None. My video that I did was former Angus since you yourself were a bit of a former regenerative farming and one of the comments that I received, I think it was actually in in the UK column forum when someone said this is not actually scalable. What are what are your thoughts, Charles? That's, that's an interesting point. I, I think my first question,
well, what is meant by scalable? Because if people are, if people are thinking that there's a model that works on a small scale, but really we need to do it on an industrial scale, then I would say they're immediately missing the point and completely on the wrong track. Which is not to say I'm attacking whoever it is that did ask that, but the point with what Angus is doing, what anyone's doing, is that it's got
to be situation specific. So his raising of, let's say cattle, pigs and chickens is going to work for him given the conditions at Spear where he is. But you're going to be finding that somewhere else. Those conditions don't present themselves and therefore you'll have to think differently in terms of the the specifics. But the principle should be the same. And I think that's what it's all about here. It's it's, it's the principle.
And he is demonstrating the, the, the sort of the front end of it, the first bit, how to achieve the dual benefit of delivery of improvement to the environment via, as he says, the enhancing of the soil and in particular carbon and nitrogen fixing, as well as the improvement of the health of the livestock that he's got on the ground. And, and the, the synergy between those two things and how they, you know, in effect there, that's part of an upward spiral.
The other side of it, which I think people are are yet to grasp for perfectly understand, understandable reasons are that once that is converted into produce for human consumption, you've, you've got two things to deal with. I think first of all, the, the, the pricing, let's say the pricing of it and, and people's understanding of how quality and
price relate to one another. Because I think there's people are put off to a large extent by the idea that they might be paying more for food, but they're not qualifying what exactly they're getting from that, which leads into the second point, which is what Angus would describe as nutrient density. So ultimately, what it means is you need a smaller volume of better food. And I think that's completely reinforced by, let's say, in the conversations that you've had in recent months.
The two that spring very obviously to mind would be those with Tim Noakes and Zoe Harkin. And I absolutely challenge anybody to do this. I don't mean this in a confrontational way. I mean a really positive way if if you're considering what your body needs, then there are many ways in which you can quite simply test this. And there's no, I don't think there's really any serious doubt about the value of animal products in the progress of the human form as we consider it to be today.
And I think the only regression that we are susceptible to is due to the way in which diet that is not human specific or human suitable has pervaded our culture and completely knocked everybody off kilter, both physically and more disturbingly
mentally. And I think when I, when I say disturbingly, the, the thing, I, I think I've talked about this before, but whilst it is easy to make a physical appraisal of whether or not you're in a good condition with, you know, in relation to say, your peer group or to any other sort of metric that you choose to evaluate mental capacity in an absolute sense is very, very difficult thing to do because you don't know what your brain would have been capable of or is capable of
until you try. So going back to the the question on the scalability, my answer to that would be yes, it is absolutely scalable, but it does require that whole chain to make sense to everybody that's going to be a part of it.
Therefore, Angus's model, which is to put together a system that delivers those benefits at at source, at on the literally on the ground, translating through to a better life for the people that are consuming that and everybody along the way in in the the sort of business environment has to make sense and that can be put anywhere. And this I mean, I had talked well, I think I spoke to Angus, you know, kind of longer
interview. I must have been a year and a half ago, I think and, and in quite close proximity that spoke to Julian Rose, who demonstrates absolutely that it can be done because he's talking about it thousands of miles away and how he got into this in the 1970s in the United Kingdom. So so yes, it's totally scalable.
However, if people are saying, well, he's, he's able to do this on what might be regarded as a relatively small scale and we need to do it across thousands and thousands or hundreds of thousands of hectares. Well, that, that, that just doesn't make sense. The, the you'll, you'll then, unless you're going to be subdividing all of that, you'll then strength absolutely straight back into the area of
monoculture and in in intensity. That is what the main big sort of, you know, big farm, big food industries have been doing now for, for decades to the detriment of both animals and humans. And of course the environment as it should probably be regarded as opposed to the way in which it's been hijacked by the unfortunate climate alarmists.
So sorry, not a, not a short answer, but I think it is it, it is something that I, I just consider to be so important because it, it, it is made to seem more challenging and more uncertain than I think it should be. And I think Angus puts it across very, very well. And, and he's running a business as well.
If it didn't work in a country where there's not the degree of, you know, well what we have come to call support by way of subsidy, If that doesn't exist in South Africa, which it doesn't, then why on earth would he be doing it? There's a there's a host of issues here, right? So each of our countries now has huge populations. So what is it in the UK at the moment? Sixty, 70 million, some, some are approaching 70 million or something. And those people have to be fed.
But we, the lifestyle choices that we are being encouraged to accept, involve entertainment and involve holidays and involve things that we want to spend our money on. We have systematically built a farming industry which is so running on such narrow margins that they are increasingly intensively farming. It's, as Charles said, producing a product which is devoid of the nutrients that we actually need.
