Eating Ourselves Sick: The Truth They Don’t Advertise

What if the very system designed to “feed” us is quietly working against us?

In this episode, we’re diving into the modern food system—how convenience replaced quality, why so many everyday products are stripped of real nutrition, and how it all connects to rising rates of chronic illness, fatigue, and hormone disruption.

We’re not here to fear-monger—we’re here to wake up. From ultra-processed foods and misleading labels to the relationship between agriculture, big business, and long-term health… we’re asking the questions most people don’t stop to consider.

Why are we constantly tired, inflamed, and craving more?
 Is it lack of discipline—or is the system designed that way?

This episode is all about awareness, empowerment, and learning how to take small, realistic steps back toward real nourishment—without overwhelm.

Because once you see it… you can’t unsee it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Bless Your Heart. I'm Carlisle. And I'm Heather. And before we get started, we're gonna be talking about the food industry today. So a little disclaimer: we're not doctors, we're not scientists, we're not food nutritionists. We're just two girls who decided to start reading the back of the labels and following the patterns. So bless your heart if you take this too seriously. These are just our thoughts and our opinions. And let's get started tonight with a little catch-up on what's been going on in our life. I feel like we miss out on some gold in these moments because we kind of catch up before the call. So, what's been going on this week for you?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

I'll tell you what, ever since the time change happened on Sunday, I have had this weird head fog. I feel like my equilibrium, if that's what you call it, yeah, equilibrium's been kind of off. I just feel exhausted. You know, I had to travel a little bit this week, but I mean, nothing crazy, you know, just driving to Charlotte and back. And um, I mean, you would have thought I flew, went across country, but it's weird. I wonder if they know that that affects us, and that's why they keep doing the time change. Because I know my mom was talking about how Florida is the sunrise sunshine bill, how they're they were supposed to pass it like four years ago, and it's been in the house back and forth and Congress to pass it, but hopefully they'll pass it soon to where we will not have another time change. Well, at least Florida, but I think South Carolina also is part of that. What have you been up to?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

I was in the grocery store. I thought it was crazy because none of us knew in my family. We didn't like normally we'll be like, hey, don't forget to set your clocks back, or you know, we did not discuss that this year. So then I woke up and I was like kind of confused. My dad called me to go to the grocery store. And when we got there, I was like, Well, you know it's actually one o'clock and not 12 o'clock. And he was like, Wait, what? And I was like, I thought you were just playing with me earlier. And he even had no idea, and he's on top of it all. Then we get to the checkout line, and the girls there are talking to each other about how they were late for work because neither of them knew that it was that you had to change your clocks. So I'm like, Did the whole world miss an announcement of daylight savings? That's like something to ask our audience. This year I was very unprepared for it. I did had no idea it was happening. That's that's fine though, because I'm really not in the know as a not a parent, as someone who didn't have to keep up with like those kind of things. Um yeah, so it's just interesting. I just thought it was funny that people in the grocery store were like, I was late for work because I didn't know the the clock the time the time changed.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

I don't know. My dad even even reminded me, sent me a text and everything, and I still the entire day completely forgot until that night. That's when I realized it. Did we did we change timelines?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

It's so funny. I know my mom does not listen to our podcast. I just know she doesn't. But today she sent me like an article about this woman who has made it big and it all started with a podcast, and it turned out to be Mel Robbins. But it was funny to me because it's like, oh, they're hinting at like, oh, maybe this podcast thing is for real. And so speaking of that, we have like legit fans, and I'm so excited, and we ran randomly hit an international audience.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Yes, which is crazy. I never would have thought we would be international on our season two.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah, so we have a small but mighty niche fan club. We love you all. So if you're listening in Frankfurt, Germany, cheers to you. We're like Gutentag, whatever the hell you say.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yeah, and what was the number one city? Charlotte. So Charlotte and then Frankfurt, which is so interesting because of course we're wondering where the connection could be, other than a direct American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Frankfurt. But the only thing I could find from Claude AI, the connection was, of course, military or financial hubs. So they're both huge financial banking hubs. So we've got maybe we have some banker listeners in the financial investments.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Maybe we do have some listeners overseas. I've actually seen that we have a couple in Asia. We're like really hitting the scene. I'm guessing it's just the algorithm pushing us out to people who listen to podcasts that are similar to us. But it is fun that two little girls in South Carolina are reaching across not only state lines but international lines, which like, let's go. So shall we dive into with that our bless your heart moment of the week?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yes. So my bless your heart moment of the week is more bless my heart. So my family uh in Marion, South Carolina, has some chickens. They have a lot of chickens. And they have so many chickens that at Christmas time, when we all get together, we all get to take home a garden of fresh eggs. And I always wondered, why are none of these eggs refrigerated? She was pulling it out of her pantry. Come to find out, when they're fresh, you don't have to put them in the refrigerator. So, of course, I went down a rabbit hole, which is fitting perfect with the episode that we have today talking about the food industry and what's in our food. But I basically found out that we as Americans are the USDA forces us to pre-wash these eggs. And in turn, it removes um a thing called bloom, or also known as the cuticle, which is a natural protective coating on the egg. So the USDA basically requires our eggs to be pre-washed. Now, it's just probably Dawn soap and warm water. Like there's nothing wrong with that. But when they wash it, it takes off that, you know, natural protective layer. So we then have to have refrigerators, refrigerated trucks to deliver it to the grocery store. Then you have to have refrigerators at the grocery store to put the eggs in. So that's like double cost. You look at Asia or Europe, it's the complete opposite. They don't pre-wash their eggs. So the bloom's still intact, and they do not require any refrigeration in the process of delivering the eggs or even in the store. So bless my heart. I learned something new. Thanks to my family and Marion. What's your bless your heart of the week? Well, first off, back to your egg story.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

