The Crucial Role of Food in Our Lives: A Conversation with Justin Bizzarro

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Okay. So we have a special guest today.

Someone that we do not know personally yet.

Yeah. This gentleman has accomplished so much, has so much going on for him. I can't wait to jump into all this, but let's start with his intro.

So Justin Bizarro

is a serial food restaurant technology media and marketing entrepreneur

who helped build a 24 year old group of food and restaurant related businesses

he created with his father and business partners out of his family's basement in 1998.

He's a highly desired business management,

personal and athlete

growth, free market, food and diversity,

and entrepreneurial,

and get that word out,

leadership speaker.

Justin's expertise are in human growth, motivation, leadership, and management development,

health foods, beverages,

global lean manufacturing facilities, vertically integrated businesses.

Justin also received his BA in international

business and management from Dickinson College in 2002

and his MBA from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2014.

What? And me, personally, when we got,

your

intake form and wanted to be on the show,

I went through and started looking at all of your accomplishments and all the things that you're involved in.

And

not just your intro, but the things that you are doing

are things.

Yeah. You're in so much. How how do you have time for to to do anything?

It's I started when I was 18. So well, I probably started being an entrepreneur when I was a kid, mowing lawns and stuff for sure. My parents taught me business. I grew up on a farm. That's just one of the things I think you just learn

to handle your workload differently on a farm. Like, it the animals gotta live. So if you don't wanna play soccer and you wanna go to school, you

you gotta help out on the farm. You know, it's just one of those things. And

my parents always, if you want things, you gotta have your own money. You gotta determine it for yourself. So I was very

young. I couldn't even touch pedals of the tractor when I started mowing lawns, for my parents on the farm. I just knew that I wanted to do it and they offered me money.

They taught me business at a very young age, how to lease the tractors from them and use that. And they would go get the gasoline and stuff, and they taught me how to run a business and what

a cash flow statement looked like, the income statement, what

what an, balance sheet looked like at a very young age. So it just kinda just

stuck.

And then by the time I was 14

years old, it was on to fruit stands and produce stands and things like that to to sell fruits and vegetables on the side of the road. And by the time I was 16, we had 4 of them

all around Maryland,

the northern DC area,

and it just sort of happened. So to really answer your question, I don't really know any different. It's always been doing trying to do

things. And then by the time I was 18, just by weird coincidence,

I broke my foot,

and

I was having too much time on my hands that summer, and I wasn't playing soccer,

which was what I was doing. I would go over to Europe to play soccer every summer,

with a bunch of

yep. And so

in doing that

and breaking my foot, I had a lot of time on my hands. And next thing you know, a company was started out of my parents' basement with with the help of my father, of course, who also

has experience in food and and did airline food all over the world and build a 122 kitchens

across the world

doing airlines.

It was in the blood.

It was Marriott

but spin off and then called cater air. Now it's owned by SkyChef. So,

but the airline's feeding business has changed quite a bit over since 2,001.

Sorry. 911.

Yeah. So

Yeah. I wonder about did did COVID affect that at all too? Because airlines were

kinda squashed a little

bit. Yeah. We weren't we aren't in the airline food. We were an airport food at that Oh, okay.

Lia packed impact us. But as of

1996, my father was 97, my father was out of the airline food business. And

Oh, okay. Yep.

So that sort of was he got into real estate and stuff like that, and then I sort of dragged him back into food, I guess, in 1998.

Or he dragged me into food with him, however you wanna look at that.

Yeah. For sure. He started it. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I mean, to that point, a common theme throughout your background seems to be food related.

Where does the passion come from and how do you continue it? Obviously, it stems from your parents, but it seems like you went all in.

Yeah. There's 2 things. 1 is even as a kid, even though I didn't know what the word was, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I I just I didn't go with I didn't fit in. That was the word I would use. I more or less belonged, like and it was always with older people, and I was always in business settings, and it was just something that I was attracted to. And food

was the vehicle by which I would do it and mowing lawns,

things like that. And

but really the passion comes from, like, I I don't have fear. It's a weird thing. I just don't have a lot of fear in life. Things don't scare me. Heights, roller coasters, jumping out of an airplane, stuff doesn't scare me. But I have one huge fear, which is

dying without significance or accomplishing everything I wanted to. You know, I don't know if significance is the right word, but significance in that, not that I need to be known,

in that that I didn't make the world a better place than I found it. And so

weird

I don't know. It's was the seed that was planted to me from the day I was born. I I just from the day I can remember, I remember this

overwhelming feeling of

not wanting to die

without having

made a difference or having accomplished something or

living a good life and and having good relationships and stuff like that. So

that's the real drive there. It's what keeps me going. I think it's that

fear. I also would say it's just,

I don't know, I like doing what I do. I like being busy. I like

having purpose, for lack of a better term. I like moving forward. And that really,

there's days that I don't want to, for sure. I'm just like any other

but for some reason, I don't know how not to.

You know? I don't know how to take a day off,

and,

I don't know how to hit pause. I mean, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But generally, it takes

I don't know how to describe it, but if you're really present in every moment, even with your family and even with your business and even with that, it becomes a real motivator because you're able to just

make time for everything. And in order

and in order to do that, you have to cherish every moment. So one of the one of the things also is this it's almost like FOMO,

fear of missing out, but it's not

going out to the bars or going out partying. Like, I would say it's more or less like I don't wanna miss moments in business or family or opportunities that could help me or my family

or the people that work for me or

my future or my family's future. My family is pretty important to me. So

things like that, I I would say.

Yeah.

And one of the things that you said is that

fear of not making an impact, right, or not leaving the world in a better place than you found it, essentially. What does that look like for you? What does, I guess,

success

Yeah. Look like for you? How are you Measuring that. Measuring that based on your business?

Yeah. It's interest it's a good question. I used to think it was monetary.

Like, when I was growing up, I used to feel like

money meant a lot. Yeah.

But money has not proven to make relationships better for me. It doesn't sometimes make businesses better while it's an indicator

of of doing well in life, and

it depends on the definition of it. And it's more like, I describe it more like a trophy. You win it some days, you lose it others, and you're you win championships, you lose it.

But I would say the thing of success really is peace of mind. I

any other way

in that

peace of mind, like it being able to live a good life, being able to do the right things, being able to afford freedom and independence to make those decisions,

however that looks. It doesn't always, money doesn't buy you that.

Your actions buy you that. Your character buys you that.

So

as I've gotten older, I'm 43 now, I would say, and

some great highs, some low lows, of course, as any entrepreneur goes through or any person in life, I would say,

depending on, you know and your risk is always how low the low is and how high the high is. That's just life. And so

I would definitely say that success for me is based on my support system. Who are the people I'm surrounded by? Who are the people I'm attracting into my life right now if I'm doing things wrong or I'm not being successful?

That circle or the people that are coming into my life or the businesses that I have are not doing well

culturally. They're not doing well with the personalities

in there. And I try to live by principles over personalities,

by everything in my circles, in my businesses.

And what I mean by that, just as an example to the to the audience is, if I'm a meat eater and I have someone who's a vegetarian,

well, there could be different reasons we are those things. But if the principle is we're trying to do better for this world and better for the animals on it, okay, we align in principle. We should we align so I can see us working together.

But if if it they don't align and it's more personality based based on that, there's not a purpose behind it, but not a principle behind it. It's very hard

for those for to find success in a business and friendship and relationships

as a couple raising kids, you name it, if you don't have that overall purpose.

And I and I see that a lot today. A lot of people get into relationships. A lot of people

start businesses, but they don't ultimately have a purpose of what they're trying to accomplish.

And for me, like, to go back to it,

it's to make that impact.

Food is just, again, a vehicle,

a major vehicle to better this world or better this planet. If we we eat properly, if we

we make food properly, if those of us in who are food entrepreneurs

realize that we make huge impact and influence in the world and our legacy. So

success to me is

influence and impact to who's my who am I helping? Who am I supporting?