And so we're having to consume more and therefore we need more industrialization to provide the the more that we need. But, but it's also cheaper. So, you know, whether this is scalable or not is dependent, in my opinion, on whether we're prepared to pay for it to be scalable because it'll only scale by having more. Maybe I'm ready to tell me if I'm wrong here, Charles. But but you know, these, these are relatively small enterprises. They're not intensively farmed, they're not industrial.
Therefore we need more people doing them. So we have replaced the small farmer in the UK and the EU and in the United States with the industrialised super farms that that, you know, frankly in the United States they're they're an order of magnitude bigger than the UK. But still we have these industrialised super farms in the UK that, that are just producing rubbish at, at low cost and going through the supermarkets at low cost.
And therefore we're spending a small proportion of our salaries on food and that's giving us all kinds of income for other forms of for forms of entertainment that we couldn't have imagined 100 years ago. This this a theme of the conversation that we've had German from the beginning has been the lifestyle choices that we make.
And this this is another one. And, and my personal view is that, that we should be seeking out the farmers who are prepared to to operate on the regenerative model or, or a model that that we believe is producing a higher quality, higher nutrient dense product, even if that costs significantly larger proportion of our income than than we might otherwise like to. And we have to make those, we have to make those lifestyle choices and decide whether
whether we want to, where we want to put our money. And and it seems to me that if we if we make the correct choices, that then we naturally will create a farming base which which is providing the right kind of product. Yeah, but I mean, Angus made the point a couple times actually, which he said, is it actually more expensive because what is
the value of your health? Well, that that that is absolutely, I completely agree with that, that that is absolutely a point that I've been trying to make for quite some time now. You know, if we are, if we're looking at the world and we're saying that the world is not functioning the way that we want it to work.
If we're saying that that the people that are running the show, the corporate interests, the profiteering, if we're saying that this is not the type of world we want to live in, then, you know, the choices begin with us and where we are prepared to put our money. And if we keep putting our money into those corporations and those corporations are going to continue to flourish and we're going to end up with worst
quality food. You know, we know the direction this is going in. They, they, they, the news this week was that now we're starting to see lab growing salmon. You know, it's called lab growing. We, we, we shouldn't call it lab growing because it's not men in white coats in, in some clean environment. That's, that's producing this stuff.
It's industrial factory produced, you know, salmon now and is, is that something that we, we really want to eat or do we want to eat something which is being, which is being grown in a, in a natural way? I, I don't think I want to be eating this artificial stuff. I mean, I have to admit, in the past, I've, I've seriously given a serious consideration because, you know, I'm, I would have have, from an ethical point of view, considered it potentially a better solution than than
killing. But you know, this is on the other hand, killing is a natural part of life and, and maybe we shouldn't be afraid of that either. So, so you know, it, it, it all comes down to our personal decisions about where we want to put our money. And and the idea of some Bill Gates inspired lab, so called lab grown meat substitute is not something that appeals to me. And I would rather see my money going to the likes of Angus, even if that means that it is actually going to cost a little
bit more. And you know, I take his point, it doesn't have to cost the earth. I'm sure it's going to cost more than an industrialised process that I'm sure it must do. Is that am I wrong with that Charles? Well, this is the thing. It depends how you how you regard it. What what is enormously in favour of the regenerative model or anything that's akin to it is that you have either minimal or no inputs at all. So where orthodox farming is having to use not. Well, it depends what what sort
of farming you're talking about. But typically if, if there's any arable activity that will mean the, the constant use of fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, all that sort of thing. And that is a, a very destructive cycle, very obviously destructive cycle. There's no, there's no debate about that. Even the people that are doing it realise that they are degrading the very ground that they're trying to ask to produce what it is that they want to try to make money from.
I think just just going back to where it's gone wrong in a business sense is that on the scalability side of it, the only people that are suited by this model now are the absolutely gargantuan players who are able to rely on very few staff, on lots of technology, on some very, very clever bits of
equipment. I, I'm, I'm not in any way dismissing the incredible development, if that's the right word of the methods because it's, it's become a, a very skilled, very, very efficient process, but that doesn't make it right. However, there's a, there's a huge BLOB in the middle of farms, particularly in this
country. And I would put it that this is the case in, in any country where farming subsidy exists, or indeed where the marketplace is similar to that of the United Kingdom. There are an awful lot of farms occupying the middle ground who have been convinced to try to farm in that way, but they are the wrong size and therefore it doesn't make sense for them to do it because the margins are far too tight and it can't be made to work.
Which is why we go back to this subsidy driven absurdity of people continuing to do the same thing year after year, in many cases actually getting a return that is lower than the cost of all the inputs in the 1st place. Which why would anyone do that? And OK, you might say, well that's because people have got it, because they realise they've got to feed the nation.
