472: Anna Vocino—Eat Happy

it's certainly possible that listeners Chuck have heard her name in Vogue in prior episodes.

“Yes, 100%, probably with a fellow by the name of Vinny Tortorich.”

No sugar, no grain. It is a drum beat that I first heard on this podcast. I don't know

a few years back. I've been aware that sugars bad. I know that grains are not great. I do believe that the food pyramid was in fact among the great lies, foisted upon the great unwashed. And I bought it, and a lot of people grew up with it, and it's just extraordinary to me how long it's going to take, how slowly perceptions and beliefs, how long it takes for them to unravel. Yeah, but I think they're unraveling quicker

and quicker nowadays. I think a lot of people are aware that seed oils are bad. I think a lot of people are getting the idea that, you know, that your cooking utensils should not have a coating on it that you can scrape off stuff like that stuff. Yeah. Well, you know, Vinny

spoke very highly of Anna because she's basically his co-hosts. She was his producer for a

“long time. Right. Right. And that's what is that called? Was his fitness confidential? Fitness”

confidential, yes. Yeah. And so I've been meaning to have her on for a long time because I got her cookbook. And her cookbook is very popular in my little house. It's called Eat Happy, which is what we're calling this episode as well. And I really like her philosophy. A lot. You know, it's not about counting carbs. It's not about weighing things. It's not. It's a balanced look at the choices that we can make and the reality of putting better

stuff in our bellies than we currently are doing in a rational way. But what I like even more is that she makes her living in voice over. Yeah. She's got a great voice. She's silky smooth. And she's funny. Yeah. And she's smart. And she's building a brand. So this

“is a conversation, I think, with something, look, if you're an entrepreneur or entrepreneur”

curious, if you've ever wondered about how the voice over business really works and most importantly, if you'd share my addiction to chewing and swallowing things, this is a really fun conversation. She was so generous with her time. And she brought gifts. She brought a lot of gifts, not only did she bring wine from her area in the Santa Barbara area, but also she brought these pasta sauces, which I have been buying since I met Anna, I didn't

meet her, but since I first talked to her like two years ago, you know, I've been buying

her sauces ever since. They're really good. Her puttanesca, my favorite is her Arobiata, you know, and now she just introduces to these cheesy crispy crunchy cheese bites. Yeah. Listen to that. Yeah. Sometimes you just need a little crunch. He's happy with Anna Vocino right after this. So my friends, if you're talking, have been sending me customer feedback from consumeraffairs.com, where thousands of people rate and review the top wireless

providers here for instance, is a nice note from James and Raleigh North Carolina, who writes, quote, after hearing Mike Rose add, we made the switch to pure talk and we couldn't be happier. We went from spending $1200 a year with tea mobile to $420 with pure talk. Thanks, Mike. Switch today, exclamation point. If I'm doing a math right, it sounds like pure talk is saving James, $820 a year. And because he literally wrote the words,

switch today in capital letters with an exclamation point, I'm going to go ahead and dedicate this commercial to him. So folks, take it from James in Raleigh, North Carolina. Pure talk can give you unlimited talk, text and plenty of data for just 25 bucks a month. You'll get the same 5G service that big guys are currently over charging you for. And this satisfaction that comes from doing business with a company that handles all of its customer service

in this country. I switched to pure talk a year ago. I'm totally satisfied, but who cares about me? James from Raleigh, North Carolina, has also switched and he's saving a fortune. You will, too. Go to pure talk.com/row and you'll save an additional 50% off your first month at pure talk.com/row. Thanks, James.

Okay, I brought you a cab, so I'm glad.

Great. You like cab frogs. You like the GSM's. Great. Me too. Just go back from France to me. Do you chat to enough to pop, Burgundy, the whole, it was, that's a good one. Dude, it was a sick itinerary. If you ever go to France and you want to do that, tell me. I'm going to tell you the itinerary. Have you found last bottle? No. Oh, good. Are we rolling? Let's get sake of that. Define rolling. Oh dear. Well,

you know what, I wasn't going to share this because it's like one of the great finds, but last bottle is a website. And they make really high-end wine available in a super limited way for a very short window. Okay. So I just got a, a lightweight. I think. Great. It's like a 360 dollar bottle of wine for $39. And they, I think, and they're like,

we, you can get a case. We have 20 cases of this. So who first come for serve? They don't tell

you how much they have because it goes fast. Yeah. You know, it's such a, yeah. It's such a classic supply and demand thing. Wine is, it's so crazy. This is an about you know, by the way. She knows everything about wine. Everything about food. I don't know everything about wine. I'm just learning still. See what you did was just tacitly confirm that you do know everything about food, which is ingenious. Wow. Thank you. You're welcome. You're doing the reverse.