What are the differences being made? Are we actually moving the needle

on bettering this world in terms of food or

hope or kindness or love or spirituality,

things like that? So

it's a really big answer.

No. It's good. That was awesome. We got a lot of good sound bites, I think.

But it's one of those things that I feel like

over time it snowballed for me. And over time that definition of success has gotten larger.

Because

as humans, we start to realize, and I heard a statistic the other day that even in the the most introverted person still impacts and influences 10,000 people in their lifetime.

Wow. Yeah. So that's

But the thing there is it doesn't say whether it's good or bad. True.

So

that's where it's like, how do I do it in a positive way? And there is the saying, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

So it's it's finding that balance. It's finding that balance, and you're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna upset people, and

a lot of people aren't gonna like you. And I think that that's the thing, especially if you make them feel uncomfortable and they're not ready to feel uncomfortable.

So that's part of it. And this is my last part, I would say, on on the answer.

Success is also defined

in my pursuit.

If I am constantly pursuing growth

and the uncomfortability of it, I'm in a successful situation.

Because, like, the as humans, I feel like whether we realize it or not, we need to keep growing just because our education stops or our formal education.

We get some of us stop learning. We stop growing. We stop reading. We stop doing whatever

or or listening, whatever. I think podcast is a great way to grow for sure. But

for me, if I'm in a state of not growing, I do feel unsuccessful in my life. I feel,

I can get frustrated. I can be emotional in those states. Like, weirdly, I can feel unstable.

And,

it's like, if I'm not moving,

I'm not growing. And if I'm not moving and growing and living, you're dying for me. Yep. Like, and that goes to that fear again of

living life to the fullest because, one, I don't ever know when it's going to end. No one does. I learned that on a farm. At a at a whim, anything bad can happen.

Anything good can happen.

And God works in different ways. But at the same time, you just you need to be prepared. And if you think that you have a lifetime, you don't. So make as much impact now and start compounding that impact and that influence

and your character. I in leading by example so other people,

again, are attracted to it. I don't I think a lot of people try to promote themselves. I think truly, as humans,

we attract things. We lead well when we are doing well.

You know?

So

long winded.

I like it. I think that speaks directly to your passion and everything that you are involved in is a clear depiction of everything you just described. Yeah. No, that was awesome. Yeah. And I think I think to your point,

being stagnant in life

is really bad for mental health.

Yes.

I think that was part of I don't know if you listen to our OCD episodes, but I went through a really bad bout of mental

illness.

And

truthfully, I think a lot of it had to do with me being at a job where I was just coasting

and not reaching for something better. I used to have before that

a lot of drive. Like, I would bounce jobs

to get promoted,

but I stopped.

I gotten super comfortable and then all of a sudden my mind broke. But I do think

trying to push forward constantly is really good for the human mind.

And our next question

is you actually kind of

prompted this one with one of your Instagram posts. It was I read it and I read it more than once and I'm like, holy crap. But what do you believe is the biggest struggle

for the American consumer regarding our food consumption?

Oh, that's a good one.

Well, it's it's access to diversity of foods, 1. I think that that's if we're really gonna talk about humans

and what we need. Again, I was in health food, hospitals,

grocery stores, direct to consumer, athlete meals,

restaurants, but a lot of it was health based. But particularly in health care, we were

trying to locally source everything in 350 miles of each one of our facilities.

The food would come in today.

We or this morning, we produce it today.

It would then go out on our trucks tonight for lunch and dinner tomorrow and breakfast the following day if it were hospitals, which was our major clients for 24 years.

And locally sourcing took a while. We had to build those systems. We had to build that infrastructure because the volume of food we were doing in institutions,

you know, including we did universities and we did schools and we did,

gas stations or or rest stops,

or gas stops, whatever you wanna call them.

And so the thing about it is our food system

is very

mono. It's not diverse. We have

cows, pigs, and chickens, and we sometimes eat turkey. Okay? It's probably on the sandwich.

And

terms

of fruits and vegetables,

we don't really have a lot of diversity. Orange, bananas, apples, maybe a pineapple here or a watermelon or some cantaloupe and stuff like that, but they're getting rare. It's more and more rare.

And we mass produce wheat, corn, and soybeans.

Okay?

So thinking about

all the food in the world that's out,

natural nutrients, vitamins,

things that help our immune systems,

the nutrition that we need, we lack

that nutrition and that diversity. So

we often talk about obesity. Well, obesity is not

the result of eating too much and starvation

is not the result of eating too little. Okay?

The volume of food has nothing to do with being obese

or being

starving.

Yes. We need calories to survive.

I agree with that, but I don't agree with it in that we naturally will find balance as humans, proper weight, proper mental health,

proper things like that

with starting off with a balanced diet. And by balanced, I don't mean the food pyramid that we do in the United States. It's like Right. So backward.

Unbelievable.

What I'm talking about is we should be eating diverse animals. There's alligator in the United States. There's bison. There's elk.

We have venison, deer, for anyone who doesn't know where venison is. We have rabbit.

We have quail. We have

Cornish hen. We have pheasant.

We have goat, sheep,

in addition to cow, pig,

chicken,

so turkey.

So those that's an example. And amongst all the vegetables and fruits in the world, we only are on the tip of the iceberg when we see go to our grocery store. It's not even a fraction

of it's like point 0000001%

of what's available in the world, especially if you travel.

So,

ideally,

the biggest trouble for the American consumer is access to that. That's number 1. Number 2 is

we in our institutions,

our schools, our universities,

our long term care homes, our hospitals also being in those industries.

And I would say this is a worldwide problem

is we default to big corporations.

A lot of them don't care about locally sourcing or supporting our food systems.

A lot of them care about what's known in the food industry as rebates. Who's gonna pay me the most money on the back end

for doing that food? Okay. So that's a really sneaky way of being like, oh, well, someone can get 10% on the back end. Someone can get 1%.

But it's totally up to us how we do it. Okay? So I will be perfectly honest. It's a legal way of bribing you to buy your product. Okay? Because that number is not standard,

And it is a totally way that food goes into the place or I'll pay you a lot of money to put me put this food on the grocery store shelf. Okay? That is also what happens. Or I'll give you all my product for free. You pay me when you sell it. It becomes a money scenario. So the companies with the biggest pockets, the deepest pockets who often mass produce things that use a lot of chemicals in their food, that use a lot of things to extend shelf life because guess what? That's how you make more money.

That's what goes on there. So

while I love capitalism and I agree with it and I am

capitalist, I'm also an industrialist in food and believe that we are lacking

that. Okay? The third thing is is we are uneducated

as consumers.

For the thing we do the most of in our lives and we break bread around and we have celebrations

around,

we are completely ignorant to what's going on in our food or how our food's done or what we're actually eating or what happens to that food and where it comes from. Like, most of our food now after COVID

is imported into this country. The for example, we had a foreign government

country take over our entire pork industry. They bought Smithfield. They closed down over 9 processing plants and now do it elsewhere and then import that in. All of our fishing

products,

all of our fish and seafood

is imported.

93%

of it, China.

Okay? That's not saying that it's off of China shores. That's still allowing the Chinese for some reason to fish off of our shorelines

even though we're not allowed to as Americans.

So

things like that, like who is running our businesses, who's running the grocery stores we shop at, What is the actual interest there? And I agree

for profit matters. I'm an entrepreneur. I am a capitalist. I agree.

And people need to benefit from it. It is a huge ins inspiration.

It keeps businesses alive. But at the same time, if we're going to do it, why not do it the proper way? You know, it's always something that

especially when we talk about

what my drive is or who I surround

or not having positive impact.

Why are we doing this?

And so

Go ahead.

I

it sounds like it's these mega corporations because they're squashing people like you who

want to do it locally,

but

you can't really afford to because you're trying to sell this stuff in the grocery store,

but they bought all the shelf space because of, like you just said, backdoor deals and stuff.

