balcony if you're, if you are living in, uh, an apartment or condo. Um, and then start think just being cognizant and thinking about what makes, uh, this plant that I'm growing happy, and then what makes it taste better?
And then what, you know, what else does this affect? Um, you can learn a lot just from sort of the gateway. Planting in soil and changing the quality of the soil and the, and, and the way that nutrition and sunlight affects plants. Um, the next step, the gateway animal for sure remains the chicken, the humble chicken, a lang hen could be had for 14 to $25, even if you only had one hen.
And then you start thinking about, wait a minute, she lays more eggs or more frequently when I do blank. And then the eggs are more yellow. The oaks and the eggs are more yellow or richer tasting when I feed this animal blank. And then you're like, wait a minute, I just read a thing about trimming beaks on, on cage, battery raised cage birds.
What's that about? And then you're like, God, wait a minute. Yeah. When you have a [00:53:00] chicken in front of you, don't Google
Tiffany: it.
Jeff: No, no, no. And that's, that's a lot of that is really hidden. And I would say also as a consumer, uh, whether it's of of. You know, plastic, inflatable, pro pool products, uh, all the way to, you know, to toys and, and, and barbies or, or, or whatever.
Um, it's important to sort of, if the industry doesn't show you behind the, the, the wall behind the curtain, there's probably a reason for that. And so if that hog farm, not, not the one of your, your friends and, you know, a half dozen pigs or whatever on their farm that's d that, that they, they encourage people to come and check things out if they have the time.
When they have the time. Um, but probably the, the, the, the, the million million hog hog barns or whatever, they're producing millions of, of pigs a year or, or, or 3000 pigs in, in one, uh, school gymnasium sized building, they probably don't invite visitors because it's not the prettiest. And some of the stories like just being in this industry, I do have a backstage pass too.
A [00:54:00] lot of things that would, that aren't even okay to talk about. We could talk about it off air, you know, but there are horrific stories of things that happen, uh, in, in an industry obsessed with profit or, and clearly they're just, it's just a corporation. I'm not inventing anything. And neither did the world of meat or industrial meat.
They didn't invent anything that wasn't already laid out by the people that invented, uh, corporate personhood. And the, and the priority of corporations is profit. And my wife has often said, you know, uh, just as a, as a armchair philosopher, she said, food that comes from living things shouldn't have ever been commodified or traded for money.
It should only be traded for, uh, for other goods. You know?
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: Because as soon as money is sort of the common denominator, then, then, uh, the treatment of the animal or plant just, or soil, the living soil gets degraded.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: Shouldn't exchange money for food if at all possible. And that's another, that's maybe a leaving thought like, Hey, that guy has crab apples in his crab apple [00:55:00] tree.
He's not doing anything with them. Uh, maybe I could trade some marijuana that I just grew on, on legally. Yeah. Which we don't grow marijuana. We probably should. 'cause with, uh, with a house full of kids, we could probably get a lot of licenses for, for a lot of plants. Bet. I bet. But if I grew something that I think is particularly good and that person has a, has, so waste, waste streams are a conversation.
Um, if I have a lot of something, say I just killed a moose, you know, the sharing circles before refrigeration where a community would knock a beef on the. And then, um, 10 families would butcher it and 10 families would go home with enough beef that they could salt or keep in a nice house for a while, and then it was the next family's turn.
I, I really like those sort of concepts of what people did. Um, before, uh, before greed and profit had sort of permeated every aspect of, of human life. How did people share and how did people share in the bounty of the natural harvest? You know, Robin Wall Kimer, the, uh, braiding [00:56:00] sweetgrass was like a fundamental text on an, what I consider, uh, supremely, uh, advanced culture of aboriginal first peoples that lived on this continent in, uh, what we consider, like we tell ourselves.
It must have been horrible times, but I think that that advanced culture found a way to live without leaving a mark on, on the planet, and, and yet they consumed and created art. So that means that man, people were getting enough food and living comfortably enough to do art and have culture that sort of a, a written tradition culture comes and invades and says, well, those, that was a, uh, you know, a less advanced culture and, uh, what, what horrible people.
But I think that that's the opposite is true. And those people that survived in North America, um, were thriving in a way that, that sort of, the Western colonialists can't, couldn't even comprehend when they came with their guns, germs, and steel. And if you spend some time hunting and harvesting [00:57:00] and really listening in a, in a silent forest, listening and, uh, reflecting on the bounty of what nature provides or what the, the entire ecology has provides for us, uh, where sun meets grass, then, uh, wealth is truly born where the sun meets the hits, the soil creates some green stuff, animals eat green stuff.
And then you have an abundance of seit.
Tiffany: There you go.
Jeff: Yeah.
Tiffany: Circle back to sue it.
Jeff: Yeah, that's right. It's all about seit.
Tiffany: It's all about seit.
Jeff: You know, our animals had a pretty good freaking life if it's, it's been able to pack fat around its kidneys.
Tiffany: Yes. Yeah. And why is that so hard for butchers to understand?
Come on.
Jeff: Right?
Tiffany: That's where Sue comes from.
Jeff: Yeah. How can they not get that?
Tiffany: I dunno, maybe there's not a big market for Sue these days, but
Jeff: there, yeah. Yeah. It depends. It comes in circle like it's, it's certain circles and if it's, depends on who you surround yourself with. And, and like-minded people do find each other.
I wish, you know, in this day and age, it should be super easy. Um, I would love to see no [00:58:00] waste leaving our plant at all. I, I love Canada's, uh, the diversity and multi multiculturalism means that there's someone from somewhere on this plant and within a few degrees of separation that has figured out how to recently and in, or maybe one generation ago only where they figured out and remember how to eat every part of every animal.
And so that guys like me aren't throwing out four to six tons of scrap guts, hides heads, uh, bones and, and waist ev every week. And that's, so that's what hurts me the most. Or, or, and we've invested considerable time, effort, and energy into learning how to eat those things like, uh, beef tripe.
Tiffany: Yep. I,
Jeff: I,
Tiffany: I love it.
Jeff: Uh, yeah, it's absolutely chewy noodles.
