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You Can't Print Steak - Fiat Food with Matthew Lysiak

Episode 90 · 9 September 2026 · 1 hr 46 min

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Fiat Food: How Broken Money Broke the American Diet

Fiat Food is Matthew Lysiak's book about how fiat money and the American food supply are connected. The former New York Daily News national crime reporter joins Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen. They trace a line from the Nixon shock of 1971 through corn subsidies, seed oils and the food pyramid to the way Americans eat today.

Matthew first joined the show in Episode 5, a different conversation about Fiat Food.

The food pyramid. Seed oils. High-fructose corn syrup. For 50 years we were told it was science. An investigative crime reporter who survived cancer as a teenager dug deeper — and traced it all back to one date: August 15, 1971. The day America's money broke. The day our food started breaking too.

Matthew Lysiak — former New York Daily News national crime reporter and author of Fiat Food — joins Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen to expose the hidden connection between the U.S. going off the gold standard and the systematic corruption of the American diet.

What Fiat Money Did to the Food Pyramid, Seed Oils and Corn Subsidies

What you'll discover:

  • Why "going off gold" in 1971 directly incentivized the subsidizing of corn, soy, and sugar — and what that did to your plate
  • How Kellogg's cornflakes, the food pyramid, and seed oils share a common origin — and it wasn't science
  • Why red meat is becoming a food of the upper class while processed food stays artificially cheap
  • The difference between the "illusion of abundance" and real abundance — and which one most Americans are actually living
  • Why Matthew believes ending fiat money is the single most powerful thing we could do to fix the food supply

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Introduction — Matthew Lysiak, author of Fiat Food
  • [00:21] How Randy discovered Matthew at the Bitcoin Commons in Austin
  • [01:28] Journalism, and Dr. John's bad first brush with the press
  • [03:02] Starting a newspaper at 17: the scrapper's origin story
  • [04:01] National crime reporter: mass shootings, corruption and motive
  • [05:24] Matthew's daughter Hilde — the teenage journalist
  • [05:46] From Brooklyn to Patagonia, Arizona: the move that changed everything
  • [08:06] Trade-offs: choosing family over the newsroom
  • [09:14] The real life of a writer (not the glamorous version)
  • [13:09] Credentialism: why we've outsourced our thinking — and what it's costing us
  • [16:05] The media landscape: from government watchdog to government lapdog
  • [18:38] Free speech absolutism — including the case of Alex Jones
  • [20:21] Who gets to decide what's true? A three-way debate
  • [28:59] Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and the founding intent of the free press
  • [31:23] The pivot: from crime reporter to food investigator
  • [31:56] Cancer at 15, the food pyramid, and a personal awakening
  • [34:16] Saifedean Ammous, The Bitcoin Standard, and the birth of Fiat Food
  • [38:08] What "fiat" actually means — and August 15, 1971
  • [39:20] Gold, Bitcoin and what makes money "hard"
  • [41:06] The Seventh-day Adventist church, Ellen White, and the anti-meat movement
  • [42:10] John Harvey Kellogg and the breakfast cereal that changed America
  • [42:55] Margarine, Crisco and the first "non-foods"
  • [44:15] Vietnam, foreign gold redemptions and the Nixon Shock
  • [46:02] Earl Butz, go-big-or-go-home farming, and subsidies for corn, soy and sugar
  • [47:39] Why governments fear food riots
  • [48:18] "You can print Doritos like fiat dollars" — why animal foods can't be inflated away
  • [49:13] The 1960 beach photo: find an obese person. You can't.
  • [51:42] Why Matthew's wife can eat flour in Italy without gluten problems — but not here
  • [52:18] The illusion of abundance: always hungry, always eating, never nourished
  • [53:00] Chimp Empire, out-of-season produce and seed banks
  • [56:11] Church, government and corporations: the three-headed alliance
  • [56:55] January 2023: the Food Compass, a 60 Minutes segment and new pediatric guidance
  • [59:13] Dr. John on GLP-1 drugs: titrating patients off, like insulin
  • [1:03:48] Break — Sponsor: AG1
  • [1:04:55] Why a harder currency ends the distortion — and gold confiscation
  • [1:05:31] Tobacco, nicotine pouches and an open question
  • [1:06:50] Abundance vs. the illusion of abundance
  • [1:07:40] Money supply, the stock market and what a million dollars used to mean
  • [1:10:52] What does abundance look like? Control over your time
  • [1:11:58] Money is time: why Matthew holds Bitcoin
  • [1:13:55] How the research changed Matthew: 90% animal-based and closer to nature
  • [1:15:48] "What are we supposed to eat?" — try 10 days of animal foods
  • [1:18:35] Matthew's vegetarian experiment, carnivore and raw milk
  • [1:20:14] Dr. John on intermittent fasting and elimination diets
  • [1:21:13] Is there a spiritual side to fasting?
  • [1:25:15] An awakening: people re-examining conventional wisdom
  • [1:26:13] The Fourth Turning
  • [1:28:34] The election and a political realignment
  • [1:31:37] Don't underestimate Elon Musk — DOGE and the spending math
  • [1:34:04] RFK Jr., beef tallow at McDonald's, and what ending corn subsidies would do
  • [1:36:45] SnackWell's, victory gardens and the shifting case against meat
  • [1:39:03] Matthew's next book: how fiat money corrupted medicine
  • [1:40:18] Where to find Matthew
  • [1:41:41] Reversing type 2 diabetes — Dr. John's story and the system that fights it
  • [1:44:31] Closing thoughts

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About Matthew Lysiak

Matthew Lysiak is an investigative journalist and author who spent years as a national crime reporter for the New York Daily News — one of the five largest papers in the country at the time. His book Fiat Food, published by Saifedean Ammous's The Saif House, traces the systemic corruption of the American food supply back to the moment the U.S. abandoned the gold standard in 1971. It is being translated into 8 languages.

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Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:01] everyone. I'm Dr. John Oberg. Joining me as always, my co-host Randy Lawren. I got to tell you, I am so excited about today, Matthew Leach. Okay, we just talked about this off the air. Lash Lee, you nailed it. Leach, I got it right. All right, we we practiced before and I still didn't have confidence in that one, but Matthew Lee here today to talk about a lot more than just his book, Fiat Food. Rainy, you you caught Matthew speaking at a conference. Yeah, at the Bitcoin comments here in here in Austin, he was speaking at event uh talking about his book and I was fascinated. It was the topic and frankly his enthusiasm and his passion for it was was very very obvious and very evident and I just thought this guy's a great guest. We have to get him up. — Matthew, welcome. We're so glad you could have have you here today. — Thank you. I'm I'm honored. I appreciate you having me. Thank you very much. This is fun. You know, I think in the room we have like Randy who is I mean a Bitcoin fanatic might not be a, you know, deep enough statement about his enthusiasm of Bitcoin. I own Bitcoin a little bit uh big because Randy told me to buy it when it was like I don't know $200 and I waited until it was a lot more than that. Wish I'd listened. And it sounds like reading your book, you're probably a Bitcoin fanatic, too. I am. I've been All right. Okay. That's like I've been converted to Catholicism. You guys have been converted to bitcoins. We'll see how that plays out to I'm excited about this. is I'm I'm a huge advocate of Bitcoin and where it's headed. Not like you two are, but uh the link to food was a shocking one to me. We'll get there in a few minutes. I want to talk about your journalistic background. Can we start there, Randy?

[01:31] — Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Journalism, man. Like I I had a horrible experience with a journalist when I was in high school where I was at a sports team. We just had a big win and this guy had been beat up in high school as a journalist and he came to me and he asked me some questions about the infighting between our sports team and other sports team on campus. And my answer was, I have a lot of great friends on that other sports team. We support them, you know, rapidly. Sure, there's times that people might get sideways, but we're all great friends. And the headline school. I was made to look really bad. lost a lot of friends over the thing and I was really upset because he misconstru I mean he literally took things out of context for his own agenda and that was my first experience with media and uh journalism has a a up and down history. We talked a little about this before we got on. How did you get into journalism and I found your journalism to be really well researched like the kind of journalism I would hoped for when I was 17 not what I experienced. I've always loved journalism and I think about this a lot because I I have four daughters and you watch people's natural inclinations as they grow up and I think about my own past and I've always been into newspapers, not so much into school and when I was younger in my public school there was no journalism program.

[02:50] There was yearbook and I ended up dropping out of high school and being obsessed with journalism I tried taking a part-time class at university in journalism but my professor had never worked in journalism. and he just had a degree in journalism. I didn't feel like I could learn anything. Started my own newspaper in my town when I was 17. — You started Let's go there. Like just walk over that. You just most 17 year olds that don't just start their own newspapers. Tell us more about that. — I knew nobody would hire me to write a newspaper. I was going to start my own newspaper. I started a newspaper called The Dan Villian based in Danville, Pennsylvania. Had some good stories. is I exposed in an illegal sobatical my principal and superintendent hadworked together and he had to resign and exposed mistreatment at a local nursing home. So I was very proud of my paper but I needed to go to New York City. I was in a small town in Pennsylvania and I was that guy who went to New York City telling everybody I'm going to be a writer and I just kind of scrapped my way from smaller newspapers like uh my first job was at the Brooklyn paper and then the New York Sun. I did a third shift editorial gig and very serendipitously ended up at the New York Daily News which at the time was the fifth biggest paper in the country and I became the national reporter. So my job was for years, anytime a national story broke, have the backpack in my car, hit the next flight, a lot of mass murders, a lot of mass shootings, and I was obsessed in terms of government corruption and crime. Those were my two forte in journalism. I — say those like they're different.

[04:24] — I mean, kids, it's I shouldn't say it that way. I was just being cheesy. — It's well put though and and right on. I my my particular fascination was motive, like why people did the things that they did. So on a mass shooting, the paper might send a few reporters to cover funerals. I was always there to cover the reason, try to put pieces together on why the shooter committed the shooting. And I've just been fascinated ever since my career. After the new after the New York Daily News, I I have four kids and my wife was getting annoyed at the whole idea that I was gone half the year covering stories and uh I made a transition to bookw writing from there. Moved out of New York City into the country. Didn't know how — by the country you are. I mean, tell people where where that what that means. — Well, that first meant I moved back to my hometown of Danville, Pennsylvania. My kids were thrilled about that. going from Brooklyn to this small town. And then my daughter Hildy who's now 18, she we wanted a quieter life and she gained a bit of notoriety because she got into journalism at a very very young age and it became a bit overwhelming in terms of suffocating small town with her being becoming like she became like a national figure for a while. So then we moved from there to Patagonia, Arizona, which is really out in the middle of nowhere.

[05:51] uh 18 miles from the Mexican border in the middle of the high desert, tiny town, and that's where we live now. — And Hilly's got like I mean we Hilly's got books on Amazon. I saw — she sells way more books than me. — That's amazing. — Yeah. I I went out and was doing a little homework and pulled that up and saw that, you know, you were the — Right. I mean, it's funny because she was so young that she wasn't able to just have her name out of the book. But it was fun working with my kid. Yeah. It's not so fun that when your kid's the boss of a project out. — It becomes a little awkward. We always had to have these editor interventions that were always a hoot. — That's fun. — How I mean, okay, from from New York City, Brooklyn to the middle of the desert in Arizona. I mean, what what what caused that? I mean, there's there's less extreme ways to get out of the city. — Yeah, that's a good point. I covered uh Gabby Gfords, the shooting that happened in Arizona by a young man named Jared Woffner. And when I was there, I got in a bit of trouble because I didn't understand the shield laws in Arizona were very different than in New York. In New York, you could get onto somebody's property to get pictures. In Arizona, you can't do that. So, we actually did that. And the law enforcement was very, very upset with us when they saw the — In Texas, you get shot for that. I mean, no doubt. I mean, I'm not sure about the — It was It was an interesting time, but we had to flee Tucson because the shield walls were different and they could legally detain my photographer and I and we kind of had to ditch our phones and go to Sedona because there was a snowstorm. We couldn't get out. We couldn't get out of Arizona. But I remember being in Sedona and thinking, I want to bring my kids here one day. I want to bring my kids to see Sedona.