I don't know. I feel like you, you psyched me up, bro. Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, I think we call it a compliment in the business. Not left handed or underhanded, but really a participatory serendipitous. I throw it over the net. You hid it back and it ultimately redounced to your benefit. I was going to say win win, except there's nothing in it for me. All I've

done so far is plug second bottle, which I shouldn't have done and kiss up to you. Just

believe it. Believe it in posts. Do we still believe stuff, Chuck? Yeah. We believe stuff. You just, fantastic. We believe. We believe. I don't know. We don't, we don't believe shit. We know. We're, we know. She's okay. They put, they say shit on all the nasty lady parts. We do. We don't, we definitely believe that. All right. So folks, it's all out of our system now. Prepare, strap in for g-rated conversation. All right. I have been wanting, um, what, been wanting to meet

you, um, and talk to you. I have been wanting to meet you and talk to you. So the feel is

“mutual. Why? Because. Say something I said about me for a chance. Here's the thing. I'm”

going to change it up and say something nice about you. I want to thank God. Um, you are such a fantastic conversationalist. And I listened to you for years. And I think to myself, oh my God, if only I had the chance to have a conversation with this man. And then today, Chuck calls me today is here. I'm like, it's happening. Yeah. What if I screw it up? And we'll, we'll let you know. That's okay. Thank you. But later. Yeah, full disclosure. Somebody

canceled. We knew you were closed. Oh, no, I know. Did you really tell you that? I have a career based on people either not being available, canceling. That's how I got to voice promos for NBC for years. Love it is because the woman was not available. And they were like, well, we need to have a lady in there. Well, I got the job. You obviously know the answer of this because if you're not the queen of the voiceovers, you're certainly in the Royal

Court. But, um, Don La Fontaine was a producer for Paramount. Yes. And he, his talent

“didn't show up for a movie. And that's how we got in a world. One man. He, a cookbook.”

He guessed it on a show, a woman with a mission. She's so ungrossy stores. It doesn't work when I do. It works when you do it. Thank you. I had to do other things. To make, you know, ladies and voiceover, we get accused of being too shrill. So we have to like make sure that, you know, that is, you know, what is a criticism? I don't think it's fair. Of course not. But I'm not entirely sure. It's grossly inaccurate. Right.

What do you mean? Sure. There you go. Do you remember? I think one of the greatest reads in the history of commercial voiceovers on the female side of the fence. Yes. Had to be Sally Kellerman. Oh, my God. For Hidden Valley Ranch. We talked about Sally Kellerman recently. So it's funny that you bring that up. Yes. She had a fantastic voice and you wanted to buy that ranch. Hidden Valley, D. John Ranch. Just right on the edge of dirty.

If you go back and listen to the voiceovers for ads back in the day, they sound ridiculously

“cheesy. Like now we have to have this thing where we're not really sold to. You have to”

make it sound like it's conversational. Right. Right. Right. Right. Like the vocal fry and vanilla float. And like those all that stuff. Whoa. Wait. What? The millennial. That is from my friend Nancy Wilson, credit to her. Uh-huh. The millennial float where you no longer will say

We're not committing. Throw it away. Yeah. Yeah. Throw it away. You tell me maybe you do. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. I'm not even Italian. I can't even eat. I'm not attached to if you buy my product that we're advertising to you currently. I listen. I heard a movie trailer the other day for the exercise. I was online. Like an old movie trailer and this really chuck you'll appreciate this too. Yeah. Something like that. I've heard that recently as well. We kind of

live in this world and I'm drawn a blank on the guy's name but they were doing something back in the 70s around horror movies that was ingenious and they weren't leaning into like they weren't doing the spooky thing and they weren't, you know, it was like a newscaster. But they were all newscaster reads them. Yeah. But for this horror movie, like when you watch, when you see her head spin around, right, and all the green vomits flying through the air,

and the guy is saying, you know, it's a catastrophe unlike anything the church had ever seen. I love the pregnant pause after church. Every, you're just like, you know what? It just brought a level of very similitude to it. Thank you for saying very similitude. You're welcome. And it just

“reminded me, you know, that was, I don't know, I think too many people have fallen too much in love”

with their voice and less enamored of the message they're simply trying to impart. Oh, you try to met as an issue with voice over in general. Yes. Yes. And hopefully a good director will bring you out of that and to the performance that should happen. How often does that happen with you?