Yeah. And I think it's also ease. People take the easy path. It's easier to buy from a conglomerate. It's just easier. You know? It's

the the lazy road

is also the road to hell. But it's like

it's like

and even if you're talking about your your physical health or whatever, but in business, it's the same. We take shortcuts. And

it's not only corporations for profit. It's a lot of nonprofits that are going in and buying up farms right now in the United States. That's a big problem. A lot of our farms have been sold to the Chinese, the Dutch, the,

Saudi Arabians, for example, and there's nothing wrong with that, I guess. But it's not we don't we can't do the same in reverse. Okay? So

not like we can go to other countries and buy up land And a lot of countries like Turkey, Brazil, China, a majority of the company has to be owned by a local company for you to even do business there.

So,

like, we're playing by different rules in the United States. And

for all intents and purposes, while we believe we're doing the right thing for humanity,

we're doing the wrong thing for our future and the legacy of food. It's a little bit scary in that

most humans don't have any idea where the fruit comes from or who's providing it. And we have and we turned it completely over to individuals that at the end of the day

and I've been in these rooms and I've worked with these companies and I partnered with these companies,

they do not care about anything other than how much they can profit or get those rebates.

It's not

about providing the right food. They can claim nutrition.

But if you watch these companies over the 3 decades that I've been in this business,

their marketing changes with whatever the way the wind blows. Oh, it's plant based protein time. Oh, let's do meatless Mondays.

Okay.

Like what? Okay. Now it's the organic

and let's do the organic movement. Okay. Good marketing gets people

rooting for us. Okay.

Now it's time for free range chicken and pastured pork. Great. And then COVID comes and then it's okay. Let's move away from that as much processed food as possible.

Because now it's all about medicine is the answer, not food. And so

it's just

marketing,

advertising, trying to make a quick buck,

finding

thinking short term. I mean, I would say the biggest thing we, as Americans as a whole, is we are very short term thinking.

We don't realize that most

other countries are very long term thinking. They're strategic thinking. We play we play checkers. They're playing chess.

And especially in food,

we are just here to make a dollar, and it's great. We're a capitalist country. Like I said, we're industrialists.

We're entrepreneurs. But if you look at the way the rest of the world's playing the food game,

they're playing it for the long run. We're playing it for whatever we can get right now or whatever the marketing buzz is right now.

Do you think that any of that

like you you said, we're trying to push medicine and not

good quality healthy foods. Do you think that could be because they're in cahoots with each other? I mean, this is very, very left field, but it's

it's sketchy to me.

It's like all this

process stuff and preservatives

and all. First of all, you're sending food from China to here. If I have an apple sitting on my shelf over here, it goes bad in a day. You know what I mean? And how are you sending it from there all the way over to here

and it's not going bad?

Yes. I mean, if you look at we used to do a lot of business with Mexico. They used to NASTA and Canada and Mexico, we trade a lot of food back and forth. Broccoli and cauliflower, when we couldn't

when it wasn't seasonal here to grow, it usually was growing in Mexico. Okay. So you could get things year round like tomatoes and peppers and

cauliflower and broccoli.

Okay. And

now most of that stuff comes not from those places.

Cauliflower and broccoli in particular in the commercial setting does come from China that is flash frozen over there and produced, and somehow

it existed and the transition just magically happened during COVID.

I'm just,

but how do all of a sudden, did you grow all that stuff, have all that stuff frozen,

and all of a sudden COVID

happens? And now we're buying from China versus from Mexico because the border issue, but yet

there's no border issue when it's coming from the sea on ships.

So Mhmm.

Just

a lot of things have changed. The United States used to be the intermediary in a lot of food trade

around the world. We are no longer that. We do not we no longer hold that, what I would call power.

And as the United States, we were we're we're free minded. We we try to have balance. Even there is corruption. Don't get me wrong. But we are more balanced minded even in that compared to

governments or countries that are not fair minded, that are totally 100%

about their citizens only and about their influence only

and infiltration

only of the their.

Food is the fastest way to influence because we don't care about it in the United States. So because we've turned a blind eye to it and it's such a large industry thing about how much food you eat per day

and how many Americans there are, for example, or how many citizens in the world.

Like, it's a really easy way

because no one cares or no one pays attention to grab a lot of control and power

within

our government.

So do I think they're in cahoots?

Yes. Of course. There's lobbying. You have pharmaceutical

companies. They have a lot of power. Food is medicine goes against medicine,

you know, and our pharmaceutical business. Why? I believe both

Terry. I believe both are necessary.

Why there's not a congress

out of align both,

I do not know. But it's either one or the other. You go to the hospital, and the thing they spend the least amount of money on is the food, yet you need to be eating properly to get out of the hospital. It always floored me how I'd be happy

how our meals

literally are less than $10 a meal in the hospital with the snacks, with 3 round meals a day, 2 snacks. We're, like, sometimes as low as $7.50

a meal.

And we need to lower our costs, but the medicine that you're giving them 4 times a day costs $70 a freaking pill. Excuse me. What's going on here? Like, this is up we're putting the cart before the horse. We are looking at this backwards, but the human mind, we want we think there's a hack. We think there's a hack for everything. And so Right. There is hack back to the point of diversity of food. The hack is eating lots of different kinds of food, diversifying your diet,

building your immune system through multiple

nutrients and vitamins

sourced from many different kinds of food,

or and serve vegetables or animals.

And

just saying,

we are the top of the food chain, and we are

that, and we have grown to who we are

by having diversity of diets. It's only over the last 100 years that we've sort of gone into just industrial farming,

industrial food because we're like, oh, we're gonna feed everyone and we're gonna stop starvation.

Well, it's great, but if you're not getting the nutrients and vitamins that you need, back to my point on being skinny or obese,

you're gonna keep eating if you're not getting the vitamins and minerals you need. And even if I gave you a bunch of food,

that you have, you'd the number of calories you need,

you're gonna be thin. You're gonna starve. You're gonna starve no matter how many calories you have. You may get by, but you're gonna be starving.

Okay? And starvation,

when we have a first world country like the United States,

when you're starving or constantly hungry, you just eat more.

And starvation is not

a lack of volume, it's a lack of nutrition. So

do I One of the things you're saying too though is really clear that

it's not just

starving because of starving because of nutrients. Right? Like, your body needs this to grow.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

And and you said if you eat

a lot, but you're eating a lot of diverse good food, you're not gonna get fat.

I know this. Like and, like,

tell you, when I was on the road a lot, especially at the beginning of my career,

you're eating fast food sometimes, like, 2, 3 times a day. Okay?

You are still

starving.

Mhmm. You need a pizza at night. You're waking up in the middle of night. You're hungry. You're going to the fridge. Where's that gallon of milk so I can get that down? Or a bowl of cereal or whatever I can do or a cake or a hot pocket or whatever I can get

in my body

at that time. And that's

all because of of what we're talking about here. I think there's not really a lot of vegetables and fast food. You know? So,

you know, and even the healthiest fast food doesn't have a lot of diversity.

It it just is being aware of that in it's, you know, and as we're getting better at science,

so I'm not debunking science or medicine, but we're also

understanding that they are complementary. It's okay for us as humans to use our will to complement

nature,

but at the same time, need to be complementary in a partnership, not necessarily

one or the other. And so

the lobbying and stuff like that in the government,

back to the point, the coercion,

the and it's not a conspiracy theory. We all know lobbying exists. We all know that companies with the biggest pockets pay the biggest money. And how do they do it? They set up accounts and

they figure out how to oh, I'm not buying the senator a car, but his wife and 2 kids have a car.

Right. You know? Oh, and they're consultants for our company even though the senator's not, but his wife is a consultant for the company. And his 2 kids who are weirdly 9 and 11 years old, they're consultants for the company. You know that?

You know? So

so it's like we are and we talk about being woke up.

