Ep. 67 - The Great Consolidation

The brands you trust don't stay the brands you trust. We're looking at what happens after the acquisition: Siete, Cholula, RX Bar, Primal Kitchen, Justin's, and the slow, quiet ingredient drift that follows. McCormick has a darker history than most people know, and Nestle's floating Amazon supermarket is genuinely one of the stranger corporate moves we've come across.

We also get into why this isn't just a food story. Healthcare, vet care, small farms: the consolidation is everywhere and the illusion of choice is real.

So what do you actually do with that? Read labels, support small brands, stay curious at the grocery store. The harder question is whether any of it is enough when the margins keep shrinking and the money keeps winning.

Contact Daniel and Janie:
Email: info@achievethelifestyle.com
Website: achievethelifestyle.com
Instagram: @achievethelifestyle

Contact Daniel and Janie:

Email: info@achievethelifestyle.com
Website: achievethelifestyle.com
Instagram: @achievethelifestyle

Transcript

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Pharmaphobic is powered by Achieve the Lifestyle, a company dedicated to helping you empower your health, redefine your lifestyle, and all for the health of it. You're listening to Pharmaphobic, where we challenge the state of health in America. I'm Janie, a physician assistant, and I've seen how healthcare keeps people dependent instead of truly healthy. And I'm Dan, a veteran turned fitness pro here to uncover the truth and explore simple and sustainable health solutions. From big pharma to big food, we're exposing the conflicts of interest, keeping us sick, and finding better ways to take back our health. No fluff, no gimmicks, just real talk, real solutions, and a little bit of fun along the way. Hello there. Welcome to another episode of Pharmaphobic, brought to you by Achieve the Lifestyle, where we help you become the strongest, healthiest, and most capable version of yourself. Yep, I'm co-host Janie Brown. Why are you stealing my thunder? To not let you call me a special guest. You're a special guest in my life. As my life ours. Okay. And this is my husband Dan Brown. My special guest. Yeah, it is, but I still don't like it. You stole my thunder now. Uh-huh. That's my that was my intro. Okay. You stole my thunder. I just like to make it awkward. Guys, let's get into some health news after Jamie stole my intro thunder here. Um we're gonna talk about some seemingly nefarious type stuff in the food industry. Happenings in the food industry. Um what you'll notice point out a trend is acquisitions and mergers. Acquisitions. Acquisitions and merges. And mergers. You know, like mergers? Mergers, yeah. Merges. Mergers. We're merging. Merger. Thank you. Mergers and acquisitions. Merging? Yeah, merging. What's what's merges? Nothing. Nothing? It's nothing. Merges, you merges. This car merges into the lane. Yeah. But the merger, merging companies, it's a merger. But they don't merge together. Because I merge with whatever. Okay. So we just went through a grammar episode of pharmaphobic. Whatever. Okay, so you acquisit mergers and acquisitions, right? You get somebody establishes a nice business, starts as a small business, becomes a company, fairly profitable company with really cool product. They do well. They come, you know, some big company comes and buys them out. Great for that business owner. They get this freaking payday and off they go to Monaco, baby. They're, you know. There's bars. Good job. Off they go. Oh, to Monaco. Oh, didn't he? Oh man, I love it when I drop bars and I didn't even plan them. Anyway, you know, off they go. They're now they're they got that fat paycheck and off they were they're retired, baby. They made it. You know what I mean? That's fine. That's cool. We like that. You won. We really like that. But what happens is that the product that they made that made them so popular and put them on the radar of these bigger companies then becomes a worse version of itself slowly over time. Yep. Right. So the biggest one for all the people that are average health consumers that are aware of healthier brands, the biggest one was Ciete getting acquired by PepsiCo, right? Sad. Sad, sad day. Now already people are pointing out differences in ingredients. Um, like they the cassava flour changed to something else. It's cassava something. It's like a worse version of itself. Little by little. Like watered down. Yeah, they know that people are looking now. So they'll before they would just do it, Okie doke would be quick. Now they know people are looking. So it's a very steady decline in quality. Yeah, and it's always shady because with the food labels, there's loopholes where they they can get out. And we're not gonna go into that right now, but just know that what you read on a food label is not 100% fact. Yeah. It's just not. So I think this is more about awareness to pointing out the people, you know, like this stuff just it happens so much. And it seems looking out at the ether, there's a lot of consolidation happening these days. There, and this is not just happening in the food industry. So we have an illusion of choice. Yes, the and and these huge companies are acquiring all these brands and all these things, and everything, you know, it's turning different names or under the same umbrella. So it's everything's just consolidating into these mega corporations. It's happening in healthcare. Family practices are going away, and they're all going to some big insurance conglomerate type of thing, right? It's happening in vet care, veterinarian care. You know, Chewy's opened a freaking veterinary clinic and they're buying up veterinary clinics, and now it's a Chewy's veterinary clinic, right? And you don't have your local friendly vet anymore. It's Chewy's, you know? So this is happening, this thing is happening in a lot of stuff. And it's kind of um, it makes my tinfoil hat tingle, right? It's a lot of, a lot of, it's like monopolies are just taken over. People are like, oh, that's capitalism. No, it's not. No, it's not. Don't sit down. Okay. No, that's not capitalism. When monopolies are just taking over and over, and that's not how it is. It should be a lot of choices, a lot of small businesses starting, big small businesses everywhere. That's what capitalism, everybody has a chance to jump into the market