I do think it is crazy, and things really do fall into our laps. On the way to get a pedicure today, which I know I need to cut out because it's full of toxins putting on my toes. But anyway, we each have our we each have our things. Like right before this, I was laughing. I'm really hungry, and I was like, I gotta eat two genetically modified crackers so that I can make it through the podcast. So, you know, everything that we say, we're not perfect and we're we're we're learning it as we go. It's really hard when you find out like 95% of the grocery store is ultra-processed foods, which we are going to get into. But when it came to the eggs, I was randomly listened to the radio on the way to the nail slime because I didn't feel like getting my phone and my Apple CarPlay plugged in. So I just flipped it to like this. It's I don't even know what you call this. It's a talk radio station, but he goes deep on a lot of conspiracies, ultra-conservative. And today, some guy randomly called in. The piece that I caught was this guy talking about I go through in my family two dozen eggs a week. And he's like, and I'm ex-military. So if I go through two dozen eggs a week, that means each platoon is going through like a hundred and fifty dozen eggs a day. And I was like, holy cow, if you think about how many eggs each soldier is probably eating and the food cost, just like the food cost of eggs alone. We're gonna talk about the skyrocketing costs later, but how eggs have gone in the past five years from like a dollar eighty to like four dollars and thirty cents in front of our eyes is so crazy. And we got to give a shout out to Hemingway, our co-host today.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

She's actually jumped up on my lap during the uh podcast. So Hemingway is a main coon. If anybody wants to know, do the sweetest.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

She's a girl. My bless your heart moment of the week kind of goes with felines because felines are like mysterious creature, regal creatures. I stumbled upon a movie that I hadn't seen since the 90s called Death Becomes Her. And I was like, I'm gonna watch this. It has uh Goldie Hahn and um Goldie Han and Merrill Streep are in it, and they're it's 1992, so the movie's called Death Becomes Her. The whole premise of the movie is these two women who are like arch enemies fighting for this man's attention and will go to no uh go to any cost to be eternally young. So they take this potion and it costs like who knows what, a cost of fortune, and they basically the walking dead, they have no pulse, they have they have they're like cold to the touch, but they are eternally young and they're youthful. And you know, we see all these celebrities how pre-COVID they looked like they were aging, and then post-COVID, now everybody looks 20 years younger. Well, this is what that potion would do, and it keeps you forever young, but your body, you have to take care of your body because your body does deteriorate. Like if you get shot, you're gonna have that bullet hole wound for the rest of your life. Like if you break your neck, your neck is gonna be jacked up and you're gonna have to fix yourself. But so these women go to they take the potion, and at the end it's a scene where someone is conflicted with do they take the potion or not. And the woman basically discusses you will be you will live forever, forever, and like your body will never die. And this person's like, wait, wait, what? I don't want to be stuck here forever. Like, are you kidding me? And so the whole movie is about this potion that makes these people live forever, and then they have to disappear. So they have to have an accidental death or just like disappear from the public eye forever. So there's these rumors that there's all these islands where all these dead celebrities have gone to live. And so the theory would be they took the potion, and after like 10 years, you have to disappear. So there's not speculation as to why you're not aging any. The craziest part is months ago I saw this conspiracy on TikTok that Marilyn Monroe and Andy Warhol were the same person, that they've done facial recognition software, and that Marilyn Monroe, I think, died in 62, and then Andy Warhol became really famous in 62. So they're saying that Marilyn Monroe became Andy Warhol, and then Andy Warhol is like got famous off of his pictures of Marilyn Monroe, right? So then it's crazy because in the movie I was like, wait a minute, and I had to rewind it. There's a scene right after they're talking about having to fake your own death, and it's Andy Warhol and Marilyn Monroe, like characters dressed up as Andy Warhol and Marilyn Monroe, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's right in front of our faces. It's crazy. Yeah, they have the tale. What are the chances that I stumble upon a movie from 1992 and I'm like, ugh, not much on the news cycle today. Let me check out this old movie. And I thought I had seen it. I was like, I don't remember it. It was the wildest movie. So things really do fall into our lap. Today I learned about how many eggs the military eat and how much that's going to cost us in times of war. And then I learned, yeah, that the potion for eternal youth is real and that there are probably islands full of celebr dead celebrities out there. Maybe they reinvent themselves. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah, that's so interesting. We probably could do a podcast just on that because I started following a guy on TikTok where he says, like, these people could be fallen angels and they're playing, you know, two different characters because Jim Carrey had just come out and he doesn't even look like the old Jim Carrey. And he did the face recognition with the guy, what's his name? Keanu Reese off The Matrix. And it was kind of like the same guy, or what were they playing the same people? My question is: are they vampires? Are they fallen angels? Are they the same? Or are they on an island? It's just, it's a fun rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Yes, we should do a whole episode on that. But that's my so that's my bless your heart moment. And since we're talking about the food industry, we're talking about staying eternally young. We're all on the journey of health and how we can age gracefully. And we thought tonight would be a great time to dig into the food industry because those people are not great people and they do not care about our health. In fact, when you find out about the history of the food companies, who owns it, what's going on, you're just going to be shocked. And I'm going to say that I have been saying this since like 2020. It starts with the seed. And when you find out that farmers are prisoner to crop insurance and they have to have a certain seed that is approved to plant, like we don't stand a chance because even the seeds are genetically modified. It doesn't matter what they spray on it. It literally starts at the seed. So let's first talk about Heather, let's talk about the U.S. food market and then we'll jump into kind of the European food market because we are getting played over here for sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Yeah, we definitely are, especially with the egg situation. So we basically created a problem that requires refrigeration and then forgot to ask why other countries don't have the same problem. So I used to work, well, I still kind of work in the food industry, but I used to work for a grocery wholesaler the last seven years. And especially during COVID, I had no idea the politics in it, the supply, uh, amount of plants catching on fire, uh, price increases to like the sizes of your bottles changing, making us think it's a better deal when it's not. So, especially during COVID, I I really started noticing, of course, the toilet paper shortage because I was over household items and cleaners and things like that, and and we couldn't get it all of a sudden. And, you know, our lives turned upside down. And you wonder why why toilet paper? Why did all of this start? But it made me in that industry take the time to learn about what's in our food and why companies do certain things and how many people are actually a part of this system. Like, for example, I was a category manager. It was my responsibility to meet with vendors to bring in your new cereal, your new ego, your new, let's say, bounty, paper towels, your your Charmin toilet paper, things like that. So I had a role to play. And I remember, for example, a cereal. And I started learning about all the ingredients and food and stuff during COVID because we're all trying to be healthier. You know, we're kind of like awakening to what's going on in the world and the illusion behind, you know, that we see. And I started saying to myself, well, why on earth would we bring this cereal in? Like it's terrible for our customers. But because that consumer continued to buy it, especially if they had EBT, that money is used for the owner of that grocery store, you know? So it's like a cycle that keeps going. So because that consumer keeps spending that money, I am required to continue to bring in these items because that is my job. I need to bring sales up for the wholesaler as well as for the grocery store that we service. So there's a lot of people that are involved that, in my opinion, don't even realize the small piece that they play in the big puzzle. So we're gonna uncover little things today. I even learned some things that I didn't know about, especially the differences of what we put in our food compared to what Europe, um, those countries over there put in their food. I just picked on a couple. So I thought we would look at Pringles and McDonald's. Because there's two set of rules. The USA allows ingredients until they're proven harmful. But Europe's philosophy is that something must be proven safe before use. So it's completely backwards what we're doing. And why? So if you look at Pringles side by side, the US uses a cotton seed oil, which is very, very bad. And I didn't even know much about that until we started looking into this. The EU uses sunflower oil, which is just a cleaner alternative. The US uses mono, and I'm probably gonna ruin some of these words because I thought I don't I don't meal with these, deal with these words a lot. Basically, it's a trans fat wrist, a diglosariitis. Is that how you would pronounce it? And the EU uses yeast extract and yeast powder. So we can we can uh pronounce those words. So, I mean it's a more natural thing to put in your items. So then U.S. adds MSG and artificial colors and flavors, where the EU has none of these. And then lastly, the EU has lower sodium and lower saturated fat, whereas we have 30 milligrams more sodium per serving and 1.6 grams more saturated fat per serving in the U.S. version. I mean, it's it's no wonder we're all inflamed all the time or all sick all the time. It's the same bag. Yeah. I mean, it's just the same brand, the same bag, and it's just completely different formulas.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Wow, that's so crazy to think about. Um, you know, now like let's look into the McDonald's because Pringles, same bag, different ingredients, different chips. So we're being sold something. We're probably paying more for it, too. I would I would bet we our cost is probably more than Europe's. McDonald's, I don't even know what you're about to say about McDonald's, but it's terrifying because I heard today that you have to have like 95 million cows that die a day or something like that for them to be able to actually access all the beef. Like, there's no way that the amount of cows that they're saying that they're feeding consumers is true. So I don't know what they're feeding consumers, but somebody said the fact that they say like serving 96 million happy people a day or humans a day or something like that in their slogan. I'll have to look that up. But their slogan says something about serving humans, and it's like, oh my gosh, are they serving us humans?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Yeah, I know. I know. I've seen a lot of things on social media about that, and it's very disturbing. And it yeah. Um, but but we we won't go there on this podcast, but we highly suggest people look into it. So McDonald's. Everybody loves McDonald's fries, right? Everybody says like they have the best fries. I personally like Chick-fil-A's fries the best, but so we're gonna pick on McDonald's today. So the U.S. uses potassium bromate, which is basically a dough conditioner, whereas it's completely banned and illegal in the EU. The US uses it's it's a long word. I can't even pronounce this one, but it's basically what you use in a yoga mat. So we put that in our McDonald's fries, whereas of course it's banned in the EU. Dicarbonide? Carbonamide?

