Morbid Mondays
Two friends explore the weird, gross, disturbing and sometimes awesome morbid stories of history. Each week the host take turns telling each other new bizarre stories to cringe at.
Morbid Mondays
Morbid Mondays - Episode 29 - Swill Milk
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This time tells me how to be permanently lactose intolerant. Like Forever, because your unalived. Today we learn why we have regulations on milk.
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SPEAKER_04Alright. Greetings. Welcome to or welcome back to Morbid Monday, your unhinged source for what the fuck moments throughout history, where we will take you on a tour weekly. I missed a line entirely. But you know what? It's fine.
SPEAKER_00It's that kind of day.
SPEAKER_04It is. It's a very it's ironically, it's a very sleepy Tuesday on this Morbid Monday.
SPEAKER_00Very much so.
SPEAKER_04But anyway, so we're gonna tell you about gross shit in history. All right, bet, let's go.
SPEAKER_00What is our topic today as I like play with my voice is too deep, so I'm having to turn my gain up because it's not registering my voice. Oh no. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then there's me over here just shrill. Gain turned all the way down. If it was possible to put it in the negative, I would.
SPEAKER_00Good news for you. I've already done it.
SPEAKER_04Perfect.
SPEAKER_00On the sound, on the electronic soundboard.
SPEAKER_04Bravo. Thank you. Because I could drop into the elso range, but apparently that is like capital T, capital V, the voice, and I should not do that in public.
SPEAKER_00The vo Oh, I see. I see. I got you. I see now. It took me a second. I was like, what is the voice? And I was like, oh no, I know it. It's the you're in trouble voice.
SPEAKER_04The you're in trouble or you're really, really not.
SPEAKER_00Oh, oh, that kind of. I see. I see.
SPEAKER_04Anyway, so welcome to today's morbid Monday. Uh, this this particular topic came at me courtesy of a part of my research from my previous topic. Like I kind of faceplanted into it and like started to redirect to do it, and then was like, no, no. Like I had to go get the like the squirt bottle on myself. Like, no. So today's topic is the swill milk scandal.
SPEAKER_00Ah, I know this. Yes. I know of this, not in great detail anyway.
SPEAKER_04So, okay, I kind of same. Like I knew it was a thing, only I did not realize how much of a thing or how long of a thing it was until I started to like dive into it. Because my problem is because it kept branching because there was so much that happened with it. So I I guess to get it out of the way first, we'll do some trigger warnings. Uh, because this this particular topic is kind of just generally gross. There is animal cruelty involved. If you are sensitive about like food horror, this is not the episode for you. And also inf infant mortality.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_04Yep. Yeah. So I'll I'll give you a couple minutes to decide on that and then uh well, you made your choice. Because I didn't know some of this going into it. So our time period for this is like the 1830s through to about the early 1860s, which is a pretty broad period. I given it's like the second industrial age. It's uh it's it we're coming up on the Civil War.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, given how like rapidly America develops.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And actually that this this happened because of that.
SPEAKER_00As they do, yeah. That's the same case over in England as like during the industrial age. Rapid industrialization led to no one ever being careful ever.
SPEAKER_04Isn't that the damn truth?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's just like let's make money fast.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_00Will it give you phosphat? Absolutely. But like, yeah, will it yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Will you get caught in coal shoot fires? Will you get you know, like all kinds of fucking little spinning gennies who mangle your children? Jesus Christ. Yeah, like any fucking speaking of manglers.
SPEAKER_04Um, so I know that I hilariously, I know that you and I have had this conversation about like the the concept of a hot Cheeto taking out an English orphan from the 1800s.
SPEAKER_00The the most, yeah, about how like deeply untrue that is. Yeah, no. Yeah, like iron.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely not. Yeah. Your hot Cheeto, nothing.
SPEAKER_00That kid was drinking water from a cholera well and survived.
SPEAKER_04That kid was drinking gin just straight.
SPEAKER_00For real. Like some of the the naval accounts that we get from Victorian England of like you're an officer in the Navy? How old are you? Twelve? Okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. No. A child from the 1800s was a surviving child from the 1800s was frail.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I I think it has to do with just the amount of like infant mortality.
SPEAKER_04That is true. That is true. The the the general mortality rate around this time period was just fucking high in general, because there was so much going around that could and would kill you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like cholera is just a regular thing that sweeps through.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, tuberculosis is in full effect. Yep.
SPEAKER_04And it's everywhere.
SPEAKER_00It's everywhere. And then, like, I think for a lot of people who are on the like politer end of that is that they kind of go, not polite, that's the wrong word, but like on the more realistic end of that is they think of like a starving child of like Oliver Twist type kid.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, Oliver Twist would have eaten the entire bag of Takis. What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00Pain or no pain.
SPEAKER_04Like peel the bag open and lick the inside of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. As we did in middle school. For real.
SPEAKER_04And and there's there's also this hilarious misconception about like English food in general.
SPEAKER_00Oh, about how it's like there's no spice in it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, about how it's how it's crazy bland and all of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's really only like it's it's weird because that really only exists post-industrial age. Like if you go back before, it's people are spicing their dishes with the wild flowers that grow around Europe. And like some of which is like horseradish.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, like the very spicy things. It's just that fucking pepper doesn't grow in the city.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there's there's not spices that that I guess we would recognize.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no capsacum.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and then there's and then there's like there's insane spots, like coriander, fucking cori cilantro. They've got cilantro.
SPEAKER_00Well, it is it is always weird though, because it's like it depending on who you're talking to, when you say like, you know, European stuff or or unless you're specific with a country, I think the default for a lot of Americans is England and France. Right? Because that's true of like Scandinavia. There was like zero spices for a long time because nothing fucking grows there, you know. Viking recipes are garbage. I mean, it's like it's like ham kept in milkway so that it doesn't go bad in the winter. It's like the worst. Unless it's fish, it's yeah, it's tough to hear.
SPEAKER_04And even then, yikes. So I I bring up I bring up diets to to kind of give you a bit of a a a window into the perspective of today's topic. Because, you know, we're we're talking about swill milk, and milk at this time, at this time period was a like dinner table staple. Because you have to think. Civil or I I say civilization, uh I guess I should say urbanization. Yeah, that'd be a is is growing at this insane rate because people are people are following the work. They're leaving farms, going to the city to follow the work. And cities are growing as a result thereof. And as they grow, of course, that that means that not only are less people on the farm, but they're also pushing the farms back and back and back and back because the cities are growing bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger to to house the population following like factories construction. So we are we are in an area where a time period, I guess I should say, where where you're kind of very not even kind of, you are very limited on what you've got as far as hydration goes, because the water's not quite safe enough to drink. I mean, you can risk it. You can risk it, buddy. Like you've you've you you have you have the first baby steps of indoor plumbing happening. Like you've got running water, there's no water treatment plant, there's no filtration.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if you if you if anything approximating that comes about, it's because it's boiled.
SPEAKER_04I made a point to look up when the hell we got indoor plumbing. 18 1840.
SPEAKER_001840. We're widely available.
SPEAKER_04Yes. 1840 is where it is basically like built into the buildings now.
SPEAKER_00When did when did um water sanitation is probably later than civil war?
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah. And like it honestly, at this time period, they jet germ theory isn't quite as is widely known as it will be soon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that people are still fighting it. Like actively fighting it, that it whether it's real or not. Yeah. And especially in in uh English medical circles.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and you're ca you're coming out of uh theories of the spontaneous creation thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. My favorite thing from that, the quick sidebar, is the recipe for a rat, which is that it's uh you you take a thing of grain, put it in the corner of a building, and then cover it with a cloth for a week.
SPEAKER_04And then come back and you have rats.
SPEAKER_00And and you have No shit. That is the generation the spontaneous generation of a rat. And I was like, because they just ate through the wall to get it the to get the rat.
SPEAKER_04Or the the the guy that went to prove his theory, like this is how you this is how you make flies.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04No, no, no, you've let that piece of meat go rancid and a fly has laid eggs in it.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. Microscopes really did a lot for the world.
SPEAKER_04No shit. So ironically, this this does tie in to our subject today. We're not actually just riffing on a tangent. This is this is this is this is applicable to what we're talking about today. As I said, we're in a time period where you don't have a lot of options as far as like hydration goes. Like you have you have juices that will be questionable in a couple of days, you have water that is just questionable all the time, even if you boil it, and then you have booze, which is fucking everywhere, because beer is excellent for hydration.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially in because you're talking about the kind of daily beer that people would be drinking for food are like brown ales.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they they're not super high in alcohol.
SPEAKER_04Um and they've been around forever.