and create something for the market. Not five guys control the entire market and they just name things different things to give you the illusion that you have choice. Anyway, here's what we're gonna look at. A few brands that are concerning. Okay. So, first one, McCormick, the seasoning. Everybody knows if you're gonna go buy some seasoning, I bet you if you open your spice cabinet right now, those of you that have spice cabinets, and if you don't have a spice cabinet, you're insane. You're a psychopath. I know you all have McCormick cinnamon. Y'all know you have some McCormick in your spice cabinet. I'm sure we we got some McCormick in there. I think our little Yeah, we got some McCormick in there. So you know you got some McCormick in your spice cabinet. They're a huge spice and condiment company, huge, humongous. And it used to be like McCormick versus like the great value or whatever, the generic brand. So you fancy if you got McCormick. Yeah, you got that McCormick, and it's it, they're not cheap, right? So McCormick just merged with Unilever. Unilever is a huge, huge company. They're the seventh largest food company in the world. And when I was doing this research, I went through the list of the biggest food companies. I'm like, man, we should probably do an episode on these people. We've talked about one of them before. Cargill's on that list. We talked about them in a previous episode, but we talked to them about them as a condiment producer, not as a food company in general. They got their hands in all sorts of food stuff. Come to find out. But Unilever is the seventh largest food producer. They're also a big uh beauty product people, too. They're in food, they're in beauty products. Okay. So they just merged with McCormick 45 billion. Billion dollar deal. Okay. It's a big deal if somebody acquires somebody for 13 billion, like Bayer acquiring Monsanto for 13 billion. This is 45. Okay. Just just think about that for a second. Okay. McCormick dominant the spice and condiment market. They got all the heavy brands. Like I think Hellman's is under McCormick. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's I got it in here somewhere. Um, McCormick has a history, a dark history. They've been around for like 100 plus years. They've been in CDC walkthroughs, they were revealed to use ethylene oxide and methylbromide in their facilities, right? Does that does ethylene oxide and methylbromide? You don't know what that is, but does that sound like something that should be in stuff you're gonna put on your food? Sounds like meth. Exactly. Sounds weird AF, right? But hey, here it is. So what's ethylene oxide? Um, it's a highly flammable and reactive, and it's an eater me intermediary chemical, right? It's part of the process to creating antifreeze. Sounds delicious. Yep, antifreeze. Antifreeze goes on your food, right? Yeah, so um it's supposedly used to sat to sterilize a lot of medical equipment, which is kind of problematic, but sterilizing equipment is different than making food. Let's just put that out there. And it is a known carcinogen. It's known. Confirmed, it's a carcinogen. Okay, methylbromide, highly toxic, and it's used as a pesticide for soil and agricultural commodities. The words highly toxide and agricultural commodities go together. Go together, right? They go together in the U.S. Okay. Um, it's also a known carcinogen. Okay. So McCormick acquired, here's one. Here's a really popular one. Everybody remember Cholula hot sauce? Uh-huh. Have you been in a Mexican restaurant in your life and they got that Cholula there, and you like like that? You put it on your burrito, put some hot sauce on your burrito, baby. Um, because you know it's good for you. Uh, if you know what movie that's from, you're doing great. If you know what movie that's from, you're doing great. Anyway, they acquired Cholula in 2020 for 800 million dollars. Way to go, Cholula family. Whoever invented Cholula, way to go. 800 milli, you did great. However, Cholula is now not the same. Nope. So they Cholula used to be peppers and vinegar, and now they changed the vinegar for this thing called acetic acid. So to my uh chemistry people, you may know that vinegar has acetic acid in it, right? Naturally occurring acetic acid, very minimal of it. But when you take out the vinegar part and you just go full-on lab-made acetic acid, it's a different thing. So you get none of the fermentation benefits that you would get with vinegar. You just get some acetic acid. And they added natural flavors to it. So now you start seeing a trend, right? This awesome brand, super popular. Everybody liked it at all these restaurants, people, you know, putting Cholula on everything. And what are natural flavors? Um, natural flavors is a stand-in for over 10,000 chemicals. Yep. Only 3% was it? We've discussed this on a previous episode of the chemical has to come from a quote unquote natural source. So you take 3% lemon, and then you have 97% of made up stuff, you're a natural flavor. Yep. Okay. Now it's over 10,000 chemicals can fall under that category. Um so inevitably, Cholula gets acquired by McCormick, the ingredients start changing. Now, questionable company with questionable history. I pulled up the CDC walkthrough, it was old, it was from the 80s, but okay, they're identifying these things in there that this company's been doing. And then they're in this thing, they're saying, oh, it they've had troubles before in the 40s, they've so they've been consistently coming up as somebody, you know, toxic uh working conditions for their employees. I'm not talking about toxic, like, oh, it's a toxic environment. No, no, I'm talking about legit toxicity that their employees are getting sick, right? Putting ethylene dioxide and methyl bromide in the stuff you use to make your seasoning. Do we want these people dealing with all your food? So they acquire your Cholula brand and now Cholula's different. You're you're catching my drift here. Okay. Next one Nestle. I didn't know this. Nestle is the largest food company in the world. Yeah. Over it's disturbing what they do. Oh, yeah. Over a hundred billion dollars a year in revenue. Largest food company in the world. I think the CEO of the current CEO of Nestle, if you guys pull him up, there's a picture of him. I I don't know what his excuse was, but he has one bloodshot eye, and it looks like he's