[07:30] It's it's a fascinating place. And when we did when we did come here for a short vacation, while my youngest daughter was kind of blowing up in that time period, my wife was addicted. She let's just move here. And as a writer, I could now just it didn't matter where I lived and it sounded about right. So we made the move to also the seclusion. I mean, my kids might not like it, but selfishly for my wife and I, it was paradise to just not be hearing the traffic all the time. Again, we we made a move, my wife and I, about a year ago. No, we it was our kids got out of school or went to college, but we went out into the country, too. And it's Yeah, it's just better. Yeah. And you know, you make a tra you make trade-offs in life all the time as we were discussing previously. And I loved my career and I loved my job and my bosses were great to me. I missed my job. Almost every day I think about the New York Daily News and what it used to be and my role there, but my marriage was not where I wanted it to be. My wife was very unhappy with my absences. She would say, "I I didn't sign up to be a single mom. I'm like, "What is this?" And I would always say, "Well, okay, I'll talk to my editors, but after this next story, I'll tell them I can only do really big ones." And it just never worked out that way. So, when we moved and I got my first book deal, — which was for with Simon and Schuster was called New Town. It was about the shooting that happened in Sandy Hook by Adam Lanza. I remember just saying to her, "Let's go." Like, I got this book advance. This is our opportunity. I hope people keep buying my writing, but if they don't, I'll wait tables and we'll be fine. We'll be happy. And fortunately, I haven't had to wait tables yet, but I don't regret that decision at all. I I get to spend birthdays with my kids, you know, I don't miss events. And at the end of it, right, like family's everything.

[09:09] — Yeah. I don't want to take a left turn on your India. Now, I have questions about lifestyle writer. Yeah. I think a lot of people uh romanticize being a writer, right? Maybe a reporter, maybe an author. I just actually wrote a book and released it yesterday. — Yeah. on uh some consulting work we've been doing inside the church and who who I think we've sold a copy I bought it and Randy is working on a book and and I think there's a lot of maybe misconceptions about what it means to be a writer in the lifestyle like being a journalist is hard being a writer is hard can you just like give us a little compare and contrast like what were the biggest surprises you know good and bad of being a journalist and then being a journalistic author — um the book as a investigative crime reporter it it was different phases for me. And one of them was I was around people's most intense moments of their lives every day. It became difficult for me when I would deal with a mom who just lost her son to a drunk driver. Spending my day with her and then I would come home to my family and it sounds like the Charlie Brown won boys. Like I can't — really engage emotionally to their complaints which seem so trivial suddenly when you see bigger life pictures but are valid nonetheless to like young girls growing up and my wife.

[10:21] That was part of it that I think would surprise people is just I I noticed there's a similarity between EMT workers like when I talk to them they have that feeling that like the intensity it becomes addictive and then there's a narcissism that falls into it too I think personally where when you're around such important events all the time your perspective can get a little bit slanted on the bigger picture of life I became time and I couldn't it was hard to unplug from that. Now as a writer what I find I write every day and some of the time it's awful and I feel like an idiot. I'm sitting at the computer and nothing's coming out. But the process is what is important and it's yeah it does seem glamorous and I I love my life but I'd be lying if I said that it was always fruitful. Most of my projects fail. I write all the time and they're not bought or you know my agent doesn't like it. So you're writing books and articles and selling is a little bit like gig work. I'm at a point now where people buy everything I write. Okay. I feel very fortunate but for most of it it was my biggest skill I think was enduring failure and being told I suck.

[11:35] — All trial and error for you like or did you have a mentor who kind of took you and said hey here's the way you're successful with this? I had really great people help me along the way. You know, I when I first got tried to get into New York City journalism because of my lack of education, I was competing. I had a chip on my shoulder. I talk to my kids about this all the time. I always feel like they're at a disadvantage because they're told how great they are too much. I had a chip on my shoulder. I had no degree. I had no high school educations. I'm competing against all these Columbia JC school kids. But but what I had was I worked at customer service jobs like McDonald's. So, I was used to dealing with other people and that was an advantage I had. And I realized it early on was this Columbia JC school kid who's had a very pampered life doesn't know how to interact with this mother who looks nothing like them and can't open the door and get that interview because they they can't relate. Yeah. And I try to use that to my advantage. And I also I I was a scrapper. I still consider myself a scrapper. I I try really hard. I I don't think I'm the brightest guy on earth, but I work very very hard. Well, you're we'll get to your book in detail in a bit. I will tell you that you're incredibly wellressearched book. Really, I really appreciate as a guy with a doctorate. I I did feel a little of that with the chip on the shoulder like against the guys with a doctor. So, I was like, "Hey, man, that's not me."

[12:50] Like, that might be some. And I think it was well called out like you were calling out that like just because someone has a doctor doesn't make them credible at everything. And there's a lot of people that have that degree that try to hold it out to me more than than what they studied. And I think that's important. I agreed with that. But I I did feel I I felt the triple. It's there. And in particular, — I I take a lot of exception to a societal movement where too many people have outsourced their own decision-m to — And I think that we shouldn't just on the credentialed people. They can have their opinions, too. to really make like we're all smart, you know, people are smart and we should not outsource our decision-m and especially in terms of health because we've been lied to a lot. So interesting. I walked into medical clinics 5 years ago, no degree and walked into medical clinics now with a degree and when I say hey Dr. for John Oberg to see so and so. It was like immediately red rug doors open what and it was like I have the same words the same information the same like like that has not ch I mean I know more now cuz it's 5 years later but fundamentally it was going to be the same conversation and it was both like I'm glad I did it and frustrating that but there's so much information coming at us I understand why it happens it just sucks that it happens so much information so much noise cutting through it credentialism I've never heard that before I write that one down and I like that I want — it's becoming better now and I think you know we talked about the media landscape and the open access of information which really began with the internet I mean obviously the printing press before that but the internet gave us all this kind of information that we didn't have access to before and podcasts like yours which are changing the media landscape I know it's like people people like oh bro science you know it's or or just anecdotal evidence but anecdotal evidence can be evidence too if it happens to you. I mean, I I am a big believer in trying things and trying different things and seeing how they work and how they react. But I do think that we should be be cynical of a lot of credentialed authority, especially today. And you see a break today with that. And you see a lot of people venturing in different areas. I think that's good. Well, there's so much information about individualism and how how different we are like scientifically, like genetically. In your book, it touched on this, but I wish it was a little stronger. It's like you had someone go in there and we'll get into the, you know, what to eat, how to eat, but and he said, "This is what I eat and this works for me." And I think that was such a powerful like I if I was, you listening to the book, but if I was reading it, I'd have like highlighted, underlined it, you know, circled it like in the medical practice that I work in, we tell people like what works for John may not work for this patient. And there are times where, you know, we might have to move one direction or another. There's a broad direction towards eating healthy, but we've been told as a society there's like this one thing and we've been told that by a marketing engine that that we're not and we can trace it back to when there's a a kind of a a schism in the world of psychology where a whole bunch of clinical psychologists went to work in marketing, you know, in the later part of the 20th century that really caused us to have people giving us information in ways they understood that we didn't. And that's a little unfair if you think about it, right? and and and that anyway well I'm I'm all over the place here but let's go back to the fourth pillar of journalism and what the founding fathers did and my goal is to bring us back to a point we talk about how the founding fathers saw journalism and then I want to bring it back to like where should regulation play a role versus what politic the policy makers are doing today which is I think broadly in need of help is that a gentle way of saying it I'm a a very optimistic person in terms of media right Now, I don't cry over my old employer's death. The New York Daily News is it's barely a paper anymore.

[16:36] There's a nostalgic part of me — That feels sadness for what was, but no more than when I go to a childhood destination and see that it's been destroyed because it's evolution. These mainstream media outlets don't deserve to be relevant anymore. They've lost our trust and they deserve exactly what's happening. So true or false? The founding fathers I think saw media as a way of keeping the government in check. It was the you know there's the executive branch, judicial branch and then the the congressional you know the legislative branch and but the media was designed to keep all those people honest and they were given protections to make sure they could do such and and those arguably have been commercialized in a way that now it's more about the profit of the media than it is about the keeping the society in check with with really good. I would say it's become almost I I agree, but I I would take it even a step further and I don't want to there's some mainstream media reporters who I'm still friends with. This is my group and they're doing great work, but they're restrained. They're very restrained. They're working with handcuffs on. It's it's not just that they're looking for profits. They're trying to be on the side of authority now. It's almost the exact reverse. So, you have a lot of the mainstream media outlets which were holding authority to account and they're now working on behavior. I got to tell you, nothing makes me angrier than these reporters out there talking about the need for censorship. You're a reporter.

[18:00] Like, that's our livelihood. Disagree with me all you want. And I'm I used to be a mainstream reporter. I was I was at the fifth biggest paper in the country. I was on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, Good Morning America. I did all the shows. I was always talking. And now I'm kind of like a heretic because I'm viewed by my former colleagues who I respect a great deal. But you could I can feel it, right? It's like what happened to me? I went off the deep end. And I I look at it a little bit different. I maybe I did go off the deep end a little bit, but it's because the plank I was walking on had been corrupted. — But they But you agree that I mean journalists need accountability to what they're saying. They shouldn't be able — accountability only by the people who as I'm a very free speech absolutist. So I think they should have the right to report wrong things. So I'm going to say something that 90% of your audience is going to disagree with maybe more. Alex Jones who I can tell you his followers have gone after me for my book on New Town. But it's ridiculous that he was bankrupted because he said something that wasn't true. He said that the shooting in Sandy Hook never happened and was a government, you know, plot and he was sued for that. Well, I I think what he said was disgusting, but the fact that they were able to bankrupt him is sad for America and sad for free speech. And I push back on any sort of notion on the limiting of information and the ability to discern it because you really can't control somebody's you can't control speech without controlling human minds. And my philosophy, and we spoke a little bit about it, is just that that's what humans are. Like, you separate us from our ability to have thoughts that are independent to make choices. What What does that make us?

[19:44] We're like animal. I'm huge on personal accountability and personal responsibility and autonomy. And boy, this free speech thing, I think I am close to where you are, but and I haven't thought through this like you have, so let me just arm wrestle with you for a second here. I I think people be accountable to what they're saying. And if they're giving misinformation, I think there needs to be accountability. And and what that looks like is like maybe I'm labeling this as a fact. I'm labeling this as an opinion. I'm labeling this as a heristic. I'm labeling but that way people can at least know where people are getting their information so that I can't I can't lay something down as a fact that I know is not. I think there should be accountability for that. Many disagree. — Yeah. I Who's the arbiter? I mean who who says what is a fact? I mean, we just went through 2020 and all of these people were deplatformed, lost their right to free speech. The president of the United States was kicked off Twitter for God's sakes and all of and now all of the crap that they said, "You're wrong. This is a fact. This is science." They're backtracking on. I mean, the US Congress just came out and reported and and almost I mean, Fouchy has has I don't want to get too controversial Fouchy and all that because that's not the purpose. I want to get into it's like here's what we know today and and as I think any great scient even a good scientist would say like what we know today is going to change tomorrow and so in a perfect world that's never going to exist. I would just want people to know what we think we know and then let people have the information to discern themselves what they want to do.