Tiffany: I do.
Jeff: Yeah. If you prepare it right, it's completely edible, and it's shocking how good it can be, even after failing three or four times and stinking up the house where my kids,
Tiffany: it smells like wet dog.
Jeff: It can be the worst, the worst experience. I had some horrible trials of eating [00:59:00] certain things, and then by exploring or being willing to, you know, read more and learn more and, and dig a little bit deeper and, and ordering weird things on, on, on, at restaurants, you know.
Um, we, we took kind of a, a, a Chinese style approach with, uh, peanut, like peanut butter as a flavor and fish sauce as a, as a flavor on chewy noodles. And, uh, I, I, I cheered jump for joy when I achieved the chewy noodle check texture and a benign flavor. That didn't taste like beef guts. Yeah. Or beef stomach contents.
But just tasted like a chewy noodle out of the, uh, honeycomb. Tripe out of a beef. And I'm like, I've, I've won the game. There you go. We can now eat tripe. Yeah. Until our heart's content. 'cause it oftentimes gets thrown out.
Tiffany: Yeah. And well, so if you were to design the perfect butcher case and set up, set it up as you would want people to consume the whole animal, what would that look like?
Like if someone were to walk into a butcher store and you're [01:00:00] like, I don't want it to all be filet.
Jeff: Yeah. That's funny. That. Y you know, I've had so many dreams. Um, so we, you know, we did with modest meats. Mm-hmm. We had a retail butcher case. And it, despite my, uh, I mean if I had the deepest pockets in the world, I could hold on financially long enough to have the case that, to look the way that I wanted to look and then to slowly bring customers along to, to eating the way that I would encourage them to eat.
But it takes a lot of. Like education, a lot of patients, education outreach, a lot of promotional dinners, a lot of educational like butchery seminars that don't necessarily exclude people that just happen to be poor. So I, I, I like restaurants that serve a lot of, uh, uh, novo concept food like oell, uh, tend to have a high sticker price to get in.
And so, but we don't need only the elite eating, uh, veal brains. We need the elite [01:01:00] eating veal brains, but also everybody eating veal brains, so we can't sort of price it out of the market. So I think, uh, in the exploration with modest meats is that we couldn't hold long enough, hold on, long enough financially for folks with sort of, sort of no exposure to even where animals or where meat comes from, and that they come from animals in, in the public education system.
They don't have time for that. They don't have funding for that. They don't have. Um, like outreach and specialty teachers and home economics for that. It's usually a burnt out phys ed teacher is teaching, you know, foods, uh, with no spares and no blocks. Yeah. So, so, so it, it does take someone with deep pockets, I think, to hold out and offer tripe in the display case and put on how to cook with tripe, uh, for like a $30, like $30 show up and I'll show you how to cook with tripe.
But a lot of those even, uh, someone asked me, a cousin of mine said, Hey, are you doing butchery courses? This, this, this year? And I said, well, we're going through a big renovation in the spring, but we'll resume again. Um, late spring, [01:02:00] she said, great, because Nate's charging a thousand dollars for introduction to butchering your deer.
And I'm like, that is the opposite. People that you want at your course. That's crazy. 'cause if you have a thousand dollars for like a, a six hour course or a two day course at night, then uh, why are you hunting deer? Kind of, you know,
Tiffany: well, that, that's, it's, it makes me think of the people that come into our hunter ed courses and they're like, especially after COVID, I, I, you know, meat is so expensive.
I just, I just wanna get cheap meat for my family. I'm like, so you're hunting, like
Jeff: Yeah, not exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There's, it's a misnomer that, yeah, hunted meat would be the cheapest meat and like, no, it takes years of practice. A lot of guys too, I have that too, is like, young, young person starts hunting and, and doesn't get their, their deer in the first year.
And like they, they put two weekends into this. And I'm saying like, it could take you a hundred hours before you get a, a chance at a shot on a deer. And you could do 99% of the steps correctly. And if [01:03:00] you flinch when you pull the trigger. You need to invest another, you know, 40 or a hundred hours to getting in that position to shoot a deer again.
But yeah, unfortunately social media makes people think that you just killed a deer ev every 10 minutes. It's just a walkout and shoot an animal.
Tiffany: Yeah. Deers are super stupid. They don't have a great sense of smell or sight or hearing or anything. They're just like Absolutely. Yeah. They're just,
Jeff: and you can buy your way into being a successful hunter, which is absolutely the worst thing to tell hunters.
Tiffany: Yes, exactly.
Jeff: Spend more money than that. Yeah. Like, and it's, it's endemic. And also I find myself like ego and materialism is not, uh, we're not devoid of that. Even live, living, living rurally with little exposure to store, to stores and marketing. Uh, still I'm like, I think I need a better scope. And my wife is the vo, I call her the voice of reason.
That's like her handle, that's her nickname. The voice of reason just sitting on my shoulder saying like, why? Uh, don't, aren't you [01:04:00] successful? Like, is, is your gear worn out? Is your rifle worn out yet? No. Is the glass on your rifle worn out yet? Well, also, no. So do you have a problem hitting targets at, at, you know, within Lethal Range?
I'm like, absolutely. No. I've, I'm, I'm on a really good kill, kill streak at the moment. Um, but we're kind of taught to like, it's, it's soothing to consume.
Tiffany: Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, it's, I had this conversation the other day with, uh, Hank Shaw was on the podcast and I was telling him, who love Hank? Uh, Hank Savas.
Jeff: Yes, he
Tiffany: is. Yeah. We, we were talking about the new Beretta Ax 800, and it's like, I don't know if you've seen the Chaka, but it, it's. Gorgeous. And I have a beautiful 400. I do not need a new shotgun, but I want a new shotgun because this new one is, oh my God, it's gorgeous. But anyone that's listening, check out the 800.
It's pretty, it's a pretty, pretty shotgun, but,
Jeff: oh man. Yeah.
Tiffany: Now
Jeff: I'm gonna have
Tiffany: to look. It's stunning. Yeah, just take a peek.