SPEAKER_00For fucking ever. Yeah. People know this won't make you sick.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And then, of course, at this point, you're also starting to get like distilleries for like like, you know, liquors coming up. And uh, and and then of course, milk, which is something that most of the farm-based people are not only like, you know not only comfortable with, but like aware of and kind of like it's part of their daily intake.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_04Because it's it's cal it's nutrient-rich, it's calorie, it's it's densely packed with calories, especially like raw milk. Now I know that there's a I know that there is a great big thing about raw milk right now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's like deadly healthy for them because they had no other options.
SPEAKER_04And also they were accustomed to it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like their systems are used to it, which is a thing. Like like how like how you you go visit another country and they tell you don't drink the water.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's usually because of the amount of lime in the water will make you like shit yourself. Yeah, but like the case with Mexico, it's not that the water has shit in it, it's that it's lime water.
SPEAKER_04It's the same concept. Their systems are used to it.
SPEAKER_00And and and also like the ones that well, listeria bacteria got put into your guts, and you were not naturally prone to uh surviving it, you would die.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And yeah, and I think Well, I mean, they still do like ice cream recalls if there's because it will kill you 100%.
SPEAKER_00And and probably also these people are drinking it like farm to table, right? Yeah. It's like the same day, and they're not Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So there they're there those are those are kind of your options. There is questionable water, le booze, questionable juice, milk.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And also, like milk is also like a table staple. Like you get cheese, you get yogurt, you get butter. Like you make things out of milk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that that are preservable. Yeah. Like uh cheese, uh like cheese is or are cheeses, yogurts, sour cream. Yeah, that's a daily food for most of Europe for like a thousand years. Yeah. Bread, cheese, beer.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Exactly. So milk, milk is a staple. Milk is one of those things that like most people don't even consider not going without at this point. Now, I I I I know that the majority of adult the adult population is supposed to be lactose intolerant because we're not designed to continue drinking milk after X point in growth and development. But setting that aside, yes, I recognize this is a scientific fact. Moving on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, because if you never stop drinking milk, you never lose the enzymes. So, like, I didn't become lactose intolerant until I quit drinking milk for like two years, and then I went back and tried to drink a glass of milk and fucking died. Stomach pain laying over in the bathroom. But you just curled on the bathroom. Because it was like a full glass of whole milk.
SPEAKER_04Oh, so you went like hard mode.
SPEAKER_00Well, because that's what I always drank. I always drank whole milk, and I had never gone a long period without drinking milk. And I then that's when I learned that you can lose the enzymes to digest something.
SPEAKER_04So, as a result of this growing city and the population and like the farmlands being pushed out, table staples, like milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, sour cream, all of that, the the dairy shit is all getting really hard to get a hold of. Like, like to the point where like and I I'm gonna say this, and everybody here's gonna go, fuck, that's it, really. But like a quart of milk was going for 14 cents, which in 18 dick was way too goddamn much. Like the price was limited to like the upper crust.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because that's like the cost when you look in this time period, the cost of seeing a show, which was not a movie, obviously, but like like a play was like a nickel.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So like putting into I don't know how much that is in today's money, but I imagine it's like 20 bucks.
SPEAKER_04Well, a to to as asha stutter to me, take it back.
SPEAKER_02Damn.
SPEAKER_04I don't want it. Stumble enough as it is. Looking at prices and like a general kind, like I I didn't go deep into this because I didn't really need the numbers. But on average, it looked like a quart of milk, like without you know them being able to like upcharge for like the scarcity of it or the difficulty of bringing it in, was about four to six cents.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_04For a quart of milk. I don't I don't I don't know if anybody else knows this, but milk begins to spoil like the second it's out of the udder. Like it hits the bucket and it has already begun to deteriorate.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Because that is just the nature of it. So milk as we know it right now, like we would we would call this what they're what they're referencing as their everyday milk, we would call that raw milk because we are used to pasteurized products. But pasteurization doesn't really become a thing until 1862. So we're about 20, 30 years too too early for pasteurization. Like, like the the theory was put forward, I believe, in 1752 by a French guy. No, by an Italian guy uh originally. Originally, but it never really went anywhere, and then Louis Pasteur took it over and was like, hold my beer! I got this.
SPEAKER_00That Italian guy went crazy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he did.
SPEAKER_00Kept trying to tell people that germs were the cause of disease and they disbarred them and all kinds of stuff. Like he was not allowed to practice medicine anymore.
SPEAKER_04Lo and fucking behold, if he wasn't fucking right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's very correct.
SPEAKER_04So correct. Jesus. People we owe an apology to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there needs to be a statue of this guy somewhere.
SPEAKER_04Given the time period and the limited and the limited options for drinkable stuff, I'm sure that you all have come to the same realization that I did that breweries and distilleries were all over the fucking place.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Because everyone and their mom was like, hey, we can make beer, and beer's safe to drink all the time.
SPEAKER_00And like everyone can.
SPEAKER_04And everyone can. It's so simple. So breweries, breweries everywhere, and then they were like, hmm, hard liquor, we'll do that too. That's fun. Yeah. And it comes down the grapevine that there has been an experiment run in merry old England where a brewery and a dairy hooked up. Why, you may ask, because I said the same thing. Because I mean, don't get me wrong, I like a good beer cheese, but what? That was funny.
SPEAKER_02Laugh.
SPEAKER_00That look you just gave me. Motherfucker, laugh. That was funny. The concern of running those two things in the same place, because I know what sours are and what milk stouts are, and like part of the process is that the milk goes bad and makes a very specific flavor. It's just that the yeast bacteria kills everything. Uh, because yeast is the most voracious predator on earth.
SPEAKER_04Literally.
SPEAKER_00And uh that's why you can make sourdough in a day. Yeah, it's safe when you let the yeast kill everything off. Not quite so much when you don't.
SPEAKER_04So this brewery decided to this brewery and this dairy got together and they decided, hey, says the dairy. Our our overhead of feed for our cattle is kind of high. And the brewery goes, yo, I've got a whole bunch of like cast off. Y'all won it? And the brewery, and the excuse me, the dairy said, bet. And thus began the first experiment in Swill. Now, for those that don't know, let me let me back up just a little bit and give you like the the the barest of bare bones of of how distillation and brewing works. So it starts with a core mash of of some some sort of grain. Uh there's there's a whole list of it in here that I wrote down that I cannot currently. There it is. Found it. Uh so it you can use various grains, barley, corn, sorghum, rye, like just pick your poison.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, pretty much anything with available sugars.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, pretty much anything. And basically how they how that works, especially if you're doing like beer specifically, is it boils down and you're ta and you wait X amount of time for this mixture to come to its correctness. I'm not gonna give you instructions on this. Oh, it's absolutely not. You can find it anywhere on the internet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, barley and hops on youtube.com.
SPEAKER_04Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, great, great channel for this.
SPEAKER_04And they take they take the fluid off it, and that goes on to be beer or what have you. And then the mash or the swill, because it is now boiled down into like this goopy porridge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what you call uh in in when before you before you make beer, the the the porridge is what's called the wart.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And then could not for the life of me remember. I could I got as far as W and that was it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um side note, I I only know all of this because a couple of my friends are actually like into brewing and mead making and stuff. So like by proxy is the only reason I know any of this stuff. But the the distillery was like, here is our swill. Have fun. And then the dairy gave it to the cows, and the cows seemed to produce more milk. And then they kind of just went, oh, that was fun. All right, anyway, moving on. And they walked away from it. So our our our our US brethren got wind of this and was like, Holy shit, that's a good idea. So they brought the cows in to the city, next to the breweries. I'm sorry, I dude.
SPEAKER_00Um Yeah, the concern, the concern around that alone, the alarm bells are ringing, because like in England, right, or in Scotland or wherever, most distilleries are because of a few floods that happened, like one in Dublin where like a couple of things broke and like fucking beer drowned people. Yep. This happened in London too with giant bats.
SPEAKER_04There was a molasses flood too here.
SPEAKER_00Here, yeah. And then because of that, most of these places are kind of pushed out to the side. They're pretty sanitary, also, because if you don't control the bacteria, your beer tastes weird. Yep. And so everything is very controlled. Liquor is especially true.
SPEAKER_04Well, we are we are in a time period in the US where it's kind of the wild, wild west. Like we are in the fuck around portion of find out. We are we are flying loose and free with no regulations, no rules, and no FDA.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yep. Ugh Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So you can see why I immediately went the fuck and began uh began my research on this topic. I think the front page of my notebook has finally officially It's disintegrated.
SPEAKER_00Like ye old tomes of lore.
SPEAKER_04It is in fact the the oldest morbid Monday in here. That is the Black Plague.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that is that is my that is my first TikTok right there. Anyway, um moving on. So
SPEAKER_00Every time you do that, it just goes spike.
SPEAKER_04The tongue pop. So the breweries and the distilleries formed an unholy alliance and moved the dairies right next to the breweries. Like, and when I say right next to the breweries, I mean like if the brewery had a parking lot, no, they don't. They got a dairy now.
