Michael Kummer: Homesteading Pillars For Self-Sufficient Health (PART 1) | MMP #287

Michael Kummer joins us on todays episode. Michael is a digital health entrepreneaur and homesteading expert, a former professional sprinter, a CrossFit athlete, and the founder of MK Supplements, selling freeze-dried organ meat supplements sourced from 100% pasture-raised cattle. He has a popular blog and hosts the Primal Shift Podcast, where he explores topics like local food sourcing, benefits of homesteading, ethical animal husbandry, and modern agriculture's impact on food quality. Kummer merges advanced health optimization strategies with traditional food cultivation, bridging the gap between different health communities.

Topics discussed today include:

• Transitioning from corporate life to homesteading.
• The process and journey of learning to care for animals on a homestead.
• Building a closer relationship with nature through homesteading practices.
• Integrating outdoor activities into daily life for better health.
• The impact of changing one's living environment to be more in sync with the outdoors.
• Exploring the emotional and ethical aspects of raising animals for food.
• The experience and emotions involved in consuming meat from animals raised at home.
• Educating children on the importance of a hands-on relationship with their food, supported by family values.
• The importance of teaching natural eating habits to the next generation.
• Homesteading as a means to grow real food and create a legacy of health and understanding.

Timestamps:

(00:00) - Homesteading and Local Food Sourcing

(12:49) - Embracing Nature Through Homesteading

(19:16) - Learning About Homesteading and Regenerative Farming

(22:28) - Homesteading Lifestyle and Personal Reflection

(31:06) - Teaching Kids Healthy Relationship With Food


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The Meat Mafia Podcast is hosted by @MeatMafiaBrett and @MeatMafiaHarry with the mission of addressing fundamental problems in our food and healthcare system. Our concerns with our healthcare system can be drawn back to issues in our food system as far back as soil health. Our principles are simple: eat real foods, buy locally, and cook your own meals.

When you listen to our podcast, you will hear stories and conversations from people working on the fringes of the food and healthcare system to address the major crises overshadowing modern society: how do we become healthy again?

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Part 1
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the Meat Mafia podcast. Look, first and foremost, we just want to give a big shout out to you guys. You guys have been an immense part of the growth of this show and we don't get the opportunity very often to give you guys a quick shout out. So thank you guys for all the likes, shares, all the good things that you guys are doing to continue to grow the show.

It means the world to us. It allows us to do what we love. And that is truly irreplaceable and priceless. So thank you guys so much. And if you haven't already, please go follow, subscribe, like our channel, give us a comment. All of that plays an immense role in actually growing the show and getting this information in front of more people.

Now, with that said, we are actually testing out a new format for the show where we're going to be releasing content every single day on the podcast. And the format of the show is actually going to be 30 to 40 minutes. So you're going to be getting a little bit of a shorter episode, but more frequency.

So hopefully you [00:01:00] guys enjoy that. We've been getting a lot of feedback from you guys. I think you guys are going to love this. And I think it'll allow you guys to come into contact with our content in an even deeper way. So we truly appreciate that. And if you're not already a part of our Telegram group, it's linked below in the show notes.

And if you join that, it's just for the podcast listeners. And you can contact us on a regular basis. We can chat about each episode. We can chat about random things, where to get beef. It's a great place to just get in touch with us. Also, these episodes are going to be released at 5 a. m. throughout the week.

So Monday through Friday, we're going to be releasing podcasts at 5 a. m. And on Friday, we're going to be giving the Mafia Moment series a place. And that is where we go back in time to some of the best episodes in the history of the Meat Mafia and just pull out the best nuggets that we can find. Last week, Joel Salatin.

We released one of our older episodes with him, episode 75, and it was just a powerful 30 minute conversation. So, if you haven't listened to that Mafia Moment already, go back. Last Friday, that episode was incredible. And [00:02:00] now, for the episode today, we had on Michael Coomer.

Michael was originally on, on episode 111. And Michael is One of the guys that we respect most in this space, not just because the information that he puts out there is so incredible, not just because he's such a brilliant guy, but he's actually living this lifestyle through and through. He's a homesteader.

He raises a lot of his own food and he can speak to all the different dynamics of what it means to get really healthy food on the table, but also just to live a really rich and healthy life. So we were super pumped to get Michael back on the show. He has one of the best blogs. If you haven't already checked it out, I highly recommend it.