Jeff: It's gorgeous. More, more time. Success in the field, at least [01:05:00] from my perspective, is more so wear down more soles on boots like new, new hunters and, and new people that are meat, like self-provisioning, meat, curious, um, um, by a range pass, like at a, at a gun range and by ammunition.
And then I would put in a plug for a place. Oh, inter surplus in Quebec. It's, I didn't know that such a thing existed. But they sell, uh, world War II era rifles four hunting and sporterized rifles from the 300 to $600 range. They're wooden stock like iron peep sites in traditional, uh, European calibers, like 6.5 by 55 Swed.
Oh
Tiffany: yeah.
Jeff: Which I have my eye on one, uh, with great big, yeah. Target a target 6.5 by 55 suite, um, 500 bucks. And, uh, but, but you can get into a 30 odd six husk var with 30 odd six for I think 300 or $400. And it's a Canadian company [01:06:00] called Inter Surplus, I think.ca or inter surplus.com. Yeah. Um, so, so as to not get.
Swept up in the hyper cap, the hyper capitalism or hyper consumption of buying a $2,000 rifle that you don't know if you're gonna use it. You don't know if you're gonna enjoy hunting. Um, but I once said to Kevin that there were enough small arms manufactured on this planet to last the planet, the rest of eternity during the Great Wars of World War I and World War ii.
And those rifles are as adequate. You need to hunt every big game species on the planet. Um, they don't need to make, they can stop making, making, uh, rifles. And this isn't really good for sponsorship.
Tiffany: No, no, no, no, no. I, I, I cut,
Jeff: I cut meat.
Tiffany: Well, yeah, no, I'm just, I'm just saying Out. When we were in Sweden with Norma, we roll it back to, to companies we love and believe in.
Uh, they, they had these super cool old World War I, world War II rifles. We are shooting. God, they were gorgeous. Yeah. They were [01:07:00] so nice to shoot. It was stunning. And Norma makes ammunition for those two.
Jeff: You know
Tiffany: what? Yeah, no, they're great.
Jeff: Just so I switched from American Whitetail Hunter, um, hor Hordy.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: In my 2 43 to Norma because of your Norma posts.
Tiffany: Oh, awesome.
Jeff: I'm, you know what? I don't need to be supporting American, uh, uh, bullet manufacturers. I can support Swedish bullet manufacturers. And Norma comes at a, at, at a price. This is not a plug at all. I'm like, holy crap. It's from Sweden and it's cheaper than American ammo.
And I'm like, well, it's, it can't be as good. But I read, everything that I read is like, no, it's as good. And I am a hundred grain weight pointed, soft point lead tip, uh, Norma and 2 4300 grain weight, like their cheap line, not their target line or whatever. And I am, they're like, it's just a, a attack driver.
Tiffany: The stuff they, the stuff they shoot in Sweden is like, like, it's, it's harder to get here. They have this new line called Odin that is, [01:08:00] oh my God, it's gorgeous. It's so nice.
Jeff: Those are the plastic, plastic, like ballistic tip, I think, right? I
Tiffany: think they salt
Jeff: package.
Tiffany: They're, they're, they're not even here yet.
They're releasing soon in Sweden. I think if, if you're there and, and you know, the, the guys at Norma, you can get it, but it's totally non-lead. They're pushing everything to non-lead now, and it shoots like right in line with the top ammunition. Not, not even non-lead ammunition. It's like the best of the best and it's totally non-lead.
Jeff: I'm, I'm a super fan. Uh, I love the packaging and, and I, the results were like on my, on my, uh. Uh, target shooting and coyote shooting in, in the wintertime. I, I stay sharp by shooting at targets and shooting at coyotes, and I was just stunned that a $50 box, a Canadian 50 to 49.99 for this norm of a hundred green weight.
I'm waiting for the price to go up. Um, but, but by price alone, I thought this can't be the best ammunition or it would be more irregular. That is that different grain weight bullets and, you know, mis mis loads and stuff. And I'm like. No, I haven't found any of that. It's [01:09:00] the, it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's the tidiest shooting ammunition that I, that I've shot with consistent shot to shot performance.
It sounds like a complete plug. I really don't care who makes my ammo. I guess I got a little political about like an anti-American sentiment, but if I can give profits to, uh, a company like, uh, Norma, I would, I would do that all day long. They're just great. And that was really thanks to you.
Tiffany: Yeah. Well, that's, that's good.
Jonas. I don't know if you're listening to this, but, uh,
Jeff: check it out, Jonas. You've got a true believer here.
Tiffany: Yeah. That's cool. That's really cool. Yeah, I mean, we love their stuff. We, we love the people that work there, the factory, like it's. It's uncommon to see a company where people really care so much, um, and it shows up in their product.
I mean, it's, it's an easy thing for us.
Jeff: That's what Travis said, like, yeah. And, and I thought, yeah, if you know the people making it, then I'm, and you said the same old tangent theta, and I was like, trying to justify to Heather why, why I need a Canadian scope. The best made glass reviewed. I read all about tangent theta before you guys, [01:10:00] um, I think you posted a picture.
I'm like, oh my God, is that a tangent? Theta five to 25? And you're like, absolutely.
Tiffany: Oh yeah,
Jeff: my, yeah, yeah. I read all about it. I'm like, my God, glass and ammo is where you should be spending money. And then on the rifle rifles were manufactured almost the same for such a long time that they're more accurate than a human being unless you're a competition shooter.
Or like, precision shooting is a different sport than harvesting game. And harvesting game is not precision. Shooting
Tiffany: tangent, Theta's, they're, they're, they're another example of a company that's just like the, like they're just. The best people.
Jeff: Yeah. That they're nice people. That matters to me as a, as a buyer, even though the scopes are five to $8,000,
Tiffany: but worth every penny.
Jeff: You buy one once. I mean, totally. Dad said that from the, he has guns from the seventies and they, they shoot as flat and accurate as they ever have. And guns from the seventies had a much nicer finish, like deep luster, blued and like fancy walnut. So I love those guns [01:11:00] and I dislike the plastic military looking guns.