We're not awake at all. We are or how much we think that happens, and I'm not I get the idea.

But if we wanna look at the way everything plays out, everything is always creating division in our society. For sure.

And that

debate is causing distraction. And why is there that distraction?

Because they don't want us looking at what really goes on. Okay? Yeah.

Is a way of keeping power. Okay? If you look at any

really powerful person that's didn't earn their way along, it sort of manipulates their way. The thing they do really well is constantly call cause chaos amongst the rates, organized chaos,

and they're constantly making sure their people are

comfortable,

so they don't wanna grow, but they're also constantly making it so they don't get along with each other For sure. At the leader

as the problem. They don't Why did we fall?

Yep. And Yeah. Exactly what's happening if we look at even

the vegan movement right now. Okay? I understand

it's a choice for everyone. Okay? For sure. Based on principle, but saying

that it betters the planet

and it saves lives is a total false thing. If you ever grew up on a farm and you plow a field, you kill more rats and squirrels than

one cow's life ever cost you by just grazing. A cow does not kill anything.

One cow, It just grazes on a field. It may kill another cow if it's really hungry. It may accidentally step on some worms.

Right. Generally,

how many animals is the cow killing? And a cow fart that's so popular to believe right now is killing the

rice fields produce more methane than a cow's than the cows do. Wow. See? This is this is the shit right here.

It's like I like yeah. And I'm not this is not my statistics. These are things that you anyone can look online what I'm saying and look at this information. For sure. Matter of educating ourselves, like I said, and growing. But

again, when you plow a field, you kill snakes, you kill bugs, you kill mice, you kill rats,

you kill squirrels,

you kill

worms, you kill anything that's in the soil, and they're all in there. They're all hiding in there. You kill foxes. You kill bunnies because they have bunny dens in your fields, especially during the spring when we're plowing fields when they're being born.

You're killing tons of rabbits,

tons of them when you plow fields.

I'm not saying we should get rid of farming. I'm just saying we need to have a realistic conversation over

what is really going on if we think we're saving lives

by being eating more vegetables.

Yeah.

For sure. For sure. I

I get so some of that that movement is because of what you spoke about, this mass produced

Yep. Stuff. Yep. Because they're the conditions that those animals are in is awful. I mean, they're In some places. They're Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're not humanely

slaughtered and things like that. But it's like,

okay. Well, then let's let's stop buying from these big corporations that wanna burn and churn and and just make profit, and let's go to people like you where you locally source from a butcher down the street. You went and saw him butcher a cow, and he does it in the right way. Yeah.

But killing an animal sucks. But

diversity, we have to eat. That is so true. Life. Right? Exactly. Like, you said, we are the apex. Right? Well, I mean,

look at there was a there was a tweet, and it made me laugh so hard. It said, why does PETA

say I can't eat fish,

but other fish eat fish?

I laughed so damn hard. I'm like, wow. I never even thought of it that way. The animals they're trying to protect are eating each other, and we can't eat them?

I mean, if you watch any of the shows, I think there's, like,

Mexico Untamed right now is a show on TV. One of the things in there is animals will even turn on their own species and kill each other. Yes. Like they're and they're not doing it to eat each other. They're just doing it to kill each other. Like, I'm just

So here's the thing. Okay. We're higher beings.

Here's, in my opinion, the answer. Like, we have a responsibility. We are the angels on this planet. When it talks about angels, we are them. We're the highest being on this planet. We're the ones between whatever else is next or nothing next and the animals. So if we're caretaker if we're not gonna eat the cows, are we gonna have them as pets?

No. Guess what? We've domesticated

them. No one's gonna have pet cows in their house. Okay. Maybe we get milk out of them, but if you're vegan, you don't drink milk either.

So

here's my issue is

if we don't eat them and we don't take care of them, what happens to them? They go extinct. We have no use for them. Right. They have purpose.

But do I think we need to utilize them and praise their life? Yes. That's part of being it. We need to be more responsible in the way we eat them and and eat more of the animal and utilize all of it. Yeah.

Absolutely.

Of course.

But the better chicken farms

don't go burning their chickens. They have alligators. They feed it to the alligators. The alligators eat the chickens. They also process the alligator meat and the alligator skins. Okay? That's utilizing. That's creating a circle there, and that's a death circle. I'm sorry.

There are a lot of chickens that die, but it's still nothing compared to when we plow fields.

Okay? There's just and do we try to manipulate things and manipulate the animals? Yes. Could the environments be better? Yes. They should be better. We should have healthier. We should have more rotation.

We should be growing

more animals on a farm and,

fruits and vegetables, and they should be rotated.

No doubt about it. There's a lot of farmers out there that are doing regenerative farming

as it's called or rotational farming

in the nontraditional

sense or, sorry. In the I will say traditional since it's the way we did it up until the 100 years and the noncommercial

sense.

That that

profitability,

I get world competitiveness,

but we're not competitive on a world scale. Right. Don't have the cheapest labor. So why are we mass producing things? Why are we subsidizing as the government? Why? Because we got pork was an American business.

We sold it. Okay? What are the other animals that we can produce here to go full circle on the other question? We have bison. We have elk. We have alligator. Those are all meats that are American meats that we could thrive in growing here in a rotational environment.

You can't have bison near cattle because they will disease will kill each other no different than the Europeans coming into the

Native Americans.

And so they just don't those species aren't they don't mix well, but you can keep them at distance and rotate them.

You can also then pigs, goats,

whatever,

sheep,

quail,

chickens, whatever, they can rotate with them. You know? And, of course, there's eagles that are gonna eat chickens if they're outside, and that's what they do. They're going to kill things. That's what they do. Circle of life.

Yeah.

To your point,

everything has a purpose. It's just not necessarily

what we think it is or we want it to be. At the end of the day, we we have to realize that

this is just the way the way of life. And do I think there's a purpose for all of it? Yes. If we ever have to leave this planet,

the we're gonna have to eat plants first. They're the things that grow because if we take animals with us, it's gonna take us a while to build up a population of animals for us to eat.

So do I think both have principles

and a purpose?

Yes. Of course, for human survival, I do. I just don't think that I think they are personality choices. I don't think that either one has the impact that we think they do because the true impact

is eating diversely.

So

interestingly,

the problem with consumer and health and human's health

is the same thing. That's the earth health.

We want a better earth. We want a healthier earth. We gotta diversify our foods and the way we grow things in our farming. Okay?

And in order to do that, we also need to diversify our food, which ultimately makes us healthier, live longer, feeds our brain. Because

whatever anyone shakes it any other anyway to the other point you made, you feed a lion vegetables, they will go blind. They will eventually die.

They are feeders.

They want meat. Their body processes meat. If you start feeding a cow a bunch of meat,

yes, the cow might survive for a while. Cows can eat meat and they will kill each other if they're hungry and eat each other. So everyone thinks the the cow is just a grass eater. It's not. It will eat its own. Any animal will eat its own, especially a mammal if it's hungry. We as humans know this to be true also.

So

it's just we we think that by thinking,

I don't know, by creating figments of our imagination, that's how I would describe it, we create figments.

Mhmm. Get them to be true. And

it's that we're human. Like, I get it. We wanna

think larger, and we wanna think more altruistically.

It's important.

But at the end of the day, we are still humans, and we need to thrive as humans.

And as those higher beings,

we are more like shepherds.

Yes.

And not saviors.

I think that that we are not saviors. We don't save anything. Anytime we try to save anything, we make it 10 times worse.

That's the road

paved with good intentions.

We are just shepherds of the world. We have to live in unison with it. We have to live in collaboration with it. We have to live alongside of it. We are not and when we start thinking that

we're higher than that and we're not sort of and I said angels because we are a higher being,

taking care of everything

altruistically

and making sure they fulfill their purpose too. And at some point, our planet was created, grown,

Even if it's a big bang theory or whatever,

there is a hierarchy that goes on in the world.