I'll link it in the show notes. He has one of the best health and wellness blogs on the planet. Go check it out. It's www. michaelkoomer. com. He is the man and you will hear that in the next hour. Check it out right now. Michael Koomer on the Meat Mafia Podcast.

Intro
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at the end of the day, you know, food is really one of the cornerstones.

It's so impactful to [00:03:00] be able to grow your own food and to know exactly where it came from.

how would you say your perspective on just morality and animals in general has changed just doing a lot of the homesteading

one thing I've realized is what many people don't seem to be getting their head around is, That you can actually love an animal and then take its life.

Part 1
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Michael, how are you? Welcome back to the Meme Mafia podcast. Well, thanks for having me again. Much appreciated. It's going really well. Um, it's, uh, it's been a little bit hectic as I, you know, told you when we talked offline, but it's, uh, everything is going well according to plan and I like it.

That's incredible. And for the listeners, this is your second podcast appearance. You were on episode 111, which was in 2022, believe it or not. We, um, yeah, we had read your blog for a while and then we finally got to meet you at Keto Con and have since built the relationship. And I think you were, at that point the blog was crushing for you, but I think you were still in a corporate job.

And then since that time you've gone on to [00:04:00] do the supplements and the homesteading and the podcast. Yeah. You have a lot of super exciting things that you're, that you're working on. Yeah, a lot, a lot of things have changed since then. It's on, I mean, it's only been, you know, less than two years, I guess. I think it was in summer maybe of 2022 or so.

Um, but yeah, a lot of things have changed, progress and moved forward, moved in the right direction, I think, you know, and, um, and, and super exciting. You know, I'm, I'm excited every morning to get up and, you know, and make stuff happen. And get one step closer to, you know, where we ultimately, you know, want to be, or why I want to be maybe a cowboy and cattleman or a version of that, you know, and so very exciting all.

Absolutely. And part of why I was so excited for this episode. Is I love when guests proactively come to us with ideas. And so we were texting back and forth and you said, Hey, I'd love to come back on the show. And I think I could, we could have a great podcast about, you know, number one, obviously supporting local, [00:05:00] local for food sources is incredibly important for your health, supporting the right system, et cetera.

But there's also a step beyond that, which is actually procuring and sourcing your own food. And kind of getting more into that homesteading lifestyle, which is something we saw pop up tremendously over the last couple of years throughout COVID. But I think where a lot of people get stuck is, okay, I'm living in a city, I'm moving out of the city.

How do I actually get started? And I think you're the perfect person to be able to talk about that and give some, give the listeners some inspiration and some really practical advice to get them in their own food growing game. Yeah. I mean, funny enough, you know, whenever I'm, you know, I deal with people from the homesteading community, you know, I see all of the great things that they are doing.

But beyond the homesteading aspect of the healthy life, there is not much else going on. Like, you know, I mean, there are certainly some that do it all or that, you know, play in different, um, areas. But, you know, if you talk to the average homesteader about, you know, physical fitness and strength, about, you know, hormesis, about cold [00:06:00] plunging, sauna bathing, you know, biohacking, you know, if you want to, you know, open up the umbrella a little bit.

There is very little expertise and then on the flip side, you know, there are all those great biohackers and you know that, you know, promote, you know, brands to, to buy from because they do the right thing, but very few of them actually grow their own food. And I'm like, at the end of the day, you know, food is really, you know, one of the cornerstones.

And, and I really think that we should all to a degree and not everyone can be a farmer and a homesteader, um, for sure. Uh, to take care of at least a portion of your food supply, because I've realized that even, you know, the best farms out there where we can source from, there is, you know, and just to take a very Simple example is, you know, pastured chicken, you know, if you want to buy chicken meat, you know, finding farms that raise their chickens in a way that would, that me, that, that would me want to buy, you know, that chicken meat [00:07:00] and consume it are very few.

You know, even, let's say, in order to, you know, we don't really have to, you know, mention any names, but all those regenerative farm out there, you still get your Cornish Cross chicken, which is basically just an, an over, an obese baby that you're eating because they get butchered at eight weeks, right? Um, they are usually fed, even if they are fed corn and soy free, it's still feed that's high in PUFAs.