How often does that happen with you? How often does it direct or make you bad? Here's what I've noticed.

The thing you do to get the job is not the thing you're going to do in the job. So they say every piece of copy, which, by the way, full disclosure, I've been doing this 25 30 years and I don't even read specs anymore. Maybe I might glance just to see, I kind of just vibe it. Yeah. When you any piece of copy, this is non-announceary. Make sure you're talking to your friend, all those things that are loosely veiled instructions to not suck. They just want you to

not suck. We're suck less. So I suck less, right? We can live with a certain and then they say, it's got to be, it's got to be read like you're talking to your friend really off the cuff. We want somebody who's wrong. They always say, we want raw. Okay. And then they write, you know, clean your toilet, squith, dow, chemical or whatever the thing is, you know, and they write the most salesy copy and you're like, we what? And now it used to be you would go into a room

and you'd have an engineer, maybe there's a director in there. Somebody would be directing, even for your audition, you'd go to your agent's office and someone would be a booth engineer,

“directing you. Now you're by yourself, you have to be your own director, your own engineer,”

your own talent. And you have to figure out how to read this and go, oh, God, like how am I going to say, clean your toilet with dow chemicals, plug for dow chemicals. They do make a tell of the chemical. With dow chemicals. And now they're making toilets, too. Are they? They've got, oh yeah, yeah, poop in your dow chemical toilet and then clean it with this with dow chemicals. Now like you're talking to a friend. Okay, hey friend, do you poop in a toilet that's not a dow chemical toilet?

We'd like you to please buy dow chemicals toilet so you can poop in that dow chemical. Okay,

they're, we're now where you're canceled by dow. Here's when I, you know what, they've never,

I don't even think we ever had a shot at getting a sponsored thing. You don't think dow chemical, no, not with doing a lot of things for this whole. Never happen. Yes, the dites from dye

“you. They're from Delaware, by the way. So yeah, well, they, that's why you know why there's no sales”

tax in Delaware. Do pond pays at all. They do ponds or thinkers, okay? They plan the long game. They plan the long game. Plan the long game with to ponds. With to ponds. We don't have to make dome toilets like dow does. Or clean them. That's why we poop in a hole, to ponds. We're for Delaware. Okay, I, I went to school in Delaware before. I love you, Delaware. Sorry. Here's where I knew. Well, two quick thoughts. One is doing voiceover as Chuck and I did for decades.

Sure gets different when you get famous. Sorry. Oh, of course it does. Wow. I mean,

it's just, there's no more. Oh, every you do is gold. It's just amazing. It's just gold. Oh my god.

It's just incredible. And then you, they get to say on the links out in East Hampton. Well, we had Mike Row on the forward thing. And then there's not great. No, because for you, chippy or whatever, you know, you're happy to other on the back. So that's good. But there are people like me who are the journeymen voice actors who I've been very lucky to make a living doing it. And I've done worked every contract. I think that there is, um, except for if they have a separate contract for

you might be old enough to remember the spice channel. Yes. I totally. I did the promos spice channel.

“You did? Yeah. Of course you did. Yeah. Yeah. And but they weren't like super dirty. They were just,”

no, they can't be. They were poorly written and just cheeky. You know, when Jane had a problem with the fireplace, Frank came by. Frank was very thorough. And Jane did not expect to get her ashes hold. Yeah. And, you know, and like all of that. Yeah. Yeah. But Jane did. But Jane did. I'm involved in this story now. Jane was a sport. I'll say. Here's where I knew we were. Quite a Wendy Jane. I go.

She gumbi. When the disclaimer on the pharma spot gets into 40, 42 seconds. Territory. So you got an ad for my voice, those. Yeah. They have that voice. I have a very like, you know, stop taking this thing if it causes made a leakage. Could cause any of the pair's doses or whatever that part of your body is. I do a lot of medical things. I don't know what I'm

“saying. When does, uh, when does anal leakage morph toward or away from just common diarrhea?”