SPEAKER_00That's wild.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like the middle of the city. If if y'all know anything about livestock, you you know now at least that you to have large farm animals like this, you need at least an acre.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like per just almost per animal. Yeah, for if you're talking about just grasslands for feeding, yeah. An acre per animal.
SPEAKER_04And like that's we're talking about like a dairy and pens and process. Well, not even processing at that point. It would just be like milk and go in the space of like a quarter of Walmart.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because you're they're all just lined up in cells. And they're gonna be so small. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like most of these I'm I'm I'm giving spoilers for later, but like, you know, I already gave you your animal cruelty warning. Most of these cows, once they are tied in to their particular little, like, little cell, they will never see the light of day again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That is that is where they are now. And they built this sort of like upon adding the the dairies, quote unquote, into the breweries, they added like this sort of pipeline mechanism that would feed the swill into the troughs for the cows to eat. And that was all they were eating. There was there was there was virtu there either was no or virtually none. This is that is the wrong word for that. There no grazing lands for these cows.
SPEAKER_00So you have like a pig, a pig system. But because I'm here's the the thing that I'm thinking about as well, is that like so when in English beer, like which is mostly ales, you're gonna have like dark wheat and oats. An American beer, because this is kind of before the I guess it's depend because I think this is kind of before the German Pilsner thing became a big thing here. I do not know the history of beer. So it it mostly in America for a very long time, our drink of choice was cider, because apples grow here very well, especially in the northern reaches.
SPEAKER_04And apple trees are shockingly hardy.
SPEAKER_00And they produce prolifically.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Once your apple tree gets so old that it won't produce, you can literally graft another tree into it and it will start producing again. So like it's very cool. Yeah, it's super cool.
SPEAKER_04And we can there are there are a couple of orange trees that'll do that too.
SPEAKER_00But I'm thinking about like how gross like because like with old oatmeal, I'm just like, that's disgusting. Yeah. I don't think they're in the in the vein of using like corn starches for everything. I don't know. I think that's only really whiskey.
SPEAKER_04I didn't really I didn't really come across that. I know that that uh corn and sorghum were were mentioned in in the in the I guess reports that I read. It by the way, translating 1830s and 18 like 1830 to like 1860 English.
SPEAKER_00Oh god.
SPEAKER_04To our English.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What you have to do is organize yourself a peck of corn in the in the lengths of three liters per barrel.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm capable because I'm used to it. Like I I do I do a lot of historical uh costuming stuff, which occasionally means that I'm in extant like garments and extant books and documents and stuff. So like I'm I'm used to it. Yeah. So I can I can kinda it takes me a second to be like, uh what na who?
SPEAKER_00How many times did you come across the word coop?
SPEAKER_04So many.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because it it's weird.
SPEAKER_04So many. And it then like originally my brain kept going coo, and I was like, who are we overthrowing?
SPEAKER_00Right. For those of y'all uh like not in the know for this, a cooper is a barrel maker. So if your last name is Cooper, good chances are that your ancestors are barrel makers, and a coop is a barrel. Yeah, not a chicken coop, which is a hat, like it's English has a lot of words that mean like five different things.
SPEAKER_04And they don't always spell it C-O-O-P. No, it will occasionally be C O U P.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04Which is why I was like, uh didn't know we were doing a revolution. Let's go. What are we doing? Confusion. Oh, you mean coop, barrel. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. There were there were some moments in in in ye old English, and not and it's not even that old at this at this point.
SPEAKER_00Like it's it's just it it's before we had enough different it's before it's before we were all talking to each other rapidly. So we you you get these regional dialects.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yes, I did. All right, cool. So I skipped an entire page and managed to explain all of it while we were riffing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Nice.
SPEAKER_04I d yes! I'm getting better at this.
SPEAKER_00Something I have not learned to do is just not read, but like explain.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh. I it I'll I'll be perfectly honest. You know what it comes from? What's uh please don't laugh at me. It's coming from the it's coming from being the VP of the anime club.
SPEAKER_00Because given like synopsis?
SPEAKER_04Yes, and being able I was I was I was also one of the kids that like had had kind of a foothold on Japanese.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So when we would when we would, you know, gather together in our nerdy little group and watch Japanese dub anime, and the subtitles wouldn't quite like like you know how occasionally there's there's a bit of a disconnect between the subtitles and like the tone and the situation that's happening on screen. That's where it comes from, like being able to like, I I I'm also hella dyslexic, so I learned to read things multiple times very, very quickly. And who says anime doesn't give you skills? Moving on. So when I tell you that they built these like pipelines down into I hesitate to call it a dairy because it it is it is not a dairy as we think of it. Like when you think of a dairy, you think of great open pastures where you have like herds of cattle just mosing along as they please, and then like at X time on the third day after they've already been milked, said cow will be like, I am uncomfortable, and go up to the stall to be milked because they know that it will bring them relief.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but not in factory farms. No. Even today, that's still a thing, is that like all the pigs, all the cows, all the chickens are in tiny little cells.
SPEAKER_04But it's only temporary. Like they're in there too. Really?
SPEAKER_00Really. Ooh.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like that's even burst my little sunshine bubble. Even with waffle.
SPEAKER_00Even with dairy farms.
SPEAKER_04That's terrible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like a great deal of them are in larger cells than they used to be. Uh because now we've uh we understand that you have to like get the shit out of the stall on a very regular basis. Um, but anything that has to do with like beef cattle roam, because there's no reason to just keep them in the chute, but like pork, like pigs and factory farms, and even some um beef cattle farms, they just stay in a cell. The the difference between that the slop that you're talking about and and what they do now is that the food comes in dry. And then there's a there's like a pipe for water, a pipe for food.
SPEAKER_04Um that's horrifying, and I did not know this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, even even chickens when they're like, well, they're free range.
SPEAKER_04I did know about chickens. Yeah, but I also don't please don't hate me for this. I I have I have I have an unreasonable terror of chickens, so I'm okay with them being in a box.
SPEAKER_00Chickens, yeah, j chickens don't care as much, but also like uh the the uh a lot of the times, even if you hear free-ranged, uh what that means is that there's a big covered awning and a lot of chickens are in what kind of looks like a um if you've ever seen somebody training a horse, yes, just the big dust ring, right?
SPEAKER_04It's it's a big like area that's in a horse, he says to the former horse girl.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_04Bitch.
SPEAKER_00And then a person, you know, like they either feed from the ceiling or the person goes by and like does this.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Uh that I'm familiar with.
SPEAKER_00The the thing that you're thinking of is pasture raised. If it says pasture raised, they mean that they are out in the butt that's not always doable because to to to give some grace to to the farming mass farming community. Farmers, like if it's a if it's a family-owned farm, they probably do spend a lot of time in a yard. Even like dairy farmers, because there's not a reason to keep them in the pen 24-7. When you get up to the number of like having several thousand cattle for dairy, they don't move a lot because there's not a place for them to go. The logistics of having that many cow, cattle moving around at one time. So what you'll end up having is something like a stall field, stall field situation where they do move, but not as m it's not like they're roaming around in grass meadows, right? Um and the same is true for pigs. Like part of the issue around pigs is that their poop is very dangerous. It carries a lot of disease, and and like if you've ever it farm guys know this, but like a cess pit has to be dug for for pigs, and you don't grow anything near that because it it will it'll have bacteria on it and stuff. Like that that farm field alone that's for the for the pit, that's just for that pit. You don't you don't do anything with it. It stays, it's toxic. The reason why we associate cattle with big open grounds is because most of the cattle industry is not uh factory farms. Most of it is you own 10 acres, you have cows, you bring them in and sell them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's that's what I'm used to. Like that's that's what my family did.
SPEAKER_00But the dairy, the dairy industry is not organized the same way as beef cattle. You also have winters. So like the first mass dairy industries were up in like the Midwest, right? They have the land. So the like when you when you think of dairy cows like walking around in the land, that's that's what you're gonna see because they have the physical open space for it. Um and you're right, like they come in, they get milked, they go back out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um the way that fa the the factory farming can get so bad that they're all in a cell and then they're fed hormones to keep them producing milk. Um, or they're constantly pregnant.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That I knew about that.
SPEAKER_00So they're in a cell, they're being milked every once in a while, they might move around a little bit, like the pigs never leave. Some of the times the chickens never leave. Um they they have to be fed antibiotics because this living situation is so dangerous for bacteria that you have to give them antibiotics. That's why, like, sometimes your chicken and pork and stuff says no antibiotics. They mean that they're read they're raised in a more open space so that you they we don't have to pump them full of antibiotics to keep them alive.
SPEAKER_04Huh.
SPEAKER_00So, like, yeah, the the meat industry's kind of fucked.
SPEAKER_04No kidding.