wearing a toupee. People are like, oh my god, he's an alien. He's he's got on an egg or suit. Yeah, he looks like a bond, a James Bond supervillain. Literally, like he looks like a guy that's plotting to take over the world. Um, dude's got a crazy history, you know, including supposedly when he was younger, he went on some hiking trip and he was the only one that came back. Like, oh yeah, exactly. Sacrifice much? Oh, yes, sorry. But yeah. Anyway, he's a World Economic Forum regular. This dude is in all in all the nefarious spaces. But Nestle, the what made him really made him famous is he is known for saying that uh water is not a human right. Water's not a human right, yo, my dad. That's because he doesn't need it. Yeah, he doesn't, he's a reptilian, right? He's a he's a demon, he doesn't need water. Um, it is that's that's a crazy statement. That's a crazy statement, but yep, he's quoted as saying that why Nestle has been accused of really thirsty. Yeah, drink your water that Nestle doesn't want you to have. Nestle has been accused of overpumping groundwater in a lot of places. So basically, they're almost like creating drought-like situations because they're pumping so much water so that they can bottle it and sell it in your little plastic bottles. Um, they've also been accused of child labor in cocoa farms in West Africa. Yeah. Um, we did an episode. What was that other? Tate and Lyle and Cargill, I believe. They also do cocoa farms and they've also been accused of having child laborers in their camps. You know, there's a lot of plausible deniability, right? Like, oh, we're just buying it from these farmers. We don't know who they employ, right? A lot of plausible deniability, but here we go. They keep accusing you of doing business with farms that are known to have child labor. But if you've been asked about it before, wouldn't you inquire to see if they are using child labor so it's not even associated with you in the future? Yeah, wouldn't you take some of your hundred billion dollar revenue and be like, hey, let me send a private investigator down there to see what they're doing in my little, in my little uh farm, you know? Yeah. Just saying. Um, they've also been accused of selling baby formula with different ingredients in different markets. So their Nestle European version of the baby formula looks completely different than their Nestle baby formula they sell in Africa or in more developing countries in terms of in terms of added sugars and um added mystery ingredients to baby formula. And didn't they send it down to the Amazon like along the way? Oh, I'm getting there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm getting there. That's a really good one. Okay. Um, more than 800 recalls in baby products over the past year. That's not concerning at all. If you've had 800 recalls in the life of your product, that's crazy. But to do that many in recent, yeah, that is crazy work. Eight, so people worry about the safety of, I don't know, raw milk. But your little package baby formula has 800 recalls on it? My guy, are you serious? Oh my god. 800, that's a crazy, that's crazy work right there. So here we go, the Amazon thing. So Nestle, this is 2010, this happened in Brazil. They made a floating supermarket, right? They took this big old boat, like a thousand, I mean, it was huge. And they put all their crazy Nestle stuff in it, and you know, all their Nestle advertising on the outside, and put that vote into the Amazon, up the rivers, and went to really remote communities living off the Amazon. It's funny because they were saying that, you know, bringing their products to these communities. Oh, we're we're improving their iron and their iodine. They were trying to justify it. Like they put they put missing nutrients into these people's diets with their freaking chocolate bars and stuff. This is why I yo. Yo. That's wild work, bro. Yeah, that's why you are saying, oh, we brought missing nutrients to these people with our chocolate bars and stuff. That is crazy work. Crazy work. Anyway, um, they were facing pressure to basically increase their revenue. You're making $100 billion a year, but you got to increase your revenue. Okay, so you start expanding into remote markets and lower income markets, like you know, remote villages in India, that sort of thing. And then they go to these remote areas in the Amazon with their floating supermarket. Guess what happened in these places? Oh, chronic diseases, yep. People started obesity and dialogue. Decreased breastfeeding, increased use of formulas, correct, which then cause you know the sequela of chronic issues later on in life. Correct. Yeah. So looking at what we talked about China in the previous episode and their increase in obesity, Brazil is merging as one of the most obese countries in the world. They're rising, which when you think of Brazil, people like us, you think about jujitsu, you know, you think about soccer, you think about people in Rio, you know, out there in the beach looking all freaking, you know, sexy and whatnot. You think about Carnival and all this stuff. You think about good-looking people that are always out in the sun and outside and that sort of thing. Well, Brazil is now becoming one of the most obese countries in the world. They've increased the 52.5% obesity rate from 43%. Now, pause 52.5% compared to our over 70%, and they're worried about it already. That's I mean, 50% is bad. Well, we're way worse. Yeah, and we're like, it's your right. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. So diabetes, obesity, that sort of thing on the rise. And here we are putting Nestle boats on the water to reach the Amazon. Never mind bringing, I don't know, medical supplies. Um no, the medical supplies are gonna come now that you've disrupted their health from the Nestle. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, you're right. You put the boat with the freaking insulin and the mentformin and all that other stuff, but never mind bringing, you know, stuff to fight infections, penicillin, you know, stuff that actually works. Yeah. Um It was interesting, kind of along the same lines as this that book that you're reading right now. Uh food pollution. And you told me about the um the dental issues. Ooh, the Western price. That's a really interesting thing. Yeah. That I I met with that remote island? Yep. So I'll, you know, I'm still reading this book and I'm taking so many notes. I'm gonna, we're gonna drop a dissertation on you when I when I bring this book out. Um book is called Food Pollution. It was published in 1972. Okay. This guy compiled data from the 60s on. Um, and you'd think that what he's talking about is something that we started talking about yesterday. So to see it on this book that was published in 72, like, man, people have been at it beating this drum about the crap in our food for a long time, right? And we don't have to get into it too much because I know it's not what we're talking about, but basically, like your teeth in your mouth are gonna give a highlight of your health, right? Like, why when you look at somebody and they don't have a chin, or you kind of like, mm-hmm, don't like that. Why, when somebody's mouth breathing, you're like, something wrong. Okay. And so remote island. Anytime you go to a place that's untouched with Western civilization, they have great teeth, right? Big wide mouths. The teeth allow the tongue to move. Yep, nobody has to get their freaking uh wisdom teeth removed. Um they might not be bright white, but they're not discolored. Okay, fine. Um this remote island had uh increase or decrease in something, so had to get food shipped in, like a decrease of copper or something like that. No, no, it was so Tonga specifically, the Tongan Island. So Western. Price was a dentist back in the day. I tried to do it briefly, but here we go. But well, I mean, give the contest. Back in the day, I believe his expedition started like in the 20s or something. Don't quote me on the time frame, but he was old. He was already in his 60s when he went on his expeditions and he went out to very remote locations, spent time with a lot of native tribes. He went to New Zealand, he went to Australia, he went to the Tongan Islands, he went to Africa, he went to here in Florida, places in Canada, Alaska, all these places, Eskimos, Seminoles. So in one of his trips out to Tonga, he interacted with this native group. That he what he saw is that there was tooth thick signs of tooth decay in some of them, but the tooth decay had healed. But he can identify it, but it had healed. And what happened in this island was that they had a um hit of copper. They found copper and they were selling copper. What back when copper was really worth worth a lot. So they became affluent for a little bit. And then the copper price went down and they lost their money. So they went back to, you know, when they became affluent, they started westernizing, right? Well, a lot of people came to the island to get the copper, and with that came Western food. Yep. And so they ate a lot of canned foods, processed foods. And then when the copper went down, the food options went away. So they had to go back to their eating off the island. Yep. Right. So they so they went back to their original diet, right? So he saw tooth decay and then he saw that it almost healed. And he's this observation across the world, every tribe, every place that he went to, the people that had never partaken in the processed foods and had kept their native diets, living off the land, whatever, whatever, their teeth were in better condition than the people that had experienced Western ultra-processed food. Really interesting observation. That is the wave tops of it. Yeah. Like I said, I'm still reading this book, so I'll give you the deep dive on it. And now let's take a quick break. 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That would have then progressed more to increase weight, increased blood sugar, increased blood pressure, chronic disease development. But fortunately for them, it's just a short amount of time. But we see that in the US, we see that in China, we see that in Brazil, we see that in all these other places. It's just not as obvious as I'm an island, here comes food, food's then taken away. And so we can see it. It's a little bit more subtle, but it's the exact same. Yeah. And a lot of these places that start experiencing these rise in obesity and diabetes and things like that, the prevalence or the income, the the input of ultra-processed foods is always there. It's one to one. Yeah. These people are not eating fruits and veggies off the land and working and eating themselves diabetic. It's not happening. Not happening. Yeah. And I bet they don't have in Tonga, or you can say, well, even if we we eat off the land here in the US and we try to like do everything, but and I don't mean to sound like uh all doom and gloom, but unfortunately, we've destroyed our soil with the pesticides, with monocropping, monocropping, with glyphosate, with the things you mentioned earlier, the methyl bromade, the blah blah blah blah that they don't have over there. And so even with our best efforts, we're not gonna be as good. So we just all need to go to a remote island and live off the land. That's all. That's just it's solved problems. Just well Nestle, huge company, and they're also buying stuff up. So you you have that. Okay. Now another one. Reese's Reese's peanut butter cup. Delicious. Everybody knows Reese's. It's the number one chocolate brand in the world. And they can be an egg for Easter. They can be a Christmas tree. Yep. So Reese's apparently it's a bastardization of what it used to be. To the point that the grandson of the creator of Reese's had a back and forth with the current with Hershey's, because they own Reese's now. He called them out for basically lack of integrity because Reese's now looks nothing like what his grandfather created. Good for him. But they're carping on the trust that that brand has generated. They're using that to market the product, right? And he's like, yo, you're you're appealing to this trust that's been created with the crowd, but you're not living up to that standard with the way that Reese looks now. Sounds like the medical system. Tell him. So he basically pointed out that his grandfather's vision of this chocolate and what he created was milk, chocolate, peanut butter. Sounds delicious. Sounds awesome. Sounds awesome. Now it's peanut butter cream, and here's the wordplay, right? It's not peanut butter, it's peanut butter cream. C-R-E-M-E. How's the mouthfeel? Exactly. This that was like I want to punch the person who was like, let's just not do the actual food product or ingredients. Let's just give