[21:18] I think that's free speech because well the other way somebody has to decide what is right and what is wrong — but you yeah we have people though that and this is maybe part of the authority problem and that authority problem is that we don't know who the authorities are like here's here I'll give you a real example I was going through this with a drug recently where someone was making claims about what a drug could and couldn't do and my chief medical officer and I both went to all the fun foundational research we looked at all the outcomes and they were all correlated outcomes not causal outcomes and that wasn't called out in the science and so we went to our patients and said, "Hey, look, here's the deal that site they're making these claims and those aren't true. Here's the underlying research. Here's what actually happened and here's the anecdotal things that people are saying and so you can believe the correlation or you can, you know, whatever decision you want to make with us, but we're we're the clinicians. We're going to tell you what the science is actually saying at the study level and then we'll make a decision along with you." And I think that's the type of conversation I would hope is happening for people more broadly is like let's let's talk about what the study really said. And peer reviewers today aren't holding researchers to that level of they're just not like our peer reviews are weak today compared to what they were decades. John, something in an area you've helped me. You've you've told me, Randy, there is the world the way you want it to be and then there's the way it is. And I would might hold a mirror up to that state.

[22:34] — I think I just The question is, is there is there a policy that could do that without limiting free speech? Like could could we put policies in place that would put protections around the kind of mental manipulation that information is having on us today and still allow is is or do we just have to deal with it as it is and have totally free speech? If you could explain to me a way where we can limit people's speech without limiting their thoughts, I'd love to hear it. I just I don't know how we get there. I don't know if you limit it as much as you just flag it for what it is. — By for what? everything. They lie constantly. And it's as you said, you said something I I think is really profound and very true is that status, you know, the conventional wisdom today will change in 50 years. And I just any innovation I of of of people's ability to express thoughts and feelings I think comes to the root of the wording evolution. We're going to slow that down. If we don't if we limit people's thoughts, we're going to slow down the evolution of slow down the the improvement of — especially the bad thoughts. I mean I can tell you as somebody who you know wrote a book on New Town that the government lied about a lot of it. That is true. Like the kids died, they were shot by Adam Lanza, but the government concealed information I was able to access. And when they did that, what it fueled a lot of conspiracy theorists who can point to areas where the government repressed information and then that lack of sunlight drew all kinds of wacky conspiracies that were just not — was any of that information was I don't know know the story well at all. What would be one example of a of a detail that was cons?

[24:07] — The Connecticut State Police report came out and said that there was no evidence. There was there nobody knew. They acted like it was a weather event, the shooting. The FBI was at Adam's house years earlier and Adam was on social media platforms where he was expressing the view that children should die. Like he was on radars. They weren't responsible but it was a they they withheld that information from the public and when that became known. I mean this is now known. It fueled a lot of conspiracy theories who said no it actually never happened. The government actually did this. It was a false flag mission which is what Alex Jones's house. That's false. It did happen. I was at the funerals of these. — Yeah. Is there is there ever something that the government should withhold in terms of information? — I we can get into national security debates. I can't it's interesting because in theory people can make really compelling arguments for national security but maybe maybe but when you look at what they do withhold it's almost always to cover their own asses. It's such a slippery slope, right? Because just look at how much stuff they redact now. And — and again we come down to humans and their incentives. And a lot of this you cover in the book is talking about people doing things for their incentives, right? But if you give somebody that power, even if you get the most noble person in the world in that office, their successor isn't going to be the most noble person in the world. And somebody's going to abuse that power.

[25:29] — If you give it to them. thinking like let's just decide. — Yeah, I'm an adult. Like like why why are you withholding information from me? I'm going to I'm an adult. Like what what is this? You're going to tell me what to eat and drink and how to I I I have very libertarian leanings if you have but it's especially with free speech because it goes to the human mind and what I think — it's the first amendment. — It's not the second. It's literally the first amendment. I mean it's it's a core value of this. — I think we're on a little slightly different. I think that people need to be accountable to what they say. So, they can't just like like character assassination should be out of bounds, right? Like I I there's just there are things that that don't help discourse, that don't help the conversation. And when I say I disagree with your actions or I disagree with this policy, I'm I'm all for that. When I say you're an a-hole or you're this or you're you are this, you are that and I'm characterizing things without any underpinning evidence or com like like give me the evidence that you don't like about how I act. But I do think that like I think limiting character assassination like that shouldn't be free speech. I shouldn't be free to give you my characterization of something without under like give me the underlying things you don't like.

[26:37] — But again, who is going to make that — Yeah, I don't know. I I haven't thought that far through. This isn't my fights with, you know, quant disease. But — I mean, you're you're you're putting a lot of faith in some random bureaucrat. And so I think that the person who — if I were to come out here and for instance and say a bunch of racist garbage, your listeners would not buy my book and I would probably knock it on a lot of other media circuits and that that to me is called accountability. I think that's good. I think that would be a positive reaction to racist vital comments and I think you see it every day. I'm all for cancel culture. I think it's the free market. As long as the free market and people are making those decisions to cancel individuals based on thoughts they disagree with, that's — I guess culture about silencing people though. I mean, isn't that shutting discourse down? — When individuals make the decision to cancel another individual and say, "I'm blocking you because you said something disgusting." I may or may not agree with the disgusting comment, but I think people have the right I agree with their right to limit the people they're exposed to because you do get a lot of garbage. That's what she on social — But that flows out late. Stanford had this problem where they brought a judge in that people didn't like and they tried to cancel the judge and the dean of the law school came out with a really eloquent it was like 10 or 13page paper that said like hey we're here to learn about discourse. Like you may disagree but that doesn't mean we can then shut them off of a academic institution where ideas are the point of what we do here.

[28:02] They probably talked about firing him. — No. No. He was a guest speaker. — Oh really? — Yeah. And they wanted to like not have him come as a guest speaker and they were trying to cancel him in that way as my recollection. Someone have to fact check be on it. — I love how the argument happens though. Like that's the that's where it should be played out. And I I think the protester should be able to protest that person coming and then the dean can defend it. What I don't want is the government coming in and having a panel that says you're allowed to do this and you're allowed to do that. This is hate speech. This is not hate speech. That's where you get into really dicey areas that I think limit thought and then people are afraid to express honest opinions. And that's another whole dangerous side effect. — Yeah. I think I think there's another line. I and I don't know what it is because this isn't my area, but I think there's a line with character assassination and hate speech that probably is a place we could draw a a very bright line that isn't like governmental overreach, but I don't again not my area of expertise. I would — Let's go let's go back to your original premise of the founding fathers. — Benjamin Franklin had there's few people have had their character assassinated more than him.

[29:04] — Yeah. the pens and different and it's been a while since I've read on this but I'm pretty sure it was the pen family and it too by the way — name yes he had multiple pen names that he wrote in his own newspaper making arguments and the pen family ran a different newspaper and they went back and forth and he came out of it okay like he still came out of it as an American hero and even with George Washington when Washington took New York I forget what the newspaper is and maybe Matthew you know remember know the story but there was newspaper there that the British were using as propaganda and they had been telling lie after lie after lie and when Washington confronted them the guy thought he was in trouble and Washington's like no we're going to protect the press like he basically forgave him and was like realized this is even though they had lied about Franklin they lied about Washington they went out the first amendment is literally to still protect the freedom of speech and the press is a big part of — any great scientist I'm going to say maybe we just need more thought into this And you know it, let me ask you this that if we could draw a bright line that was reasonable for all sides, you'd be open to that. You just don't believe the government.

[30:11] — I don't think you have any right to tell me how what to say. I think you have a right to ignore me or call me names or whatever you want to say. I just don't think another man or woman has the right to tell other people what to think. I I think for sure I think it's it's the place where I draw the line is character assassination. Like that's the part where I think you know real damage is done with very little consequence. And then you what it's like smoking, right? It's like you can't tell me to smoke or not to smoke. It's actually yes, I can. Secondhand smoke hurts me. Once you do something that infringes on my autonomy, I think there's a line that can be drawn. And when someone gets into a national media platform and does something that is not factually true, that is character assassination, that has a material, in some cases financial impact on my family, my livelihood, then what you're creating is secondhand smoke. Again, this is not an area I've thought of deeply and so I'm not an expert in this space. There's people much smarter than me, but my argument would be secondhand smoke. Like we got to limit that. — How about this? I think we gave the listeners enough to chew on here. Let's let them make their own decision. They know Matthew and I are right. You're wrong. But um so — I I think I'm a libertarian heart, too.

[31:15] I think that might be true. But I I'm also I think I'm an optimist like you are. And so I wish there maybe I'm wishing for that future and it's just not my fight. — Let's move this to to why we're really here. Crime reporter. I remember when I first heard you talking and you were talking about being a crime reporter and all of a sudden you're writing about food and I I just thought that was such a weird transition. Now after reading the book, it was like this aha moment. I'm like he this this really is a crime on humanity with food. Like it made you were the perfect person. What I thought was odd was actually you were the perfect person to write this book. Thank you for that. But let's take us to the book and how you got there and where like how did you get into — Thank you. That's very kind. I appreciate it. When I was 15 and 16, I had osteiogenic saroma as a form of cancer and I was a sick little I was pretty sick. And I grew up in the '90s when we had the dietary food pyramid which said that we should have 8 to 11 servings of grains a day. And this was posted on every sandwich shop, every pizza place. It was a free advertisement. My I had great parents, like smart parents. And why would they lie about this? You know, they just trusted the the science. And at the same time, lard was replaced by the seed oils. That revolution was basically completed in the early '90s.

[32:36] Sugar was looked at as very acceptable. I was eating a lot of garbage. And when I was sick, I remember thinking, I remember asking my doctors. I was like, "What did I do? You know, what did I why did I get this?" They were like, "Well, we don't know. You know, it not your fault though. Probably genetic." I remember them telling me about I I intuitively felt like I had done something wrong. I knew I was like my eating was was horrible. I didn't eat a moderate amount of these things. I eat a lot of garbage. — You knew that at the time. — Yeah. Okay. I Because when you eat three bowls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast, even though it says heart healthy on the box, your body's telling you something's goofy. Like right the skim milk, something was wrong. Health has always been on my mind because I think I mean part of it is I'm in remission for cancer and I don't I don't want cancer again. And when I became an investigative reporter, which is really just my passion in life is is digging into information and trying to expose these stories. I've I grew very cynical of government power and corporate power in I've interviewed former presidents and senators and like local government leaders and there's a lot of corruption.

[33:43] And that was kind of my life. was like trying to expose this corruption. Co changed me though because it was a a turn where it was transparently a lot of it was lies. I mean co was real and I I I I obvious is it a real virus but you know when they told us it didn't come from the lab for instance in Wuhan at first that was something that they said was a crazy conspiracy. It was transparently coming from the Wuhan lab that dealt with co right the coronairus lab that kind of sent me down a rabbit hole where I was introduced to an author named safe moose he wrote a book called the bitcoin standard I I I like economics as a peripheral but I'm not an expert and he had a second book called the fiat standard and in that he has a chapter with a brief mention about this how our food systems been corrupted and I had a lot of respect for safety as a economist I I regard argument is one of the top economic minds in the world right now. But this was nutty. Safe is not a nutritionist. He's not an investigative reporter. So I said, "What the hell is this?" So I began factchecking it, like deep diving into his chapter kind of obsessively. And what I learned was that he had understated the case. And I reached out to him and I I had published books with every major publishing house.