Well that certainly in the United Kingdom that that I'm afraid is, is, is fast because people, some people, some farmers might genuinely believe that that is a call that they are answering. But the evidence does not point towards that at all. The self sufficiency slash food security figures don't back that up, not even slightly.
And also if there were still any doubt, you only have to look at the uptake of the various environmental Land Management schemes that have specifically encouraged farmers to take land out of production so that that's a non starter. But nonetheless, there are an awful lot of people who who are trying to make a business model work that they are simply not suited to making work. And to to go back to Angus's point about cost, yeah, I would completely agree with him that
the cost cost is twofold. First of all, if you don't take your health and nutrition seriously, although you might not realise it as it's happening there, there will likely come a point where your system starts to do stuff that it wouldn't otherwise do or shouldn't otherwise do. It's then up to you as to what measures you take to correct that. But for the vast majority of people, that means going into a health service, which is only very likely to make things worse for you.
And of course the other great part of well, the sorry, the first part of this, this cost is not just the cost to you of the limitations you're putting on your own life by degrading your own health, but also the jacking up of the bill for in, in, in our case, the National Health Service, which already consumes half a billion pounds every single day, which is, I would say, absolutely outrageous when one considers what it delivers
in return. And the other side of it, which which Mike was alluding to is that yes, item by item, it might seem to be more expensive to buy food that is produced in this way. But my point is that in actual fact, when you compare the nutrient, you know what you're able to absorb in terms of nutrients from that particular
piece of food. My what I would posit is that actually it is either the same or not even as expensive to feed yourself in this way, but it just takes a completely different mindset and indeed way of eating and and the other rather unpalatable detail. But I'm afraid to say it cannot be ignored because you only need to stand outside a supermarket and just watch people come and go. So statistics are one thing, but just consider the anecdotal
evidence. 2/3 of people, 2/3 of adults in the United Kingdom are overweight and a third of those are classified as obese. These these things are all related. So the so the way in which one undoes all of this and creates a sound business case for all the people who are wanting to farm in a manner that I would say is proper because it does do all the things that we want in terms of benefits to the environment, animals and human health. All those things could be
changed by that. And yet we're, we're still clinging to a system, you know, and indeed having having sort of various food strategies proposed which absolutely only reinforce the the status quo with a vague nod to things like human health. So I think there's still there's, there's just a, a really, really long way to go in terms of understanding.
But of course, the, the industry pressure and the lobbying capability of those that are in control of this is so great that to get these sorts of messages out or indeed to allow people who want to farm regeneratively, certainly in the sort of the, the, the West of the Northern hemisphere, it's, it's a great challenge. There'd be a lot of obstacles
put in your path. And we see that now in terms of policy and legislation in the UK that is deliberately there to not only thwart people who want to do stuff on a smaller scale, and whether that's with regard to selling to the public or how you kill livestock or any of those sorts of things. And indeed, conversely, of course is is designed absolutely
to support big, big industry. So, so yeah, it's an uphill struggle, but the but the way to make it work is to make those approaches to people that are thinking at least about changing part of their farming operation to do something like. What Angus is doing and and absolutely what he does in South Africa can can be replicated in many, many parts of the United Kingdom. Of course it can. And it is being done by plenty of people as well. But again, that doesn't really get get talked about.
Mike, you mentioned earlier something about ethics and even that is is superior in the regenerative model. Yeah, I mean, I've, I've had this conversation with myself about what, what I actually believe what, what is the right thing? I think having seen, you know, people like Charles, I mean, I've, I've met a few others that are, that are farming on this of in this kind of style. And I've seen the way that their animals are, are treated.
And it's not just about how they're living, it's also about how they're dying. And, and the fact of the matter is it's, it is as good as it could be. And so you know that you've got that ethical question on one hand it when I was having this conversation with myself, of course, I was thinking in terms of the industrialised process once again, which which I just find pretty reprehensible.
And actually you, you, you experience the results of that anytime you buy supermarket meat, which you can tell that the animal was stressed whenever it was killed. It's, it's horrible. And, and it's not something that I personally want to consume. And so so that that sort of sparked that sort of sort of internal conversation. And of course, on the other side of that coin is the fact that that these beet substitutes that are coming along is the question
of who's producing these. And would I want to ethically support these kinds of companies? And of course, the answer to that is a very firm no as well. I, I'm a meat eater. So I've got to accept that, that, that is a part of, of my, my diet. And you know, if, if I found it such an ethical challenge, then I would obviously have to consider not eating meat anymore. That's not something I'm, I'm,
that I'm even considering. So I've got to be, I've got to be willing to accept what the processes that are involved in, in putting what I need on, on the plate. And that, that is to my mind, begins with making a decision about where you source that product in the 1st place. And if you want to, if you want to consider the ethical issue, then then you start by, by just by actually considering and, and working to, to find a supplier that, that is the best that you
can find. And of course that helps with your own personal health as well. But you know, this, this, the whole, it's a, it's, it's a great example of, of the sort of human condition, isn't it? Because we're so us as consumers, we are so fixated and, and tied to the supermarket. And, but at the same time, we might criticise farmers for being so tied to the industrialised farming methods that they're, that they're forced to use. We, we are the, we are the, the demand side of the equation.