SPEAKER_00People, there's a person named uh Temple Grandin that had a lot to do with how animals are slaughtered. Um, she revolutionized the way that's done to make it safer for both the farmers and more humane and all kinds of stuff. Most of the niceties of farming are a very recent development.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I so like I gathered that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04In the course of this research, yikes.
SPEAKER_00So that's my that's my spiel of like unfortunately, some some of this like cows in pen for dairy is not uncommon even today.
SPEAKER_04Well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So so so to piggyback off of that, they these these these dairies beside these breweries or these distilleries are not anything that anyone should ever consider ideal ever. And that was before they got like cracked open and investigated. People complained in general, like almost as soon as the cows started coming in about the smell. Which, once again, if you're not part of the the the ag industry, you you would probably be not aware of just how much smell is associated with farm stuff.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god. Yeah. Especially that many cows in a closed area.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeesh.
SPEAKER_04Like, and we're talking according to later results, we're talking about like like closed up, like windowless. I want to say shack, but shack implies like like individual room. This would be like a warehouse of individual shacks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04If that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00More more akin to a prison prison rope. Yeah, like basically.
SPEAKER_04And it's just kind of like awful and horrendous. And uh Jesus.
SPEAKER_00I've just I'm having flashback memories of like the Houston livestock and rodeo.
SPEAKER_04Uh.
SPEAKER_00And when you first lock in, stinch that hits you.
SPEAKER_04Dude, we went. I didn't show, but one of my very, very close friends at the time did. And like it went in the you know exactly who I'm talking to talking about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And back in the Astrodome days, too.
SPEAKER_04And uh the cows have personalities, and if a cow is having a no day, there's nothing you can do about that. Exactly. You're done.
SPEAKER_00Well, just get him to walk. Well, he's 2,000 pounds of muscle. You get him to walk.
SPEAKER_04How? Like have you met a Brahmin?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_04They're the longer their ears, they're crazy, the crazier they are.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04You want me to bully a longhorn? No.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, we we have enough to where like we irritate them and they walk forward. So like cattle prods and loud noises.
SPEAKER_04Or you get lucky and you have a cow that likes you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh anyway, but yeah, that I I have very limited experience in that. I typically, when I was there, I was only there to pet the cow. I would uh hang out at the head and just pet the nose. Ignore everything that's going on around you. You're so pretty. Pet, pet, pet.
SPEAKER_00They really are dogs. They're big, yes, big cow dogs. They're just, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Off topic. The only thing that ties this into the topic is cow.
SPEAKER_00I do love jerseys, though. The typical white, black, spotted milk cow. They are so sweet.
SPEAKER_04My my grandmother's paramour keeps Brahmin. And like the my very first day, like being brought out to the farm out there, and I saw what kind of cattle my father was like, we're gonna run cows. And I was like, okay, cool. Let's go. Where am I at? Am I at the gate or am I on a horse with you? And and then I saw it was Brahman's like, I'm staying in the truck.
SPEAKER_00They are tremendously large.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And have potential to be so mean for no reason.
SPEAKER_00I worked with um all of our cows were Angus, we're black Angus's.
SPEAKER_04Aw.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Those are big dogs.
SPEAKER_00But you can't stand behind them.
SPEAKER_04I wouldn't know. I've never I've never actively stood behind a cow. In fact, I avoid it like horses.
SPEAKER_00Any well, it's the same thing. Any they can't see behind them, so they get nervous if you're behind them. And if you get any cow really, it's not Angus's or Brahmins, or it's all of them. They they will kick you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They will kick the shit out of you.
SPEAKER_04Have you ever been kicked by a cow? Don't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_04All right. Would you believe that we're already on the third page of my notes?
SPEAKER_00We did talk of like kind of run through it real quick and just our conversation.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, no, no, we're doing really well. Like we're like on topic. It's crazy. Moving on from high school. So I don't know if uh if if if the civilians in the crowd know this, but when you take an animal that produces a product, like milk, what that milk tastes like uh depends heavily on what they're eating. And that is I I I I I would think in the 1800s, like considering that, like I would think that that would be a commonly known fact.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Like that's why um like French ham, for instance, there's a kind of ham that's only fed acorns or or hazelnuts.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And like that, those two hams taste different.
SPEAKER_04What a cow or a goat, or I'm I'm pretty sure those are like the only two like milking animals. Uh like commonly milked animals.
SPEAKER_00Commonly milked animals, let's say.
SPEAKER_04Like you can milk a sheep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that um you can milk a uh horse milk was very common throughout Asia.
SPEAKER_04True. Horse milk is a thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I don't trust that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I mean, if if you're you know the Mongolians, they all had horses. So like that, yeah, everybody drank horse milk. Mare's milk, as they say.
SPEAKER_04And consider that these cows, first of all, it is it is almost immediately noted that the cows do not want the swill.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because it's gross.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Like, and not only that, but like once it hits, like when it comes down the pipe, it is boiling hot. So of course they're off put. I mean, they're they are they are they are a sentient animal. They're not gonna be like, oh, look, food. Um, my mouth is burning. Um nom nom nom nom.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's to me that's fucking crazy, right? Because Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like they don't give it a cooling off period. That's nuts to me.
SPEAKER_00And it's inundated with yeast.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because if it's coming hot, right? Yep. It's this is after they've they've mashed it, after it's like maturated and and all that other stuff, like depending on if it's whiskey or beer, it's it's been yeased. The water has been run off of it. That's what you're going to distill or filter. The stuff left over is just yeast ridden wheat. Mush. Mush. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So they're feeding it to the cows, or they're trying to feed it to the cows, and the cows don't want it. And they're going days in between eating until they're they're like basically starving and eating what's available, like what's there. So they're eating the mash.
SPEAKER_00Eat your twice fermented oatmeal.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Finally. And then they're noticing that, yeah, sure, milk production is up, but now it's not quite right. This this milk is blue. Why is this milk blue? And why is it so thin?
SPEAKER_00Ugh. It's thin, yeah, because there's no calories in what they're eating and they're not producing fat. You know this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I know this.
SPEAKER_00As a as a beer nerd myself, I'm one of the people that you're talking about earlier.
SPEAKER_04Yes, I am.
SPEAKER_00And and so I was looking at you.
SPEAKER_04Like, correct me, please.
SPEAKER_00I was like, ugh. Gross. Yeah. All the sugar's been eaten out by the yeast in the process of not all of it, because it's beer, but um, yeah, one of the reasons we have different kinds of yeast for making beers and champagnes and wines and stuff is because they eat, they eat different, like they do better with different kinds of starches from different plants, and they also produce they die off later, right? So like your higher ABV yeasts don't are hardy, and they they eat more of the sugars out. That's disgusting. God, that's so gross.
SPEAKER_04So these these dairy farmers, quote unquote, these these people that are running the dairy and milking the cows and stuff are like reporting really thin, watery, blue milk. And sure there's a lot of it, but the and it is according to the papers and the the the papers and reports that I found, which there are some. Now, granted, I'm I'm pretty sure it was a biased source, so I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna say this, but like take it as whoever wrote it's opinion. Apparently it tasted really bad too.
SPEAKER_00I imagine, yeah, somebody had to have tried it, right? Yeah, because it probably tasted like, I mean fermented. Yeah, because raisin bran looks the way it does, because it's like bran that's been slightly fermented and then cooked. And that cooking part, that's what kills the yeast off. Yeah, right. Like yeast is voracious, but it doesn't do well in heat.
SPEAKER_04Knowing what we know now and like reading about all of this, like the like like not only the troubles that were like, you know, ailing the city in general, but like the how dairy and stuff was handled before they started trying to do this. Like we're talking about dairy that's coming in from like out of town, like outside of the town, like in from the country. Like it is it is taking a ride into the city.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And milk is one of those that one of those uh products that begins to spoil the second it is released from its natural containment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That was a very political way to say that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's not because like I mean, part of the thing about milk is that it carries the probiotics from the mother. Yeah, it has bacteria to start with.
SPEAKER_04And you gotta think about this. This is a time before refrigerated transport. So all of this milk is going into these great what were they aluminum at the time?
SPEAKER_00They would have been, yeah, either that or copper.
SPEAKER_04These these great cannabis. Canisters without refrigeration, and they're traveling X number of miles into the city. And this product already has a very short expiration date.
SPEAKER_00Sheesh.
SPEAKER_04And you're losing part of that to the travel time.
SPEAKER_00Which you'll you'll get like the only reason you can do it at all is because the fat layer keeps things out.
SPEAKER_04Allegedly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Allegedly, right. The literal way.
SPEAKER_04And then and then by the time that it is it finally gets to market, they are left in these open, open like milk tins, and the the product itself is spooned out by hand into these bottles as it is being purchased. Jesus H. Christ, it's no wonder cholera ran rampant. Cause that is just And that's that's a petri dish.