Mhmm. Right? Food eats food.

Period. Yep. Yep.

We and to deny that denies,

like, what has logically

been done for 1000 of years and why I believe we are intelligent enough to figure out better ways to do things. It is not getting rid of the animals that we eat because what's going to happen to them? It's like we will have no use for them and they will have no purpose. And then what? We save them? No. We didn't save them.

We didn't save them. Look what happens when we don't eat things. Look what happens when we don't eat sheep in the United States. There's a lack of them, and that's all because the World War 2 vets were fed so much

sheep. I forget the,

mutton. Yeah. There you go. Thank you. Mutton that they came back not wanting to eat sheep. I get it. Like but now it's like we don't have that diversity in our diet. We don't eat goat a lot either. And goat's like a super powerhouse

protein.

It has a lot of vitamins and a lot of

things that benefit our immune system and it has a lot of protein. It builds a lot of muscle in us. Everyone's like protein shakes and whatever.

Eat different meats.

It will change it. Eat male animals. We don't eat male animals for some reason other than the castrated ones. Eat a bull every once in a while. We just don't do that in this country. We're just we don't because everything has to be mass produced. So Yeah.

Okay. You want higher testosterone levels like the rest of the country?

Diversify your diet.

Yep.

So I I got a question for you about

eating meat.

I read this thing about

when you do eat meat

and it is like pasture raised

or

Grass fed. Grass fed. The

nutrients from the actual grass are in the meat, so it's really good for you. That's why this mass production isn't good.

Also, because what are they fed? Like, grain.

Just the cheap stuff instead of

a natural

diet for these animals that we are

consuming.

I mean, is that true? Is that something that is real? Like, if I have a cow that is pasture raised out there,

it's better for you than a

a cow locked in a cage and fed grain all day.

Yeah. So I'm gonna sort of tiptoe my way to this answer because this is a big one that you just touched upon.

We have the the biggest drug in the world. The worst thing in the world for all humans is sugar. It causes cancer. It causes bad things. Okay. Is it good in light amounts? Sure. But the problem is there's nowhere in our food system where it's like you get off candy, there's still food in your processed foods.

There's still sugar in your french fries, whether you in in some places, they sweeten them even though you can't taste it because it gives that addictiveness

to eat more. Okay? It's a little trick they play in food. Put sugar in your pasta sauce. Look at your pasta sauce at the grocery store has sugar in it.

Okay? But here's the thing to answer your question.

Those animals are fattened up at the end of their life by sugar. Corn,

particularly high in sugar,

things that have high sugar ratios because they're high in carbohydrates

and they convert to build the animal bigger. Why? Because they get paid on weight. Doesn't matter if they're fat or it has more nutrient or whatever. And, again, animal fat's not bad. I don't wanna say that. I'm just saying

what's in that meat is sugar. And so even if we're cutting it out of our diet,

we're still getting it through the animals we eat. So the answer is yes.

When like cows,

we can't eat vegetables or grass and turn it into what cows turn it into for us. Okay? We can't turn

this stuff that pigs turn into really, really healthy things for us, really healthy fat,

really healthy meat, really healthy vitamins and nutrients.

We have to process it with with animals. They have to go through the animals to get to us. If we eat it directly

while it's still in there and we scientifically prove it's in there, so we're like, oh, it

has the vitamins in it I need. But our body does just because it has it in it, doesn't mean our body processes it or is efficient at processing it to get those minerals and vitamins and nutrients.

Okay?

So the animals are necessary to process that grass

for us into a form that gives us what we can't get from the grass by eating it directly.

Okay? Pals

are they have 4 stomachs. Okay?

Any animal that sort of eats grass like that breaks it down. 1st, pigs, they eat everything. Pigs do eat meat.

Okay? They are also carnivores.

To think that they are not is not true. Okay? They are aggressive animals,

especially when they're not necessarily so domesticated, but they will eat anything you put in front of them. Okay?

And so

that that is proper for this world. They will eat feces and process it into nutrients because I know everyone that scares everyone. But guess what? When I go to the bathroom,

I leave behind nutrients that my body didn't process. Okay? If the cat

that,

just like in the ocean, they certain fish eat other fishes poop and then we still eat them.

Shrimp and lobster are bottom feeders. What do you think, guys?

You know,

that you're paying for a lot of is processing poop.

Right.

You know? And turning it into something that has protein in it and that we eat and we get vitamins and nutrients add up. So

it's like

that type of thinking where we're like, oh, it's eating poop. It must be bad. It's going to muscle. No. It's processing it differently.

It and and the grass that we eat, it's from poop.

Right. Yeah. So it's from a lot of things dying. It's also from death. Death Yep. Animals goes into organic soil. Death of things, worms,

they die in the soil. Bugs,

you know, how many flies fall to the ground and die in a field? In your vegan field, you're eating that.

Yes. So and I again, it's not I I believe

I believe in the principle of

of veganism or vegetarianism

when it is aligned with saving our planet. I agree with that principle. But when we think it's saving the animals,

it's and I get it. Okay. I don't want to hurt an animal. Okay. That's a principle. That's your choice. Okay?

I don't think that that's something that is beneficial for humans as, overall. Okay? And if we think that we're gonna run out of food and vegetables are the answer, they are not the answer. Again,

nature already provided us the answers. We just need to mimic it. We need to simulate it. We need to make it. Nature already made everything compounding on one another

and made it work for tens of 1000 of years before our brains were ever big enough to figure it out.

Right. Mhmm. Right.

And, you know, I'm a believer in God. So God created this system

and we can either use our will to try to own it or control it, or we can use our will to try to make sure that it exists in the way that was intent.

Yeah. The shepherd.

And that that's our brains are our brains,

back to your point, because

they grew by having diversity homo

sapiens,

sapiens

were

the

ones

that

are

left.

Okay?

And if homo sapiens, sapiens were the ones that are left. Okay? And it's hard for people to believe this, but there were other humans that weren't us on this planet at one time. Okay? There was a diversity of that. Okay?

So in understanding that the reason we're the alpha now, we're the only ones left because our brains were big enough to figure out how to dominate all the other ones. Whether they were smaller than us, bigger than us, stronger than us, did not matter. We have the bigger brain. Okay? We have more developed brain. Why is that? It had to do with the areas we lived in

and it had to do with the diversity of our food.

So to take a step backwards knowingly

in evolution

and in what we were meant to be and again,

I'll just explain this to everyone.

I think God works doesn't see time the way that we do. So if he's working on a long term plan, he's adjusting.

He's not Oh,

yeah. I'm he's still figuring things out. So he's like, okay. I need a higher being. These look like the right type of beings. They're evolving.

Let's let's make it that way. I know that goes against Christianity or a lot of traditional thinking, but in actuality, if we really eat properly,

we are not stuck just as we are as humans. We can evolve

even more as humanity. We can de evolve also.

We can de evolve our legacy.

Keep

pushing non nutritional things into our legacies. Watch what happens, the compounding effect of obesity.

Watch what happens, the compounding effect of health and intelligence.

Okay? Intelligence is not only I'm born with it or genetics or whether I studied in school. It's also what I'm feeding my brain. Yeah.

Yes.

Grass fed, grass finished, the way the animals were intended to feed,

us eating the way we were intended to be fed.

So

I

I think that

as humans, we just need to be more aware of what's around us and where we come from and

don't and don't think we're smarter than the world around us. We're not. It's more complex than we than we are and why we figure it out scientifically.

The problem with science is we we figure out a very small, little, narrow

channel or street corner. Like, very few people actually think about how it all aligns together as a whole altruistically

and why it works.

Because I love science, don't get me wrong, but I'm also a business person. And in my life, I can become very narrow minded and very narrow focused. And that's what we're doing when we're trying to solve a problem here. Oh, let's create a superbug

that goes

and,

you know, a tick or a fly that helps with immunities with this animal. Okay. Now people have allergies to beef. Okay? Yeah. Yeah.