SPEAKER_01 20:13

I said dicarbonide.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Carbamide. Carbonamide. Yeah. And then the US uses high fructose corn syrup, and the EU uses just real sugar cane. We use bleached enriched flour, and they use unbleached flour. And one funny thing about that yoga mat materi uh chemical that's used in our fries is Subway removed it from their bread back in what was it, 2014. And the only reason they removed it is because they had 50,000 signed petitions from the public for, you know, basically pointing the finger and calling them out saying, you know, you have this in our food. What what are you even thinking? But the fact that it took that many signatures just for them to remove it, but I haven't eaten Subway in a while. I mean, I smell like that bread as soon as I walk in a Subway. But I used to eat Subway all the time as a kid. I mean, we would eat Subway right before a volleyball game or a basketball game, you know?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Oh my gosh, the amount of five dollar footlongs that I've had in my life. Like when I was a broke college student, I lived off of Subway. When I would go on road trips working with my dad and brother, we would get Subway because it was supposed to be the healthy choice. Like sweet, sweet onion, chicken teriyaki, like all day long, love that stuff. But it's so, it's so bad for you. It is crazy. You like Chick-fil-A. I swear Chick-fil-A has changed. I can smell it. I'm telling you, I have this sense of smell, and there's something not right with Chick-fil-A. Also, they admit that they put like a lot of ingredients, secret ingredients, into their breading for their for their chicken. And they're going away from no antibiotics ever quietly. So no one, no one is what is the word I'm looking for? No, it's like it's hard to escape. It's really hard to hold your moral ground in all of this. But we can talk about in the like in the US, like the meat that's been grown with growth hormones. I got some grass-fed ribeyes the other day, and I thought it was crazy because they were like 10 outs, so they look really tiny. But I'm guessing that's supposed to like what they're supposed to look like. I watched something today on the chicken factories, and this was from 2009, where these farmers have these basically huge warehouses full of chickens, and because of the antibiotics and stuff and growth hormones that they're pumping them full of, the chickens can't grow fast enough for their limbs to be able to support their weight. So we're eating obese chickens. Oh my god. So gross. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. And then have you heard about cheese? Do what? Have you heard about cheese? What do you mean? Like how shredded cheese is so gross and full of like anti-caking solutions so that you can keep it shredded. Like you should just be shredding cheese on your own because the pro they actually put silicone dioxide or cellulose, which is literally wood pulp, to prevent clumping. So you're eating anti-caking agents. They suggest the brand Tillamook is one of the only good ones that uses cheese and minimal additives. So anytime you're buying a block of cheese, you got to get it and shred it yourself. I was like so grossed out. I didn't I knew that there was something to shredding your own cheese. I just wasn't sure what it was. And now you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Well, you know what's funny about that, Carlisle, is back in the day we all used to shred our own cheese. And then they noticed, like, oh, well, let's make it convenient for people. It's already shredded. And then they just started pumping other things in it quietly, and nobody knew. It's yeah, tillamok's about the only one I use, unless I'll buy like the fresh cheese. Honestly, though, I've quit cheese unless it's in macaroni and cheese or something like that. I mean, with the detoxes I've been doing with my holistic daughter, no dairy. And some people can't even have dairy. I mean, you can't even have dairy all the time.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