SPEAKER_00That's probably their cleanest option at the time, too. Because can you imagine running like a dispensary service without antibiotics or understanding how to heat treat tubes or without like star sands or because that's what we use now is when we sterilize our equipment, we use star sands.
SPEAKER_04I can't I can't I can't really comprehend this period in time exactly the look on your face and how you're just I'm icking bad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_04It's it is a major ick for me because like sure, you can you can take the milk that you've purchased at market that you maybe only have a day left of like serviceable safety from, and you can turn it into cheese, you can turn it into butter, you can turn it into yogurt, which I mean, hey, the the Greeks and Romans were doing that forever.
SPEAKER_00Right. Once once it's yeasted, either the yeast will get to a s uh a point where it'll be so thick it'll die off. That's what you get with beer.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You can bake it out, that's what you do with bread.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, or you can make it so thick that it can't hold anything, which is what you do with cheese. You know, like it's bacterialized, it the stuff dies off.
SPEAKER_04The whole thing. And like, and so this product that had that was a table staple has now joined the ranks of the unsafe. Because like people out in the country are used to having three, four days of milk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it's and it's safe, it's okay. Like, you can drink that. Or you can drink that, you can use that.
SPEAKER_00If you have a cold seller even longer.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and exactly. Yeah. And now you're in the city, and you say that say you're freshly moved to the city, right? And you buy milk at market, and you've been told that this is fresh, farm fresh milk. So you're purchasing this farm fresh milk for 14 cents for a quart because you paid the premium because you need milk in your house. And now now your your timetable for using said product has gone from three, four days, if you keep it cool in the shade, like, you know, sealed and safe, to like two or one. Or sometimes, sometimes there are in fact complaints that I found in this newspaper clipping of people buying milk and it was already spoiled.
SPEAKER_00I would imagine so, because if it's summer and your milk is thin because it doesn't have enough fat in it.
SPEAKER_04And if you have any delays in transport, those those milk tins are just sitting in the sun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Like early food distribution largely works because it's done in the cold months.
SPEAKER_04This is horrifying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or somebody makes like our some of our earliest refrigeration is people make ice in winter, store it in a giant cold warehouse. Yeah, it's like a big, it's a big copper box, and then they just fill it full of blocks of ice. But like, or you go sail up north, grab ice, bring it back down. Yeah. Right? And very quickly on your like steamboat or whatever. And Jesus Christ, that's so gross.
SPEAKER_04So I can I I can kind of understand how the idea had merit to begin with, of bringing the dairies in into the town. But I really feel like somebody should have gone, whoa, whoa, the second they started mass producing blue milk.
SPEAKER_00For real.
SPEAKER_04Thin, gross blue milk. But did they do that? No. Absolutely not. That is not what they did. They went, ah fuck. It doesn't look right, it doesn't taste right, doesn't smell right. So what can we add to it to make it look right at least?
SPEAKER_00Oh no.
SPEAKER_04Are you ready for a list that's going to absolutely horrify you? Yeah. Brace yourselves, please. So this is in a time period before before we had the FDA. Now I don't I don't.
SPEAKER_00However, you feel about it.
SPEAKER_04However, you feel about the FDA. The FDA has done a lot to keep us safe.
SPEAKER_00A lot.
SPEAKER_04And this is a time period before we had a ruling government body over all of the food everything to go no at people. I'm I know that spiked.
SPEAKER_00It's been pretty high the whole time, but it's alright.
SPEAKER_04Uh I'm just loud and apparently really passionate about food. So they decided that since this milk wasn't right, they were gonna try to make it right. So they began to add things to it to try to change the color, the texture, and the taste. Things that they added included molasses, okay, burnt sugar, flour.
SPEAKER_00That's not gonna be good for the yeast and the milk, but okay. Eggs, chalk. That's what I was waiting for.
SPEAKER_04And plaster of Paris.
SPEAKER_00Back to the bread situation. Good God, they got that note from Victorian England.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You read my mind. They were adding all sorts of stuff to turn this blue water into thick, appealing, creamy white goodness.
SPEAKER_00Now, post-germ theory, we know that adding a bunch of sugar starches from rice or flour or whatever.
SPEAKER_04Or just plaster of Paris. Yeah. Because that one stopped me dead. Why? Why? What in your brain made you go, that is okay?
SPEAKER_00That's so fucking crazy.
SPEAKER_04Plaster of chalk, I could even understand.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because some chalks you can actually drink. Like not chalk. Don't take my but there are some chalks that come from things that you can drink. Like for medicinal purposes.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_04Like the the same way that you you can ingest charcoal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. We're talking milk of magnesia type areas.
SPEAKER_04Don't don't go pull a charcoal brick from the barbecue and try to eat that.
SPEAKER_00Don't do that. Yeah, for real.
SPEAKER_04Don't do that.
SPEAKER_00Different stuff. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But like, same concept. Like there, there are there are there are reasonable and safe ways to ingest these things if you need them. And this was not one of them.
SPEAKER_00No, this is straight up street chalk being poured into a vat. Almost.
SPEAKER_04So the correct quote unquote color and texture achieved in this swill milk. They bottled it and began to sell it. Are you prepared for the name?
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_04Pure country milk. And boy howdy, did they really lean into the advertisement of this?
SPEAKER_00Oh my god. They pure country milk.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Not pure, not from the country. Not milk.
SPEAKER_04Not milk anymore. Not sure if it was milk when it came out of the udder.
SPEAKER_00Oh.
SPEAKER_04So this goes on. And like I said, these distilleries started popping up at about 1830, right? And like they got got go they got going in the 1840s. Like this was a thing that went on for a while. And then all of a sudden, can't imagine what the correlation is. The the child and infant mortality rates began to skyrocket. Because I I don't I don't know if the average listener knows this or not, but baby formula has not always been around.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_04As we as we understand it now. As a nutrient and and usually protein-rich powder that you add to water that becomes a substitute food for your infant because you either are trying to wean them or you you cannot produce breast milk.
SPEAKER_00Right. As many, many women in the past could not. Thus the idea of the wet nurse.
SPEAKER_04Bingo.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And this is the time period where the wet nurse as a as a profession is kind of being phased out because lower class lower lower and middle class women are kind of being like socially urged to wean their babies more quickly. The lower class so she can get to work, and the and the middle class so she can kind of assume the role of social nice niceties.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then there's this weird morality thing happening at the same time. Because this is a particular time period where like alcohol be running through the streets.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Everybody's drinking.
SPEAKER_04Everybody's drinking. And so there's this also because it's like the only safest safe thing to drink. And so there's this, like, there's there's there's this moral and social outcry kind of movement happening. It's called the temperance movement.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you know. Yeah. You already know.
SPEAKER_00It comes with it, it's it comes with good things, like women's rights, but it also comes with dumb things, like yeah, like you not being able to get fresh water anywhere you go because there's no beer around.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And so this and right along with the temperance movement is this weird kind of we saw we saw kind of a resurgence of it like recently, quote unquote, in the last like 20, 30 years, where like breastfeeding became became this like debate for some fucking reason.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You're literally just feeding your child. It's not my fault that you see tits and get an erection. Uh anyway.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm like mad about it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, this is like the yeah, we're we're coming in a little bit later from this, we're gonna come into like the belief that Freud had, which is that like if how much tit your kid did or did not get will affect them in the future. And then so and and also because for the for the wealthy, especially in the South, previous to slavery ending, yeah, it was considered bad form to breastfeed your kid because you would have a enslaved person do this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And one of the many very dark things in US history, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_04I I read uh read an entire paper that I can actually have pulled up on my computer still that I can send you. That is like kind of the rise and fall of the wet nurse.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Along with that, and it was it was a really good read, and I it I was crying by the end of it because this is this is our history, and this is one of the unsavory things that nobody really wants to talk about, but you need to so it doesn't happen again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You need to face your mistakes, learn and grow from them.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So much of the modern male gaze around how breasts look is also directly correlated into the like the the shunning to some degree of breastfeeding. Is like one of the things that came about this was like so that your breasts will stay nice, essentially. That that was nice, quote unquote.
SPEAKER_04That was that was part of it too. But so like there is this whole thing around breastfeeding at this time. Like some like some women just can't. It just it that's just your body never produces.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So you have to find a substitute to feed your child. And with the decline of wet nursing as a profession, what's the next best best thing?
SPEAKER_00Milk.
SPEAKER_04Milk.
SPEAKER_00So Yeah, the the the the more orange the better. Like the more colostrum.
SPEAKER_04Colostrum, yep. Thank you for knowing that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I appreciate you, Brian.
SPEAKER_00Only reason why that raw milk shit came into vogue was over colossum.
SPEAKER_04Colostrum, yeah, which you can You can just make in your kitchen.
SPEAKER_00It's not a yeah.