You know, there is very, there are very few brands. And in fact, I only, you know, discovered one that offer chicken feed that is low in proof us that uses vegetable, uh, that uses olive oil instead of the typical vegetable oils to bind the minerals to defeat, you know, just to give you one example, so it's almost impossible.

to, to source high quality chicken that is low in polyunsaturated fatty acids, right? It's better with, with cattle, of course, you know, because cattle are easier to raise and, you know, you just need to feed them grass at the end of the day. But with chickens and monogastric animals, including pigs as well, you know, it's very difficult and I'm like, [00:08:00] I don't want to buy any chicken, you know, from anyone else.

I want to do that myself. So I, at least I know I can get the best chicken possible. Um, and chickens are relatively easy to raise. They're much easier than cattle or sheep or goats or, you know, pigs for that matter, it's something you can do if you have a backyard, you know, and, um, and that was just, you know, one example or honey is another good example.

You know, most of the honey, you don't really know what's in there. You know, other pesticides in there, most commercial beekeepers, you know, treat their bees. Um, for, you know, for, for mites and for hive beetles and for all kinds of things just on a regular basis. It's like, you know, scheduled, uh, medication.

Um, what's going on in the, in the regular beekeeping community. I'm like, I don't want to eat that stuff. You know, the honey might be good, might be well, you know, intentioned. But it still has a potential of containing all of that stuff in there that I don't want. And so we are raising our own bees.

Another thing that's fairly inexpensive, fairly easy to do, and almost anywhere allowed. Even if your HOA doesn't allow your chicken, at least here in Georgia there is no law that can prevent [00:09:00] you from raising your own bees, regardless of where you are. And I'm like, and that's just the beginning, but in reality, if you look around, there are so many things that, where the food you can buy, It's still less than ideal and relatively easy to do it yourself if you really want to enjoy optimal health.

And I think it's particularly true if you already suffer from some sort of metabolic, you know, or chronic disease that you are trying to heal. You know, taking care of your own food supply as much as you can, I think is a, is a no brainer and really something. And it's fun. It's fun. And we're going to get into all that.

But you're, I mean, you're already teaching me things and you're, I'm already having new thoughts in my brain because one of the things we talk a lot about on the podcast is that. No matter what at the grocery store, it's still really hard to verify the sourcing of the meat, where it's coming from, is it grass finished, et cetera.

At least with beef, if the grocery store is, is fairly good or higher quality, there are, there will be some certifications of grass finish labeling. You know, some grocery stores will have butchers that can verify the farm [00:10:00] and if it's grain finished versus grass finished. But what I always say is that, you know, the chicken, there's literally no way to verify.

So the best thing that you can do is go to a rancher that you trust and buy chicken. But what you're saying, which I think is such a good point, is that even if it's still corn and soy free. There are high poof of feed, so it still might not be optimal for you. So instead of just outsourcing all these different aspects of your food, which is so important, I mean outside of air and water, food is the, you know, the third most important thing that you can be consuming.

Why not take matters into your own hands and actually grow some of this yourself and have the highest quality food product that you possibly can have. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And even, you know, within the, the, the, the beef world. I mean, even if we go to the best regeneratively raised farm, you know, be it, you know, here domestically in the U.

S. or if you, you know, think in New Zealand has the better beef, you know, they're all still vaccinated. They get default vaccinations or vaccines and, you know, you can think about it, what do you want? If you don't care, fine. But there are those out there that say, you know what? I'd rather not have an animal that received any sort of [00:11:00] vaccine unless it was medically necessary, you know, to get medication.

But the whole proactive, you know, injecting stuff, a lot of people opposed to that, but try and find, you know, beef here in the U S that has not received any vaccine. I would argue it's impossible, you know? And so that's another reason if you want to really take it to the next step and say, you know what the cleanest possible beef I can possibly get, you will have to grow it yourself, you know, and have to raise, you have to raise those, those cows yourself.

Yeah, it's a fantastic point. And so for our listener, I mean, we detailed this a lot the first time you came on the podcast. You're someone that's been extremely passionate and devoted to your health and wellness for a long time And it sounds like you kind of had this this transformation process where whether it was carnivore animal base You experimented with a lot of different modalities and a lot of different different forms of nutrition You really discovered like the perfect macronutrient combination that worked really well for you worked really well for your family And then you took it to another level in Georgia and said look let's actually [00:12:00] get into homesteading and start growing our own food and taking matters into our own hands.

So I think for the listener, I, we would love to just learn a little bit more about what was that light bulb moment of saying, Hey, we're going to do this. We're going to grow our own food. And you know, what kind of animals or things did you start with to, uh, to get going? Yeah. Bees were actually the first ones, um, that we, that we started with.