I know. I'm so bad. Like, right now I can tell I'm like inflamed. I'm puffy because I've just been like eating whatever I want. Because it it is so hard. And I know it's like, give me the world's tiniest violin. It is so hard to eat gluten-free and dairy-free in this world. Going out to eat, I stand to be the person being like, oh, I need like special this, special that. So I'm like, just have a hurt stomach tomorrow. Or I'm like, you know, it's okay. It's a little inflammation. But I can go off of everything and do my anti-inflammatory diet after five days. I am looking like a snatch supermodel. I swear. It's crazy. It is crazy. It's like you're a whole new person. I like speaking of getting off of gluten, bread is another one. And when we were doing our research, like I've only ever been able, well, I can I eat bread. I'm a bad girl. I eat bread. I should only eat sourdough bread because it during the process of making sourdough bread, the fermentation process, it takes out a lot of the gluten that reacts with your gut. So, like, we should all be making our own bread at home. There's a brand in here that is suggested, but I wouldn't suggest it, which is Dave's. Oh, yeah. I would not suggest it. I had a pack in my closet for eight weeks that John pulled out the other day. Not a drop of mold on it. So I did some research today, and it was like they don't have any additives, but they do have organic additives. So there's like some sort of vinegar that they put on the mold. Like I don't care what it is. It's if it's natural bread, it should not last eight weeks in my closet. And you should not be able to sell it as organic.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

That's what's so crazy. You start to wonder just because it has organic on it, is it really healthier? I mean, going back to uh one thing we forgot to mention in the meat and chicken that is very important is the meat US, we have the growth hormones in our beef where it's completely banned in EU and it's been banned since 1989. And then if you look at all the uh the nitrates that they just pump in all of our hot dogs, our sausages, like the deli meats. I mean, I've even slowed down eating my the deli meats, God, I used to love, I mean turkey every day. But it's hard on it's hard on our kidneys, come to find out. Um, it's linked to increased cancer risk if you eat it all the time, which is kind of scary. Um in the UA, they have really strict rules because of this. And and then you look at chicken. Why on earth are we having to wash our chickens with chlorine washing? I mean, it's it's called they call it anti-microbile rinse, micro hold on. Antimicrobial antimicrobial rinse. And it's banned in the EU. And then the EU chickens, they can't be washed in that chlorine. So their entire supply uh supply chain has to be cleaner to begin with. So their chickens aren't a beast or pump full of stuff, like ours are, unfortunately. So are we solving a sanitation problem with chemicals instead of just fixing the sanitation problem to begin with? I'm sorry, it's just laughable. This whole thing really is. It's so crazy.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

It's it's so crazy. It's terrifying, terrifying to think about how bad everything is. Like you almost want to dig your head in the sand. It's like funny side note is for the longest time I had no idea that like chickens could have eggs that wouldn't hatch. I might have mentioned that on here before. I always thought like every egg had the potential of hatching. And then I realized that you have to have a rooster to fertilize the egg. So a lot of the eggs that we're eating is kind of like regenerative farming because there's not a chicken on the side on the other side that would have died, which it makes me feel a little bit better until you realize that I mentioned earlier that the price of eggs was$1.41 in 2019. And by 2024, they were$4.15 per dozen. That's a hundred and sixty percent increase in five years. And if you want to get even crazier, 2024, there was a 65% spike alone in increase in price, which we know is because of like some bird flu where they decided to kill all the birds and take the insurance claims. It's garbage, which has led us to the chickens in America movement that is going on. I have friends that now have chickens. There was this huge fight in our neighborhood what the HOA over having chickens or not. And I bet they feel pretty silly now because chickens are the way to go. I actually am going to get some at some point, not sure when, but it would be fun.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

There are a lot more cities. Uh I was doing the when I was doing the research. There's a lot more cities, you know, removing these strict bans about not having chickens within certain city limits or certain county limits and things like that, uh, which is great. Especially in uh Minneapolis. I was kind of surprised to find that that that city uh especially had one of the highest amount. See, it's them in Denver that have the highest amount of backyard chickens. And I think one store owner said within a year he sold 3,600 chicks, which is a record, you know, a record sale for him. But I you know, I start wondering, okay, well, why is Minneapolis like that? Well, it's because their state had the most uh chicken farms out of any other state. And then when they had the EVN fluent flu, they killed off a lot of those birds, which I think is a joke. So, I mean, are you gonna burn all of us because we have a cold? Like, it doesn't make any sense. It really doesn't. But that that's that is their story, right? So that they had to get rid of all the eggs. So the locals are basically, we got to take it in our own hands. So we're gonna go buy our own chickens. And that was one of the cities that removed their strict bans for people to be able to get their own chicken, their own backyard chicken.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