And, and that's what we're demanding. So they're sort of forced to, to supply in that way. And, and so, you know, this is not the fault of farmers. It's, it's, it all comes back to us again and the choices that we make. And so you know this, if we are facing this, this mad, mad world that we are at the minute, that it always comes down to that. And we've got to, we've got to really think about the choices that we're making and make the
right ones. The issue here I believe is, is fear actually in that that we are all scared to make these the choice to move in a different direction. We're scared that maybe we won't be able to afford if we're consumers making that choice. Farmers are scared to make that choice because they don't know whether they can actually sell the product, whether they can make a living doing it. It's the decisions that we're making are fear based.
And this is something we've also got to recognise and try to set aside. But I mean, you know, the, the, the, on the farmer's side, it, it's so easy to criticise, but you know, anybody that's an arable farmer now is, is farming intensively. They're trying to produce the maximum number of tonnes of, of weight, for example, but they're selling that into a globalised market.
So you know this, they're effectively putting themselves out of business by doing this because they are this year, the U KS wheat harvest is going to be well down on previous years because because of the the weather. And but, but the price that they're getting per tonne of their final product is lower than it's ever been because apparently there's significant supply globally.
And so they're, they're getting paid an amount on a global market, which means that they're effectively going to make a huge loss this year. And that is certainly not sustainable in the, in the traditional sense of the word. So, you know, we've got to somehow I'm not, I'm not in any way underestimating how hard this is when we, we've got to somehow come together and, and generate the demand and the supply to, to help this, this situation change.
Well, it says Catherine Austin Fitz often says you influence people one person at a time. Yeah, absolutely, Jeremy, I or maybe it was extra, I can't remember. I made the comment that, you know, we we need to be getting organised and somebody in the chat box said what do you mean by that? And what you've just said is a prime example of it. We need to get organised. We don't need to get organised necessarily into, into these massive sort of multi million people movements.
We need to get organised in small groups. And, and you know, if if a small group of people got together and, and started canvassing local farms and saying, I want to buy your eggs, I want to buy your chickens, I want to buy your beef, whatever it happens to be, maybe that would be a
good start. I think even before that, the, the idea of organisation has to start with oneself and, and if if you're going to do any of the things that we've been talking about and that I was talking about at the beginning in terms of changing, because fundamentally this is, this is to do with changing lifestyles, changing diet, changing what you're spending your money on and how.
But in order to make that work, you need to, I, I, sorry, I don't mean this in a, in a preaching sense, but it, when one does it, one needs to be organised so that you can be sure that you have created your budget accordingly, not just in terms of financial cost, but in terms of how you're going to eat what and when. And I know that sounds terribly simplistic, but but I really would suggest we've just been
talking about wheat. This will upset a few people I dare say, but I don't believe wheat has any part in the human diet whatsoever and I would apply. That with. You all grains, I think that wheat has a wheat of course has a secondary benefit in providing straw for purposes that are used with farming of of livestock. But again there are other ways to manage that as well. So, so ultimately the vast acreage given over to wheat, I would say should or could at least be doing something else.
But the the point is that it that it's a massive change. And if as a listener, you are considering all the various times during the day that you eat wheat and then you think, right, OK, well, if that's if that's not going to be what I want to do from now on for all for a host of readers and I, and this is I'm not, I'm not telling people what to do.
All I'm saying is that my beliefs are based on, first of all, a lot of research into this and the anthropological side of it, but also on my own experiences, not just with diets but also with the use of land and how soil responds to being treated either in a pastoral or arable sense. But, but if for the sake of argument, if you are going to going to do that, you need to work out how on earth life is
going to work. Because it's, it is no small undertaking changing what you eat and how you shop. And so in, in being organised rather than immediately running around the place trying to galvanised other people into, into action. But actually you have to prove to yourself that it does work. And, and, and again, I, I absolutely speak from personal experience that this is, this has been a process that I have gone through. It's obviously such a sort of huge transition.
Because I, I have to admit I, for one reason or another, have never really particularly been into the idea of supermarkets or, or a lot of the stuff that is on offer that I think frankly shouldn't be. But but nonetheless, to, to get to the point where you think that you are happy doing what you're doing for the reasons stated, either concerning health or the supporting the businesses that you see as doing benefit to the environment and, and to animals and all the rest of it.
And, and then you know, and I don't dismiss the ethical consideration. I mean, my, my view of it in terms of the taking of life of animals in order to sustain our existence, I have absolutely no issue with, and I dare say there will be some people considering that. That sounds terribly blase, but but we have been conditioned to to be made to feel that we should consider that as a point of conscience. Well, why?