And, um, I think the idea was at the, at the point there was a couple of years ago, I don't remember the exact year, but a couple of years ago, maybe four years ago we said, you know what, Ultimately, if we are not in control of our own food supply, we're always gonna be, you know, behind the curve ball. We always are reliant and have to trust and, you know, verify.

And we'll likely never find, you know, the, the ideal, you know, food that we want to consume. And I also, at the same time, I was like, you know, I want to do something that involves, that, that's, uh, Puts me in closer contact with nature, you know, I mean, [00:13:00] blogging and podcasting and all this stuff in front of the computer is fine, but I need something else, you know, it's not just my digital work at some point, you know, just, you know, projecting myself into, you know, the future, maybe 10 years from now.

I don't see myself writing blog posts every day, you know, anymore. I want to be, you know, out in nature. I want to, you know, really. And more fully in praise, what, uh, uh, in, uh, more fully, um, do really what, what, what I encourage everyone doing already, like, you know, go for a walk, you know, ground yourself, be in nature, you know, do all of those things.

But it's, it's very difficult if you live a modern life where you're, you know, in front of a computer on the phone or in an office or whatever. And so now at this point I kind of have to, or even before we started homesteading, I kind of had to make it a point to go out of my way. to embrace those things, right?

I had to go out of my way to go into nature. It was not something that I was just doing automatically [00:14:00] because my lifestyle is conducive to being in nature. No, I had to get up in front of my computer. I had to go outside, right? And that's really the challenge that a lot of people face. You have to, you know, go to the gym.

You have to, you know, Make the right choice. You had, there are always so many, so many things that you have to do that don't necessarily come naturally because your environment is not set up the way it should. And so we figure that if we just change our environment where, you know, every morning we go to the animal.

So we are in nature by default. You know, it's not something we have to. Think about or remind ourselves. It's it's just part of you know, the whole deal It's part of our lifestyle and that was one of one of the the key factors and then obviously, you know Taking control of our food supply was the other one and so we started with bees because we figured it's super easy to the Entry barrier is very low Um, and we started with that and then we figured, well, you know, now that bees are working well, you know, the next obvious thing is chickens because they are super easy and they produce a lot of the food that we eat on a daily basis, meaning X, you [00:15:00] know, at this point we weren't really into meat chickens yet.

We were just focusing on, on X and, and from there, you know, I mean, then we've like, okay, on our current property, which is not huge, I mean, we just have an acre, you know, and we live in a somewhat, you know, we live in a city at the end of the day. And we said, well, what's the next protein source that we can raise that's easy, that doesn't require, you know, rotational grazing, for which we don't have the, the acreage for.

Um, and rabbits, you know, was the obvious choice because they are quiet, they are easy, you know, they produce a lot of meat, you know, they, I mean, they have a litter every, I don't know, 45 days and you, you get, you know, pounds and pounds of meat. And so we got into rabbits and then we added geese, um, and more chickens.

And, you know, this March, actually, we're going to get our first 30 meat birds, the ones that we will, you know, eventually then butcher and put in the freezer. And we're going to get turkeys, so we have our Thanksgiving, you know, taken care of. And, and that's just, you know, all, you know, [00:16:00] small, easy steps that I think almost everyone can do.

Um, and, uh, With the goal of we purchased some property this year, 45 acres. So we have really spaced them to do the management intensive grazing and all of the things, you know, to get ready for the bigger animals, for cattle, for sheep, for goats, for pigs, maybe bison. And I will see. Um, but that's kind of, that was the idea of, of, of doing it.

And instead of saying, you know what, let's wait until we have a bigger property, let's wait until, you know, whatever. No, we wanted to do something right away and bees and chickens, you know, is something we could absolutely do right away. Um, and you know, learn the ropes, figure out what it means to take care of livestock, to take care of disease, if need be, to, you know, to figure all of those things out.

So you can then scale and don't, you know, I would not recommend necessarily starting with cattle, cattle, you know, if you've never raised any livestock, but if you already know, you know, bees and chickens and geese and, you know, and rabbits, then taking the next step. is much, is a much smaller step [00:17:00] than going from zero to, you know, rotational grazing and maybe dairy cows.