That's not my thing. The militar militarization of hunting was, uh, an americanization and a fetishist, uh, movement that I don't like. I like plaid and not war camo and war weapons. I like plaid and historic weapons. If, if a hunter can can kill a white tail with a iron sight, 30 30, that's a hunting in plaid, that's a hunting God.
Um, if you have to be in a full Gilly suit, you're silly. Gilly is silly. And then the, the guns designed to look like military is cool. It's like, uh, they're cool looking. They're kind of like dress up soldier, but there's a place for those sorts of weapons and that's be a soldier. Like, it's awesome. You get to shoot the coolest.
There's a, there's, there's a point like guys around the meat cutting table, talking about shooting. Um. TH 3 38 lap was to ins to, to vaporize, uh, VARs. And I'm like, that's cool, but if, like, there's a place for that. And that's not really [01:12:00] respecting, it's not really respecting the animal or what I view as the con, the Canadian version of hunting, which was based more on like the voyagers, the people that settled, uh, sort of the Metis, uh, sort of respect for nature.
Uh, built around, built around harvesting for food rather than the, the pornification and the militarization of like, look how big this rack is. And I
Tiffany: video tape. Videotaping yourself with night vision, goggles, shooting. Shooting rats, running around in a field and making them blow
Jeff: up. Although I don't, I like rats going away, you know?
So I do certain environments need to be, uh, need to, to, and, but, but yeah, I think militarizing, uh, I, and it's, it's, it's easy to do because we, the, those of us with a bit of testosterone in our blood, we see guys shooting, uh, fully automatic rifles outta helicopters, and you're like, that's the pinnacle of hunting.
And I, I think that Canada needs, Canada needs another Jim Shockey, you know, like a young Jim Shockey. I don't know who that guy is, but, [01:13:00] or girl. Uh, yeah, should be a woman, actually didn't his, oh, Eva Shockey was pretty cool. I don't know if she, she just maybe isn't as active on socials anymore, but, but I kind of like the Canadian style of hunting that that's more built in food col food harvesting and tradition.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: Um, than, than the militarization 30 bucks in 30 minutes. YY you know what I mean?
Tiffany: Yeah, totally.
Jeff: Yeah. Uh, how that's akin to world wrestling sort of promotion. Don't like it. Camouflage toilet seats. We always laugh, you know, at the slaughterhouse I'll drive up in a, in a, a gigantic diesel truck with dual wheels and it's so loud and he gets out in a full, during hunting season in a full camouflage outfit with like camouflage paint.
He's like, are you guys taking deer? Um, no, we're full. And then he says, but why have you got a deer dead now? Uh, no, but I'm going hunting, so I'll, I'll be back later today with a deer. And you're like, yeah, okay. When you [01:14:00] get your deer,
Tiffany: yeah,
Jeff: but he's wearing camo in the truck. That's the joke. And a lot of Trumpers like the, like,
Tiffany: I've never heard that term before.
That's
Jeff: awesome. That's, that's a Kevin and Jeff, original Kevin, I love that on Jeff Singer. We're like, shall we go for a tru? Or do you want to put, do you want to put a maneuver boots on ground? And it's like, I think we'll do, it's cold, so let's just tru. Yeah.
Tiffany: Yeah. That's awesome.
Jeff: Let's just T tru in a giant pickup truck, but make sure you're wearing your camo.
Tiffany: But then Kevin can, uh, take his boots off so he's ready to like stalk in and sock feet. Right.
Jeff: He did get like psychotic and got a lot of thorns and thistles in his little, his feet. I bet. But, but valid. And that, see, that is exploring like. A more traditional ant or frontiers, you know, frontier bush, mountain man slash aboriginal approach that when you work with nature and you, you do common sense things, you, you know, you don't need that thousand dollar pair of boots in order to go.
I think that a lot of young people in, in, in the, in the pursuit, it, it exists in [01:15:00] livestock production as well. You just, you go into the livestock productions, the store and you think, oh my God, look at all these, look at all this equipment I must need in order to own a cow or look at all, look at all these fishing lures.
I think that going fishing must be the most daunting thing for someone who hasn't grown up fishing. Because when you go into a, a sporting goods store and you look at the thousands and thousands of, of lures, you're like, this is impossible. It's too complex for me to figure this out. Where, where fishing should be the simplest thing in the world and everyone with 25 cents and like a length of dental floss and like a hook in a worm should be fishing.
In order to, to put them in touch with nature and where food comes from, they should be able to do that.
Tiffany: I mean, it doesn't help when stores that shall not be named, but large big box stores that I don't like to support. I like my local Yes, Michael and Young, but, um, these large stores, you go in there and you're like, who's bass fishing here?
Like, why are they selling all this crap? You have, like when they, when they opened up near us, they have like bass [01:16:00] fishing boats here. It's like, you know where the store's located, right? Yes. Like, we tend to fish for salmon around here and trout in the river and blah, blah blah. Right? Like, no one's bass fishing.
So
Jeff: it's, it's, it's comical. It's comical to the point of sa Just sad.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: Where they've commodified the activity so completely that they don't even know and they're making so much profit, basically selling camouflage, they don't care. Camouflage blankets and, and, and home, home decor. Yeah. Like in, in, in, in the, in the look of, um.
You know, antlers, vivia, antler de decor world and gun safes for people that don't go to the range. Um, but they've, they've gone so far as to commodify the activity itself. And to say that doesn't matter, we make best margin on bass boats push fast boats into BC on oh, totally on Pacific fucking ocean. You like, what guys?
What are you doing? Tree stands, you know, like I, I try and I grab, you know, young, new hunters and I just grab by the, the cuff of the shirt and I just slap 'em like that. There's a Batman and Robin, uh, meme of Batman, [01:17:00] just slap, or one of someone slapping someone, the Batman and Robin. And it's like, you know, um, tree stand hunting is different.