SPEAKER_04Anyway, we've we better shoot off on a whole nother tangent. Mad. Uh so. Now imagine you live in a you have an infant, you either are trying to wean them or you just cannot produce. You cannot breastfeed your child. So your next best option at the time, because the the science hasn't caught up yet, that's just how it is, is milk. Like dairy milk, raw, straight from the cow milk. And now you live in a city instead of out in the country, perhaps, and you are being advertised fresh country milk. And it is six cents for a quart, as opposed to the 14 cents that you know you will have to spend two to three times this week because the milk no longer lasts as long as it did.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And your child needs to eat seven to eight times a day. What are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_04You're gonna buy the six cents. So in the course of this is a very long stretch of time where like kids and infants are just dying in droves. I read in a paper, like a newspaper clipping that was reporting on this. I don't think it was from the time period, I think it was probably relatively recent. I think I think it was like 2018.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04Looking back on it, but it was estimated that nearly half of the babies in Manhattan died.
SPEAKER_00I can believe that, not necessarily from this alone.
SPEAKER_04Right, because you still have like Well, yeah, you you still have tuberculosis and SIDS and flora and all of the other nasty things happening at the same time. On top of their primary source of nor nourishment is now loaded with chalk.
SPEAKER_00And and also like if you introduce like if you have a milk that's just a bunch of rice flour got added into it to make it white, and it has yeast in it, or if it has any other bacteria in it, it doesn't have to be yeast, it could be anything. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04This is nightmare fuel. Yeah, it's just you're just children are these these ch these child these people. Like, because it's not even just kids that are getting sick and dying.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's gonna be anyone.
SPEAKER_04It's anybody. But they are like, it is it's like dysentery.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're just right. Because like normally, like an amount of yeast on your food's perfectly normal. The fruit that we eat has yeast on it all the time. Yeah. If you're filling your gut full of it though, and then you're gonna get like listeria bacteria, and then you're gonna get like anything that enters that process line now has the milk it can feed on, so fats. If it's a fat-feeding bacteria that does well in that, it's in the milk. You've put shit in it to make sugars be available, so anything that feeds on sugars is in the milk. Gross, dude.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, this is awful. So in about the mid-1840s, one dude stands up and goes, Hold the fuck up. This shit ain't right. And of course, he said it much more eloquently than I did.
SPEAKER_00Maybe.
SPEAKER_04And uh this this gentleman's name was Robert M. Hartley. Don't ask me what the M stands for anymore. I don't know. I could have told you yesterday, but I think motherfucking.
SPEAKER_00That's what it is. Robert motherfucking Hartley.
SPEAKER_04I don't know. But uh, so this guy was attached to the temperance movement. So let me let me let me preface the statement with that. So when he immediately stands up and starts like protesting against these dairies attached to these distilleries and the milk that they're putting out, and like he's accusing them of causing all of these illnesses, he doesn't get much traction on it because he's part of the temperance movement, and the temperance movement is not popular because they want to get rid of booze. By the way, the temperance movement does eventually turn into prohibition.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_04But that's about 60 years from now.
SPEAKER_00But it and it doesn't really get popular until it attaches itself to the women's suffrage movement.
SPEAKER_04Correct. So at this basically, this guy is essentially the equivalent, like he's he he writes papers, he writes letters, he gets published in the newspaper, but he is the equivalent of that one really like religious dude that stands in the parking lot and screams at you from on top of a milk crate. Oh hey, milk crate, milk crate, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh there the whole time.
SPEAKER_04And so it's it's kind of that. So he his his accusations sort of peters out. But people have started to notice a correlation. Like doctors specifically are like it becomes a thing of if your child is ill, send them to the country.
SPEAKER_00Right. Which was always because fresh air, fresh food, like if you're especially if you're a Quaker, yeah, like clean food, clean, fresh food is a thing that they liked.
SPEAKER_04And the thing is, it works. Like the people that can send their child, like like travel out to the country with with their ill child, the kid recovers. Like it's working.
SPEAKER_00So you can rule out you can rule out tuberculosis.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, kind of, unless you have galloping tuberculosis, in which case you could, in fact, go into remission for years.
SPEAKER_00Ugh. See our previous episode.
SPEAKER_04The New England vampire panic. Starring Mercy Brown. Anyway, um, so yeah. He he doesn't really get much movement, but he doesn't go completely unhurt. And it takes another 10 years or so for somebody else to take up the crusade. Like, and like, take up the crusade. Like, fuck this shit. People are dying, and no one's doing anything about it. Everybody's been paid off. What the fuck? And that was our buddy Frank Leslie in 1858. Are you noticing that very large time gap in there?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a pretty, pretty big well, well, I imagine during the course of like the Civil War and a lot of other things and Reconstruction, people were kind of occupied elsewhere. But like Yeah. So he comes what year is this again? 1858.
SPEAKER_04So we're coming up on the Civil War, right? We're not quite there yet, but tensions are brewing, shit's getting real. You you you know the vibe.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And the vibe is uh uh and so this guy, Frank Les Frank Leslie, who is actually a pen name for Henry Carter. Um, I I looked him up, he did a lot of stuff, but he didn't like go down in history as like a dude. Like you you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know what I mean.
SPEAKER_00You went down in history as a woman. Uh uh no, so so not as a the reason why I say is because there's a lot of famous Carters.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Right, like well, he his his main thing was that he ran news, he ran multiple newspapers. Oh, okay. And his newspapers were like fully illustrated, which was a big like like a big fancy deal. Like we're used to having pictures in the newspaper.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_04That is that is the nature of the beast for us. We're used to that.
SPEAKER_00Different back when you're making like types, though, because you're somebody has to make cuttings of these or not cuttings.
SPEAKER_04Oh, thank you for knowing that.
SPEAKER_00They're lithographs, basically.
SPEAKER_04So our boy, I'm gonna I'm gonna call him Frank Leslie. Like, I'm gonna go by his nom de plume, just out of respect.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh, because he's he's also referenced as Frank Leslie throughout like all of my research. Like I had to go and dig to find out that, oh, you're actually Henry Carter.
SPEAKER_00Oh, nice. Okay. Um, because you've done your job right when like history remembers you by your by your your other name.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So I went digging and I found that. And it turns out that this guy has gotten wind of this story somehow. And instead of following in uh in in Robert Hartley's footsteps of, you know, getting up on the soapbox and they're killing the babies.
SPEAKER_00Oh, he's got newspapers though.
SPEAKER_04Oh, he does. He does, in fact, 16-page fully illustrated newspapers, and he runs two of them, and this is the third that he starts up just to cover the story. So he sends, he literally sends in spies, like his his reporters and artists to get like part-time jobs in these breweries and dairies to like check up on this shit. Because like, like, like any good reporter, he's like, hang on, there's something here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and he wants accuracy.
SPEAKER_04Correct. And so he gets his spies in there. It's so espionage. He gets his spies in there, and the reports come back that conditions inside the dairy, the dairy farms are horrific. I'm talking about like cows and pens so small they cannot move, they cannot lay down, rotten hooves, rotten teeth. Like cows that are so hungry, as I mentioned earlier. Like you remember when I said they wouldn't eat the mash?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04These are cows that are so hungry that it is that they are eating boiling. mash. Like it is still like steaming, bubbling hot coming out of the out of the shoots into the troughs. And they're so hungry, they're so malnourished that they're eating it. And they're they are ulcerate. They're covered in ulcers and sores.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Their teeth are rotten.
SPEAKER_00They can't move around to clean themselves because cows are all herd animals basically. Do herd cleaning.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then also like they have fucking four stomachs like for a reason. They take a very specific kind of diet.
SPEAKER_04And like further further things that I read in these reports and like these two I'm kind of curious about because I couldn't really like digging into like veterinary stuff couldn't really find a basis for it. But they did report that they had cows that like their tails were rotting and falling off and so were their horns.
SPEAKER_00I have a possibility for you. Okay. We did an episode on screw worms.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00And this would have been well before this was figured out. If you have a lot of cows that cannot move around.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You you you have you have a uh parasite problem. You've got a parasite problem. Yeah this might be from ticks this might be from like like the open sores might just be from different kinds of fly like screw worms are a kind of fly. Um Lyme disease in any number of things.
SPEAKER_04Well and they they also reported that the the the cows were standing in their own manure. That's like no one was mucking the saws.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it just it just continues to get worse and worse and worse and worse and worse as they report. So their spies come back they get the they get the cuttings uh the how to how to describe this that they take these wood blocks and they they chisel and carve out the relief of the image. Sure yeah so that when it's I'm trying to explain to them and I'm I think I'm doing a bad job of it but they dip it in ink and then they press it into the paper and that's how you get your your your pictures.