So why we don't need to mess with this. Okay?

Just because we're smart

in

in one industry doesn't mean we're smart and sued. No one, period, is smart and sued. The farmers have that are really good have figured out how to work within nature

to create food,

okay, to create things we can consume. But us,

we

we should not think that

3 crops are the answer or one crop's answer. Our plant based protein is the answer, it is not the answer.

The answer what's already been given to us. I know we think we can fix it or make it better. We can

make it better,

but it's not necessarily

ours to fix unless it's

recreating what already works.

Why are we denying what already works? And lastly,

vitamins that we get at the grocery store, all of those again are shortcuts. We're trying to shortcut our way through

yep. And most of the time, our body doesn't absorb them. Like, that's the thing. You spend a lot of money. You're getting, like, 20% maybe out of it, 30%.

Reason, our bodies aren't meant to absorb vitamins in that way. Right.

You know? Bunch of vitamins, you'll pee them out. You're but you can't take more than you need, but at the same time, you pee most of them out anyway.

Mhmm.

And I feel like we've kinda tiptoed around this, but I'm gonna ask it anyway because I wanna I wanna hear your answer

as far as who you think should be held

accountable

for all the things you mentioned, our ignorance, the lack of diversity,

the idea of these big companies, and,

trying to get just get the rebates. Like, who do you think is accountable for what's going into our food and what's happening with our food?

We are. We we are it's our buying power. It's how we choose every time we go to a restaurant, the restaurants we choose, the

institutions we choose. We're on we we sit on PTAs or parent

teacher

association

meetings. We sit in these things, and we're worried about what our kids are being educated in, but we don't worry about what they're fed or who's feeding them or who has the contract for those schools or the districts.

So who's in our hospitals?

Where is our voice?

Who's in our grocery stores?

We have the buying power. We pay the

food entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, we're

we are responsible. Whoever's in food industry,

who's ever in business, we are also the problem.

We are

being deceitful,

and we are being

dishonest.

And maybe it's not on purpose.

Maybe it's not knowing,

but we are,

for lack of a better term,

propelling the problem.

What do you mean?

I mean, we have a choice on what to serve in our restaurants. We have a choice on how to buy. We have a choice whether to deal with broadliners

or not. And by broadliners, I mean, mass distributors like US Yeah.

Cisco,

PFG, Performance Food Group, and we have a choice. So,

you know, I get it. It's about profitability and taking care of family. And I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, but we can find ways to educate the consumers

and we can find ways to better our food. There's plenty of businesses and farms that are doing very well

doing this.

So at the end of the day, I would say number 1, the consumer.

And then number 2, definitely the entrepreneurs, restaurateurs,

anyone in the food business, we have a huge responsibility.

And,

you know, if we really do care about the legacy of our families, fine. You don't care about every other human. Okay. We've become very eye focused. I get it.

But that's the that's the issue. Like, we don't ask the questions.

Either we're

afraid or it's so convenient to choose the food we have

that we just

do whatever. I mean, the chicken McNugget wasn't invented until like 1981.

You know? Invented.

Like, sorry. We and now, like,

the chicken nugget is a freaking food

group. You know? Yeah. For sure. Especially for kids. Yeah.

Like, what is going on here? Okay.

Simplicity. Kids like it. It tastes good. They have it has sugar in it. Like, come on.

Like,

you know? And so

there's things like that. We can talk about the government at the end of the day and everyone wants to point fingers and think it's the government's responsibility.

I just don't I don't believe that. I believe the government gets away with whatever we will allow them to. Okay?

Woo

hoo. Powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. True. I mean, I I do think a lot of it, though, it

to your point, we vote these people in, but it does have to do with government

because of overregulation

of farms and

things like that. And it's hard for

small farms to compete with these big big companies.

They have lawyers to

figure out if they're skirting the law and things like that, but I'm just Joe Schmo over here. I've got me a small dairy farm or whatever, you know, a small

pasture

raised cow farm.

That's all I do, but I can't compete with that guy

And I'm afraid that the government's gonna come at me because

I did something wrong. Well, I don't know. Whatever it is, it's messed up.

Your your cows fart too much. Yeah. Right. Exactly.

I'm not harnessing the farts

Yeah. To heat my house.

And people are cows and pigs, they're great. What do they do?

This is the thing they don't talk about is they actually

they actually sequester or put carbon back into the soil. Their hooves

are designed to put the carbon back into the soil. That pollution we're about,

there's no crop in the world that does that. Okay? It does not do it the way animals do with their hooves, with the manure,

with other animals. How about chicken? The nitrates that are in chicken poop. You need then the hooves of the animal to push that into the soil. You need the

chickens to pick out the bugs that don't help it grow. If we don't do that, we still need chemicals and pesticides.

Even if you think it's all natural,

you're still doing something that's unnatural by adding it to it.

So

it's it's just it's a it's like, oh, see what I'm doing over here so you don't see what I'm doing over here. You know? Man, plants are plants suck the nutrients out of the soil. Yeah. It's a circle.

It's a circle. Yeah. It's a circle. A 100%. So I think we're gonna switch gears here and kinda go towards your podcast. You have a podcast.

Yep. And it is, called Justin and the Food Entrepreneurs.

What episode is your favorite just in case, listeners wanna kinda check your podcast out after they hear this?

Man. That's a tough one. There's a couple. I mean, John's Farm is one of my favorites. They are a company. They are

many generation farmers. And in the nineties,

after

a horrible accident on their farm,

and sort of and this is their words, God coming into their life fully,

they switched to regenerative farming and organic farming. They're out of Oklahoma,

and we've done 3 episodes. It's very, very powerful story. So they're there.

I would also say that,

roll them up to ketos. His name's Sam

Sam Fonseca

Fonseca.

Sorry.

It's a little speech impediment there that I

and,

and he's just a very powerful entrepreneur

turned entrepreneur,

and he's built a lot of companies and helped a lot of franchises grow. And he's

recently

transitioning into being more altruistic minded and more,

but he does really well, and he helps a lot of people grow and he helps fulfill a lot of dreams. And then there's always, like,

companies like Nash Dogs who's, like, he's figuring things out. He's only 3 years old. We've done about 5 episodes.

But he's very driven, and he's very

altruistic in his mindset of helping his community and humans on it. So,

like, I generally like those episodes more. It's nothing against all of them. I I learned something from every episode I have.

But in in its entirety,

I really get a lot out of the individuals that are trying or realize that whatever they're doing is a vehicle to do better in this world. It's not necessarily something that defines them.

You know, it's the journey, not the the destination. Right? And so

food is a vehicle to better this world, to better the humans on it, to better the lives of the animals, the plants, however you wanna look at it, the insects,

whatever that is,

the bugs, the birds, the bees,

all of that matters with food.

Those are generally my favorite episodes. It used to be it's hard because they get better. I get better at,

the entrepreneurs that get better better on here. I know you guys know that. Like, at first, you're a freaking train wreck till first of all. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of editing to do at the beginning.

At the beginning.

Those days, I do not miss those days. Now it's like you can do it in one take. But Oh, yeah.

Like,

nope. Didn't happen.

And and it's also being good at your job. I think you guys are really good at is you don't the the person on the other side gets into a flow state or into a fluid state where

they're being more natural, and they're able to talk more naturally where there's not the stopping and starting. So Exactly.

Exactly. We try to keep it down down to earth, and

it's not like Yeah. We always say in in all of our show notes that we send to

prospects of interviews, we just say

natural flow. That's it. It it'll build organically. We'll figure it out as we go. There is

a process of editing. So if it does pause for 5 minutes, that's fine too.

We got this. It happens.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. I can't wait to listen to a couple of episodes that you just mentioned. Like,

everything that we've discussed today is things that Russ and I have talked about a lot a lot. Yes. It's it also feels like with our maturity, like, we have grown and are becoming more aware. Right?