[34:56] I have a really great agent. I knew they weren't going to touch this topic. But at this point, — is that true? Did they I don't know how you published this book. I reached out to Safe Fedine and I I proposed that he start his own publishing out. I was mentioned in the book right at the beginning. Yeah, about — He graciously agreed and I actually not think there would be an audience for this book. I thought it'd be like a niche book with saves people and the reaction has been really overwhelming. It's it's being translated now into eight languages and I could not be more proud of it. I've written a lot in my life. This is the book I'm most proud of food. That's that's the kind of the the the short version of how I got into this topic because again my health I think about my health all the time and then I was able to use my skill set as an investigative reporter to dive into what happened like the corruption of how our food actually did get degraded and it you know something that kind of pisses me off a lot right now is we're having this moment where we're talking about health a lot we're talking about you know the maja movement and we have uh Casey and and Casey means on on Tucker and they're doing great work and and Kennedy whose book is books are fascinating to me and he also is doing great work but they're missing like what the evidence shows is at the core of our health issues which is oddly enough and I know this sounds like a really wacky rabbit hole but it's the degradation of our currency like that's that's the real root cause when you break it down and you really drill down and it took a little bit for me to really grasp this because it seemed so far out there. But the more evidence I dug up, the more apparent it became. And uh I wrote this book out is more of more of like a passion project that I wanted my kids to read. Yeah, we can talk about what I want to talk about root cause versus catalyst versus correlation here in a minute. But I think the thing that struck me in reading the book, I'm pretty optimistic. I give I I generally try to give like people the benefit of the doubt, best intent. I hoped opening the book that I was going to find science would move forward. like, hey, we thought this in one decade, decades later, we found more information. And I think the disheartening part of reading the book was not the writing, but you really blew the you blew the cover off that one for me. Like, you can't be intellectually honest and say that we just learned more in science. Like that that like you can disagree with the your view on the motives of the people involved in the book. Like you could have a debate about that. What you can't debate is that this wasn't just science moving forward. I think that the facts you uncovered pretty clearly say this wasn't science moving forward.

[37:26] — It's sad. I mean, there's it's it's there's a there's a darkness to writing this book that I felt. — In terms of also like liberation, you know, you're talking about what you're doing treating type 2 diabetes and this should be what you're doing should be embraced nationwide. Should be embraced all over the world. — But there's a reason it's not being and you know what that reason is. — Yeah. I mean there's Yeah. We talk about policy level versus community level versus individual level and one of our big one of the big parts of the research was how do you help the individual do something in a policy environment if it's not supportive of that like we were very clear about that is because I don't know that everybody everybody knows this ter hears this term but I don't know that everybody knows what it means fiat means by decree and in financial terms fiat dollars mean dollar by government decree. So most of civilization we've had hard currencies. Our dollar was literally just a note that promises a tangible asset whether you have it or not.

[38:28] — Yes. Usually gold — and your dollar was a promisory note for a certain amount of gold. So for most of the 19th or 20th century it was uh $35 redeemed for one ounce of gold. And you know we went to fiat on August 15th 1971. And we transitioned from our dollar being notes for gold to just government dollars by government decree. And the consequences of that I think cannot be can impossible to overstate how dramatic of a shift that was in America. Not just in food, but it's interesting like I was looking into aviation and just how in the 1970s there were people who would fly from New York to London for a day trip and come back that night and have dinner. Like air air times were quicker. Like there's been a lot of degradation all throughout society. I would argue no more consequential than in the American diet and the metabolic dysfunction that's followed as a result. Take guys one step further. I've heard arguments like well but gold I mean you can make more gold. You just go mine and find more gold. But that's not the same as printing money.

[39:34] — Of course not. There's effort involved in labor. There's a restraint on gold that you it's it's it's I don't I used to be a gold bug. I've shifted into Bitcoin because when gold goes up, the world's really big and it's just it it gold up in price. It incentivizes people to just dig more gold so the supply can keep growing. And that's where I didn't understand Bitcoin. And I clearly don't understand as well as you two do. But the thing that really was the it's an arbitrary line at 21 million Bitcoin that will ever be made. It's arbitrary, but it's hard. And it's a much harder limit than the limit of gold or platinum or precious metals or whatever you're going to use as the hard currency. But if you look at it that way, there's an argument to be made that gold is not truly hard currency. I think that's what you were trying to tell me earlier cryptocurrency that has an arbitrary limit if I said I'm going to have n number of coins. Couldn't Couldn't any — I think I think let's shove that for a future podcast.

[40:38] — While we got Matthew here, I think we get back to this cuz there's a you and I can have a long debate on this. Fair enough. Right. Again, you're wrong. That's okay. No, we'll go back. We'll go You're similar. we could go with fiat. I I think it shows up everywhere. I think it shows up in science. I think it's one of the most glaring things. I think it's showing up in medicine, which I'm sure you two could nerd out on for a long time. But let's get back to food. Okay. So, how did this start? Cuz it wasn't always this way. I mean, what take there's there's a lot of things that come together in the book. Take us through some of those. Pre-1970 you had a lot of wheels in motion in terms of the food supply already. One of them was the seventh day Adventist church who was heavily influential in nutrition started by somebody named Ellen White a young woman who was a descendant of the meerite movement. She was walking home from school one day and gets hit in the head with a rock. How big was this rock? Cuz I read this and I'm like oh I mean what according to your pretty big rock her into a coma.

[41:39] — Okay. And she wakes up from this coma and she's having visions from God and God is saying Ellen we need the end times are coming soon. We need to purify body and soul for the next place everybody's going. And we need to do that by removing carnal desires, which are actually the root of all disease, she contends. And carnal desires are caused by meat, specifically red meat. Got to get this out of the diet. She goes on a crusade to try to get people to change their habits to purify their souls. And she hires somebody named John Harvey Kellogg who is tasked with essentially finding an anti-mastipatorial breakfast food that isn't meat cuz at the time everybody's eating meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He invents Kellogg's cornflakes. He gets succeeded by somebody named Lyanna Cooper who founds the American Dietetic Association which becomes the government arm of nutrition. At the same time, corporations are also at work trying to introduce foods to the American public that aren't really foods. This is something I I find be kind of in my research was really fascinating was that pre you know the early 1900s Americans just really wanted to eat food and there was this movement starting I think more more big big catalyst was oil margarine it was called and there were riots in New York for a period of time where people were finding this nonfood substitute for butter and there were court cases and legislation there's a sorbet history eventually people accepted margarine Krisco was another one where people were like this isn't food. Why would we eat this?

[43:13] Proctor and Gamble made Crisco because the industrial revolution had ended and they had all this cotton seed waste and they're like, "Hey, let's just try to get people to eat this, you know?" And it worked and they they advertised it as like a healthy really sophisticated marketing campaign. It was genius actually marketing as a cleaner version than lard. And there was actually a marketing campaign to demonize lard too, which I didn't go into much in my book. Corporations also realize that you make more money on plants than meat. But all these factors are in play. In 1970, Americans are still eating on average 155 lbs of red meat a year. They're eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What happens in 1970 when we decoupled from gold was the incentive structure changed and then America kind of had to get involved in the manipulation of the food supply. Not because they wanted people to get sick, just because they wanted to stay in power and they didn't want people to get upset and panic. little bit of grounding on where we are in 1970. The Vietnam war is happening and we were committing a bit of a fraud in America. While Americans were no longer to redeem their promisary notes as previously discussed for gold at $35 an ounce, foreign banks still could.

[44:30] What Nixon realized when he came into office was all would have taken was a few banks at the same time from other countries coming to redeem their notes at once and we would be exposed as a fraud cuz our dollars were if I remember right in the book like four to one is that approximately right yeah we had issued four to one more promisory noticed in gold we had in our treasury this was like during 1970 or before 19 — the buildup was before 1970 with the great society in the Vietnam war But it came to a head in 1971 because all would have taken was like in an international incident of some kind where people countries wanted to redeem their gold to expose it. When Nixon, it's not Nixon's sole fault to go off the gold center. He kind of was forced to. He had he had very little choice especially if he wanted to continue the Vietnam war which was costly. But he hired some guy named man what is his name? The department of agric but governments are very keen on understanding that people will deal with corruption. and they'll still vote you into office and they'll deal with war. They'll still vote you in office. When food prices go too high, that leads directly to political instability and they were very very concerned about not having enough food for the public once they decoupled because the prices of food was going to rise and there's no way to get somebody out of office as Camala and Joe Biden could attest to than the rising food prices. So you see this shift in 1971 after Nixon gives what's known as the Nixon shock. The shift where Earl Butts begins consolidate consolidating the food supply is his head of department of agriculture. He had a slogan which was go big or go home and through fiat dollars they began printing huge amounts of subsidy dollars for corn, soy and sugar in a more roundabout. And do does the the government measures the money supply at this point?

[46:27] — Yeah, maybe take us I don't think every listener understands like we talk about like in the news M1, M2, M3 money supply and I think those are confusing for lots of people. Can you explain that just real quickly what that looks like over time? I mean it's interesting because it's varied accounts and M1, M2 and M3. I don't understand these these I'm not an economist. I don't understand them completely. It's different measurements of the money squash. Some — different formulas, right? — Yeah. some include but a lot of it has when I try to dig into understanding the M1, M2, M3, it it's there's a lot of debate on what they they even are amongst the people who come up, — but they all show growth, right? I mean, that's and that's the thing that that is maybe more. — Yeah, you're printing significantly more dollars chasing the same amount of goods. But here's what your audience really should understand. If you're eating meat or eggs or animal-based products that our ancestors have had for thousands of years, these foods you can't just print like dollars, you can up the money supply and a lot of plant-based products you can basically print like fiat. But stakes, if you talk to a rancher or especially a good state, very time inensive. And there was a real fear in the Nixon administration moving forward that what was going to happen was people were going to riot like they did in Sri Lanka in 2022 when the food the price of food and milk and eggs went up too high and they stormed the palace and the leaders had to flee. Um, according to American University, there were 12,500 riots in Europe alone that dealt with food and energy in 2022 as well. So leaders and blonde.

[47:59] So you but they did this by subsidizing those grain production and because you do it in a more in a more like uh compact way on farms and it's harder to do that for meat and eggs and poultry because it takes more resources — per calorie I guess is the argument. — It's so it's very much more resource intent to like you can print Doritos like you can print fiat dollars. Right now, I have four daughters and I can keep them fed by giving them four boxes of cereal. And by that criteria, food's actually really cheap. We're all happy. But for the nutrients needed to thrive as humans, food's becoming cost — And right now, we're in a situation where red meats increasingly becoming a food of the upper class. And you see the results all around of this shift. Like pre970, a lot of these incentives existed. But it was only once fiat came into being that the table shifted all the incentives in such a way where subsidies flowing to corn, sugar, soy and then this nutrition science gets funded to perverse like pre 1970 the government would talk about nutrition a little bit but basically nobody needed to buy my book or to listen to these podcasts on nutrition because people knew what to eat the same way a a lion knows what to eat. Nobody was like, "What do I — look at a picture of a beach in California in 1960 and you see like no — It's shocking, is it?