So that was kind of the long winded answer to your question. It's a, it's an amazing answer and it honestly is inspiring to me to hear you tell that story. And I loved, I even love what you said when you kicked it off, just saying how, look, I want to be outside with my kids and my animals in 10 years and if I'm still online blogging all the time in 10 years, I would take that as a sign of doing something wrong.

And it's funny that you say that because when I, I, I actually think the healthiest period of my life was two years ago when I was living in San Diego. like when we were first starting the podcast. And the reason why I say that is I was five minutes from the beach. So I was going in the ocean all the time.

I lived right on the bay. So I would go outside, take calls, walk 20, 000 steps a day. I was in the sun constantly. I was buying all my food from the local farmer. And now it's like, I'm probably in better physical shape now, but I actually felt better back then because now I'm way more plugged into my computer [00:18:00] doing podcasts, taking calls, et cetera.

It's, it's all great things. That's what I've signed up for. But I personally resonate to what you're saying. And I think that's a good goal of like make money online and then invest it into growing your own food and doing things outside that actually make you feel amazing. Yup. That's absolutely. You know, and that's, was also one of the reasons why we said, you know what, besides the digital content, let's have a physical product, you know, Let's do something that can, you know, that, that sells without me having to produce content every single day.

I mean, of course there was work involved, but it's not necessarily work that I'm the only one capable of doing. Whereas with the writing, you know, writing about my experience with a product, you know, only I can do, I mean, I'm the only, you know, writer in, in the team, so to say, um, and that's, so that is a bottleneck and by having the Homestead, you know, it's still.

Partially about, you know, producing content and on the homesteading side, but it's producing content on the homesteading side means having to be outside, you know, being with the animals, being in the dirt, you know, and I really like [00:19:00] that. A hundred percent. And Michael, I would, I would love to know. Cause I'm sure you were fired up and excited.

And I love the mindset that you had of like, even if we don't know everything, why push it off until we have a bigger property? Let's just start with the acre and scale up and we'll learn as we go. What were some of the most impactful resources just to learn about, you know, meat birds, honey, rabbits, geese, et cetera.

Like were there local farmers that you consulted with where their courses, how did you kind of learn this stuff early on? Yeah. I mean, it was really a combination of, you know, YouTube, you know, it's always, I mean, there's so many homesteaders right now that share their stories and, you know, great stories, great resources.

Uh, we bought a bunch of books, you know, and kind of figured out, okay, what is. You know, similar to, I guess, the, the traditional health space, you know, there are like the, there's academia, you know, there is the opinion out there how it works based on science, you know, how you should, you know, raise your cattle and, and feed, you know, conversion ratios and all of those things.

And then there are those who actually, [00:20:00] you know, live it and do it more based on, you know, the cycles of nature, you know. I mean, White Oak Pastures was a great inspiration to kind of, you know, show how they are doing things differently, but in a much smarter way, in my opinion. And, and, and then from there, obviously, they were one of the first ones, you know, doing, you know, regenerative farming, etc.

But now there are so many different outlets who do it in, on different scales with different variations. And, you know, you read more books and, and you try stuff out and you see what works and what doesn't. Um, but in a lot of cases it's, you know, you get like an idea, you get a framework from something you see, be it a video or something you read in a book, but then you try it out yourself and you figure out, well, in my particular environment, you know, where I am, you know, with the resources that I have with, you know, the expertise that I have, I got to do things differently, you know?

And so you try things out and sometimes, you know, it doesn't work. Sometimes it works and you learn from that. And, you know, It's very much like anything else. You know, you [00:21:00] gotta get your feet wet, make mistakes. I like to make quick mistakes, improve and move on. Um, and, and that's been really the foundation of our, you know, of, of our growth, I want to say.

It's amazing to think that we live in a world where you can learn the basics of ranching off YouTube and just kind of get out there and get some practical experience and you figure it out and you learn over time. I think it's that learner self starter mentality that seems like it's been really impactful to you.

I wanted to ask you if you remember the feeling of eating chicken from one of your meat birds for the first time. And the reason why I say that is I often, when it comes to chicken, I think about the, the intro to the book, the Dorito Effect. Um, I don't know if you've, have you read it before? Uh, it's a, it's a great book and it's all about just how our taste buds have effectively been manipulated by these processed food companies.

And the, it tells the story about the chicken of tomorrow and the first passage of the book is there's a guy who's married to [00:22:00] a woman and she's trying to make chicken similar to how this guy's grandmother used to make it, how he remembered it. And she would always, she would always test out, try new recipes, et cetera.