You're going to have to have a doctor on to answer that question. Because that's the other thing. I do voiceover and I'll read a script. I'll be like, well, I know everything about that topic now.

Because I read the script. Well, it is amazing. Isn't it how we can create the illusion of

knowledge and short bursts based on the last thing we narrated? Well, did you used to do this in your career? If somebody ever says, like, hey, that's easy. What you're doing. You're just talking. You look for opportunities to get them to try to read copy and then can't do it. You're like, okay, there's my job insurance. That look, it's, you know, we, you still don't do a lessons. Do you check. No, I don't teach anymore. I stopped during COVID. A lot of things. I'm seemingly

impossible. I'm seemingly. Yeah. To be teaching voiceover during COVID. Yeah. According to my friends over at Zimper Cruder, the latest trend in recruitment is skills based hiring, which emphasizes practical hands-on capabilities over degrees and diplomas. This is not the place to say, I told you so. Though I am tempted, I've been predicting a skilled trade's Renaissance for over a decade now. And it's finally happening. But since this is a commercial

for Zimper Cruder, I'll just remind you that Zimper Cruder uses smart screening questions to help you home in on the candidate with the skills you're looking for. And right now, you can try it for free at zimpercruder.com/row. Again, when Zimper Cruder finds you a qualified candidate in just 24 hours or less, I'm not going to say I told you so. Even though I've been telling you that very thing for nearly 10 years now, I'll just remind you, again, that you can

add Zimper Cruder's screening questions directly to your job post. That's a game changer.

You'll get the highest quality applicants this way, which is why four out of five employers who post on Zimper Cruder get a quality candidate with the skills they're looking for in one day.

“That's why I predicted that Zimper Cruder would eventually become the number one rated hiring”

site on G2, which they now are. Don't you so? Now quit wasting time and post a job for free at zimpercruder.com/row that zimpercruder.com/row. The smartest way to hire what's going to happen with AI? It's bad. Who wasn't even an Indian, by the way. He was Italian. He was Sicilian, I think. That's probably why you know him. You're a talent right? Yeah, we all know each other.

Yeah, Ironized Cody was the sad Indian who stood by the side of the road in the 70s for the Keep America Beautiful Campaigns when a large container of trash landed at his feet. He had the little lip going to. Yeah. He really was so up about it. Yeah, that's what the kids say. We're going to get to the reason you're here, but but why? Well, I'll tell you why. Okay, because nutrition is universal. Food is certainly the great United and you're building a brand.

I am. And the brand that you're building is going to rely in large part on your ability to talk about it. That's true. It's a communicated and a crisp, well-modulated alto. Meg and your sales director is here nodding furiously in the background because do we need to strike her from your eye line? No, okay. I'm just checking. I didn't even see her. I'm just assuming she is. Yeah. No sales director could sit quietly in the midst of that and not nod.

They are. Right. Brand building isn't an epic journey of communicating to people why they should buy

“your stuff when there's all sorts of other things they could be buying. Yes, Vinnie and I got into that.”

If I didn't mention it in the preamble and how would I know because I haven't recorded it yet, but Vinnie Tortorich is a frequent guest and you are highly recommended on account of him because you still are doing his part. Yes, we do the Monday show every week. We've been doing it for 13 years and I'm this original producer of the fitness confidential podcast. I was podcasting back when we had to

update XML code in 2008 to 2012, but we'll 2012 we finally had WordPress plugins. But yes,

I was podcasting back in the day and he called me and he said, I can't turn on a computer but we in more is told me I needed to get a podcast in order to release my book and Nancy, who I mentioned earlier with millennial floats, said you know how to do podcasts and I was like Vinnie, no, like no, what I know and I only knew him from working out with him, which is a great trainer by the way. Give me the millennial float again real quick. I was like Vinnie, no.

You know what? Like from a punctuation standpoint, the millennial float really relies heavily on the ellipsis. The ellipsis or an M-dash apparently now, but now an M-dash is indicative of using

chat GPT. I just got attached to the M-dash. Walk me through the M-dash? I'm not clear.

Just the little hyphen. I call it a hyphen. Where the letters touch on the either side. Yes, that's the M-dash. And the one I correct on your, your stuff. Oh, that's the one you take it away from him. No, no, I give him the M-dash, but it's like two dashes. Is that the M-dash? No, it's one solid dash. The end of a word in the beginning of the list. All right, people should know. But why do they call it the M? I don't know. I didn't know what it was.