[49:18] — Or the Star Wars line pictures like find a find a obese kid. It's difficult to do. And it wasn't that the kids weren't, you know, the kids were still eating not 100% meat, but the diet and the incentives weren't shifted in such a way like where today, you know, if if you want to eat healthy and people really understood how inflation and the amount of bills despite all the technological advances in livestock raising, you still can't get a decent ribeye for under 24 bucks. It's really difficult. And and ground beef is still okay, but that's becoming cost prohibitive. And you see this what is essentially a 55year gaslighting campaign to convince us to eat and to eat and and now like if you go to New York City now you see like young girls virtue signaling like while they're eat taking your skin off of of lean chicken like eating like 14th century peasants. I mean it's become unreal. And I really dove into how quickly this transformation happened. I mean essentially like your great great grandmother was right. Like the foods that she ate, she had a lot of organ meats, a lot of meat, plants sometimes, but every meal relied on meat. It was based on meat. And you can walk to any Walmart right now and look in line and see the devastation in terms of human life. You know, you look at the biology as I understand it, and again, not my area of expertise, but read stories about how the when when the human became really smart and the brain really started growing, it's when we figured out how to eat protein in bulk. And I think Born to Run might have been the book where I read it. and it talked about how we finally learned how to hunt and and bring down meat on a regular basis. And that was a real a real inflection point for the growth of the human. Interesting to see us kind of go the other direction. And it's not it's not just it's it's sad because I don't I I don't find there to be like a conspiracy where people gathered and nobody in my research I could really wanted to make people sick. That wasn't the motivation. Corporations were just motivated to make money. They're obligated to their shareholders. So if you go to I live 18 mi from Mexico border. You go to Mexico, they put sugar in their coke. We put corn in ours. Why?

[51:23] Not because corn's worse for us to eat than sugar by most by a lot of metrics, the corn syrup, uh the high fructose. Not because it's trying to make us sicker. It's because it's cheaper for them. And you find all these real ingredients being substituted for less healthy ingredients because if financial incentives have shifted a lot of times by government decree. And in Europe, this is different, right? — Well, I I don't know all the technical differences, but Well, there's a lot of toxins. They they're they're more adverse to poisoning their children than we are. So, they follow a lot of the toxins. While here, — don't put a sharp point on that, though. — It's just it's it's true. Like the gloss fate and the flour is different there. There's less chemicals. But my wife can eat flour in Italy without having any gluten problems whatsoever, but can't eat that here. But even if the same even in part of Western Europe, she has problems with it a little bit. But in Italy, for whatever reason, it seems to be not a problem. — And it's not a coincidence. It's it's because of what we're doing to our food supply here. And we give the we have the illusion of abundance. That's that's the that's the key. It's like you go into a supermarket and the person we're making minimum wage can buy all the food they could eat. But what we've turned into, it's like chimpanzees who are our closest living relatives where they eat 95% plants, but they're spending all day eating cuz they're always hungry and their bellies are big and their brains are small. And that's what modern day man's devolving into. We're constantly hungry where obesity used to be a sign of affluence and now it's a sign deprivity of our of nutrition because we're we're always hungry. We're always trying to eat. By the way, have you seen Have you seen I think it's on Netflix.

[53:00] Chimp Empire is I I have seen a little bit of it and my wife got so disturbed by it that she made us turn — Help me out. Never heard of it. — These scientists go out and they've been living with these chimps for I'm probably screwing this up. You got to fact check me here, but 20 or 30 years and they've been out there and they recently made a documentary and and Matthew's right. They're eating. They're up in these fruit trees eating and eating and eating. But what they really want to eat are monkeys. They just don't have access to a lot of meat. But that's probably what why your wife didn't like it is they go out and they hunt monkeys and they're eating monkeys every chance they get. Like that's that's their goal. They're just eat they're eating the fruit because they don't have monkeys. We all want to be eating monkeys. — Yes. Stop eating fruit half the time. I I don't think fruit's always bad. I I it's just it's it's unnatural to be eating for to be eating raspberries in Arizona all year round. I mean, it's it's not how we're we're designed. Yeah. I think, you know, I grew up in Minnesota and I grew up on a farm and I just I go to the grocery store now and I see all these foods that a lot of them I didn't know they existed.

[54:08] — Well, but no, I'm talking even like a vegetable. Kale. Nobody You didn't grow kale in Minnesota. I don't know if I think it grows in warmer climates or whatever, but I didn't know kale was a thing. I didn't know bok choy was a thing. There were just a lot of things that you didn't get, right? Interesting. And you didn't get oranges even, I don't think, unless it was the right season where now when you see orange. Did you ever see pictures of like what fruits and vegetables looked like 150 years ago? Oh, yeah. That's that's that's a bit shocking. I I I don't know what you're talking about. Go — essentially. Yeah. — They're smaller, I assume, or they're what? Yeah, the corn was like and deformed. They look deformed relative to today. Not nearly as uniform. The cool news about this is that we actually have a seed like repository where we could go back to all of that where it's not genetically modified if we chose to. Like we've been we've been storing seeds for a very long time. So if we ever decided that we were on the wrong path, we actually could go back if we wanted to hit the — Well, there's se. My wife has recently become a master gardener out in Bassrop. And there is something I've heard that I don't know enough. I've known enough to be dangerous, but they've got a seed bank there that they will share with people if people want seeds that people can I think this topic fascinating. I love to hear I don't know a lot about it either.

[55:22] I just know there's like seed wars and there's the government keeps seeds. Some seeds are illegal. It's interesting. I — I don't go into that in my book at all. — Yeah. I mean, — you have a guest on that. I'd love to hear about that. — Yeah, we we need to talk to someone about like the intellectual property rights and how how intellectual property law has been used to kind of take out the people that want to keep growing non-GMO products and I think Food Inc. was a documentary that I watched how that was and you know I'm I'm a capitalist but I think capitalist unchecked can be pretty dangerous and when you take decisions out of people's hands that's a tough thing right is you have a farmer who wants to keep their own seed but they're forced to use seed that's been genetically modified because it blew over their fence like that's how people are using intellectual property law at least several years ago and if that's true which again not an expert here that would really be uh — well okay we've got the 7th day Adventist church we've got the government that is trying to keep inflation down. We've got corporations trying to make money. I think I know when I talk to people about this stuff a lot of times they just they're like, "Oh, come on, Randy.

[56:28] Like, this is too too conspiracy theory. My government doesn't lie to me. Like these people, yeah, they're not they lie over here. They do this, but they really have our best interest at heart." I mean, take people through that more. Like what cuz what are people what are what are these people doing? Like there's really this three-headed alliance here, right? All moving in the same direction. Yeah. Let me spell it out for you in a really interesting period of time in January of 2023. In the first week of January of 2023, you had the TUS food compass come out. Now, this is the leading nutritional guidance offered in America. These are individuals who all of their life have studied nutrition. This is their thing. They have very fancy credentials. They determine and they share first week of January 2023 that Froot Loops are healthier than eggs. 55 General Mills and Kellogg cereals are preferable over red meat cheese. Soy chocolate milk is preferred over whole milk. These are what our geniuses are telling us. Same week 60 minutes airs. renowned journalist Leslie Stall the large segment I believe it was 14 minutes on ompcoli in particular and these weight loss drugs they have Dr. Fatima Stanford very eloquent white white coat talking about new science she's cutting edge new science reveals that obesity is not a result of lifestyle choice is actually a genetic brain disease I find this woman despicable one of the worst forms of human life because what she's doing when she's saying that and I I believe she knows better she's clearly bright is you're undermining people's ability to be in control of the most fundamental aspect of their existence, their own health. And she's saying, "You're not in charge of your own health anymore." But we have these drugs barely mentioned in this clip was that she was also a paid hack for WGO. Novo Nordisks, the parent company of Nikovi in particular. The only other expert interviewed was Dr.

[58:33] Carolina Prov also not somebody you want babysitting your children talking about how great WGO is also a paid a paid consultant for WGO. All right. The show is sponsored by your you audience guessed it WGOI. It was essentially a commercial. It was PR. That same month, January 2023, American Pediatric Association, for the first time in 15 years, changed their guidelines. So now, children as young as 15 should be suggested these weight loss injections, which you have for life. Well, that's debatable. Like that that point's debatable about their life. Yeah. Yeah. We can talk about that a little, but what do you mean? So our medical practice, we use those types of drugs all the time and and there is no science that says for life or not for life. Our our our working theory is that we will be able to help people change their behavioral lifestyle so that you can then come off those drugs. So we've already started. So those are drugs you start at one level, you titrate them up to higher dosages and then you know you can titrate them down to lower dosages.

[59:41] Our hope is that we can then titrate people off of the medicine in the same way you can get somebody off of insulin. — Okay. So I not that's great that you're doing that. Novo Nordisk in particular in a letter to their — for life and and they want it to be for economic reasons that I think are again that that's the difference between marketplace and science right like I'm interested in the clinical outcome. — You're not beholder to your shareholders are you? — I do have shareholders but my — oh yeah we have shareholders in our company but but what we told our shareholders is that that profit is going to be a byproduct of a clinical outcome and if you don't like that then you should not invest. Is the Trump administration listening to this? They should be having you on one of their panels because as an adviser because that structure is something that I think would make progress in this country. Well, it has to. We It's economically medicine's not feasible on the path that it's on. The trajectory is unsustainable for us and I think everybody knows that if they're being intellectually honest. But look, I I if if the people who make WGO, Ozmpic, you know, Marjaro, bound and then all the generics, like I'm a huge fan. Please keep doing the research. It's a miracle drug. It really is amazing. And I think there are we're going to find some other side effects likely if the if the anecdotal data is right that show other really really positive benefits for other disease states. And there's a right time that people may be able to come off those drugs as they can with insulin or metformin or other drugs that we get people off all the time because food is medicine too. when the food is done — I I I'm a little suspicious of the fact that this food compass came out, this 60 Minutes advertisement came out and the American Pediatric Association changer of data lights all within the same 45day period. And I looked for some sort of collusion. I found none, but I'd be a little naive to think it was all just like a coincidence. That doesn't mean it wasn't, but it it's kind of like look, you're not in control of your your health. just hand it over to us. We had these medications and the incentive system where everybody was profiting. So, you were asking me earlier just how crazy this conspiracy sounds. I would point to the gaslighting campaign that kind of made us think inside this box and not be able to think out of it where we're now looking at food. Like a great percentage of people don't make the connection. I have family members and it's like really hard for me. They don't make the connection at all between what they eat and and they can back it up with credentials. They could say, "Well, look at these studies.

[1:02:08] Look at all these people. They're telling us to eat nothing but grain." See, this is my frustration. We talked about this earlier. In one breath earlier today, you said free speech. People should be able to say anything they want, which means we go should be able to pay for time. And then and then you say, "Well, look at the research." And my answer to those people will be great. Let's go look at the research. Not let's set about the research. Let's actually go into the actual studies because I think peer reviewers are failing us right now in not every case, not all the time, but there's enough science that's published in art in journals right now that wouldn't have made it past peer review decades past. Like I just think I'm back to what we started with, which is shouldn't someone be like, well, I think fraud by a company. If you're packaging baby formula and putting arsenic in it, you should be liable. That's not free speech. That's fraud. — Okay. And that's where and the other the other argument I would make is that free speech between people is one thing. When the government imposes mandates and gets involved, then it's coercion. But I think John, I don't want to I don't want to take us down this rabbit trail so much because I I don't want to spend the time on it. But I think that if you get to why is the peer review failing us, — I think we're going to come back. I'm — talking we're going to come back to the — if you don't talk about it in your book, at least you allude to it that it's the same thing, right? I think I think we have the same types of variables making influence in two different way. So it's it's the same problem in a different place, right?