I know it's crazy. It's like the backyard chicken is such a radical act, not because like of the chicken, but it's because people are starting to question like what's going on. I don't trust the government, I need to be able to provide for my family, which is like how we went. And then we got literally spoonfred the propaganda that the grocery store has everything that we need. Like we've lost the art of learning how to garden and things like that. But until we can be self-sufficient, we have to learn what we're looking at. So, Miss Grocer Lady, since you work in the industry, why don't you tell us what some of the stickers on the back of the produce mean? Because this was eye-opening to me. Come to find out, you can kind of get little hints of where your stuff is from, what it's sprayed with, and different things.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Yeah, so I was not in charge of produce, but I did learn some things working with people that were. So if you look at the PL code numbers on all your produce, right? They all start with different numbers and they mean different things. Basically, if they start with a nine, it means it's organic, but it also means that the pesticides were sprayed topically. So you can wash them off, basically. I even bought from Misfits, it has like a produce spray to clean your vegetables and fruits, but it kind of smells weird at the same time. So I don't really know if I'm actually cleaning it. But anyway, so that's what the nines made. So basically, you you probably want to try to buy the nines. You've got sixes, which are basically your pre-cut, your genetically modified, and then if they start with a four, it's basically your conventional ones. Most of those are what we can all afford, to be honest with you, because the organic ones are all two, three dollars more expensive. Now, when I was doing my with my holistic doctor, when I was doing my detox, there are certain basically anything that has a hard shell, right? You can you can buy those with a number four starting. I I think you'd be fine. But the ones that have like a soft layer on the outside, you know, those are the ones that you want to make sure you get organic, like your berries, your strawberries, your blueberries, your blackberries, which are some of the best fruits that you can put in your body to help us. And that was one of the things that I learned in my journey. But like we were saying earlier, just because it says organic doesn't mean it's pesticide free. You know, like what you were saying earlier, our farmers, because of the USDA and all the restrictions that they require them, their hands are tied. And it's sad because they constantly get fingers pointed at them all the time from every angle. But in the end, it's not really their fault. They're being forced to do this, or they will not get paid, or they lose their license, even.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

I know it's so crazy. The farmers have like no control. And when you hear about how they decided that all grains and a bunch of other things had to be sprayed with folic acid in the early stages, well, then when you find out that 50% of people have a gene mutation that had that literally can't take folic acid, and so your crops are being sprayed. When women get pregnant, the first thing that they tell women to start taking during pregnancy is folic acid. I'm not sure where that came from or what the propaganda is, but it actually makes those 50% of people, those 50% of women that are taking the folic acid, they start to turn crazy. And that's where postpartum depression supposedly comes from. So really that everybody should be taking a methyl folate and not the folic acid that they want you to be taking. It's really crazy when you find out that 50% of the people that they're telling to take a pill, like here, take this pill. It's gonna make everything for your child, for your pregnancy better for you. It's gonna turn you loony-tunes. And then when you have your pregnancy, when you have your baby, you're gonna feel depressed, not know what's going on, feel like you're losing your mind. It's so crazy. Like I had the MTHF uh MTHF gene mutation, and once I started supplementing properly for that, it was crazy. I went from being tired all the time, feeling like I was losing my mind to like really having energy. And it's because now my body can properly take in the vitamins that it needs. But without the methylbolate, basically when I take in vitamins, it was just like going through my body. They weren't getting off their off ramps and going to the places that they were supposed to be. How is it that we are all having to educate each other? Thank goodness for the power of the internet. I don't blame our parents for just doing the best they could because they had no idea the propaganda that they were being spewed. Even my dad is like a pretty holistic person. He's always been kind of ahead of the curve taking his supplements and his vitamins and trying not to take a lot of prescription pills. But even his journey has evolved and it's funny to see.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

So that's a great point about the generations of how we've all, I mean, we didn't know. Our grandparents, you know, none of us knew. We we assumed we could trust the system that we find out that we really can't. Gosh.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

And then people are like, I why can't you afford anything? And why are my grocery bills going so high? And why is it my food stretching as far as it used to? And then you learn about shrinkflation, how companies literally give you less and charge you the same, if not more. The craziest one that I read about today was Folgers. They took out a full seven ounces from their like 50 ounce container. That's 14 to 28 cups, depending on how strong you make your coffee. So that's two weeks to a month less supply than they told you that you're getting. They still say up to 400 cups, but it's at least 14 to 28 cups less. That's a significant amount of coffee.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

And I remember that when that happened, their price increases were doubled. Doubled. I remember getting the Maxwell House one because they had to give us 60 days' notice of a price increase. And they were coming in hot, man. Between 2020 and 2023, I mean, we couldn't even, our heads were swirling so much we could not keep it straight. They were just coming in fast and furious, and every excuse known to man was on there. But yes, they even doubled the price of coffee. So guess what happened? People stopped using K cups and went back to like the old canisters that they were trying to eliminate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

It's so crazy. We so we ran out of toilet paper and paper towels in 2020. And then when they came back with enough, they just like quietly started reducing the sheet count. Tostito's party size bag. It's smaller. And they sell it as being more concentrated. It is absolutely these grocery grocery stores are making such a profit. Food cost is a lot, but it can't be that much. And I feel like all of this is like engineered. It's all engineered because they're like monopolies, they're antitrust. When you find out three of the largest cigarette manufacturers own like most of the food companies, that's even more alert alarming, but I feel like we'll come back to that.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