SPEAKER_00Yeah this is um this this it's like a great big stamp. This is actually why I said the cuttings at first because I thought they would have moved past this by then um so it's not like a lithograph but it is like wood bro wood block printing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Like and you can look up these images like all you really have to do is Google uh Frank Leslie and then like swill milk and they're everywhere. Like they are there there are lots of uh surviving ones like in these newspaper clippings. But the story breaks and it hits with such a splash that like there is almost instant public outcry because almost everyone has either lost a child or knows someone that has lost a child to all of these to to what people are largely beginning to suspect is the problem.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because it's gonna be like diphtheria. Yeah. All these kids are going to have essentially have cholera like symptoms.
SPEAKER_04Yeah and that's that was that was allegedly overheard of one of the um one of the boss dudes saying to someone is that they can't parse out who is sick from what we've done to the milk and who has cholera who has tuberculosis. Jeez it yeah it it I it was an eyes wide open situation.
SPEAKER_00Cholera is nasty you die from dehydration by just shitting and throwing up and pissing until you die. I mean like it's you can survive it.
SPEAKER_04And the worst part is for for cholera specifically is that they were feeding them the flour and water mixture which was just making it worse.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Because it was in the water oh right it was in there the whole because this is before water sanitation and without any closed system like we figured it out in London because they mapped the people who were dying of cholera and figured out it came from this single well head when they capped it off people stopped getting cholera in the area so that was the way they proved it. It was like well it has to be bacteria in the water.
SPEAKER_04Oh my goodness oh my goodness so these people knew exactly what they were doing. Oh they always do though I know I know I know I just I I I still live in this like little sunshine character bubble of like people will always do the right thing in the end. No they won't yeah money money corrupts I know yeah all right so public outcry is to the point where like the the the city officials that have been paid off at this point by the by the dairy and the brewery and the distillery or the whichever whichever like monopoly power is running all of that they've paid all these people off. Don't have any choice but to send in an investigative team and it sucks because all of the people that go in have are are on payroll they've they've already been bribed. Like it's so bizarre because there was there was a report of like one of these investigations into like a brewery was being inspected and they warned them a day ahead of time. Like they they sent a messenger to say hey we're coming in tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00Oh this is straight up like in this time period straight in New York this is Tammany Hall. Yeah this is like this is like a bunch of beat cops being paid and sucks.
SPEAKER_04Not only that but in one case one of the aldermen which is a which is a a a community elected like official type because I I had to I I you know how there are some words that you just you know what they mean like you you recognize the the context clues around it versus the actual definition of the word yes aldermen was one of those for me. Because we don't have them down here that's uh old like almost a Dutch thing I mean like you'll have them in like New England but yeah a city councilman bingo yeah basically and so one of one of the aldermen one of the three aldermen that is that is selected to lead this investigation into the conditions of this dairy farm is seen going into the farm the night before multiple times. It's so obviously a payoff job. Yeah but they conduct the investigation and the aldermen find in favor of the dairy oh everything's fine you just need to add some more ventilation. Well the public doesn't take this lying down they're like the fuck what? No more and more outcry and it's it gets to the point where it makes it to a hearing to a trial the problem is fucking everyone is on payroll. Yeah fucking everyone like to the point where during this trial the the the brewery slash distillery or uh dairy is allowed to testify first. Yeah like as the party being accused I have a very limited limited experience and or knowledge with like courtly stuff at outside of like law and order.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_04And even then I recognize that that is fantasticized and like fiction but you do normally have a a you know prosecution yeah I accuse you of this and then you have a defense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah you have a plaintiff and you have a defense and usually the plaintiff goes first airing like these are all the issues that I have yeah yeah because they're alleging that this isn't they're not alleging like criminality this is a group of people suing someone basically like yeah it's that's I it I it seemed to have worked a bit different in 18 dick.
SPEAKER_04Probably but uh I that's that's how it came across to me. Once again I have a very limited knowledge of this and my one friend who's got like law stuff was busy so I couldn't call her and be like explain this to me I'm dumb.
SPEAKER_00Pretty much it boils down to if it's a a if the state is doing it as a criminal charge or if it's a civil suit.
SPEAKER_04It seemed to be a civil suit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah that sounds like what it is for me. If you had a if you had a plaintiff it's almost always a civil suit.
SPEAKER_04And so it came down and though so the the Big Bad Dairy got to testify first. And apparently they had done such a good job like paying off all of the people like all three of the aldermen like testified in court at the hearing that swill milk may be better for for the children than regular milk.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah and then and like here's the thing here's what gets me here's what tripped me the fuck up reading this because I I follow I found a podcast because I tried to I tried to find like the minutes or not the minutes what's yeah you got it. Oh that's the right word? Yeah for me guys whatever the stenographer in today's uh the stenographer would record the court the the court the logs as you might say yeah I tried to go find those and I really couldn't like I found bits and pieces but I I did find a um what is it for court transcript? Yes that's what that's the word it's not minutes that's a meeting yeah that's that's like sitting ah thank you I could not but I tried to find it and I re and I really couldn't I could find snippets of it uh but apparently the podcast that I found which was uh what you missed in history class which shout out to them you guys are great uh they found it and they went through it and like I listened to them talk it out and man when I tell you this whole hearing was a farce because like the plaintiffs like you know the people coming like hey the milk is making people sick had doctors coming in. Doctors now granted I recognize that we are in the period of of medical Yeah you got ghosts in your blood do cocaine about it.
SPEAKER_00But this is pretty basic shit. It's like yeah eat rocks get sick.
SPEAKER_04Yeah like that's so they had doctors coming in to testify that like you know once the children are taken off of this milk like once they once they have stopped ingesting this they tend to get better if they're not too far gone. Yeah for common denominator here the problem is is somehow the the the defense I'm just gonna refer to them as that right now makes it all seem stupid.
SPEAKER_00Because they got to go first so they could poison the well of any argument that came at them.
SPEAKER_04And it's yeah what happens is the trial goes on and they it is eventually eventually like they are awarded their freedoms and like the the thing is dismissed basically and they can't they can't counter sue or anything because nothing happened. Like there were no charges so you can't Right You were mean to me they can't do that.
SPEAKER_00The worst that they could do is say um well if they're a person it would be you know defamation. Yeah it would but but that's what the court case is for the defam the defamation lawsuit would be against like the newspaper.
SPEAKER_04Yeah you know like that's so they find in favor of the distilleries the uh dairies but it it makes the situation itself makes such a splash that there are shut up sorry reading my own notes you occasionally crack yourself up when you okay yeah because some because I sometimes write like nonsense stuff and I look down and I'm like what was I talking about right here so the Board of Health ruled in favor of the distilleries I am just straight reading my notes at this point but the audacity pissed off the public so much that it forced them to pass food and safety laws and regulations in 1862. Like this was ongoing right yeah and though you remember those three aldermen that I that I talked talked to you about that like they were in the charge of the investigation and they were you know bigwigs and they testified that swill milk is safe and better for you. These dudes tried to keep these regulations from being passed. Oh so it like they tried to block them. It became obvious uh yeah like to the point where one of them uh one of them was previously known as the butcher like that was like his nickname because he was apparently like kind of kind of a a a a bit of a badass in court or something. Oh okay he had a reputation the butcher was replaced with Swill Milk as his like moniker.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow so geez yeah I mean I guess that makes sense because I mean I'll never know like Harvey Weinstein is the producer right of like the fucking creep Harvey Weinstein. You know like or or any of those like people in the public eye who have turned out to be horrible horrible people I need you to know that like the only example my brain came up with like well Ovi Wan was called the negotiator.
SPEAKER_04Shut up brain please stop fangirling for 10 minutes. Please get your shit together also they only called him the negotiator because they couldn't call him the flirt.
SPEAKER_00Speaking just quick quick one aside I will pay the extra $4 for this long episode. Anytime you have these fucking things it always turns up really bad. Like nobody goes against like whatever city council member or whatever kind of runs the place or or is taking a lot of bribes or owns it or whatever. It's like it's like manor law shit, right? You can't say anything against the Lord because they own everything and I always get the vibe from these stories with that. It's like the rich people in these scenarios own or or own so much that they can pay off fucking everyone regardless of what happens.