[1:03:33] — We're we're going to come back to the money, right? And it's and it's the incentives just like with the food that we've got government with an incentive. We've got corporations. We've got religious groups, medicine, and the people being funded by the same broken money have also broken. — Well, there's so much more to get into with the book here. Let's take a quick break for our listeners. We'll be right back and then uh let's dive deeper into a lot of the research you found, what is being done about it, and I'd love to hear more about the future, too. — Here at Tales of Abundance, we know that fitness is just as important as money or milestones. It's one of our five Fs. For me, taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more time-consuming and difficult goals to chase. Along with a good night's sleep and exercise, you need the right balance of nutrients for good health. That's why we're partnering with AG1. It's a daily drinkable habit. Takes less than a minute. It's formulated with all the vitamins and minerals you need, including probiotics. Designed to support energy, digestion, and immune defense. And if you want to try it with our affiliate link, you'll receive a free AG1 sampler plus vitamins D and K2 with your welcome kit. That's when you first subscribe. That's a $72 value. So do it now. Go to shop.drankag1.com/tales take care of a lot of your needs first thing in the morning. gasolite as to eat mass produced waste products to make the food supply seem abundant. It's just in their interest. But when there's a harder currency, there's no reason to do that and they're not going to do that for kicks and giggles. Um, and it would just be Bitcoin that would do that. Any hard currency would do that. I I happen to think Bitcoin would be the best one because it's it's just decentralized and harder to confiscate. Gold, look back through your history. There isn't an instance where any country has not confiscated their people's gold even here in America.

[1:05:26] — Did I did we have and again total naive here but did we have the same problem with tobacco and were we able to solve that problem absent the the inflation and hard currency problem or is this a different problem in your mind? — That's an interesting question. Can you be more specific? Well, I think you know tobacco was I think a product that was pretty widespread for a long period of time and it wasn't I don't know if it was considered healthy but I don't think people thought it to be unhealthy necessarily broadly speaking and then you had all this mass torque stuff that kind of moved people in a different direction and then I think you had you know the makers of tobacco get into the food world which is I think ironic um that's probably a whole other conversation but like is there I don't know maybe that's where — I guess but again I'm not an expert I see either. But I I'm at least under the impression that the the biggest problem with tobacco is all of the additives they've put in it, right? And that it's not similar to food. Again, I'm so far from an expert.

[1:06:27] — Let's find out. Let's let's go find a guest. I think we'll come back to this one for sure because — I have friends who are insistent that nicotine is not bad for you, — And um some very high performing friends and I caught one of my daughters doing — doing Zim pouches. not going to name which one. She's not here right now, but she probably won't listen to this. Um, and my wife and I are like, how do we handle this? — This Yeah, let's make a note to come back to that one for sure. And then I want to I'm going to go back to what you said earlier in the show, and I think you just came back around to a little bit, which is, you know, there's there's abundance and then there's the illusion of abundance. And I think people as a as a society, I I think maybe it would be fair to say that we're okay with the illusion of abundance. And what on the three of us would agree, I think, is we prefer abundance to the illusion of I hope that's a real that's that's fascinating. You said it. I'm just I'm reflecting back to you. Wow. Am I blowing myself up here? No, I I think the way you put it though, I haven't I haven't thought of it like Yeah. that we're that people are okay. I haven't thought about the the idea that people would be okay with the appearance of abundance, but I think they are, right?

[1:07:36] Because if you think about the money supply roughly since the Fed was created in 1913 has gone up 7 7.2% 2% I think call 7% per year per year on average which is by the way the definition of inflation I believe this is in your book as well until at some point maybe the 70s you you talk this the definition of inflation was an increase in the bud an inflation of the money supply ratio to — right so that's gone up 7% if you take a chart and you lay it over top of the stock market the stock it it might look like this or go you know up and down but those lines are pretty much the same line — I think the stock market broadly is like at like 9% over the same period — but but they're they're pretty much they're pretty much the same line and it's well cuz money supply has gone up much quicker in the last four years — only valued yeah I got that's I don't know that's that's — but that is the illusion of abundance right your portfolio goes up I mean we talked about we've talked about what a million dollars is — I mean when I was a kid a million when you were a millionaire you were set like you if somebody had a million dollars I mean I what was an average house back then 40 50 60 I mean where I grew up probably $20,000 but an average house wasn't very much you could buy a house you could put that money in the bank a million dollars at and let's say the average income I write about this in my book I should know but I'm bad with the specific numbers but I want to say it's was 1520 $20,000 back then was an average income. Well, if you could make 56 7% on a million dollar just putting it in a savings account or in bonds, which in the 70s you could make way more than that, right? But that's that's like three average incomes. Well, today try and do that today.

[1:09:35] You can't you you couldn't retire on a million dollars, especially after tax. I mean, you could if you want to go live in the woods or something or in a tent, but it's a million dollars just isn't what it used to be. It's not even close. I mean, we've we've talked about financial finish lines. — Yeah. I'm not one to agree with you this readily, but I think uh in this case, which is that even if you took the net take inflation out and forget the fact you can make a lot more in the 70s as a result of inflation, wipe all that out. If you could make the same 2 or 3% a million dollars, it's $30,000 for a million dollars, which would be, you know, twice the average income if your numbers are right. I don't I don't know. But so I'm supporting your point that, you know, forget forget the person who's trying to shoot holes in what you're saying by saying, "Well, you made that money because of inflation or both." You could take all that out and Randy is still right. I think that's the that's the really cogent point here. — But to your point, that's the illusion. — Right. I mean, houses, people buy a house, and having just bought a house, I wanted a new house. I didn't want a house with a 20-year-old roof, a 20-y old foundation, 20-year-old pipes, 20-year-old everything, right? because that 20-year-old house is worth less.

[1:10:39] But not really. If you would have bought the house 20 years ago, it's worth I don't know, you're way more into real estate than me. What? 4x 8x. I I mean, the price of that house would have certainly gone up. — So then, so Matthew, what what does abundance look like? I mean, Randy and I are super interested in abundance in all different ways. So what would abundance look like in a healthy way from your perspective? Food, Bitcoin, like what is have you given much thought to that? — Having control over your time. say more about that. I think I'm in rap like if if violent agreement exists, I think I'm in violent agreement. Uh you have to I didn't come up with this. A good friend of mine told me who's very wealthy mentioned that real wealth was being in control of your time. And I I think about that a lot in terms of my physical health. Am I captive to an addiction, uh an illness, a toothache? I can't be my full self. I can't be creative. I can't produce for my family. Um, and am I beholden to do things I don't want to do for other people to find material goods to satisfy a need that I may or may not have?

[1:11:44] So that's that's how I mean I wish I could go on longer. I mean it's pretty simple to me. I just want to be in control of my time. — I'm going to take a second with that and that is one of the more profound things we've heard on the show. Yeah. — That's great. Right. But that's where the bit that's where Bitcoin comes in also, right? You have to have — you could preserve your wealth because money is time. And they're not stealing your dollars when they print more dollars and they create debt. They're not stealing your dollars. They're stealing your time. Make no mistake about that. They're taking your time away from you. And we only have so many years. There's so many nights we have. And I want to be able to spend them with my children and my wife. I want to be able to spend a lot of that time by myself alone, too, like in nature. Um, you didn't see this, but your daughter just chuckled off the phone. — She knows I need a lot of alone time. She does, too. Um, but yeah, I mean, I I take this this isn't just an abstract conversation from an academic standpoint. To me, this is my life and I take it seriously. When people push Keynesians Keynesianism and need to grow the economy through stealing my productive labor, it's not just my money. like I I work really hard and I I'm glad to I enjoy work, but it's my work and um I don't appreciate, you know, when my time's taken from me and I'm trying. Bitcoin gives me the ability I'm not in Bitcoin to make money. I'm in Bitcoin to just preserve my labor. So, I I was so glad to hear Bitcoin went over 100,000. Obviously, I relished that last night. I was at a a Bitcoin event when it happened. And it was really cool.

[1:13:26] Everybody was freaking out. But I just want to preserve my labor and Bitcoin allows me to do that because it can't be inflated. They can't make more of it. 21 million, that's it. What What are you doing? This is all I mean, again, the book was insanely well researched. It was um great stories. The writing was fantastic in terms of drawing people in. That was my experience with the book. — Thank you. I — I want to know what you're doing differently. How how has all of this really good work that you've done changed your behavior? I eat about 90% animal-based. Um, but over the overriding effect it's had on me has been really profound where I don't look at myself anymore as like terms of the context to my world and I I'm more in tune with nature and I look at myself as part of nature and that comes to food. It starts with things I consume, but also the information I consume and even things like sunlight. Like I I look at myself more as trying to be in harmony with nature and that I've done things in my life that have taken me away from that.

[1:14:41] Whether it's too much technology or um I go through periods where I'm addicted to news and I'm getting the dopamine hit from MSNBC and Fox constantly and I I have to tune it out. Um, and it it shifted this perspective, I guess, just of myself and my place on this earth. I know that I know that sounds kind of corny. I I don't know how else to put it, though. But it it really has. I mean, I my priorities have completely shifted. I mean, I used to even think like we talked a bit about the need to procreate as people. And I used to think about my my whole reason to be on Earth as uh I'm a writer and I'm going to write books and my kind of life will be measured by the library books my grandkids have access to. And now I I look at my primary purpose as like a husband and a and a father. And I I feel more whole and more real and what people think of me. Uh which used to matter more in the field of journalism when I was the weird kind of outside heretic in New York City journalism. Um I just I can't even make myself care that much.

[1:15:45] — What the Messian hierarchy of needs? Well, like that was Sorry. I I wanted to point out a moment of genius. She had some humility earlier today and we're going to play that part back for you. she I don't want to dox this person, so I'll try and make it as generic as I can, but but basically she she ate was eating something really unhealthy and I just I just kind of made a comment and just, you know, needle needling a little bit, but her response was, "Well, what are we supposed to eat?" like it was it was a defeist like nothing's healthy, you know, she didn't say everything causes cancer, but it was it was sad, right? So, what would be your message to people that just feel overwhelmed by the whole thing or how how do you give them hope? What would you tell them? Well, the first thing I would say is I understand. Um, we're told a lot of things by a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but it's like you don't need to buy my book to under like the first thing you need to do is just like in terms of diet, just try it for 10 days. Try eating nothing but animal products for just 10 days and just see what your body tells you. And that doesn't mean you never go back to eating other things. But uh I don't I don't the research is a little varies. But one thing I know is that if I'm eating carbs, I'm not thinking well. I'm not I I I I think that physical health presupposes self- And if I'm not in a place where I'm physically feeling well, and that doesn't just mean that I'm not aching, that my mind isn't as concise. not experiencing so much clarity, which to me is far worse than physical aches, then I'm only partially realizing what I am as a human and my ability to exercise free will because I'm just sort of I feel like when I'm not healthy, I'm like in the ocean just bobbing with the waves. I'm not a real person. I don't I'm not making these decisions. I'm just going through my existence. I I feel the defeat. I know what that feels like, but it's inside of her that it begins with your health. I mean, really, like none of us are at our top shape as a podcaster, as an author, as an author to do what we want when we can't think — Okay, it's great. That's a great answer.