Because every time a predator somewhere in a food chain kills whatever it's killing, it does not get presented with that, that sort of element of of consideration. And we don't think anything of it. So yes, in some senses we should distinguish ourselves as humans,
but but to only to a point. I don't want to get drawn off totally down that thing, but but the point I'm making is the main thing is to be thankful for the animals that in effect are there to be part of our food chain and to make sure that we ensure that they are looked after in the best possible way during their lifetime. And for me, there's no conflict with that resulting in slaughter for human consumption.
What I would absolutely take an issue with is if there is slaughter that doesn't result in human consumption and the processing of animal products meets whatever for for other purposes. But but anyway, I don't necessarily want to get drawn down that path. But yeah, so, so in terms of organisation, I think, I think as with so many things we talk about you before you consider really where you're going to go with it.
You have to be absolutely rock solid in your own mind and indeed your own sort of day to day system that that you know how it's going to work for you before you can start to enthuse and encourage others. And I think like there's so many things, if you are setting the example, you're already living the life, it's much easier for people to then take up that baton or or mantle, whatever, you know, whatever you call it, because they can see that you're doing it.
You can see, they can see the benefits that you're getting from it. They can see the benefits that you're putting back into your community. I mean, how hollow all this talk is about sort of community and local this, that and the other. If people aren't actually going to do it and they're still talking about it and yet still traipsing off to the supermarket and, and, and not following it through, then then what is the point?
And again, I'm not, I, I don't mean to hector anybody, but seriously, we've got to be consistent. We, we, we can only rant about the, the sort of the controlling entities in the corporate this, that and the other to a certain point. If we are not going to do deal with the one thing that everybody does every day, which is to eat. And, and if you're eating in such a way that is quite clearly propping up that system, then why are you still doing it would be my question and my, my
challenge. But, but it shouldn't be too much of a challenge because the, the point I'm trying to make is that this is really a positive because once you do turn that situation around, the, the benefits are absolutely enormous. But. You know, it's it's exactly. Mike, people are consumers of dissidence. That's basically what I was about to, to get onto because, you know, we, we talk about the UK column talks about what's going on in the world.
We talk about policies, we talk about the results of policies. And we have an audience which listens to that and consumes that information and whether everybody, us included, are saying that this is wrong. But the question is how do we, how do we deal with that? And, and it's a very common question. Well, what do I do about it? And of course everybody's waiting for somebody else to come along and solve the problem. But this, this extends what Charles has just said.
If we, if we are looking at the world and saying this isn't how I wanted to be, then we've got to, I'm going to use the word resist. And resistance isn't just about shouting about things. We all, we all do shout about things. Of course, resistance is about actually doing something different and, but not just one
thing, it's every aspect. So, you know, if, if we don't like, if we don't like 5G, then we've got to consider not using 5G. We've got to switch our mobile phones off, put them in the drawer and forget about them. If we don't like the farming industry the way that it is at the moment, we've got to stop consuming that food and choose something else. If we don't like the way that our children are being educated, then we've got to consider home
education. No matter what the cost is to us, we've got to find a way to do it. And you know, the, the, the, we, we enjoy our lives through the conveniences which are provided to us by the corporate interests that we, that we lambast. And we've got a, we've got to make a choice about whether that means of that is the, that is the fundamental choice we've got to make.
If we don't like the world that's being built by these corporate interests and we've got to stop supporting the corporate, corporate interests, that means a completely different lifestyle. And that, as Charles has said, that's not an easy choice to make. But you know, when somebody says to me what do, what do I do? That's the answer. You start with yourself and you
show other people. It's not no good talking to other people about it. You've got to show other people and people are going to be able to see, as Charles just said, the effects of the choices that you're making. You know, even to the, you know, I, I've said this before, even to the point of just speaking to people as you walk, as you go out for a walk or whatever, or going out for a walk,
exercising. These types of things are in and of themselves acts of resistance because we are encouraging increasingly encouraged to, to, to vegetate in front of ATV Don't. And, and you know, it's, it's, it's just choices. That's how, that's how we deal with this situation. Reject it and and live a
different lifestyle. And I'm not as, as same with Charles. I'm not telling people anybody what to do or suggesting that it's an easy thing, but we've got to, we've got to remove the demand for convenience. Also, I think people over complicate these things, Mike, it's not that complicated. Just when you go buy food today, think about where you are going to buy food. It's as simple as that. I mean, yes, I know.
I mean, you know, the, the, I'm not, I'm not going to underestimate how hard it can be to, to find someone who's willing to, first of all, finding someone who's providing, who's producing the food of equality that we're talking about here. Second of all, finding someone that's doing that and is willing to sell direct to the consumer and so on. This isn't necessarily the easiest, but you can go to a. Butcher, sorry, I'm interrupting, but you can go to a butcher.