But it's it's not the grocery, it's not the grocery store. They are not making any more profit than they did before. And that was the problem, is we tried to keep their margins between a certain percentage, but we were struggling because customers were saying, Well, I'm not buying that anymore because I can't afford that. So stores were like, well, we got to compete with the Walmarts of the world, right? The Dollar Generals of the world. So we're gonna take a margin hit and not make as much. So actually, a lot of those grocery store owners, now I'm not saying all of them. Now there's probably half and half, but they're the ones that I was servicing, I could see how they were not making as much profit as they were before. I think who was making a lot more profit were the CPG companies. I do know there was a higher cost of everything. Fuel went up, everything went up, right? But at the same time, it was all a perfect storm. You had plant fires, you had droughts going on for like potatoes, even in Europe and in America, all at the same time of plant fires going on. So, I mean, labor shortages. Remember during COVID, like a lot of people didn't go back to work. A lot of the people that were retired or should have been retired were still working, and a lot of them didn't go back due to being scared of COVID or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

I know. And one of the grocery stores that has like there's only four large grocers apparently now. One of them is Costco. So I was like interested to see how things have changed at Costco over the years. Well, they have kept things pretty similar to what they were, and their model has always been if we sell a membership, then we can sell goods for less. So they had a huge war over increasing the price of the hot dog that they've like been famously known for being less than$2. I remember this. And they decided not to raise, they were like, We're not raising the freaking price of the hot dog. It's actually a clo uh because they knew the hot dog symbolizes to everyone that this is one of the last affordable places left. Well, I also didn't know that anyone used to be able to get go in and you get the food court at Costco. Now they have kioshed that. Like you can't go, you have to have a membership to go eat at the food court, which is kind of sad because there's a lot of underprivileged people that could really benefit from you know a cheap, cheaper priced hot dog. But their longtime CFO has just retired, so we'll see how things start shifting. The first shift was like a small increase in the membership prices, but you know, you can't you could fight it for so long, but it's really hard. Um yeah. They also get special pricing, just like Walmart. Well, your hands are tied because it's like there is no price competition anymore either. It's and they're in cahoots with one another. They can say that they're not, but the antitrust policies really, really need to step up their the step it up because we are gonna be able to afford groceries. That's what they want. They don't want us to be eating meat. And like speaking of not wanting us to be eating meat, they're doing that by like all these plants catching on fire, which used to not be a big deal because plants catch on fire all the time. But what's happened is slowly all of these plants around the country have been consolidated. So it used to be like you had all of your stuff being produced in like your southeast region, but maybe now those products are only produced in Oregon. So that one conveyor belt goes down in Oregon and the whole rest of the country feels it because the call consolidation of all of these distributors and plants and factories, there's not there's no competition. And if one goes down, the whole system goes down, which should terrify us because war is going to be fought via food.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

Yeah, it almost reminds you of that um movie Solent Green. Have you seen that? It's an old-timey movie, but it talks about how an overpopulation is all eating, all they can afford is processed food because nobody can afford the real natural food and like everything is destroyed that they can't even um source it or grow it. Um yeah, it's it's it now I will say I noticed a lot of these fires, and a lot of people started noticing it during 2020 and 2021 because of everything else that was going on to force the supply chain to be constrained. I did learn that this is this has been going on for a long time. We have had fires for a long time. I will say that's too many. So when we look at actually how many there were, and let's just pick on, you know, from January to June 2022, there were more than 25 food processing plant fires, where either they were suffered a major fire damage or it completely destroyed it, burned it down. So you look at January 11th, Delhi Starmeat Processing Plant, Illinois destroyed. April 20th, 21, Smithfield, which is owned by China. Nobody knows that. I would look into that. Um in Illinois as well. July 25, 21, Kellogg's plant, Memphis, Tennessee, which I thought was interesting because when we were talking about Memphis, Tennessee and the data centers where Elon Musk is building his data center. So I don't know what's going on in Memphis. I wonder if where that plant is, is where one of his data centers. I just thought about that. Um, and then another one in July 31st, the Tyson River Valley in Alabama. Then you've got one in September, JBS Beef Plant in Nebraska. And then in November of uh 29 21, uh Maidright Steak Company in Pennsylvania. I mean, that's just the name a few of them. And those aren't even like the major players that, you know, did have a fire that I had heard. Heard about back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Right. And it's like, again, I say like war will be fought with food. We have no idea. Do you know how easy it is probably for somebody to start a fire in these facilities? Like we could have foreign agents on our soil that want to take down our food chain because they know that is a quick way to make a population weak is to take away their food. Like that is the one thing that we need. Food and water, we need it. I believe that they're both going to become become scarce commodities and it's going to be crazy. And it's wars are going to be fought over food and water. I'm also not saying like fires are the big problem, but what the big problem is is the consolidation of everything into just so few of factories that one goes down and the entire country feels it. Not just a state, not just a region. The entire country feels it when one plant goes down. Like that is scary. That's like a big cog in the system. That one thing falls, and we all, all the rest of the chips will fall. And then we got a competition between China and Bill Gates on who can buy the most farmland in America. Like, there he goes again, Bill. Scientist, farmer, doctor, educator. What else would you like to be? What else would you like to be, Mr. IT Man?

SPEAKER_00 45:17

Yeah, come to find out he's been buying farmland since 2013, Claude AI told me today. I didn't even realize that because I noticed in 2020 that he was buying all this farmland. But that's also when the social media or just our Mockingburg media finally started letting us know how much land he actually owns and how he became the largest private uh farmland owner in the U.S. He owns over 275,000 acres and come about his company is Cascade Investment LLC. But, you know, we all thought he was buying most of the land during 20, 20, 21. He wasn't. He actually bought less during that time, I found out, which I was even surprised. But it made the a lot of us, nor me, started saying, hey, what's going on? Like I can't buy, I don't know, I can't buy whatever I used to buy at the grocery store anymore. It's out half the time, you know? And that maybe is is that why like the plant-based meat's coming out? Like, is plant-based meat even healthier? I don't know. I haven't even tried any of that. Like, I actually eat less meat than I used to since 2020. The more I learn about all this stuff, because it's like you eat the meat from the cow that's supposedly grass-fed, right? But we're spraying everything. We're spraying the grass with all these chemicals in the chemtrail. So if that's the case, then the cow's eating the grass. Are we like in turn still being poisoned? I mean, you just start to wonder. And other people are starting to wonder that too, especially at least on social media that I saw. I mean, more and more, especially women, it's interesting. Like moms and females, it seems to be the ones that were kind of the ones initiating this or at least starting the conversations and stuff. Like I remember when I was in Target looking at tampons. And me and this girl go, why all of a sudden did we start getting organic tampons? And I looked at her and I go, Well, what the hell have they been putting in the regular tampons if we have organic ones now? It's just things like that. I mean, how many things are in especially beauty products? How many things have that, those kind of chemicals in them? I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