[1:18:16] — I don't want to underpin the 10 days part because in the first two days, you might feel like crap, right? like that like like you got to take enough time to get through the the the decontamination of you know this I that's a great but — by by the way I can't remember if it was in the book or I think it was on a podcast I listened to somewhere else you tried going vegetarian at one point — it's a nightmare I play a lot of I I I run every day and I'm I'm very I I try to be like I play basketball with people much younger and in better shape than me um taller and bigger so I I really tried hard to like keep physically fit and I did vegetarianism and the truth is at first it felt great because I was eliminating a lot of toxins. So I eliminated a lot of the processed foods but I think within a month 6 weeks I felt like a dramatic energy decrease and I just wanted to be honest with myself because I was all on board like I read a lot of books on it and was younger. Um but it it it was devastating for my energy level. I I felt an initial burst of energy. I think that was from detoxing from a lot of processed foods.

[1:19:23] Um the carnivore diet for me isn't without flaws. So I want to be upfront with your audience about that. I'm like 90% carnivore, but one of the things I had to add in was I was losing too much weight. So I introduced raw milk and I began drinking a lot of raw milk and it it fatted me up a little bit more. So I can I can compete. I also feel better. I don't think it's great to be in ketosis necessarily for years. Um, the raw milk helps like keep me out of ketosis. I like ketosis. It feels good for short periods of time, but I I don't know. I haven't dug into the science on ketosis. So, just as a disclaimer. — Yeah, I'm going to I mean, we we talk about diet with people a lot in our medical practice. And I would say that uh as we get into understanding the individual more, each individual have to figure out what works for them. — Could it? So, how do you feel? How do you what's your experience? — I mean, look, for me personally, I'll give you my personal experience. I think it's been really helpful for me. Intermittent fasting has been a really important um part of my toolkit and I don't intermittent fast all the time. I intermittent fast at times and so I think it's a really healthy thing. — How long is an intermittent like how — you can do it a couple different ways.

[1:20:27] There's um one way to do it is like a 168 or like a like a um you can do like even less like 186 where you eat for eight hours a day or eat for 6 hours a day and then you don't eat for the other you know 16 or 18 hours a day. That's one way of doing it. That's what my daughter does naturally. — A different way of doing it is to do like a 24-hour fast or a 48 hour fast once every week. That's a different way of intermittent fasting. And there's two or three different ways that people would say it it works. The the 24-hour fast once a week didn't have the same like physiological impact on me. I didn't feel as good doing it or 168 does. And then I'll do elimination diets in January where we take a 30-day elimination diet to get all different types of foods out of my body to kind of figure out what's feeling good, not feeling good. Do you feel John I guess both of you do you feel like a spiritual component to this and I say this because it is for me in the sense that when I do a fast or when I take the meat away I'm depriving myself of something that I I feel like I'm in control suddenly of my own body and there's there's an I I can't articulate this very well but there is this trickle down effect in the rest of my life when I can control this element of it, which is really hard for me. I love sugar. I am a completely addicted to it. I cannot moderate sugar. I don't know how people do it. Can't do it. Can't moderate it.

[1:21:52] Even if I'm having fruit, I'm going to lead to the donuts. It's going to lead If I had pasta, I'm going to need to eat sugar. It's a mess, right? So, I just have to stay away from it. Um, but when I assert that control, I feel as a human just more present. Does it is this something either of you — Okay, first thing I just want to say I love what both of you are talking about individualized health, right? And I appreciate that you're like this is what I did and this is what works for me. So I I I think that's great and I think everybody's different. I have probably done longer fasts than John. I don't get a lot out of intermittent fasting. I don't notice much. But — when I do 72 hours, I've done 3-day, 5day, 7 day. Um, I'll probably never do a seven-day again, but I'll definitely do. In fact, I'm overdue for a three or five day. I I feel stronger mentally like it it's I I really believe in doing hard things. I just think it does something for I I don't know if it's religious, but it does kind of do something for the soul.

[1:22:59] — And I think more than that, it's like I'm a little bit of a psycho. I like to push things and whatever is good I want to do more and I have to kind of control not going to the extreme on it. But it is empowering to just go seven days without eating and just know you don't have to and you're okay and it's one less thing to think about. It's freeing. You stop thinking about preparing the meal, eating, cleaning up. It's unbelievable how much time it gives you. And I think it helps in other parts of life. And I I would have to think more about this, but I do think I do think there is something like, you know, we're getting to the soul, we're getting religious, we're getting spiritual. So I I I think yes, but I don't feel strongly. The guy talk about prayer and fasting together, right? Like it's so I think I mean my initial answer is you know all caps yes underscore bold exclamation point. It's like absolutely there's a spiritual component. Uh and as a guy who runs a medical clinic, I feel obligated to say you've got to make sure you're safe in doing this medically. Like if I I have a um someone that I'm uh aware of that if they were to go to an allcore diet because of their iron levels in their body, other things going on to be incredibly unhealthy, then they would just need to be super aware of that before walking into that kind of diet. I also know a guy who is a type 1 diabetic who uses almost no insulin because he's a very strict vegetarian, whole foods only. and and that works for him although I could never have that diet myself. So I think we have to as a as a as a health care profession move towards um decision-m and so our our one of the core thesis of our practice is that you have an expert plan where you have an expert and the patient planning together and working together to create the plan.

[1:24:47] Not just an expert telling the patient what to do. Not just the patient doing things that are uninformed, but working together to have a really good, well-informed plan where the patient and the provider are at the center of that and the patient's making really informed decisions about their own health and feeding back what's working that what's not working and having a really good feedback. We think it's a really important part of what has to happen. if we were to step back a little bit and see like what you're doing and I I just think we're at a really big moment in our country and I I do think there's a spiritual element to it although as somebody who's not studied in religion it's an awakening and I I hate to use words like this because I sound uh newagy but there is an awakening happening and I do think there's a blessed despite all the horrors of co there's a blessed in people re-examining their lives and we're living in that and we're asking questions that haven't been asked before and you're having me on who's heretic ical thoughts are completely off the the boundaries in many circles. Um, and it's there's something really beautiful about that and I think I think it comes back down to self autonomy. I think people are re-evaluating their life from their own premises instead of often times like many including myself have done in the past relying on others to sort of outsource a lot of the decisions we make is just conventional wisdom like this is right so we do it. Now we're like well I don't know if that's right. I don't know if that's what we should do and I think that's great. I I think we're at an interesting time in history. The world the world is changing upheaval. You know, John and I have talked before. I don't know about on the air, but we've talked about the fourth turning. And you — sorry, what's the for turning?

[1:26:18] — It is a concept that basically every 80 years, I believe, that society resets itself. And it's it's it's a simpler version of it for I guess to the purpose of time. You've heard the saying hard times make make hard men hard or or hard men makes — good times. Good times make strong men. Yeah. Good times make soft men. That whole that whole cycle. — Do you know that one? — I do. — Yeah. That the fourth turning is a different way of looking at that throughout history. And that about every 80 years society circles back around. Um, and it goes through, you know, we can go from World War II, right, with hard times making strong men and then you just look at every generation from there and kids rebel against their parents to different places where we end up where we are now with a lot of wokeism and and it seems that we're now transitioning back into another cycle. — I feel very optimistic. I do. And I think I I feel that way because of the way information is being freed. how when I was a young kid, it was like ABC, NBC, CBS and these gatekeepers of information and it's been decentralized and then the internet came around and decentralized it for a brief period of time and then that got taken over by a few corporations which kind of put us into these uh to be blunt uh intellectual ghettos like Facebook, Twitter, but now that's the podcast has gone above that and I I'm just grateful for this because this book which to my shock doing really well would not be 10 years ago because I would have no access to the public when I would publish my books in 2013 through these major publishing houses. I'd have a media person who would get me on big shows and you'd sell books in spurts, but this is so different and it's beautiful. I never would have had the opportunity and it's not just me. You see all kinds of heretical ideas being pushed out into the culture. Um, and it's I just it I think because of that there's going to be trickle down effects that just raise everybody's consciousness to different levels and come to a place of self-empowerment ultimately. I I think it's really interesting what we're witness and and we try to keep this podcast evergreen, but you know, we recently had the the election and I think it's less interesting that Trump was elected, but more interesting who is with him and you know, Trump was a Democrat not that long ago. Elon Musk was a Democrat till not that long ago. Tulsi Gabbert, RFK, and all these like all these groups are coming together and all of a sudden the unions and the bluecollar people that have always been Democrats are on his team. And I think I I I think that is a sign. I think that that society is telling us it's leaving clues that we are in this change. And I don't know, I don't claim to be smart enough to know where we are in the change, but I think it's and I would be curious, by the way, as a followup, your you can comment on that, but your feelings about RFK and what he's doing about you referenced it earlier, right? His make America — A genius. Um, and he's great at describing the symptoms of what's going on. And also what he's saying about corporate capture is completely true.

[1:29:37] The ignoring of the currency just makes me feel like we're throwing snowballs on ferris wheels at each other. and it's very hard to hit it right. Um, one of the things that makes me super optimistic is in this election more so than any is that in 2008 there is a popular consensus that demographics was destiny and that this color of your skin dictated how you voted and this was widely held consensus among all the political political elite and that went against a worldview of mine and I was hoping to be it wrong but like no we're actually individuals that our skin color does not dictate our belief system that's insane and that's actually highly racist. and offensive to me. Look who won the election for Trump. Regardless if you like him, it was Amish in Pennsylvania. It was Arabs in Michigan. And it was large cities in Wisconsin, Philly, and in uh Georgia, which people voted different. And that is very encouraging to me because it we're not racial monoliths.

[1:30:43] We're more than that. We're individual people who think and have our needs and this political realignment. I love how I have friends who are former Democrats who are now like this is basically a third party. There's no more Republican party. Lindsey Graham's extinct. These Mitch McConnell wararmonger corporate I love your rights. Yeah. I mean it's this is a weird third party. Yeah, I don't agree with everything in it, but I do think that the change in terms of getting rid of these uh, you know, political monoliths has that shift is is encouraging. I feel hopeful again. Hopeful. Who knows? I I don't know how this is going to end. I I do too. I just I also I I always go back to the incentives and I think like I'm so hopeful partially because I've learned a long time ago, don't underestimate Elon Musk. Like everything that guy does is that people say is impossible, right? I mean, he created a rocket company out of whatever 90 million or $180 million when the US government, the Chinese government, the Japanese government, the Russian government, all those people threw all this money and had a 25, 30, 40, 50 year head start and he did it. So, I don't want to underestimate him and what he's doing with Doge. And — you're the government, not the coin.