them the mouthfeel. Yeah, the fake version of this. C-R-E-M-E is different than C-R-E-A-M. Right? Creme. Creme is different from cream. When you say C-R-E-A-M, that implies that there's what in it? Junk. No. Dairy. Wait. Sorry. I was thinking about something else. You said when it's C-R-E-A-M? Yeah. Yeah, real cream. Yeah. Dairy. Because cream comes from dairy, right? So, and this is something to note with ice creams that there's a lot of ice creams out there that no longer call themselves ice cream. They call themselves frozen desserts. Yeah, frozen desserts. Even though you think it's ice cream and maybe at one point they were ice creams. It has the mouthfeel of ice cream. Yep, they're no longer ice cream because the amount of dairy in them is minimal or non-existent, but it do have some seed oils in it now. Just gonna put that out there. But anyway, so this C-R-E-M-E is not an accident. Peanut butter cream, it's like they're letting you know that it's not actual peanut butter. Yeah. Okay. It's something that they created to feel like peanut butter. And then it's got all these added sugars, it's got vegetable oil, it's got emulsifiers. So it's a bastardization of what the original product was. But he's like, you're trying to promote this product like it, you know, all this trust that has been built with the with the people that mess with it, this nostalgia of it because it's been around for so long, but you're no longer living in accordance with the vision of that product, with the original intent of that product. I mean what's what did Hershey say? Hershey's what they say, I I haven't seen any reply. I'm probably just ignoring him. But hey, you know, he's just the grandson of the guy that created. He's not the guy that created that guy's long gone. Yeah, unfortunately, there's not enough people that are gonna stop eating Reese's because I'm sure that the all the added chemicals, added sugars, vegetable oils. Yeah, make a much more I can't stop. Yeah, yeah. And this sort of thing doesn't get out. Like they don't acknowledge it, right? So they're just this guy tweeted all this stuff, but they don't acknowledge it. So it doesn't get out to the people that eat Reese's all the time, right? And there's probably legal, like when they signed, when they merged to Reese's, it's like you relinquish all say, like he probably has no legal standing to say you didn't. Yeah, no, no. Yeah, they sold it to Hershey's. It's it's not it's it's not his product anymore. He's just using his name to point something out, right? Um, and he probably gets royalties from it, maybe his family, the family does still like they might have negotiated some deal where you're like, hey, you're gonna use my product name. I want X percentage of your sales, and he's just living off the the mailbox money or the entire family is, which hey, whatever. But good on him for calling them out for the BS. Okay, I got one more brand for you. Alex Ice Cream. Um, they are the first certified organic regenerative dairy, grass-fed, grass-finished ice cream. So they're the first ice cream to use fully regenerative milk for their product. Yep, you can get them at Sprouts. I think Whole Foods probably has them. Yep. And then USDA organic, they had the USDA organic label on them, which may or may not mean anything, but it's not an easy designation to get. I never bought them though, because they used some ingredient that we are avoiding. They they're definitely not better than I think ice cream for bears is the top-notch coup de gras ice cream. Banluen would be the other one, certain flavors. Flavors, but I think ice cream for bears got bought out by somebody else. Stop it, bro. This is what I'm talking about. You see, you find a product that is awesome and they do will, and then you tell other people they do will. And listen, we want to see this, but then they get bought out, and eventually it's gonna change. It's gonna go to something. Well, I don't, I can't confirm that, but I'm pretty sure that they did. We need to look into that if ice cream for bearers got bought out because it's bad news for the recently, so their stuff is still okay. Yeah, yeah. It just means that, and I I still I do this every time. I've we've spoken about this before. I buy the same products, but I always look at the ingredient labels because these things are going to change. Siete, once they started, I found Siete out of Sprouts in this middle shelf behind other stuff. I'm like, hmm, what's this? And then once I started seeing that they keep moved their stuff to the end caps and they started highlighting their stuff, then we found their stuff in gas stations. And that's when this was on the a movie. And then it was in a movie, and then I'm like, okay, it's done. They're gonna, and then here came the billion and a half dollar offer from Pepsi. It's done. Now they're starting to change their stuff, right? And the family that owns it, you know, the southern Texas Mexican family that owns it, they're off to Monaco. Good for them. We're happy for them. But Ciete, for the consumer, it's never gonna be the same, right? It's gonna start changing. So Alex, look, you know, they're doing this regenerative dairy. So they removed their organic certification. Good on them for keeping it real, because you can't have that certification if you don't meet certain um requirements. Okay, that's good. They removed it. That was the first thing they did, and then they put out a statement saying that they were having issues with sourcing regenerative milk. They said, like, hey, this is what we were trying to do, but unfortunately, we can't source it. There's no like enough supply of this, so we can't guarantee that we're using regenerative milk anymore. Good on them for at least giving people a heads up and not just changing it and telling people to deal with it, right? Um, this came, they received an $11 million funding thing. This is another thing. When you start injecting this private equity money into your company, it changes. And I get it because sometimes to scale, you're gonna need an outside investment, or you're gonna have to do something drastic to bring in more money so that you can be like, hey, we can afford a little bit more expanded supply chain or production, increased production, whatever it is that you have to do to scale, right? Um, they used to source their dairy from Alexander Family