In, in America. Mm. And tree stand hunting may not be as valid in Canada and there are huge geographical differences. But you, you really gotta go deep into, into looking at why tree stand hunting is a thing and, and blind hunting. Blind hunting isn't a thing. And, and then, and then sort of the history of crown land and public land in Canada and, and why those things are different.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: Uh, but, but the store, they don't, it doesn't matter. Those things cost, you know, that's $80, $80 us to buy in China and $800 on the big, the fake tree displays at at your, you, you know what I mean? And you're like, what are people doing? That's a great way to get cold because we have winter here.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: It's not,
Tiffany: and, and it, it's, it's, uh. Not, not to rant too much, but it is like a God. You gotta support your local store where, you know, the guys that work there, I would rather go to Reliable Gun or [01:18:00] Italian Sporting Goods or Stillwater Sports, where I know I can call, I can call Stillwater Sports and say, Hey, how's it going?
And the, and the guy that works there is Jens and he says, Hey Tiff, how's it going? Right? Like he knows, he knows my voice and I go into these other big box stores. Those guys don't even hunt. They don't know what they're talking about. They're gonna sell you crap. You don't need. Go to your local store.
That's my rant.
Jeff: And we'll make like they do know, you know? Yeah.
Tiffany: Oh, totally.
Jeff: But now let's tie it all back to like also meat.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: So if there's a 17-year-old kid that, that literally because of the nature of our economy at the moment, that kid has never eaten, you know, bought a steak. Mm-hmm. He's never eaten a steak.
But he's, he's told, he, he read the one page trainer on how to sell steak at his, at his portioning, his meat portioning store. Um, so, so that kid has no clue what he's saying, but he'll lie to you and tell you what the, what the, the sales brochure that he read that morning. 'cause they want to hit sales quota so he gets an extra buck an hour.
What? However it works. But, but I feel [01:19:00] that whether it's at, at a, at a, at a commodified gun counter pushing guns or a commodified meat shop, it's, it's very similar in that, um, sort of a cultural movement of populism and embracing ignorance and, and, and, and hating on, uh, or vilifying in intellectualism. And, and literacy is costing us, um, more cases of cancer and accidental death and dismemberment than ever before, probably in history.
Well, we should have the most, uh, knowledgeable folks that have ever walked the face of the planet. And I don't think that's the case because of a rise in populism and anti-intellectualism. I think it's like at the, at the, at the key, uh, where folks don't understand when they're being bullshitted to, they, they don't even have the gear upstairs to say, what is this guy?
What is this person's motivation? Is it customer service? And making sure that I have a great interaction, like you say, in your independently [01:20:00] owned, uh, sporting goods store or a butcher shop, or is this guy's motivation to make more sales or make profit? And that, you know, it, it features everywhere, whether it's a car, car dealership, if you know someone, as I get older and my hair turns grayer and grayer, uh, you find that.
Kind of knowing a guy, have I got a guy, or I know, I know this woman and she's been running a plumbing business for 20 years, I'm not gonna get, uh, the runaround or told something incorrect.
Tiffany: Totally. They're not gonna take advantage of your ignorance. Right? Yeah. They've got respect for themselves and, and what they do, and they don't need to do that.
Jeff: Yeah. Valuing the trade, valuing the trade that you're a part of, is it, you know, it shouldn't be as rare as it is, but once you find a good, a good auto mechanic or a, a good, uh, meat, meat person or cheese person, you cling to that cheese person, someone who's truly passionate and has invested something and learning the art of that, of that craft.
Tiffany: Now taking a complete right turn, but on, on the topic of bullshit. I have a question for you. I've been seeing this, I've been seeing [01:21:00] this floating around and I, I'm genuinely curious, um. Ted Nugent has been posting videos about CWD, how it's a scam, how it started with the Colorado Department of Wildlife, injecting what scrapes from sheep into mule deer back in like the sixties or something like that.
And I noticed today online, Travis sent me a video about, uh, Missouri, uh, fish and Game Department has pulled back requirements for CWD testing and there seems to be some back and forth on CWD. Do you, do you have any knowledge on, on that and, and the reality of it? And is it something, 'cause it's, it's just kind of popped into BC in the last couple years.
Yes. I know you guys have had it there in Alberta for a while. Is it something that, that is overblown or is it like, is it a real concern?
Jeff: Yes.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff: Oh man. I love it. We need another hour.
Tiffany: I know.
Jeff: Just for [01:22:00] this topic alone. Yeah. But yeah. You know, you know, chronic wasting in wild ungulate populations has a, like an overlap in, uh, in, in, uh, in, in BSC Med Cow Disease, uh, bovine Spongiform encephalopathy, mad Cow disease, um, in, uh, BSE, uh, has affected the Alberta market.
We've owned the slaughterhouse long enough for BSE, um, to, I think we, we just bought in 2010, and that was like post outbreak of BSE in animals for consumption in Canada. And at the time, the US and Europe were banning imports of Canadian beef because certain animals were fine, were tested hot for, for BSE Mad Cow disease.
Um, so there's an overlap without a doubt, with chronic wasting in, in wild ungulate populations that I'm in intensely interested in and affected at, at, at a very visceral level. Uh, because we processed an elk last year for my cousin who's, [01:23:00] uh, a pilot for Air Canada. He harvested an elk, a big bull elk in central Alberta, stettler, and submitted the head for testing and the carcass to, to our slaughterhouse.
And we cut it and wrapped it. And then, uh, we were like calling him, come, he's lives near Calgary, and like, you're your Elk's. Ready. Come get it. He's like, Jeff, it tested hot for chronic waste. Oh
Tiffany: wow.
Jeff: And I'm like. Well, holy shit. And he was like, holy shit. So we were kind of like, what? You know, what do we do?
Uh, he's a well-read fellow. Um, he's married to my cousin who is a naturopathic doctor. Um, so, so we had an intelligent discussion from the perspective of a doctor, an avid hunter, and a, a meat cutter. Um. These are the things that, that public health authorities are saying that is dispose of it in like, uh, uh, uh, only in a landfill.
This isn't dog food. This isn't anything that you want to put back into nature. It goes to a landfill, uh, class one or class two landfill, uh, that's plastic lined to prevent this meat from getting back [01:24:00] into the, uh, population because we want to eliminate or avoid the spread of anything that may be related to chronic wasting.