So I, I mean, I've done that. That's what I try and do as as as as a priority. You say that before by meat. But you say that, but our butcher, our butcher's gone. Our butcher, our butcher went 18 months ago because he retired and his kids were not, were not interested in taking right. So it's not necessarily that simple. I. Suppose and he. You know that the the the old style local butcher doesn't exist in very many cities anymore.
Maybe if you're in a smaller town or a village that you're much more likely to find that. And maybe that's also part of the choice of lifestyle is, is where you live. That is also not an easy thing to change. None of this is easy, but you know, it's it's I believe that this all begins with the rejection of the easy and, and, and considering actually doing things that are hard and it's hard not. Straight to the narrow.
Yeah, yeah. And it's it, it comes down to to our personal morality and personal ethics and what what we are prepared to accept. But I mean, I've done that. I mean, I've done that. I've tested my own, my own ethics. I, against my better judgement, decided to take a tour of an abattoir. And I actually strongly recommend people do this because it will, it will severely, severely influence the way you think about meat that you consume.
Because when you actually see what's going on, it's, it's, it's amazing how the theatre of the supermarket has adjusted and has rewired the thinking of the average person. You don't think about where meat comes from beyond the shelf. It's not just the supermarket, it's the whole education system. You know, the kids these days don't even know where milk comes from. And that's not, that's a cliche, but we've heard it so many times. But it's actually not, it's not a false thing to say.
I mean, there are, I know for a fact that there are kids in this city that go to school, which is no more than a mile from the sea and they've never seen the sea, right? So, you know, kids don't know where their food comes from. It comes out of a packet that comes out of a a container of some kind. And and that that's but that's going into a whole other area. You know that that is a whole other discussion. Yeah, it's all, it's all
marketing. I mean that that's really the the human fallibility is that when something. Is there and can be marketed people will take it up so my point earlier about the state of this well, it's certainly not exclusive to the United Kingdom, but the state of people's health in a general sense. And you can look at this whichever way, but if you just take it on people's appearance and general sort of levels of fitness which have have
absolutely deteriorated. And you cast your eye back to photographs from say the 1970s or 80s of sort of, you know, typically people on the beach because they're, you can see what condition they're in subsidy largely in kind of bathing suits. It's not because at that time, people in the 70s of 80s and 80s had had sort of iron discipline and they absolutely refused to take on any of the things that
we're talking about. It was just that those things didn't exist in quite the same way that they do now and they haven't been marketed. So at that point, people were consuming all the various things that were being marketed at that point. And tobacco is the obvious one.
I mean, you know, you're finding photographs from in particular the 70s and before smoking, of course, is, is completely prevalent in a way that it's not today because there's another marketing con, you know, the, the whole vaping thing has gone on. So, so we are eternally predisposed to suck up the next trend, whatever that may be. And it doesn't have to be to do with with food.
I mean, look at only this morning I was listening to a report that I must say, I really couldn't believe, but there's a there's now AI mean. Obviously it's non clinical, but I think it's called it's it's something like AI hypnosis.
But it's, it's basically, it describes people who I know this sounds perhaps laughable to AUK column audience, but people who have fallen into a sort of alternative reality where they believe that AI chat bots that they are talking to are real people and are actually invested in their well being and the advancement of their lives. And this young chap from Scotland was interviewed about some relationship he'd struck up with whatever chat bot it was after he'd lost a job.
I don't know what the job was, but the point is this thing encouraged him to the point of him being completely and utterly convinced that he would be a multi millionaire if only he did XY and Z. And it wasn't, it wasn't I, I
didn't mean it wasn't a scam. So, you know, put all your money in this account and, and we'll convert it into whatever it was to I think it was to do with convincing him that if only he, you know, he made a series of sort of video documentaries about himself and wrote a book or something. The return on that would be in the region of £5,000,000. So it doesn't really matter what the specifics are.
But the point of it is that that the marketing of AI in this case is so all pervading that people are really, really struggling to resist it. And, and indeed, if you are not sort of cognizant of this or you're not seeing sort of where the influences are coming from, then I would encourage you to go and look just as A, to get a frame of reference, go and look at Elon Musk's Twitter or X account and look at the number of posts he puts out now about his grok, his XAI Grok thing,
which, which is one of these chat bots. I don't want to talk about this for too long. So I find it's incredibly tedious. But but he, it's, it now has this thing called grok imagine. I think so. So now we are in a position where our very imaginations are being marketed away.
So rather than encouraging that brain that stuck in your head to give you an image of whatever it is you instead are invited to go on to, I suppose you have to go to Twitter in the 1st place and ask this thing called grok to, to conjure you a picture or a video of something that your brain is not going to imagine for itself. And yet people are doing it.