Farm, which is supposedly America's first regeneratively certified dairy producer. Okay. Private farm, first regenerative milk out there. And they've been in the business a long time. Okay. Alexander Family Farm noted, they made a public statement saying, like, hey, we're sad to see that Alex isn't really sourcing their stuff like this anymore, but it's not a supply issue. Ooh, they told on you, bro. They put your business out there in the streets. Okay. So why would they change? I people, you know, maybe it's like, hey, we need to, the margins are getting thinner because now we're trying to expand the market, whatever it is that they they change. And it just reveals, it points to this crazy strategy that you see out there in the ether with really good brands. And it's the same story over and over and over and over again, right? You create a brand, somebody creates a small business with high quality, trusted ingredients, you know, really clean stuff. People find it and it starts getting popular, right? And then it starts expanding into other markets, be like, oh, you could only find it at Whole Foods, for example. Now it's a Sprouts, now it's at Publix, now it's at Target. And then next thing you know, poop, boop, boop. People trust it, right? And then comes in the little acquisition offer. Then the switcheroo. And then the switcheroony, the yoki doke happens, right? Then it's like, okay, now we're no longer using these fresh, awesome ingredients from the smaller farms, whatever that means. That got you hooked in and loyal. Yep. Yeah. Got you hooked in and loyal. Now we're gonna change to, you know, we're gonna add a little emulsifier here, a little thickener there. We're gonna add some uh little seed oil here, a little seed oil there. And it's they they're like I said, people read ingredient labels more now, not enough, but people read them more. So they this process now, what I'm seeing is that it's slower. Whereas before it would be almost immediate. Now it's like very slow. It takes a little bit, right? Um, so why are we talking about this? The issue is the monopoly and the monopolizing of a lot of things, but especially, right? These big corporations are little by little, they they control everything. I'm sure by now everybody's seen the chart of like, you know, Nestle, Unilever, and all the brands they control, right? And then they come and you find these smaller, healthy brands, and they start doing well and they come and acquire that. And now they added, you know, another feather to their cap. And quote unquote, it's like this health washing of stuff, right? Where they're still promoting it as super healthy, but it no longer is the case. There's a lot of brands, you know, if you know Bert's Bees, Tom's of Maine, that used to be that back in the day, and they're no longer that. Um so I put together a little list here of products that have gotten acquired, they've inevitably changed. I mentioned CT Pepsi. Acquired by Pepsi, right? Cholula, acquired by McCormick. RX bars. You guys you remember all that? Yes, RX bars. That's like a that was like a CrossFit thing. Like, yeah, and then I remember we've stopped eating them because we ate so many of them when we hiked the Grand Canyon. Where I'm like No more. Yeah. Rx Bar got acquired by Kellogg's. Oh. And I remember telling you this like maybe two years ago, where I was like, man, I went to grab an RX Bar and I looked at the ingredients and I they changed. They changed. It's like the natural flavors are in there now. It used to be like dates, eggs, and whatever fruit, right? And I was like, saw the natural flavors. I saw one with seed oils. I'm like, what happened? Yeah. Well, now there it is. They got acquired by Kellogg's. You remember Justin's almond butter? Yes. That was the only almond butter that I would buy for years when I first moved to Texas. Because I found it was paleo and it was Dolia Shus, you know, Justin's delicious. Hormel got them. Um, they've been had them, and now it's basically candy with all the added sugars and all. Then they have different versions. Oh, Justin's with chocolate, Justin's this, where it just used to be peanut butter or almond butter. That's all they had, right? Um, so people, it's candy now. It's basically that's what it is. It's got palm oil, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it makes it different. You know, it's added fat basically, instead of just being the fat of the of the nut. Um and it has a bunch of added sugars to it. Applegate, the chicken sausages. Oh, I remember those, yeah. Yeah, they make it bacon, chicken sausages, really good ingredients stuff. Or mill got them too. Um, see some changes there. Primal Kitchen. I saw this. I showed this to you. Yeah. Primal Kitchen got acquired by Heinz. Yep, Kraft Heinz got them. So Primal Kitchen, okay, primal psycho, you know, they're like this paleo-esque brand. And they have, you know, barbecue sauces and condiments and things like that. They make this mayo that isn't uh soybean oil based. It's more like avocado oil-based mayo. Yeah, that's out the window. A lot of people are complaining that it tastes different. Yeah, that it's watered down, it doesn't taste the same. Yep. And then, you know, the natural flavors are making a peaky, a little peekaboo in there. You know what I mean? Um Rouse, this one's disappointing. Tomato sauce. Yeah, the tomato sauce and pasta. They make uh they make pasta like just drum wheat semolina, really good ingredient pasta. Um really good ingredient tomato sauces. We need to look, but I think Sprouts stopped carrying them. I believe they did. Because remember, we were doing, when we were doing pasta more often, we would do, we would alternate between red sauce and um pesto. And I would always get Rouse if I got the red sauce. And then I just couldn't find it anymore. So maybe Sprouts doesn't carry Campbell's products because I don't think I've seen Campbell's products. Yeah, Campbell's acquired Rouse. And we know Campbell's is a great company, right? That that C what is it, that vice president with his little rant talking about this is for poor people and this isn't healthy, 3D printed chicken. That guy. That company bought up. Yeah. Um, so yeah, Rouse used to be good. And again, people are complaining that it's not what it used to be. So what do we take away from this? This is more of a, you know, just just an awareness