She could never get it. She finally found a local chicken producer that made like evolutionarily consistent chicken exactly how you were talking about. And so she makes it for him for the first time, he cuts into the chicken, he bites it, and he literally starts tearing up because it brought back all those memories from the type of birds that his grandmother was making for him too.

So, I'm just curious, for someone that's never tried chicken the way that you're talking about it, how different is the taste and how good was it? Um, the first time you got to experience it. Well, as far as the meat bird is concerned, I don't know yet because our first meat birds are going to come in March.

And so they have not been raised and butchered yet. So I don't know about the meat, the chicken meat yet, but I can tell it with, uh, with eggs and with rabbits. Um, it didn't really bring back any memories because I never had rabbit meat in the past. And, and we had, you know, already high quality [00:23:00] chicken eggs.

But what I can tell you is that. The, the feeling of, I guess it was more like, you know, being grateful and, and, and realizing that what you have on your plate or what I had on my plate is something that I raised. You know, there was no middleman involved. I don't, didn't have to go anywhere. You know, everything that's in the deck is because of our doing, you know, or anything that's, you know, everything that wasn't in that rabbit meat.

And actually the other day I had. I had a rabbit stew for breakfast with eggs and I had some honey with it and I realized by looking at the plate Everything on that plate came from our backyard, you know, and that that that feeling that that gives you is It's hard to describe but it's you know, you feel like, you know, deeply grateful that You know you took care of that entire plate And, and, and right now, of course we only do it, you know, in a, in a [00:24:00] very limited manner.

I mean, we have our rabbits, we have the honey, we have, um, we have the, the eggs, but just, you know, extrapolating that to a point where at some point we'll have, you know, beef, you know, the pork, you know, the salami that I eat, you know, I cured myself, you know, all of the things that. We are ultimately going to do in the not so, you know, far future, you know, that feeling also, you know, visualizing what, what we're gonna do is, is, is incredibly impactful.

And for me, at least it has changed the way I see, you know, life and what's important to me. I know this sounds, you know, all very like, you know, all the way up there, but it's really, you know, it, it, it's so impactful to be able to grow your own food and to know exactly where it came from. And, and, you know, all of the, ultimately, you know, not only, you know, giving your, your animals a good life, but also taking it at the end of the day, you know, which, you know, not in case of the eggs, but at least the rabbits, you know, You know, that is also [00:25:00] something incredibly impactful and powerful and makes you appreciate the food so much more because it was you You know who took that animal's life in the best way possible, but nevertheless, you know, that's what happened Yeah, I think you said it perfectly where it's a level of appreciation for your food where someone like me or a listener That's never harvested their own food before can't possibly relate to unless we actually do, you know Do the get our hands in the dirt like you said and experience it You For ourselves and that actually kind of led me into the question that you just touched on is how would you say your perspective on just morality and animals in general has changed just doing a lot of the homesteading and protecting these animals and then also having to take their life too for to provide sustenance to your family.

Yeah, I mean, it hasn't really, um, it hasn't really changed the way I see it from a moral perspective. I'm still 1000 percent convinced that it is necessary and it's, it's just for us to do that. I mean, if we don't eat [00:26:00] animals, we're not gonna thrive. You know, that's just the way everything has been set up by whoever or whatever, depending on what your belief system is.

Um, but I, you know, nevertheless, what I, one thing I've realized is what many people don't seem to be getting their, their head around is, That you can actually love an animal and then take its life, right? In case of, you know, very good example. You know, one of the, we had a rooster until a couple of months ago that I absolutely adored.

He was like my buddy for the longest time. And we actually, you know, put out a, a YouTube short. It was kind of, it went viral, but for all the reasons, you know, we didn't intend to. Um, and, you know, he, I, I love that rooster, but at some point, you know, he was so aggressive to anyone or to everyone that we couldn't do our chores anymore.

The kids couldn't help, you know, their wife couldn't help, you know, at the end of, you know, I, I got scratched when I went down [00:27:00] because for the longest time I was the only one who could collect eggs because he wouldn't attack me. And at some point and he attacked me as well and there was nobody left that could, you know, do the chores without being, you know, scratched up all the time.