It it so. So this is this is a marketing thing and to get to go back to what Angus was saying it it not only are we fallible or susceptible to marketing, but we seem to absolutely believe what it is that's being inferred by the benefit of the marketing in the 1st place. And his example was free range eggs or free range chicken. Absolute lie upon lie upon lie. Yes, the idea has been made to suggest that, you know, that's kind of a chicken per acre.
And they all get books to read and they have a great time and, and the reality is absolutely not the case. They. Are. You are yeah, exactly. Yes. To imagine what life might be like if they weren't free range, but they and they have access to the outdoor should they choose to it. But of course it's set up in such a way that absolutely they won't be going out. So, so all, all of these things, everything we talk about is all
marketing. The, the another sort of again news item keeps coming up now is the closure of banks and how it's presented in such a way as to be sympathetic to people who want to use banking services. You know, these poor old people who can't get to the bank and don't understand anything. And this that and the other, you know, actually what, what, what's the, what is the underlying marketing inference? We're all destined for digital currency and that's it.
Get on with it. So we have to be able to discern where this marketing stuff is is taking us. But also how incredibly gullible perhaps is a bit strong, but it but it but it might be the right word. How how gullible we are when it comes to marketing. People really need to evaluate absolutely what it is and look beyond when something is presented as free range or as even as regenerative actually, because Therese coffee again, I mean, what a caricature Therese coffee.
Who was the agriculture minister in the United Kingdom a couple of years ago who is overweight? Quite considerably. Well known for smoking cigars? OK, that's fine. Kenneth Clarke and drag, by the way. Right. OK, yes, actually that's a fairpoint anyway. But she was absolutely making a case for the use of an extremely deadly herbicide, which I've talked about a lot on the UK column News before glyphosate.
She was making the case that glyphosate was absolutely a critical part of regenerative farming. So again, marketing regenerative farming has been completely captured and the efforts of people like Angus are already being wilfully subverted in order to further corporate interest. Because guess what? You know, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, all those guys are all into this stuff and labelling it regenerative.
So we have, we do have to be very, very discerning and very critical about all of this stuff that's presented to us. Here in South Africa, I think it was Woolworths. I might have it wrong, but there was some lawsuit that involved them labelling a whole pile of their products as free range. But what they had done was that they had trademarked the term free range, which no longer means free range. It can mean anything which. Feeds, yeah. That's exactly what you're talking about, Charles.
Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you, you see it all the time. You get supermarket brands who, again, trademark names that have farm in the title. So you have the idea that you're buying something from a farm, but actually that's just the name of the business. Some somebody there, there was again another one, someone did it with, with sun dried tomatoes and they they got round it by naming their oven sun dried or something. I can't remember exactly how it worked, but it but it was that
cynical. It's like, it's like the only fools and horses Peckham spring water, if anyone remembers that.
But but, but this is it. And, and so you, you do absolutely have to have to look because the moment you've got these labels, the floodgates open and everybody comes out and tries to jump on it. And, and, and so in a way, where possible, I would say that actually the best thing to do is to avoid the labels in the 1st place, because by our knowledge, they are meaningless or, or at best, sort of disingenuous or
maybe at worst. But, but yes, now, I mean, I every type of chicanery to, to, to, to get this. And also, let's face it, if we're considering, if we're, if we're still to consider a tall supermarket, I mean, if, if, if there's the thought that, well, you know, there, there are probably some things in the supermarket that that that must be OK or that must be, you know, sort of ethically sourced or, or whatever one wants to say. I would, I would say I doubt that very, very, very much indeed.
Because to make it work, to be able to sell to a supermarket and operate on that basis, given the margin that you're going to get on that and not to have cut significant corners in your business model, I would say is extremely, extremely unlikely to the point of being not really possible. But also just to to be producing on a scale that that they can carry that product. Yeah, precludes any kind of. Yeah, I think. I think there are some.
I might be out of date, but I think budgeting, which admittedly is one of the smaller ones, I think budgeting did attempt to have a process by which they were going to stock certain products on a local basis. So, so some of their buyers were going to be able to be supplied in smaller quantities by businesses that were local to those particular supermarkets. But the same, the same probably
still applies. But yes, absolutely that's another thing which takes us back to the start the the this whole idea of scalability and I suppose I mean Charles. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it but it, it seems that of course the other thing that we're used to is receiving product, you know, 365 days a year, strawberries in the winter and that kind of thing because industrialised growing in other countries and imports and whatnot.
The other thing we need to do is is to consider what a British diet should be. Well, that yes. I mean. That is true, but that that's that's potentially the start of intensely, I thought and very long debate because how does one go back to a a particular point in time where you say, Yep, that that is that those are the foods that we should be eating? And is it not just as simple as saying well? That's not available locally at this time of the year. Well, to an extent, Although,
although. I think the counter to that is that because because of the way in which horticulture in particular has has worked over centuries, the what? Well, what has now become effectively genetic modification, but was more conventional hybridization and selective breeding has meant that a vast number of species of crops, cereals, but also fruits and vegetables are not in fact
in any way naturally occurring. So I think it's easy to think, oh, wow, you know, strawberries, for example, which which you do get wild strawberries. But but let's say strawberries are in season now or apples or pears or whatever it is are in
season. But in that fact, when you look at the composition of those particular fruits or, or whatever they may be, they've been selectively bred in order that they have a higher say a higher fructose content or, or something that actually in terms of 1's body's response to it. And in particular the creation of insulin are probably going to be more harmful than anyone would ever consider.