[1:32:06] — I'm sorry, man. I don't think I don't think I don't think anything's going to happen with that. I'm pretty pessimistic about this, — right? I I I I'm so hopeful because I love what they're doing and I don't see how they're going to cut two trillion. And I think like recently he cut — without cutting entitlements. The math isn't up — right. Recently he cut a rocket with a pair of chopsticks. One of the most amazing feats I've ever seen. And I think that's easy compared to getting fighting all the incentives that broken money has caused in government. I I I again I am 100% behind them. I nothing would make me happier than to be wrong on this. And I just I don't know. I'm going to sit back and eat my popcorn and hopefully hopefully they win and they prove me wrong. But I have doubts. — Yeah. I mean I got to I I've had several convers not several. I had a few conversations with former President Fleetton. Uh and um it's like he was clearly a very bright man. He was interested in people. Like that was the one takeway. I I didn't get to spend lots of time with him, but he definitely like liked people. You could see him talking to the help when the cameras weren't on him. He enjoyed that kind of thing. And uh there was an aspect of Trump who I met at a 911 event once that just reminded me of them. They were very similar just like interested in people. So I hope that everybody's you can't be president or run for that office without being a bit of a sociopath. I think like you have to be something there has to be something kind of wrong with you almost today to run and the narcissism and it's it's a lot. But I just I'm hopeful. I'm trying to stay optimistic. I don't know. My political allegiances are all over the place. I wish I could go into one box, but I'm skeptical of all of them. Well, that to me that says a lot about you, right? Cuz anybody that is fully in one box is not thinking for themselves. Like it's almost impossible that they fit perfectly in the red box or the blue box or you ask about Kennedy and how I he's saying a lot of great things and we had a debate in the car on the way up here about how um he is talking about beef tallow going back into McDonald's and that would be such a positive a small it seems small but it' actually be huge.

[1:34:20] You know, pre-1990, McDonald's used beef tallow. And then through a huge pressure campaign, they got forced to use toxic I don't even like calling it vegetable oil cuz that's not accurate. It's not vegetable. It's it's it's really the seed oils are it's a thing. That's people talk about it a lot. It's like it's a it's no it's it's legitimately really bad for you from everything I've seen. But is he going to force these companies to do it or can the incentive structure be switched? Well, if you eliminate the subsidies for corn, suddenly we're not drinking so much fructose in our soda and we're not putting corn on our pancakes. That's weird. Why are we putting corn on our pancakes, right? It's like all these trickle down effects that would happen. And if they wanted to do that, it'd be transparent. So, if you wanted to subsidize really bad foods for Americans, you'd have to make your argument or sell like bad food bonds or direct taxation. Now, they don't need to because they could just print it through fiat. We end that structure. We end that system. We bring back real currency, hard money, whether it be gold or Bitcoin. You you put a spoke in the tire of of the distortion system that has compromised our food system. And what happens after that is reality reasserts itself. We don't need them to tell us anything. We actually just need the propaganda to end so that people can just make, which goes back to free speech, their own decisions. Um, you're dealing with a social societal opiate though. You're going to move from painkiller to antibiotic. And antibiotics don't taste as good. They don't feel as good. They just solve the — But but they're picking winner. You're what you're getting at is they've been picking winners and losers.

[1:35:53] — And I guess I I'm never in char. I'm much like you. I'm very libertarian. I just want the government to stay the hell out of the way. Leave everybody alone. So I never want them to pick winners and losers, including forcing people to eat what's healthier. I just want them to to leave people alone. But I guess what really angers me, it sounds like much like you. It's not just that they're picking winners and losers, but they're they're choosing the poison is what they're picking as the winner, right? So at least if they forced beef tallow, which I'm against them forcing that, too, but at least they'd be picking something healthier. They'd be forcing us to do something that didn't kill us. — Right. Right. Yeah, I I'm with you. But it's it's a complicated conversation. And I just think the the first step is to end a system of distortion. just then people will fall like people don't want to be unhealthy. You know, people are been told in the '9s snack well cookies were good. I mean, I cannot tell you how many snack well cookies I had. I I thought I was eating like a health food. It was all sugar and chemicals. It's nonsense. — And you know, you see like these shifts um to get us not to eat meat. And it it went from like we talked about John Harvey Kellogg saying that meat caused carnal desires which caused all health maladies and this was a very popular assumption at the time. This wasn't like — which by the way you actually underpinned that was partially true in — course partially true.

[1:37:18] — It it yeah meat the connection between meat and carnal desires. There's some really great studies on that. And even — you go back to Roman wars, they wouldn't they wait till they're they had enough meat for their soldiers to go out and fight to have like vitality and energy. Um and then it switches like in the 70s to and you know in the 40s it was donate meat because we need to save meat for the soldiers. So plant your victory gardens. And then in the 70s it really hyped up because of I I believe because of uh the degradation of our currency too. um don't eat meat because of overpopulation and meat was so resource intensive that we are going to all end up eating ourselves if we don't switch to plants and now it's don't eat meat as meat is like a thermostat control for the temperature and we're going to particular take it out on our children — carbon dioxide for the atmosphere global warming. Yeah. Um, but it hasn't really changed. Like in the 1400s, they used to get eccentric women for changing the weather and make them confess to like changing the weather crops weren't growing now. And the women would confess and they burned them. It's become a little more sophisticated. I don't I'm not an expert in climate science. So, just let me throw that out there. But they're weaponizing that whether it's real or not real. They're weaponizing climate scientists to try to control what we eat. And it's to the benefit of authority to do so because it again is another reason. Now we talked about personal autonomy and we have an Italian heritage. I was talking to some of your staff and how guilt is so fundamental in terms of how to control an individual.

[1:38:55] — Um and if you can make people feel guilty about what they're consuming, then you have a a level of control that's not positive. So you've talked about your hope. I want to know like maybe Rain if you want to keep us here we can but I'm interested in going to like what's next what's the next book how are you seeing the future for yourself like take I I'm interested in like I like how you look at the world but take me inside your mind like what are you said you're hopeful what's the next project you want to work on what's the next big thing um I have a movie coming out I wrote a screenplay it was my first screenplay based on a book I wrote uh and I'm excited about that I'm the current book I'm writing is on medicine and I'm going to be in touch with you John because I'm learning a lot from you From our experience here, it's on how uh the financial system has corrupted medicine and it's very connected to food but very different in other ways. There's been a shift in incentives in medicine as well. And it's fascinating to go back and look at the flexor and John D. Rockefeller's involvement in getting rid of a lot of natural therapy and shifting into a pharmaceutical based petroleum based.

[1:39:58] — Um so I'm digging into that, but I I don't feel great comfortable talking about it to you because I haven't done full research on it. Um, primarily though, I'm just like everybody else. I'm trying to uh keep my family happy as can be, keep myself healthy as can be, keep playing basketball, keep running every morning, and uh yeah, how do like so for listeners are interested, myself included, like how do we how do we get the books? How do we keep in touch with you in a way that you're looking for, you know, readers and listeners to, you know, stay up with the work that you're doing? What's the best way for us to find you? — I'm on Twitter. Um, I'm horrible at social media, you know. I'm not a big self-promoter with like I should be for being an author. Um, I just don't like it. I don't like social media. I don't like being on it. My agent's always like, "You need to be on Instagram. Post three times a day." I don't I just something about it bothers me. — So, where do we find you on Twitter? — It's just my name and I'm horrible at it. Like, I'm not pippy. I sometimes try to make like cool comments. It always comes out bad. My books are available on Amazon and uh again I partnered with Safety Moose who I recommend all of his books. He has a publishing house now.

[1:41:10] He's published uh Parker Lewis and I'm going to introduce him to Randy at some point and try to see if that could be a match because Ry's book sounds — What's the publishing house called? — It's called The Safe House. — The Safe House. Okay. — And you could buy in Bitcoin. — Oh, look at that. Shocker. — That's great. Is there any questions you were hoping we get through today? things you were like, "Man, this is the one." Or even maybe you thought of during the show, you're like, "This is the one thing I was really hoping we'd take this left turn. We didn't make that left turn for you." — Yeah. But it I don't I was curious as to like why and if you're more comfortable talking about this off air, I'd understand how you became sort of a heretic of of medicine in in many people's eyes because I was told type two diabetes can't be treated. It's actually you can't treat type diabetes. So why are you telling me lies and telling me that you are treating it and healing people? That's my question. — Yeah, it's a well-known story. I mean, my um I was I was I started a company in 2014 that was an alternative to health insurance that was helping people pay for their medical bills in a non- insurance format. We saw lots of chronic disease problems in the same way that insurance companies do. And it came to a head when I visited my mother-in-law in rural South Carolina, type two diabetes.

[1:42:21] She was not well and uh she ended up in the hospital for four days. And it should have been solvable with a s, you know, one or two insulin injections and a and a blood glucose reading or two. And so you had this like $100,000 event in a hospital that could have been prevented with, you know, less than $30 of supplies in medicine. And it was really hard to get a hold of her medical provider, who by the way, I've been in touch with since then. I have all the respect in the world for a medical provider, but the system made it difficult to get involved like really uh engage with medical provider. And um it just it I got really angry at the system and I was like I'm going to go fix this problem. And so I went and I applied to get a doctor at USC and I just I wanted to figure out exactly how to solve this problem. And it turns out we have the medicine, we have the devices, we have the understanding of psychology, we we understand all these things, but the system hasn't allowed us to put it together. And so that's I got really angry and happened. — That's a beautiful form of anger. Yeah. So well, congrats, man. I I think that's that's amazing. I I knew people talked about curing type two diabetes. I mentioned it briefly in my book, but you're actually doing it. Let me pedantic. We're not curing it. We're reversing it. And and I think there's What's the difference? Well, curing it would mean that I could go and eat whatever the heck I wanted. It wouldn't come back. Like it didn't Yeah. And so insulin resistance, which I'm sure you're aware of, is aerobic problem. And so I don't know how to like cure the problem with insulin resistance. I just know how to counteract it permanently and sustainably. And so, but that requires behavior change over a long period of time, like sustainable behavior change.

[1:43:52] — So, if you treat me and it reverses it, I can't go back to drinking the 2 liter amounts of dew. — I mean, you could you might take a lot of insulin and then which is counterproductive because you're making insulin resistance a bigger problem. There there's some some virtuous cycles and there's some not so virtuous cycles in all of that. So, we try to help patients understand all of that kind of wherever they're coming from. And so we try to meet them right where they are with their current knowledge base, their current ability to spend money and time and um you know treatment burdens are really big problems. How do you reduce treatment burden, reduce cost and improve clinical outcomes all at the same time? And how do you do that in a way that doesn't cause the provider to burn out? — That's a great origin story. — I think it's like I I just want to say to our listeners, go out and buy the book. Um yeah, for sure. We have we have hit on a bunch of stuff, but I had multiple things written down that we could have talked about and there there's tons and tons of great stories in there. So, go out, get the book, and thank you for you're helping this this we're tales of abundance is is the podcast and you are helping bring abundance to the world by making the world healthier, making people aware, kind of, you know, taking the blindfold off people. So, just thank you for the work and I I look forward to the next book. And I want to thank you for shining a light on the difference between abundance and the illusion of abundance. That is my huge like aha moment for today is that I mean you are helping people to to see something so clearly that I wouldn't have put my finger on before our conversation today and now I'm going to go talk about it.

[1:45:23] I'll give you credit of course, but uh I mean that was a real aha moment for me. — Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. — Yeah. Thank you for being here. It's been fantastic. — All right listeners, uh check out the show notes. We'll put some links in there for uh where you can find Matthew. And uh like Randy said, get the book. Like this was a great great read. I think it really helps anybody understand uh more about not just uh fiat and food and their own health, but it puts some real great stories behind it and help help you think through uh you know what's going into your body and uh who's influencing that. So thanks again and uh yeah, check out tales of abundance.com. Thanks listeners. Subscribe, like, listen. We want to hear you back next — That was amazing. That was fun. You guys are real.