So, yeah, I

I am very excited to Oh, yeah. Keep keep listening. But if you have one message so you have your podcast. You have a couple of them, actually, but pertaining specifically to food choices and back to the idea of consumers here. And you could guarantee that people would hear this message. What do you think it would be? What would you want people to know?

We get one shot at this. Even if there's an afterlife, you get one shot at this to make impact and influence in a positive way and not just with your children. You get one shot.

And the easiest way for anyone to do that, the everyday person,

is in the choices we make when we eat

and the food that we buy

and what we are teaching our children. If we're not educating ourselves, they're not educating themselves either on food.

And so,

you know, I think the message is we get one shot at this. And if you really wanna make an impact and have

impact, it's not donating money. It's not,

you know, volunteering somewhere. All of those things matter. I think you should should still do that. But if you wanna have real influence and you wanna have long lasting impact,

you know, because governments change, societies change, empires fall. That's the part of the way of the world. That's the history we'll tell you that. Nothing's guaranteed.

So

but our food systems are we've always eaten. It's always been a part of

religion.

So if it's like halal or

kosher,

those are just food safety plans that are brought into religion to keep people safe and healthy.

And

and

so if we look at things like that, like, at the end of the day,

the food matters. So I would say if I'm gonna truncate it,

it'd be we get one shot at this.

Food matters.

Wow. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. That that

I think, to me, it also resonates with go back to basics. So you don't have to have this grand blue sky plan. Right? Like you just said, it's

food. It's what we do every day. Like,

it's back to basics. Wow. I like that a lot. That was good.

So what what advice would you give a young entrepreneur

that is just beginning their their business

owning starting journey?

Yeah. It's 2 things. 1 is don't stop.

Even with failure, every failure is a lesson. Okay?

And don't listen to the statistics.

When they say 50% of the businesses fail,

it's a snapshot. That doesn't include the people that keep trying and eventually find

success. I think that that's the biggest one that I see people give up too soon or too easily or give up on their ideas.

It's just statistics are

there for data crunching, but they a lot of them are used for fear.

Okay? And

so and usually the people that are in a a fear state of mind are the ones who use that to say, you know, 50% of businesses fail.

Sounds like big businesses in

injecting their statistics in to keep you guys from

succeeding.

I mean, everything can be used for a reason, whether it's propaganda

or for it can any statistic can be tweaked to fit a message.

Yeah. You know what a a good statistic would be for what you were just saying is

how many

entrepreneurs

are successful

and have a business that is thriving

instead of saying 50% of businesses fail. Yeah. That dude tried 5 times, but now his 6th time, he's

running a successful business.

So he didn't give up. Let's

switch it to something like that instead of, oh, this dude failed. Well, no. He's he's fine now.

Well and

if you want I'm talking taking it back to my podcast. If you look at the Greenberg

Bagels episode out of Brooklyn, New York,

he failed

3 times in the restaurant game before he got Greenberg Bagels. Now he has Valentine's Pizza. Now he has Brooklyn's best

iced tea company that's in, like, one of the fastest growing beverages companies in the country, I bet.

And so,

okay, he failed 3 times. So, yeah, he was that statistic, the 50% until he wasn't.

Exactly.

And it's like,

oh, you are 100%

that statistic when it's you. So what does the statistic really matter? No. It doesn't. It's whatever it is. If you're failing, you're 100% on the side, the 50% that failed. If you're succeeding, you're 100% on the side that's succeeding. But at some point, there is no road

that's paved in gold. It does not

do not find success without

even when you have successful businesses and you're growing your business, you have extreme failures. You can have businesses that are decades old that fail. Governments change, regulations change. They can fail. So

the the thing that I would say the other point I would make to everyone is

principles.

Build your businesses off of principles,

not personalities,

not being cool,

not trying to bring your buddies or your family into there or their personalities. Like,

make sure you actually bring people into your business that have good character,

that have good principles,

that align with the principles that you have for your businesses.

Because at the very beginning stages, we're so focused about getting money and growing.

We don't worry about the soft skills, and those soft skills are often what leads to that 50%

of loss. It's not whether you're a good entrepreneur or not. It's not whether or not you're a great entrepreneur.

If you're a young person that has everything to do with that support system and the principles of the individuals

who are in your support system, who you choose to be in a relationship with,

how you choose your relationship with your parents, how you choose your relationship with your siblings,

how you act as a human.

All of that dictates whether you succeed or not. It's just not oh, it's a luck thing. It's not luck.

It's not luck. 50% succeeding or 50% failure has nothing to do with luck. It's not true.

It has everything

to do with principles,

character,

discipline,

the people we surround ourselves with. And if you're in a bad relationship and you're trying to start a business, you're gonna have a bad business. Period. It's just the way it is. You are a reflection

in your business.

The business as an entrepreneur is a reflection of you. Yeah. The people that lead will ultimately lead just like you.

So

if you don't figure it out at a young age and you wanna be a good entrepreneur, the first thing you need to do is and Ben Franklin has a great method. Read his autobiography.

He built his character over a lifetime,

a really strong character.

He has a guideline in there to do it. There's other ways to do it. There's things like 75

hard that that help individuals really get that in check.

But

I would say that don't give up,

discipline your support system,

and grow your character,

and make sure you're modeling a good human.

Because if you're a bad human or if you're doing bad things or

cheating in one part of your life, but you're like, oh, I'm a good businessman. I do that outside of my business. No. That's gonna be reflect back in your business. You're gonna track

those type of bad

things in your business. And even if you're doing it on a minor scale, because you're the leader, it's gonna exemplify and magnify, and you're gonna have a lot of individuals who bring that into your business.

Right. They're not nice to humans here and there. They're gonna be really not nice to humans in your business. For sure. So

Wow. No. I think I'm gonna use some of those sound bites whenever we do a podcast

related to toxic workplaces, and we'll have you back to really dive into the entrepreneurial stuff as well. I mean, we went on

about your food experience, but

this is almost like where the culture of the world is today. Right? The idea of people who own businesses and what the company culture is and then the toxicity that may come out of it if they don't have the principles like you're saying. Like,

that is where we're at as a society.

Yeah. Yeah. More and more work environments are toxic.

Again, it's an individual responsibility. It's me as the worker not to be entitled or play a victim all the time. For sure.

And we all have bad shit. We're all human. Not one's worse than the other. A toothache is a toothache to the person that has it. Okay?

So

the problem is is we've brought that all into our workplace and it negatively impacts the environment. It negatively

impacts the humans involved. It negatively impacts the humans' families who are involved, and it it crushes dreams. To be perfectly frank, it crushes legacies

for the people, the employees, or the team members, and the businesses. So,

yes, I would say that

in a weird way and and division and and disruption,

it plays a lot of part of it in society right now. But, yes, we live in a

business.

Absolutely.

Alright. Well

Now we got some fun ones. Yeah. Let's move on to the fun stuff. We got some fun questions and not not so serious.

What would you do tomorrow if you won $10,000,000

tonight? You said it right that time. I'm proud.

That's a good one.

I would say that

I don't know. It's different for me. I think probably a lot of people think about how they would spend it or buy or whatever. I don't know. It's an interesting question. I read it in the pre questions too, and it did it's It's one of those things that stumps me a little bit because

I'm an investor. I invest in myself,

mainly. And so I would put through $10,000,000.

I'd figure out a way to

make it work because it was a gift to me. If I suddenly wanted, I would feel like I owed it back,

that I didn't earn it.

And so that would be difficult for me.

Right. Like, having earned it would be,

gosh, it would be a blessing, but at the same time, I feel like it's a curse. So I would have to put it to use in some way that would benefit other people or give back to the world around me. Even if that's a business and creating jobs,

I don't think I would use it for myself. I think I would be very intentional

about how I

invested that money or used it and for the gift that was given.