And now I know what it is. It's a hyphen. Yeah, we're a dash. What's the, I'm Gen X. We call it a hyphen. I want to understand the difference between a dash, a hyphen, and an M-dash. And in the meantime, I'll talk about the Vinnie origin story. What you guys? I do want to hear that, but I just something, here's a symbol. I don't, are you familiar with with the interabong? Oh, the interabong is fantastic. I was so excited a couple years ago,

because I thought I had found a grammatical, or a bit of punctuation that wasn't represented by a symbol. And what I'm trying to impart is a combination of surprise and a long interrogation. And question. Okay. Like, so like an explosive. What would happen if you took it? It's a explosive question mark. Yes, or a statement that embodies equal parts, surprise. So I have to hear you ask. I have to do a question mark and an exclamation point when I feel those feelings.

“Well, that's what it is. And interabong, it's a question mark incorporated into an exclamation point.”

It's an actual thing. It's one. Yes. It's one, it's one-winged thing. Chuck, when you have a moment, if you could get us an interabong. I can only do one thing at a time. Here's your, I'm going to put this up here and you could read it and I'll learn. A hyphen is the shortest for compound words like well-known full-time job. Oh, it's an end-dash. En. No. It says n-dash is shorter. About the width of the letter n used for ranges.

And look at that. Yeah, the end-dash is long. Oh, and that is the Em. The Em-dash. That's what I was referring to. The width of the letter m. Okay. So folks, if you want to use a short dash, I guess you would go with a hyphen, a slightly longer dash, is the En dash about the width of an n as a nancy that we keep mentioning. And M, Em, that's a hyphen with the letter m as a mic. You get the longer dash. Congratulations.

So, in order to transition smoothly and live up to the other day. I love the same way that you described. Yes. Okay. Well, as AI completely up ends, the voice over business. And we are ushered into a new state of skepticism where we can't tell the difference between that, which is artificial and authentic. I do believe an honest brand, like the one you're trying to build, is going to become super relevant. And I also think honesty and food, recipes, everything you in video have been

doing is going to become hyper relevant. And since we're at the beginning of another year in everybody's fast. Yeah, every new year, new year, new you right now, great love it. So having said

“all of this. Yes. Thank you. I think I can justify the last 18 minutes.”

A plus. Okay. A plus segue. Now let's move into things. You know, the AI stuff, I always said,

and voice over, age out. And that bummed me out. And that kind of this confluence with me getting

diagnosed with celiac in 2002 and starting to figure out what the hell can I eat? I can't have gluten. What can I eat, right? And 2002 was a time that gluten free wasn't really in the lexicon. We weren't really having that conversation. It wasn't, wasn't didn't even have time to have a backlash at that point. Was gluten even a thing? I don't think so because I really had to do a lot of explaining to people. Whole Foods in Pasadena had this little end cap with some gluten free cookies,

like with some with some legacy brands like Pamela's and Annie's and things like that. And I bought this $17 bag of cookies. Because I was like, well, I can have these and back then, you know, that was a lot of money. My husband, I were young artists and we're like broke AF and...

“Excuse me, but that's your entire bog right there. That is shocking. Isn't that beautiful?”

It's a thing. That looks real thing here. I know. It looks like in here, it's simply, if you're not watching folks, visualize an exclamation point with a question mark going over the top of it, but then coming down to merge before the dot at the bottom. I, that is shocking, but it's also not in the Apple keyboard yet. No, can you? Can you be responsible? I think if I could set a goal for you? Sure. I want this to be like on your Wikipedia page that Mike Rose was responsible

for the in-for-a-bomb for a period into keyboards in the quality keyboard. Yeah, because look, somebody did the hard work, somebody actually signed that. It's right. So why is it not on a keyboard? And you, when you start looking for it, like a brain does this for everything, right? It finds whatever you tell it's a look for. If you start looking for phrases or moments in your own phraseology, that incorporate that mix of questioning with excitement, you're going to start using

the interabong all over the place. I've been using two different characters and imagine the time saving, I'm busy. I'm building a brand. I don't have time to type. I don't have time for two folks to enjoy more. So yeah, so I bought the $17 bag of cookies and tasted like absolute dog shit and I went up having my terror moment of like, I, well, I will figure out how to make yummy cookies. So help me God. And I did. And then working on camera and working in the entertainment

industry, I was eating all this gluten free stuff and putting on weight and putting on weight and by the way, when I was coming up in Hollywood, there was your character actor or you were, you know,

on junior lead actress. There wasn't a lot of wiggle room. So I would always start with myself, so I could

go be the mom on the commercial on whatever. You were either a question mark or an excellent collaboration point. So there was a little bit of that and then stuff obviously is loosened up