Now, um, that's all true handle with the most, like, like be as, as secure and safe as possible because if you know anyone who may have contracted, who may have eaten, uh, chronic wasting or BSE affected meat and then contracted the human variant, which is kretz Feld Yakus Disease in a bizarre twist of faith, Kevin Cowan has an uncle that happened to have died from K Kurtz Feld Yakup disease in Alberta.
Yeah.
Tiffany: Oh my God.
Jeff: And you know, you can Google Krutz Yakup disease.
Tiffany: It's
Jeff: horrible. It is an awful way to, to die. Yeah. Uh, so chronic wasting, whether it's a, a, a, a beautiful little woodland animal, um, a cow on a, in a feed yard or on pasture or your uncle Hmm. Uh, it's a brutal, brutal disease. So in the here and now, in, in, in real time, we had to decide what do we do with the Elks?
So we threw it out, it went to a [01:25:00] landfill after we put in the time to harvest skin gut quarter, you know, cut into steaks. Oh, we had jerky and sausage with the order and all that went into the garbage. Um, so to play it on the safe side, and that's with the advice of my cousin, naturopathic doctor. So, so that's what I would do.
Treat it seriously. We do not wanna put wildlife at a increased risk of any kind of horrible disease. Um, so as responsible ethical hunters, uh, farmers and meat lovers, we, we dispose of it. Um, I think that then for, for other folks that don't, that aren't related to a naturopathic doctor or maybe don't have those resources, I would kind of look at the source of news, where it's coming from and, uh, follow the money.
So any statement made, I know that it, it sounds, uh, maybe conspiratorial of me to say this, but absolutely big commodified beef. The last thing they in the world they want is to have to deal with an endemic disease that puts humans at risk because that. [01:26:00] And Oh. 'cause they care about humans so much. I'm like, well, kind of but plus meat to sell.
Yeah. They, they really care about their shareholders' value because on any, uh, like that, that's absolutely, and that's great. It's great that they're, they know what their number one thing is and that's making profit. As a corporation, that's your number one objective is to provide, uh, returns for shareholders.
And so if the entire way that you process present, package distribute, the whole value chain is based on, um, high numbers, high volumes, um, you know, low margins, then if something icky comes up like, oh shit, we shouldn't feed, uh, animal brains to ruminant animals because who would've thought that would make, that could create some diseases in the animals eating the, the unad, the inedible for human consumption parts of.
They're brothers and sisters. That is exactly why there was a problem. Uh, it was traced by scientists who I fully believe in [01:27:00] science and the scientific process. Um, scientists said, Hey, you shouldn't feed brains of cows to cows and you shouldn't feed brains of, uh, sheep to sheep. We also advise not feeding the brains of pigs to pigs.
And so this is one of those dirty secrets in the industry in the 22,000, pre 2010 or 12 or something. Um. Rendered material that was inedible in the human value, the human food chain and inval not valuable for the pet food chain. So the lowest of the low would get included in the livestock food chain.
And so how do you get beef to finish faster? You feed them protein, A protein in barley, right? And then protein and barley, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, is there a lower grade protein that we could feed cattle to get their, their fat, protein and muscle, like building muscles, these incredible hulks of cattle?
Is there a way we could do that faster and for sure by providing, uh, the lowest cost protein that there is on earth. And, and that's like insects [01:28:00] right now. It god, uh, no. No. That's just the waste. The stuff that didn't cut, make the grade for pet food would be then rendered and turned into protein for livestock feet.
So anyway, that was the whole birth of the, the crisis of chronic wa or not chronic wasting, but BSE in cattle here in North America. Um, when it comes to wild ungulate populations, of course there are wild ungulate ranches and, and, and there are wild feral pigs and there are pigs that are fed outdoors and they're fed pelletized, uh, ration.
And then so birds can come and eat out of that trough and other animals can come and eat outta that trough. And elk that are fed pelletized rations can jump fences and breed through fences. It's amazing. A bull elk is like a, a teenage boy. Um, and we found in keeping animals, not everything sort of stays within the fence and everything is controlled.
It's not nearly as controlled as people, um, that aren't experienced with livestock might [01:29:00] think. And so, so could there be some escape into wild populations, like Absolutely. Yes. And then is that serious and. You can read a lot of scientific reports to decide for yourself. Uh, one, number one, just believe in science and then read.
And most people don't wanna do that. They wanna listen to online influencers, people. They really trust people with really very good looking, uh, people with really nice clothes that drive Lamborghinis. Give a lot of the medical advice, uh, to the population. Driven by populism and hyper consumption, which I disagree with all that.
If you hadn't noticed. Um, just a little bit. Yeah. If, if, if, uh, Kylie Jenner says that chronic wasting is not a thing, then probably 90% of people would be like, it's not a thing, it's fake. Well,
Tiffany: she knows, right?
Jeff: She knows. Yeah. Not at all. Not even a little bit. Um, but yeah, read some books and all that and then I would say, okay, so.
A deer can, can be exposed to chronic wasting and not show the symptoms of chronic wasting. And then a deer can, or a deer can be exposed to chronic wasting and then show the, [01:30:00] the symptoms of chronic wasting. And a hunter might get the hunch that, that deer, there's something not right about it. It's drooling, it's walking in circles.
Um, it, it wins you and it, it doesn't bolt. It's not behaving like a normal deer. Those are some clues that it might be suffering from a brain. Um, a brain eating itself disease, a brain wasting disease, um, but taking a healthy animal and, and turning its head into a responsible system that Alberta, uh, has.
And I think BC does too. Yep. Um, you, you send in a sample either the whole head or a part of the brain that you scrape and, and there's a little sample. It's all free to the public here.
Tiffany: Yep. Here.
Jeff: And then they test it for chronic wasting. So just because that animal has chronic, uh. What do you call it? Um, CWD present Chronic Wasting Disease.
I think there's a scientificy name for it in ungulates that's jumping outta my mind. Uh, so they could test positive and then not a hundred percent of people that consume meat from an animal that was CWD positive then develop anything at all. [01:31:00] So it's just a, it's a statistics game. Um, and, and, and, or maybe a toss of the dice.