And mainly,

right now, I think a lot of that would have to do with farming

or

food

for sure

and,

or investing in

TV shows or

YouTube things that are educating the world. I think education and exporting knowledge is pretty important around food right now

and figuring out ways to do that. But ultimately,

I'd figure out a way of not giving it away to someone else to do whatever they wanted with it because I don't think that works.

I'm a firm believer in why are we giving mosquito nets

to countries when we should be teaching them how to produce their own mosquito nets and building

economies

and businesses. You know, because once you do that, then there's a place for lawyers. There's a place for accountants. There's a place for supply.

So

it's more of that that I would do. I would create things that allow ecosystems

around business to form because

in that capitalist world,

especially in places that are struggling around the world, the answer is not

donations. The answer is

handouts. It's it's just temporary solution.

It makes you feel good for the second.

Yep. It does make things work in the long run. We're not creating long work solutions. We're not creating ownership of businesses. We're not creating 401 k plans to retire off of. We're creating, oh, here's some mosquito net. I feel good. I'm the rich country or the rich person or

the person I need to feel better about themselves. So I'll give money so someone else does the work I should be doing myself.

So I think that ultimately you if anyone wins anything or any gift is given,

you really have to think about

how you give back for what you received. Because

I used to have a friend that used to go around and help manage the money of lottery ticket winners.

And it was always interesting to me, the ones who saved it right away or put it into an account right away or had it trickle out over years

were much better at managing the money. The ones who want to spend it and became very focused on it and didn't think it was a gift or appreciate why it was given to them, or maybe there was a greater reason it was given to them, lose it in a few years. Like, they don't hold off. And so

in this case,

I would say that winning that, like, it would be a lot about focusing on

it's not about buying a car or a house or whatever. It's about, I need to make this money work for me. Maybe I benefit from the aftermath

in some ways, of course, profitability and stuff like that. But I think ultimately

you have to put it to work.

It works for you. You gotta go make it work for the world because the world gave it to you. Yep.

You're so philosophical with your answers.

Indoor farming is a big one. Like, the I mean, I would probably invest in in more in that. I mean, that's, in diversity

farming. We need more of it. We need more examples of it. $10,000,000 doesn't buy you a lot in that field,

but I think that that's a big part of it too. How do you educate people? How do you tell them the story of food, really, from what is really the story of the broccoli you're eating?

What's its story?

You know? There's so much about human stories or watching animal plant, but what's really the story of the food? What does it go through to get to us?

You know?

Mhmm.

For sure.

Oh. Alright. I think our final question is,

where can people find you and your businesses? What is your web presence if you have a local place that people can stop by and check out your

your food and

whatever else?

Yep. I do everything off of Instagram,

and Facebook mainly, so that would be the place to find me.

As I'm rebuilding,

I would say, we talk about the companies I have transitioned.

Business partners got out.

We sold a lot of companies over over the years, got out of a lot of businesses, had a couple businesses that didn't do so well on COVID.

So

I ventured out on my own. I don't have the same business partners anymore. I have a different group of people. I've changed my support system to go back to what everyone's talking about.

This is gonna be a long winded answer, and you just wanted me to spit out a few things.

But it's, it's a little bit like I'm in a rebuilding phase.

You can find me online at Justin Bizzaro, b I, double z, a, double r, o, as you see there if you're watching online.

But that's where I do everything. We're slowly building a web presence, but

right now, we're having trouble keeping up with the business and the interest we are having without doing any marketing or advertising. I mean, that's just because the partners I have in in the business I'm in.

And, additionally,

I am working on a TV show that's talking about what we're talking about. It's called Zootopia,

and it is a TV show that will go around is going around the world and telling the story of food from the farmers to the entrepreneurs and restaurateurs,

and locally sourcing and working with your local

sources, but it goes to cities all over the world. And if everything goes according to plan, we'll do 18 seasons

over 12 years and cover a majority of the cities in the world and

tell the story of food through really those cities. Because,

again, locally sourcing is really important and it's really important our local economies and ecosystems.

It's more important than we think. And I'm not saying that take CVS down or take Walgreens down or whatever, but I just think

consciously

when it comes to food, we have to be very aware of where it comes from. So,

to answer the question, I right now,

I I have a company. We do Freedom Foods. It's rebuilding food service for hospitals and stuff like that. You can find that online.

You can find Gorilla Brave, which is a group of food entrepreneurs that we are putting together that see the world in the way that I'm talking about. We are leading

in the altruistic way. There are I'm not the only one who has this vision or sees

the way, especially if you've been ensued

from a young age and you're

about 40 some years old or late thirties and been in the food game or your family's been in the food game your whole life,

you start you really start to see what's happening. So there's that.

Again, Foodtopia, and then I have the podcast, which I have many, but the main one is just in the food entrepreneurs.

So you can find all of those online by typing it in, but you can also find

access to those by just following my Instagram at justinbissarro.

Yeah. And we'll we'll include all the links to all this good stuff in the in the show notes so that it's you don't have to try to type and listen at the same time while you're driving.

Yeah. And I'm a base

human. Like, I build relationships,

you know, so it's more about building relationships. So anyone wants to reach out to me, I'm happy to talk to you and

give you my time and and

communicate and whatever who who's out

thing is not

necessarily advertising and marketing,

as much as it is, you know, building relationships, relationship development,

and then managing those relationships

and being honest and open and

vulnerable and authentic in those relationships.

So and caring about people. And so many people are a quick dollar.

You know?

So Yep. That's where you can find me.

You can find me doing some business somewhere. It's hard to keep track of them.

Alright.

Well, I I appreciate you. We appreciate you for,

for for coming on and volunteering to do this. Well, this is very insightful.

I think our listeners will enjoy this a lot. We've had some fitness people on here and

other restaurant tours on here, so it's definitely aligning with with the audience. So, yeah, we appreciate you. Big time. Absolutely. And I believe we are gonna have to invite you back. Definitely.

I'm always up for part twos. That's why I do part twos on mine. It's gotta be a continuing story, not just a snapshot.

That's right. Yep. We can't hit it all in 1, but

we're gonna

try for part 2. But

no. But seriously, thank you so much for coming on, and I've enjoyed all of our conversations. I know Russia said he did too, so we can't thank you enough. Thank you, guys. I appreciate you guys, and I appreciate you guys doing this and giving everyone a voice. It's really important in the world, so I appreciate.

If you have any other suggestions for guests, we're all ears too. Yes.

I send some people your way for sure. Awesome.

That was a good one. Yes.

Insights into the food

industry and

entrepreneurship

is always fun. Don't don't look at me funny.

I don't know. You said that right. Entrepreneurship?

That's a hard ship? It's hard to say.

It's a stupid English word. They should redo it. No. That's a good one.

No. But I feel like it's things that you and I talk about all the time. Like, with the especially when we had our daughter, I feel like we became more aware

of

what we were feeding her. Right?

Like, understanding that fruits and vegetables should be included in every meal. And not just fruits and vegetables, but all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Just because you ate a tomato, that's not

good. Or you eat a tomato every day.

The point is that I think Justin was making is to diversify

your diet Yes.

And include many different types. Yeah. And

it's crazy too how

when you eat a cow that has been pasture grazed,

you gain the nutrients that they

receive from eating grass and stuff. Right. To an extent, like Justin said Well because they're digesting it in a way that we never could. Yeah. We can't eat grass. Right. We would

get blockages. We would throw up. We I mean, it could probably kill you if you ate grass like a cow did.

Right. Cow.

Words. Yeah. But he it was a very good episode. Just make sure you check out his links in the show notes,

and he's got a multiple podcast. And I want him back. Oh, yeah. He he'll be back for sure. We will definitely invite him back to the show shortly.

Love you.

Thanks for listening to the Unholy Union podcast. For more Unholy Union content, check out our social media at Unholy Union cast on Instagram and Twitter. We also have Facebook and TikTok.

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