But that's, that tends to be a hurdle that we leap over blindfold because you just look at an apple tree and you think, well, I mean, you know, that's an apple tree. It can't be anything wrong with that. You know, it isn't anyone's been tipping fertiliser all over it or any of that kind of thing. So it's got to be fine. But I, I think in actual fact, that's probably not the case.
OK, You could take that on to, to livestock as well, because of course there's been a huge amount of selective breeding there too. And in particular, the results of protein in milk, whether A1 or A2. And, and if all of this is sounding like gobbledygook, then I would refer back to an interview I recorded with John Cook, who's a dairy farmer, Royal Milk dairy farmer. The the title of the interview is, is Raw Truth.
And, and John actually going back to the organisation thing, John has a fascinating life story because he changed the diet of his cattle at the same time as changing his own diet completely radically so. So the the process of, of getting organised and indeed the multiplier effect from that, John is a phenomenal example because he's, he's been through himself, he's put his cattle through it. The benefits are absolutely undeniable and his business has
thrived as a result. So I, I really would encourage people to go and listen to that, that, that interview. I mean, obviously, as well as if anyone hasn't listened to Germ talking to Angus Macintosh just recently, or indeed Angus's earlier UK column interview, which again, I think was called from the ground up, then then do because that's just a wealth of information from people who not just know their stuff, but has actually done their stuff. And, and I think that's that
those are great places to start. I wanted to punch the wall. When I read some of the comments underneath that interview you did with Angus what year and a half ago, whenever it was, and it made me realise that there has been such a great psychological operation imposed on the average thinker that they struggle to get past terminology and labels. So the term sustainable has been utterly hijacked.
So when Angus talks about sustainable farming, people suddenly get all dismissive and they get funny about this because I think of the UN and oh, he's a grifter, he's a Shoal and all this kind of stuff. And that that's why when I used the word sustainable. Earlier I said in the traditional sense of the world, but word, because that that that word. This comes right back to, to, to
Charles's marketing point. That word has been trademarked effectively, it's sustainable doesn't mean sustaining something anymore. It, it means Agenda 2030. And, and so, and people are susceptible to this marketing and, and that applies to the, to people that are considering themselves, you know, in opposition to, to, to that particular policy agenda. We have in the broadest sense, the word, we have fallen for the same marketing campaign.
And so anytime we see that word being used, we suddenly decide that that it's the person is a shell or they're shelling for Agenda 2030. It's not the case. Sustainable has a word, a meaning in English. And, and we need to start reclaiming these words and not being afraid to use these words in their traditional sense.
And yeah, I mean, people need to, that's one of the things that that we all need to do in order to resist this thing is to not immediately jump to conclusions just because a particular word is used. It it's it's like it's real Beavis and Butthead sort of stuff. And, and we need to, we need to stop that. I totally agree. Yeah. Again, that's that's all about mental attitude, mindset, all that stuff. You, you have to, you, you have to own that. You have to own that yourself.
And, and, oh, we've probably mentioned it before, but why not, let's go again. The, the rainbow, the, the, the NHS doesn't own the rainbow, nor do the, nor do the pride people. They don't own the flipping rainbow. That, that is God's creation and we are privileged to see it naturally occurring in the sky to great dramatic effect when the conditions are right. That's a rainbow. So any of this, the nonsense that that is meant to market a particular idea is, is secondary.
So yes, I think we must try, or at least we must I, I would encourage people to try to be less, less responsive to, to again, what is exactly like Mike describes, you know, it is another marketing exercise. We're supposed to conjure a particular idea of, of something when, when we hear the word sustainable. But, but frankly, we should think about these things in their, you know, in their real terms. So I think it's very important. I'm going to focus on health. And I'm going to go on a
comments section. Diet, I think I'll tell you, you get caught up in that, in that it's not a rabbit hole. What is it? It's just it's just like this black hole. It just sucks you in sometimes. Sometimes it can be and and. It is a trap and you know, but this is, this is another area where where we need to resist. We need to resist the urge to post negative comments to each other and wind each other up and so on. This it, it takes us into a bad psychological place.
There's, there's a lot of, a lot of negativity and in comments sections everywhere. And you know, but comments sections could equally be used to help people get organised. It's a choice again. All right. Well, I think that's a great note to come in for a landing my controls as always, it's been a pleasure. I'll catch up with you guys next week.