So the likelihood is low that an animal has it. If an animal has it, the likelihood is low that the animal will die from it. And, and I read a study recently or an abstract of a study, um, that said that. There's a, a, a scientific resistance, like there's a genetic marker on certain populations of mule deer and southern BC that are affected.
And then they've developed a resistance to dying from that chronic wasting disease, which is really interesting.
Tiffany: Oh, weird.
Jeff: Um, and then I would believe that with 8 billion people on the, uh, uh, eight, 8 billion human beings, there's a lot of, you know, genetic variability where, uh, one person could eat, uh, the spinal cord out of an, or the brain out of a, a chronic wasting disease animal and be fine.
And the, and the next person could get, could immediately develop, uh, ktz feld yakup like. But, but is it worth it? So even if, and, and in life kind of kind of things, we, we do a [01:32:00] lot of dangerous things in life and I, I often say, uh, what's the worst possible outcome? And if that's like an agonizing death, then even though the percent likelihood of it affecting me is, uh, um, one in a thousand, less than 1%, I still will avoid that activity because agonizing death, low likelihood, it's, it's almost even multiplied in your head that like, I'm driving on this lake to go ice fishing and there's only six inches of ice.
Yeah, so, so the worst thing that can happen is this. And then the likelihood of it happening is that, and they're like, am I willing to take that risk so each person can assess the more information they're armed with from scientific resources, not Ted Nugent or, uh, not a like, absolutely avoid, uh, I would advise people to avoid if it's in a reel or on TikTok.
It's almost certainly not news or not based on any science. Almost a hundred percent, I'd say 90.
Tiffany: That's where I get all my news from.
Jeff: Yeah. Come on. Exactly right. Yeah. [01:33:00] See, 98% of it, if someone's bothered to make a reel about it, it's just, uh, click bait. But if you have to dig for it, on the other hand, if you have to Google, like type in three words like chronic wasting research in southern bc, if you had to do all that work of typing four words into the Google machine and the scientific resort or, um, um, report comes from a respected third party evaluated, uh, publication like Nature Magazine, now that you have to do a smidgen of work to get probably, it's probably a renowned researcher, you know, and that's probably more likely to be news than something that's on social media.
You can edit this all down to me saying the likelihood times, the, the worst case scenario is how you should evaluate whether or not you eat a deer that tests hot.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: Whether you hunt deer or hunt wild game in an area that is hot or known to be hot. And also, um, how you feel about BSC and BSC testing in, in, in your, your other proteins, your supermarket [01:34:00] proteins.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: Interesting detail in exploring BSE and having to make sort of these decisions at the slaughterhouse, uh, level. I found out that at the time that Alberta was sort of sanctioned and not able to export beef to the United States. A little, little country, uh, called the United Kingdom, um, did do tests and had been doing tests on a hundred percent of cattle slaughtered.
So every beef that was slaughtered in the UK at the time, in the early 2000 tens to 2000 fifteens, every beef that was slaughtered for human uh, consumption was required to test negative for BSE
Tiffany: really
Jeff: in Canada. Uh, let's, let's not test, so were tests available? Yes. Uh, veterinary tests were available in Canada, uh, on earth in the uk, ev everywhere in the world, you could buy a test to test the brain of cattle, um, fit for, for, for human consumption.
And the, the test was something like [01:35:00] $80. And so in Canada, it wasn't decided that your kids were worth testing for this disease, the health of your kids. But in the United Kingdom and a lot of European Union, uh, uh, nations, they were tested. A hundred percent of cattle were tested as part of just public health and like, so, so that's, that was kinda like, put that in your pipe and smoke it and you're like, well, are Canadian kids or your, the health of you, the risk to you, is that lower than for British kids?
And I'm like, uh, I don't know. But big beef and, uh, big beef who control, like, it costs a lot of money because oftentimes the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reaction to a a, a test, like a hot test would be euthanizing an entire herd of cattle, which would put the farmer out of it, would put the, almost certainly put a farmer out of business and put an entire food supply at risk and affect international trade.
It would cost billionaires, uh, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Tiffany: Yeah. They'd have to fire one of their maids. [01:36:00] Yeah.
Jeff: Yeah,
Tiffany: yeah. No, it's, it's, it's crazy. It's like, uh, what's that? Um, uh. Schrodinger or ro, I can't say the word, but the thing experiment with the cat, when you open the door, it's like, is the cat there or not?
They're just like, I'm just not gonna open the door. The cat's not there.
Jeff: They didn't wanna, there's, they wanna see. Yeah. Yeah. Scooby dude did something like that. Yeah. You know, you open the door and there's a monster.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: And then you just, no,
Tiffany: no, no. Monster.
Jeff: Did you just, you just close the door and like, okay, well we don't wanna deal with that.
Yeah. The sort of the, the shoot shovel shut up sort of mantra around BSE in Alberta was, was, uh, it, it had had gravity. It affected me. I'm like, what, where do, where do you stand and why? And like, so would you buy a beef? So you're gonna buy a side of beef from me and uh, 'cause you, 'cause we've had this conversation and the blah, blah, blah.
And then I have like, I have access to test it. Do you want to test it for BSE? Yeah. And you're like, well, how much? I'm like 80 bucks. So, and you'd say, yeah, I gotta feed this to my kids. I think [01:37:00] I do wanna test like, and then you know that some tests test false positive and some tests test false negative.
I could say if it tests positive, well test it a second time and then you'd be, then it's like in the case of Brendan's elk that tested positive and that was for free because Wild Game is tested for free. So in a weird way, wild Game is safer than other Canadian red meat food products because Wild Game, the Harvester has the option of testing that for chronic wasting.
Whereas for beef, you generally don't. You don't have that option at all. You can't go to Co. Costco will tell you if it's double A or Triple A graded. But not tested negative or tested positive because it would just cost the industry good. Like you wanna, like, they make you believe it would cost you millions.
The whole industry would collapse. I'm like, no, because the industry is so profitable, the, the commodified food industry, it would only, it would cost a lot of money compared to your bank account, but it wouldn't cost a lot of money. It'd be a tiny percentage of the total, the three or four [01:38:00] companies that control all meat in North America, it would cost them a few, a, a few percentage points.