And so we decided we have to end the rooster's life. You know, we have to butcher him and, and, and we did that. And I, at that point I realized that, you know, as much as you care for animals, I mean, I, I don't know how often I ran out there. If there was a hawk, you know, coming in, you know, defending our chickens that later on ended up in the pot, you know, I was fighting for their life up until the point where it took it, you know, and it, I came to realize that it's, it's perfectly normal.

And it's, I think how it's supposed to be. That you care and you, you care for and you love an animal, especially if it's livestock, and then at some point, you know, you harvest the animal to nourish yourself. And that's something I think many people don't understand. How can you love an animal and then kill it?

Um, but once you're in a position, and you realize this is how [00:28:00] it's supposed to be, You know, it's, it, it just feels okay and trust. It's really well said. Yeah. It's, um, it seems like a, almost like a juxtaposition to the average person. And then when you dig deeper to what you're saying, it's like, it's kind of this beautiful experience of being able to love something so much, take care of it.

recognizing that this animal is like the evolutionary food that you're meant to be consuming. And then you're taking those nutrients, like you said, and then you have the energy to go live the best possible life that you can. And then ultimately do right by that animal. Um, and then that animal is also creating all this other life out on your property too.

And it's kind of this amazing cyclical experience. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. That's, that's exactly what it is. Michael, what has it been like as a dad to get your kids exposure to this homestead life? Cause I'd have to imagine that's such a special experience for you and your kids. It's, it's like a, it's a, it's a dream come true.

Um, I've always imagined, you know, like doing stuff with the kids differently to really get them back to the roots, [00:29:00] you know, and, and for a long time before we started homesteading, you know, it is kind of a, you know, how do you do that? What does it really mean? You know, and, and now we've discovered that.

Well, what it really means is to do things entirely differently and to be more in line with You know, what's been happening in nature, you know, you know, be it, you know, part of a tribe, you know, living with animals, taking care of animals, taking an animal's life, harvesting animals, you know, um, consuming the foods we're supposed to consume instead of the processed junk you get in the store, um, and homeschooling them, you know, taking them out of just a, Taking them out of the system, you know, and doing things the way we think is best might not always be the best way.

You know, we make plenty of mistakes, but at least feeling like you're in control of directing your future. Or I shouldn't really say that because we are not really in the, in the business of directing your future and pointing them in a certain way, but giving them a lot of different opportunities, giving them a framework that [00:30:00] we think is best.

And, and just observing. You know, the decisions and choices they make, you know, and, and, and seeing that by default, if they are not influenced in a certain way, they actually make very good decisions, you know, and to do very good things and they listen to you, to their body, you know, they, they make the right food choices, even if they are, you know, less than ideal choices to them available.

And it's just a, I mean, it's a great feeling to. You know, to have that opportunity with them. Um, not that, I mean, I, I kind of wish that I had that opportunity as well, but my parents, you know, didn't have the, you know, the means to, to do any of that. And I'm super grateful that we do have, have the means and that we can show them a different way and, you know, hopefully, you know, they'll, they'll take that opportunity and then make the best out of it.

If not, then that's fine too, you know, but at least they have, they have the opportunity. Yeah, that's the amazing part about your, [00:31:00] your story is like, obviously, and I feel similar to you as I wish my parents had the skill set, um, so they could have passed it on. But the beautiful thing is that you completely learned this by yourself with your wife, from people that you trust, and now you get to pass that on to your kids.

And from a extremely young age, they have the most intimate relationship with food and an understanding of what real food actually is. I think a lot about my Northeast upbringing in New Jersey and I just felt like in the 90s, purely anecdotal, but I felt like all my neighbors had gardens where they were growing fruits and vegetables and things like that.

And then when I look into the 2000s into now, it seems like almost no one has, they're not harvesting their own food. And there's also like a de wiring of understanding what's a food like substance versus what is an actual food. Right. Where your kids from, from day one of being out there, they're, they have that proper relationship with food.

So it's so cool to think about as they grow up, like this, this level of knowledge that's going to be built inside of them for, for decades. That's really special. Yeah, no, absolutely. [00:32:00] That's, uh, that's definitely something we are, you know, reinforcing and, and, and really making sure they, you know, get uncomfortable.

They get exposed to everything, you know, at least, you know, we want to show them, you know, all kinds of different things and, but help them understand. Okay. What is. It's something that we would consider, you know, normal and consistent with how humans have been doing things for a long time, uh, versus what is, you know, what is newer and maybe not so conducive to optimal health.

Definitely.