producing situation. Read ingredients. Read ingredient labels. If you're not reading ingredient labels, you it starts. That's the beginning. That's the first line of it. I love this brand. This is my brand. Just read it because it can change. And that way, when you the okido comes and they start putting some mystery stuff in there, you could be like, oh, I I'm looking at it and I caught it. That the ingredients are now different. And then it's still your choice. You can eat it if you want to. Yeah. But now you have a more informed choice, right? Because you know what's in it. Always read ingredient labels. I can't. That is one of the top 10 health habits that you can have is reading ingredient labels. Not just talking about food here. I'm talking about beauty products too. You're putting it on your skin, that stuff is absorbing into your blood screen, into your bloodstream. Read ingredient labels, guys. Medications, read ingredient labels. Well, they don't really that's medications and supplements are hard because they don't because especially if you have like true celiacs, um, some medications and supplements will have gluten in them. Because I know that was an issue with thyroid medication, because a lot of people who have thyroid issues also have gluten sensitivities, and a lot of thyroid meds contain gluten. So it's yeah. Ask about ingredients. Yeah, it is gonna take an effort. Our friend in Germany, Trisha, she had a very specific allergen to gliadin, I think. Yeah, to gliadin. And so she had to contact manufacturers of supplements, manufacturers of medications to get in depth ingredients of what they use, even in active things, because she was very, very sensitive. And so she she there was no lie. She's like, if I wasn't as motivated with my health, I wouldn't have done this. It's very, very hard to do and takes time and effort. And I'm not trying to say that. Discourage, just want you to know that this isn't something you're gonna take an hour and figure out. But when it comes, that's medication specifically. Yeah, that's if you're truly sensitive and you have an identified allergy. If and if you're living with some low-level disease or inflammation or inflammatory response and you don't know what it is, it could be one of these things. Read the freaking ingredients or ask about the ingredients. You know where I'm gonna get at here. Look at my face. Vaccinations. If you don't know what's in it, that's not true informed consent, right? So if you're gonna take a vaccine, you should probably ask about what's in it. Let me see the insert, let me see the ingredients before I agree to this, right? That should be the way it goes. Ask about ingredients, supplements. Some supplements, they come with, you know, like Ollie or any of these popular, like chewy gummy supplements. Oh, I'm taking my little melatonin gummies. We fell for this too. Come to find out, it's got more added sugars and more seed oils than it does the stuff that you actually want. Yeah. One thing that's um probably more common to everyone else is creatine. Know where you get your creatine from. It's not necessarily that they're adding stuff to it, but where is it sourced from? Uh heavy metals and stuff. You could probably, you won't see that on a label, but yeah, the processing matters. We used to use Thorn. Thorne used to source their uh creatine from Germany. Which is crea pure. You find the creature. And then they stopped, but now they're not like I I we have a Thorn account. I help facilitate people. We're affiliates. There we go. With Thorn. I can't find out where they get their creatine from. I also haven't messaged them and directly asked. It's just not readily available. So we switched to Bubs, Bubs Naturals. Very transparent. Creole pure from Germany, not China. So that's what we use. Context, sir, for those that didn't know, creatine comes from two sources: a Chinese or Germany. Um, Crea Pure is a certification. When you buy a pro uh creatine, if it has a crea pure sticker on it, the other thing you want is NSF certified for sport. That means there's an even more third-party testing. But if there's a creapure label on your creatine, it means it came from Germany. That's the one you want. If there's no creapure label on it, you can assume that it came from China. There could be issues there. So, and something we noticed in making that switch, the Creapure stuff from Bubs is mixes way easier. It's a finer powder, it's not clumpy. So there was a marked difference in opening one canister and the other. We're like, whoa. Yeah. So just, I mean, yes, we have an affiliate with Bubs. Yes, we get a very small commission if you um purchase from it, but you get a discount. Um but I will choose Bubs time and time again for their transparency and they stay, they stay true, right? And you know, I hope that they can maintain that, but their integrity is spot on. They're not gonna make shortcuts and they'll run out of stuff. That's one thing. They won't sacrifice to scale up to make things more available. We ran out. They have this um, but the MCT butter, right? That's delicious in coffee. They'll be out for months at a time because they're out. And guess what? We wait. Yeah, we don't demand that they cut corners and they don't have to. So that you can have a constant. And so I just like if you electrolytes, creatine, collagen, um MCT, either vegan or with butter. Um, what else do they have? They have some other things too. Coffee. Their coffee's good. Their coffee's really good too. Yeah. Um and they have instant, they used to, I don't know if they still do have instant coffee, which was, you know, instant coffee is like not amazing, but theirs was the best. Um hydration packets. Yeah, the electrolytes. I strongly encourage you to look at Bubs now. They also donate part of their revenue. Oh, 10% of all proceeds go to veterans, and on Veterans Day, 100% of all their proceeds go to veterans. It turns into a Bubs commercial, real quick. Listen, I we if we recommend a product, I we only first of all, we the owner of Bubs, he was best friends with the company's named after one of the guys that died in Benghazi, okay, in Libya, and that's it. Glenn Daughtry, who they're talking about. Glenn Daughtry, his nickname was Bubs, right? So it's named after him. The guy that owns the company now was a good friend of him, and he basically set this company