I saw Mexico's the first country to ban all cosmetic testing on animals. So kudos to you, Mexico. But I don't think that like people are sitting around at a board table going like, ooh, how can we poison the American people? But I do think that they're sitting around the boardroom table saying, ooh, how can we maximize profit? What are ways that we can cut costs? And then in turn, people say, Well, you can do this and this and this, and they're like, Well, is it ethical? And they're like, Well, we don't really know. So they're like, okay, well, let's just try it out. You know, even they might know it's not ethical and they still do it. But if you can look at what's going on in Europe and you can look at what's going on here, people think that America is superior. I'm starting to think that because we have a for-profit health system, that it pays for us all to be sick. It does not, I think I've said it before on here, it does not pay other countries for their people to be sick because they pay for their health care for their people. So they want healthy people. Are the people who are paying for the politicians are the people that want to make more profit off of sick people and fat people and you know, food obsessed, drug obsessed, media obsessed, beauty obsess. Like, we just have a society that is addicted. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Especially like who owns all these major chains of restaurants and and grocery stores and CPG companies. Come to find out BlackRock owns a lot of them or has a piece of the pie, and just about every one of them that you can think of, the list was God, almost a hundred companies, if not more.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

It's interesting because you have Vanguard, you have BlackRock, you have State Street, which are all your big investments, and they own like four to ten percent of these companies. But when you stack them all together, that's like 15% of a company that these that these index funds own. So again, the institutions themselves aren't scary. They're just trying to make money for you, but I it all goes down to the profit. Once a company becomes publicly traded, I fear that it is over for them. Once a company is bought out and then gets out of the founder energy, founders care about their company. They care about their brand, they care about the story. Once a company is bought, they care about the bottom line. That's it. That's it. So companies like Dave's Killer Bread probably started out with like this great mission. I found out that he was a guy that was in prison, got out, started this bread company, and hired all these misfits, the people that wouldn't get hired in society. He gave them jobs. Well, Dave's has since been sold to Flower Equity, I think. Flower, I'll look, I'll have to look up the parent company, flower equity or something like that. So they have been called out, and Dave isn't even working with them anymore. So it's like as soon as the founder goes, they go. It's what I was saying with Costco earlier. There's CFO of like 45 years, he's retired. So I I would say that your Costco trips are gonna get more expensive, even though I'm already paying spending$500 a trip to Costco and I'm not buying hardly anything, I feel like. It is absolutely insane. One last thing that I think that we should talk about before we give some practical, um, some practical takeaways is let's talk about the dyes that are going in our foods because things like Oreos used to be made with like cocoa powder. Now they have all sorts of dyes and different things in them that are banned in different countries. Or they're not banned. I should say I looked up a few of the things, but if they are a dangerous ingredient, like the red 40, I believe it has to say, may cause attention problems in children. Why don't they have to say that here? Shooketh me, because if they know that they need to warn parents in Europe, why don't they need to warn them here? You know what I'm saying? Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

Like, what is that stuff that's inside of the Oreo, the supposed cream? You know, we started doing some research on that, and it's not cream, I'll tell you that. It's not even close to it. It's it's basically like refined sugar, soybean, canol, artificial flavors, emulsifiers, which is the main thing that's bad, chemical stabilizers, and dextrose, which is your cream that's making it kind of stick together. But it's basically glue. So we're we're eating glue at the end of the day. But you know me, I gotta keep going and see what else there is of Oreos. And of course, of course, social media runs wild, but it is interesting. If you look at the symbols, that's all I'm gonna say. I would highly suggest people look into the symbols that are on the Oreo cookie, see if it links to anything. I found some things it linked to. It linked to the satanic cross, which concerns me a little bit. Now, I'm not saying that Oreos put that on there, I'm just saying there's a lot of people that look at symbolisms a lot, especially, you know, satanic type symbolism, any kind of like ancient symbolism. And the Oreos have a lot of symbolisms on it. And the black and white is also linked to, you know, the black and white checkered floor that the Freemasons use in all their lodges. Come to find out, the person who came up with the Oreo just happened to be one of those people, which did surprise me, William Turner. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

That's really crazy. What do you think about it? I mean, obviously there's like symbolism and everything, and we could probably end up being starving to death if we start taking away the symbolism. But it makes you wonder like, what do they need the symbolism for? Is it some kind of like ritual? Who knows? Like, that's really something I'm gonna have to ponder on. I don't get all the symbolism in the food and where it comes comes from and like what the purpose is, you know, or it's just to like rub it in your face that it's like here in front of you in plain sight. But when we were talking about the dyes, like red 40 is still legal in Europe, they just have to have a disclaimer about it. But then you have red three, which is still in a lot of things, and the FDA has determined that this was a thyroid carcinogenic in animals in 1990, so they banned it from your cosmetic products, but not from your food. So just let that sink into you. The government banned something that you could not put in your cosmetic products because it caused cancer, but they did not stop your children from eating it. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

I mean, yeah. And said it's sad, like all the things that that are uh advertised towards children is kind of like some of the worst stuff in it that we're that's what we're finding out, at least. I mean, God, everybody loves Oreo.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