SPEAKER_04Well I'm here to give you just a little bit of good news. Now they unsuccessfully blocked those uh regulations. So the regulations went through like there was there were lots and lots and lots of rules put into place about what you can and cannot add to food that you're going to sell commercially it's kind of the beginning of the FDA. Now granted we won't get the FDA until like the 1940s or something right I think so I wrote it down ah 1906 oh that's much earlier than I thought. So milk regulation begins in uh in 1862 specifically and then lo and behold our boy Louis Pasteur gets to work in 1862 to 1864 and pasteurization becomes the norm.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Now we also have another name to thank for that who basically put the final nail in like the swill milk industry and that is Nathan Strauss and that is a name that I have never heard before I had no idea who this person was previous to like two days ago when I was like who the hell are you? Apparently this man is kind of he's kind of become one of my heroes. Yeah this man not only what like he had the money he also had the audacity to be go to go this is bullshit this should be like regulation everywhere I'm gonna just pay to put pasteurization labs and milk facilities everywhere in New York this man paid for like a hundred of them wow in New York jeez yeah what was he like a prince or something like he it as far as I could I could find a whole bunch of stuff but basically he was just a super fucking rich philanthropist like Tony Stark levels. Wow jeez and I've I think I've seen a picture of him now and he he he's giving do you remember the the rich granddad in like Journey to Atlantis? Yes that's the vibe he's giving okay like the picture of him that I found he it was he was he was giving I have I have so much money and I just want to help people vibe's his name his name was Nathan Strauss Nathan Strauss yes Nathan C. Strauss did you find a picture of him? I'm looking it up because it that when you put it up it says the Gibson drum Jewish center oh he does look like a nice old grandpa doesn't he's just like smiling like this with his round glasses very very German looking he got that hair he he got the he got the hair yeah yeah yeah the the Karl Marx as I call it sometimes what a cool thing okay so he essentially shut all that shit down and make it made it just straight up irrelevant just because he had the money and said all right I got the money I got the time I am the one let's go would you like to know a cool thing about Nathan Strauss because I I saw your I saw your face as you read it please remember the miracle on was it 31st Street really he is the owner of Macy's he's the owner of Macy's yeah yeah he was the he was the owner of Macy's he is in fact that old man yes children philanthropist almost exclusively for public health and child welfare snaps all around to this guy yes he is Santa Claus I love him so yeah he essentially shut that shit down and saved countless lives just by like no pasteurization is a thing now nice sprinkles money on it yeah all the money and the because they were like uh Sears and Robuck and Macy's were like the first mass box retailers.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I knew that yeah so they had a lot of money so yeah that was that's swill milk my friends shut down by somebody's nice old grandpa how cool damn so you you've you have introduced me to one of my like another one of I'll have to do some more reading on him.
SPEAKER_04But you you I really hope he's not an asshole.
SPEAKER_00No it I'm reading um I believe they mean Palestine New York uh but it says the last 20 years of his life largely devoted to public health work in Palestine resulted in the building of two major health centers and many child welfare stations.
SPEAKER_04So he just is a good guy.
SPEAKER_00It yeah it looks like he is just known as a philanthropist.
SPEAKER_04Yeah that was all I could find on him too I couldn't I'm I'm happy you found the Macy's thing. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00What a cool thing there's a nasing Nathan Strauss housing authority there's a Jewish center in the Bronx there are schools, playgrounds houses Bruh it doesn't seem like I put in scandal and nothing? Well there's only four results immediately it says like when I put in scandal it brings up milk pasteurization meaning that he was like the good part of the scandal.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Isn't this great? Like it took forever but we got a happy ending. Yeah like no that's that's really cool like from 1830 I want to say 1834 but don't quote me on that to about 18 like oh I've already closed my notes but it was it was something like 1868 or something.
SPEAKER_00Would you like to know another neat thing about Strauss? Please um so when I entered his name under people Stockton Rush um and a bunch of other Strausses were but came up under like relatives also King Princess That's a name I think so King Princess is a a a a queer pop musician like oh okay okay okay okay okay so something that's kind of on my right I say queer pop music very popular with lesbians and so like so I I that's why I know who they are so I was just like King Princess and I think they might be related that's really cool though I I'm horrified by the milk. Yeah uh the whole because like piping in like factory farms are pretty rough to begin with and I may have been wrong about some of the stuff I said about like if dairy cows are I know that meat products for like pork usually are done this way in factory farms. The idea of pumping hot wort down pipes to feed cows is so gross. Like in the modern sense like we have feeding systems now for for all kinds of farm animals but usually they are like optimized diets. Yeah right so for like they're they're high calorie high fat.
SPEAKER_04And not just like cast off from making beer and that's it. And they're all they're and usually in diets like that they're also supplemented with stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah usually like the your your mainstay for um for for like pigs for instance is gonna be corn. Corn and that's most animals that's like they're the mainstay of your feed is either like hay wheat you know like hay wheat or corn. And because those things are easy to grow by the acre they don't go bad that quick especially like corn you you flake it and dry it. It's why whiskey is made the way it's made or specifically bourbon is because people were growing corn for other things and they just had it. So like whiskey industry has always been a kind of like what do you do with your unused wheat? You know like you make beer or you make whiskey or in the case of uh America's first hard liquor apple cider you put it in kegs in the winter as it freezes uh the water freezes separates and freezes you remove the ice yeah and then you get a higher and higher proof of alcohol called um hard you know hard cider or or apple jack uh which is where that word comes from and so like that's why like um I'd have to do more research on this but it does seem like King Princess is related to this guy.
SPEAKER_04Period let's go just a family of people like yes green flags all the way around. It's really neat um so yeah that's swim milk and like it like I said it took us a minute but we got a happy ending out of it. Yeah and and a new like personal hero.
SPEAKER_00This guy was fucking old when He died too.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_001931 is when he died. He was a member of the uh the Democratic Party in the time that it was switching to like the FDR Democrats, which is the good side, right? Before that, like before when it was like Dixie Kratz, it was the bad kind of like pro-slavery Democrat. But like we do not stand. Yeah, yeah. It it this is wow, what yeah. Isn't that awesome? That's cool. He just out of the because he had the money. Because he had the money. He just did it. Yep. That's that's so dope.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_00That's a real like Carnegie situation.
SPEAKER_04Bro, when I tell you that like by the end of this, like while I was I I I felt I was ending the nearing the end of my research on this, I was so like heartbroken. I was like, how did this stop? How did how did we how did we stop them from doing this? Like obviously the regulations, but come on, if you're in that deep, you're not gonna pay attention to any regulations. You're gonna pay the fine.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Pay the fine and move on. How did we st oh, oh, and one man rose up and said, fuck you! Uh yeah. Like it was, I don't know, it was, it felt what's the word I'm looking for?
SPEAKER_00I don't know.
SPEAKER_04I can't find it. I'm like grabbing at it.
SPEAKER_00What does it mean?
SPEAKER_04Gratifying. Uh it was it was very gratifying to to have someone in history, recorded in history, as literally going down and being like, no, I'm gonna be your problem now. I'm gonna shut your entire industry down and save lives doing it. Hell yes.
SPEAKER_00That is, yeah. Man, I love it when that stuff happens. It's like sometimes it's so rare. Because people of this generation, if they were super rich, like they were they thought of themselves as like lords. So they if you are an actual lord in France or England or wherever, right, you felt like you had it was your job to make sure that there were jobs in your territory or or good roads or water or whatever. Um and the n the American aristocracy thought of themselves as that. So you get like Carnegie, he he half the libraries in the country were built by by his like death fund. He had a trust fund built for this, a foundation still around, uh, that went and built a ton of libraries and music halls. And then you had real assholes like John D. Rockefeller.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They built centers that were, you know, like they did stuff. But even guys like that who were like kind of bloodthirsty, they did stuff with their like vast money. They didn't just hoard it. And they would build things with their names on it, right? Um and and not just for the purpose of their like their own self-aggrandizing, but they saw themselves as part of like a society, right? I'm not sure that's the case anymore with most people. Decidedly not. Decidedly not. Yeah, the only the thing that even comes up is like Trump Tower, and it's like that's not a good example at all. But Bill Gates, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is like the closest thing I can really think. Because they they did, they threw millions and millions and millions of dollars at all kinds of shit, like the Khan Academy. But it's so it's it's it's not prevalent enough. You know what I mean? Like for it to matter.
SPEAKER_04I agree. At at the at the risk of of socially misstepping here to quote to quote Billy Eilish. If you're a billionaire, why?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, why?
SPEAKER_04Listen, we need more Bruce Waines. Yeah, they're just not necessarily Batman.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Let me let me just state that.
SPEAKER_00I would pay good money to see Elon Musk try to fight crime. No comment. And a tricked-out Cybertruck. Jesus.
SPEAKER_04All right. I'm cutting you off. Jesus. All right, so thank you for joining us on this one. I I wanted to end it a little bit on a feel-good note, because you know, the world kind of sucks right now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And while while learning about things in history is fun, sometimes sometimes you need a little bit of a pick-me-up. And there are good people out there. There are good people that have money out there that are willing to look the status quo in the eye and go, fuck you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you know what? I would like my blue milk to be because I put some kind of flavoring powder in it.
SPEAKER_04I would like my blue milk to be because some I have somehow transmigrated into the Star Wars universe. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna think about that every time I see that Luke scene when he's drinking blue milk. I'm like, don't do it, Luke! It's swill milk.
SPEAKER_04He'll be fine. He grew up in a desert. He has ingested more chalk and talp.
SPEAKER_00Metaclorans won't save you from cholera, Luke.
SPEAKER_04We're clearly done. All right, guys. Thank you so much for joining us.