up in his memory, right? He's always at SummerStrong. Yep. So we get to talk to him. Whenever we go to Summerstrong, we get to like up front, right here. Boom, boom, boom. It's different, right? When these people are super available, super forward-facing, they're talking to everybody. If we recommend a product, same thing with Chocolate, you know, and whoever we say, hey, this is a good company, I'm not just telling you the product is good. I'm looking at the company as a whole, too. Yeah. Right? Like, hey, these people are up front, trained heroic, things like that. These people are up front, they're very honest, really cool people, and they're putting out good stuff, right? So we didn't mean to drop a bubs commercial on it. It's like, no, we rock with these people because they're good people and they have a solid product, right? So just something to keep in mind there. But yes, now you learned a little bit about creatine. So whatever creatine you buy, go for the creapure one. Okay. That yeah, that was a little offshoot. Sorry. But keep no, just it goes back to a it sadly, we're in a time where you have to figure out sourcing. You have to read ingredient labels, you know, your supplements and things like that. Read those ingredient labels. You're you're buying melatonin, and it's, you know, that pregnetolone that we were buying for me, like I a supplement with a pregnetolone. And then it's like I turn it around, boom, sunflower oil. And the thing, I don't want that. Yeah, I don't cook with that. Why do I want why do I want to take a supplement with some get it out of here? So you got you have to, you have to go there. Supplements, medicine, freaking food, of course, beauty products. Read the labels, guys. Read the labels, okay? The other thing I want to say is give smaller brands a chance. Yeah. Man, like there, there's some people out there with some phenomenal products, and they're, you know, that there's integrity behind them. There's principles that they abide by, but you know, people don't want to support them because they're too small or that, oh yeah, but they're they run out or this sort of thing. I get it. Give the small brands a chance, man. Let's put some money behind, let's vote better with the dollar and let's put some money behind people that have integrity and that have good products, right? When you go grocery shopping and all this stuff, a lot of it for me is curiosity where I'm like looking in the shelves at sauces and little things that I've never seen. And I turn around, read the ingredients. Maybe I pull up their little history, like, oh damn, this people, this is pretty cool. I'll buy this. Yeah. You know, so pay attention when you're grocery shopping. I know we primarily shop at Sprouts, but they'll have little um tags for local, if something's more local. So I always try to look at those or new things, right? What are they bringing that's new? And so it's, you know, try to allow yourself some time to be somewhat involved in your food choices. It's just it's just a sign of the times. I'm sorry that things can't be easier. They have to get more challenging for you if you want to be healthy. I'm sorry, I apologize. But it's the times that you are living in. These people, these modunes, these um demons, these crazy greedy people that serve the darkness are out here trying just perverting everything and corrupting every single thing that they touch. Okay. Sadly, that means that we have to work harder to stay healthier. You can't just take things that's at face value. It is what it is. Food quality is only declining. So these, you know, they're finding new ways to inject weird ingredients into food. They're finding new ways to word it so that you don't really understand, you know, the cream versus C-R-E-M-E type thing. It's just, it's, it's crazy. You're like, is this French? Yeah, creme. Yeah, no, it's because it's fake. Yeah. So and yes, it's a lot of work, but people like he, people like us are here to help you navigate it. That's what we do, baby. That's what we're we out here curious and on the lookout, and we will sound the alarm quick if there's some little little hint, yeah, whiff of nonsense on stuff. So if you have any tried and true products, whether it's food, supplements, beauty products, whatever, that you know are great ingredients that you'd want us to um acknowledge on the show or just share it with us because we're happy to learn about new things too. Let's, you know, let's all share the love, share the the information. So um shoot us a DM at Achieve the Lifestyle on Instagram. You can email us at info down info us at info at achieve the lifestyle.com or just you know peruse our website, achievethelifestyle.com. But yeah, share with us what you like a little small business that you um use. We'd love to highlight them and um guys. Or message us if you're just like, I don't even know where to start on decreasing toxic stuff in my food, beauty products, da da da da, and we can help you come up with a step-wise approach. Remember, this is just a just twist the dial in your favor little by little. Okay, you don't have to be perfect, you don't have to do it all overnight, just little by little. Just take a little bit. Hey, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna work on this today, okay? Read them ingredient labels. Guys, till the next episode, we're signing off. I'm gonna need you to pay attention to what's going on out there. Keep your open eyes, open ears, on alert for all the nonsense that is happening out there with regards to health. Yep. And stay pharmaphobic. Thanks for listening to the pharmaphobic podcast. If you found this conversation interesting, which I know you did, make sure to follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. And also make sure to check us out on Instagram at Achieve the Lifestyle. And if you're interested in pursuing a stronger, healthier, more capable version of yourself, check out our website at AchievethLifestyle.com. The pharmaphobic podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed are those of the hosts and guests and do not constitute medical, legal, or professional advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making any medical or wellness decisions. While we discuss pharmaceutical, holistic, and alternative health topics, our content is not a substitute for professional medical guidance.