But they, they, they could not afford that. But for some reason in Britain, the companies that produce meat did test, or the European Union said, we don't want to eat this unless it is tested. So similar to your, uh, observation when you, you and Travis visited Sweden, like their perspective on hunting and the sorts of animals they would harvest is different from the way that North America treats, uh, its food industries and what's valuable to us is kind of different.
What's valuable to other people in the world?
Tiffany: Yeah. North America's a special kind of. Special. Kind of crazy. I find with food sometimes some of the things that we're allowed to consume, and in Europe you're not allowed, it's not food, right? Mm-hmm. They just stick it in everything here, and it's, uh, you know, it, it encourages me to hunt and forage and grow my own vegetables and do all those things, so I have control over it and know what's in it.
Jeff: I I agree [01:39:00] totally. The, the beginning is flavor and then the more you, the more you, you know, you're like, whoa, how come this carrot or this apple has more fla flavor? Oh,
Tiffany: totally.
Jeff: You start to learn about seasonality and you start to learn about quality, and then you start to learn about additives and preservatives and, um, and the perversion of food by big business.
Tiffany: Yep. Yeah. Well, I think that might be a good place to stop. That's a
Jeff: picture. Yeah. I like it.
Tiffany: Uh, was what, was there anything else you wanted chat about or,
Jeff: no, I love having these sorts of conversations. Uh. On or off air, you're, you're part, part of the community. And I think that those of us that, uh, you know, care to learn about food and food harvesting, like this is, and this is not me being canned, this is just me being candid is, uh, man, it, it's, uh, I miss you.
I miss you guys. We need more of you guys in, you know, in the world. And I think that if we were to use this technology, uh. Like for this exact purpose. Mm. For people [01:40:00] of a, of a like stripe to sort of connect and unite and say, Hey, I could get fish off you guys next time I'm driving through to take a kid to Victoria, I should bring a cooler, two full of like crazy beef
Tiffany: of
Jeff: wines.
Yeah, yeah. Like willful and, and then also some striplin.
Tiffany: Yep.
Jeff: And then trade for what you are good at getting like wild game or blacktail deer I've never eaten. And then certainly the ocean bounty is insane.
Tiffany: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll do that for sure.
Jeff: Yeah.
Tiffany: Yeah, a hundred percent. Next time you come through, let us know.
And
Jeff: yeah, we generally do, we try like there's a stop friends of us in the ok. Friends of ours in the Okanagan, we called it trade routes. Uh, this, this joke about, hey, and this is Aboriginal culture tie-in too, these fucking people. Somehow people in the prairies had salt and then somehow Haida, Haida Indians had, and that's not the right word, Haida First Nations had fucking bison and you're.
There are mountain passes that my fucking car doesn't like driving. And the food culture of these [01:41:00] absolute boss ass people. The First Nations, you know, like, uh, shells in bead work in prairies Aboriginal people. And you're like, that's a shell. And like you and I would be like, oh, who cares? Kevin and I were on, um, an island chain.
We, we did a, a kayaking trip in one of the seasons and we were up out of, uh, Telegraph Cove and we went east to a national historic site where these beaches were made out of clam shells.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Jeff: But it was like 10,000 years of people, first Nations people celebrating and they ate so many clams there that there the beaches were 15 feet deep of clamshell of like shucked clams.
And we're like, man,
Tiffany: they call those middens or something like
Jeff: that. Middens. Yeah.
Tiffany: Yeah. That's cool.
Jeff: So we camped on a midden beach and it's like this white, like, it's weird. It's broken down shut. Anyway, it just gave us a sense, like a lived sense sleeping on it, like sleeping on the midden beach and we're like, people knew stuff that we still don't know.
[01:42:00] Like we, you know, like they're living a, a cultural richness that we still don't understand because just the same, you can go to museum in, in Edmonton and see, um, the, the car paste like tr traditional, um, like their dance outfits and there's these bits of shell on, and I'm like, I could not walk to the coast in an entire lifetime.
But they then, you know, more, more anthropologists are saying like, these fucking guys are walking every year. Or, or more than once a year.
Tiffany: Yeah. That's awesome. That reminds me of my, my grandpa used to very mu much, much smaller scale, but my grandpa had a buddy named Ernie, and on the weekend they would go out, they'd buy a wheel of like cheddar cheese or something from a local shop in Carousel, and they would cut it up into pieces and they'd go to all their friends and they would trade like a piece of cheese for something else, and they'd just visit all their friends for the, for the whole weekend and just trade the cheese for other stuff.
Jeff: The cheese wheel that was kinda like the beef, they call it the beef circle of breaking down beef, pre [01:43:00] refrigeration. But another neat, uh, idea that might be worth a snippet in, in your production is, um, if, you know a butcher or a baker home, baker, home gardener, home butcher, whatever, or a professional, you know, that the best stuff that that person has comes out among friends.
Tiffany: Oh yeah,
Jeff: it's not for sale. It ne it never was for sale and nor should it ever be for sale. So if I see, if I harvest an animal that we've grown on our own farm, and it's extraordinary that briola, that eye of round goes into briola, into my cellar. And that briola is never, it never hits any market shelf.
It never gets cha, it never gets exchanged for something as shallow and pathetic as money. I don't want your money. It's the best whiskey, the best wine comes from the, the, the winter cellar because it, it was off spec. It didn't meet ho homogeneity, uh, requirements. And so that's what I want to eat. And, and like you can trade it for something that's not money.
Tiffany: Yeah. Oh, there's, there's never been [01:44:00] a single Turkey or chicken served in my house that's made it to the table that still has the oysters attached to it.
Jeff: Exactly.
Tiffany: They're all,
Jeff: yeah, that's, yeah. When you're eating the,
Tiffany: yeah,
Jeff: exactly
Tiffany: right.
Jeff: Yeah.
Tiffany: No, a hundred percent. Well, uh, I, I'm gonna let you go. Uh, so she hasn't come back in and yell at you for That's
Jeff: great.
Tiffany: I,
Jeff: I know I can gush, I can really gush on these topics, but I appreciate you including me in your cool project.