Yeah, so I found out like when it comes to the propaganda that we're feeding children, so I RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris back a long time ago bought like Nabisco, Nestle, all of those food companies. So the big cigarette houses bought all of these food companies. And then what they did where where it matters is they had the same people who were selling you cigarettes. They were selling you now addictive food. So the Billboards change from changed from doctors prescribe the doctors recommend this brand of cigarettes to make sure your kids get a healthy, nutritious breakfast, and it then it's full of preservatives and stuff. So, like Doritos, things that we were sold, like make sure you have this chip, make sure you have this toaster strudel, make sure you have this ego waffle, all of these things. Feed your kids these nutritious meals, and they're not nutritious, they're poisoning us and they're killing our kids' brains. We talked about it last week with just like how they drank the red powers and became almost like a different person. So if they know about the warnings in Europe, I'm gonna say it again. If they know about the warnings in Europe, they also exist in America. They just don't have us because we're run by greedy corporations. Politicians are puppets on a string for these big corporations who run the whole show. So I think that we should just go ahead and talk about some of the practical changes that you can make. We'll kind of wrap this up into a neat little bow. We don't want to scare everybody, but we just want to tell you like what all we can do.

SPEAKER_00 56:07

Yeah, because knowledge is power, right? So just learn how to read the ingredients. If you can't pronounce something on the box, maybe I don't know, put it down and get something that you can read or has less more simple ingredients in it. You know, you could use your block cheese, shred it yourself, like back in the old time instead of buying the, you know, the pre-sredded. Make your own bread. I I know a lot of people are starting to actually do that, and it tastes so good. Um, and then, you know, eggs, like everybody else, get on that backyard chicken, what is it, backyard chicken trend. Come to find out, I forgot to say earlier, millennials and Gen Zers are the ones that are basically making this trend. So our age group are, you know, buying the chicks at the tractor supply and going home. So if you get your backyard chicken laying eggs, you don't have to refrigerate them. And you have the freshest eggs. It's amazing how much different in taste that they are once you try them. You know, try buying from companies that are already using these clean ingredients. I know recently I switched to Misfits, um, which is a delivery service that delivers groceries. Um, but I mainly did it because I got so sick and tired of my produce, my strawberries going bad within three days, and they're organic, and I'm paying like$10, if not more, for these eight strawberries, and they don't even look like they're real strawberries in the inside. You know, it may it makes you wonder. So I just finally said, screw it. I'm gonna just have these and see if they're any better. And they are. They may not have everything that I want every week, but the produce, hands down, and the the the you know, fresh vegetables and even like the meats and stuff, like the chickens and things like that. I've really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

I've even found like healthy sodas and even like juice drinks and stuff, instead of, you know, you've turned me on to Miss Fitzmarket, and that's where I got the little 10-ounce ribeye steaks, which I'm interested to try. It is funny because they look like little baby miniature steaks, but they're I'm guessing from the way that they should be for us. So we shall we shall see how they go. But for me, it's just making sure that you're like just checking things out. Eve take 10 days. I know it's really hard, and do an anti-inflammatory diet. If you have questions, come to me. I'm happy to help you answer them. But basically, just try eating meats and veggies and limiting your fruits to berries for like even five days. Just see how you feel. I'm telling you, it will blow your mind. We gotta get off the sugar. I'm back on sugar. I do so good. I get off sugar, and then I'm like, get back on it. And I'm like a little kid addicted to it.

SPEAKER_00 58:59

What'd you say? It's addictive on purpose. The sugar.

SPEAKER_01 59:04

Yes. And we're all on a journey. We're all just trying to be 10% better. You know, if we can make the fewer, like the fewer reasons we can give them to keep poisoning us, the better. So stop buying the junk and they'll stop making it.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

That is a huge point. That is a huge point. Because on my side of the desk, when I work for a wholesaler, I had to bring in an item. As long as that consumer, sorry, mother cat, as long as that consumer continue to buy that product, we had to keep bringing it in. We can change things. I know we all say sometimes we feel like we can't change it, but we can. We can change it drastically when it comes to what we decide to purchase and not purchase. What I would suggest to anybody is when you go to a grocery store, shop the outside only. Because anything on the inside of your grocery store is basically a process. I mean, it will have some type of other type of chemicals in them. If you can shop on the outside, that that is basically your freshest, you know, items, like your dairy items, right? Like your fresh juices. Sunny D is not fresh juice. Think about it. It doesn't have to be refrigerated, it's not real juice. So, you know, Capri Sun, it doesn't have to be refrigerated. Why? I mean, the amount of sodas. I remember when I was younger, I asked my dad, do this with me. Stop drinking sodas for like let two weeks. He dropped like 10 pounds. Granted, I didn't, you know, but I mean, because I was younger already, playing ball and all that stuff already. But yeah, he dropped 10 pounds just from just stop drinking a Coca-Cola or Pepsi or whatever it was. It's crazy. It's but anyway, some other things that we can do. Uh grow your own garden. A lot more people are doing that. I noticed. Um, if they can. I know some of our friends have even started growing their own garden. Heck, even your nephew's learning how to do that, isn't he? At uh homeschooling. It's a big deal. Um it it's kind of difficult to do in some areas, but if you get like a raised bed, a garden, you can you can do like your tomatoes and fresh lettuce, even. Heck, there's this thing going on on Amazon or anywhere. You can buy like a hydroponic and grow your own lettuce inside. And that's something I started buying from Misfits was their hydroponic. It tastes just as good as the other lettuce. I mean, and it doesn't have all the pesticides being sprayed on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

Yeah, it's so crazy. So, you know, we didn't start this podcast or even this episode to scare you. This one was interesting because we just started talking about chickens and eggs, and it's crazy how things just kind of fall into our lap. But this is where the the answers led us here. They led us to this conversation with you. So always ask the next question. Next week we're gonna change subjects. We've talked about what they put in your food. Next time we're talking about what they told you was good for your health and whether the healthcare system was designed to heal you or to keep you coming back. We're getting into the health industrial complex. We shall see you soon and bless your heart again for joining us. Until next time. Until next time.