“about now we see all different kinds of body shapes on TV, which I think is an amazing thing and”

a wonderful thing. The mindset messes with folks a little bit. I think of us older generation. So I met Vinny Torterich in, he was training me and he said, I don't know how to turn on a computer. Please give me this podcast and he said, I wrote this book, Fitness Confidential, plug. And he still holds up, by the way. It does. He sent it to me and I read it on a girl's trip on my iPhone 3 and when I couldn't sleep, we were in Hawaii and I was reading it a little PDF,

page by page and it was so good and I begrudgingly said, yes. And that completely changed the course

of my life. Why begrudging? I don't know. I've never been one of those people who's like,

you know, the phrase like, if it feels like a hell, yes, unless it's a hell, yes, it's a hell, no. I'm not. There have been some times where it felt like a hell, yes, but for the most part of like, I don't know, I guess I'll do it. Hell, maybe. Hell, maybe. Millennial float, you know. I don't know. So, but that was one of those things and then I said, okay, well, if we're going to produce it Vinny, here's how it's going to go because we're going to do drop-ins and sound

effects because he comes from the radio world in the 80s and I was like, no, we're not doing any of that. We're going to turn on the mic because we did three shows a week in my garage, every Sunday in North Hollywood. We're going to do, we're going to turn on a mic and we're going to talk, sorry, 2000 win. This is 2012. Okay, 12. Yeah. Turn on the mic, turn it off, turn on the mic three times every Sunday. So this is like when Rogan is on, yeah, yeah, slap on music, that's it.

I am not producing like a crazy like involved show. We can have guests, we can have the, I have

“all the equipment, I have a studio in my house, so yes, we can do that. So that's how that all came”

to be and then I changed my focus from being gluten free to now being low carb because I was putting on weight. I was pretty diabetic, getting the thyroid issue like as I was aging as well.

every doctor was saying, I came up in the fat low fat world. Like you have to cut out fat.

“You have to cut your calories. You have to count your calories. So I was like, well, I guess I'll just”

do weight watchers again because I know I'm shooting this thing and it was like crazy crash dieting basically. I knew that if I started myself and I could go shoot for a week on that show and then I could go back to eating again, which I, by the way, I think most people do that. We'll sure. But I want it. I don't, I didn't, I didn't love that life. And then changing to be low carb, so cutting out the processed sugars, grains, eating more fat. What do you mean? I can have full fat

dairy. What do you mean? I can have the chicken thighs. Are you kidding me? I thought that I had to have steamed broccoli and and chicken breasts with a little bit of tiny bit of salt and lemon juice. That's what I was brought up knowing that any, and it works. Sure. But it's not sustainable

“and it's not fun. It's not fun. I am Italian. I like food. You are Italian. You're full on Italian.”

I'm full on. No, I'm half. I'm half. What's your? I don't know. I can say. This is divided lengthwise or horizontal. Good ranchers isn't the only company that promises to deliver high quality American raise meat to your front door at a fair price, but they are the company I use and I'll tell you why. I saw the owner Ben Spell interviewed on a podcast last year and I love this story. Ben wasn't

a rancher. He was a musician. He'd never even grilled a steak before, but he was upset that so much

imported meat was being deceptively marketed as domestic. And he decided to start a completely honest, totally transparent meat company that dealt directly with small American farms and ranchers and promised to deliver the highest quality American made meat. That was seven years ago. Today, that promise and Ben's determination to keep it has propelled good ranchers into the top tier of meat delivery companies. The quality is exceptional. Every cut they offer is raised on

local farms and ranchers from the pasture to the final seal on every box. They're whole packaging and fulfillment process takes place right here in this country. I'm a very satisfied customer and if you subscribe and I hope you will, you'll save up to $500 a year. Plus, if you drop my name, you'll get an additional $25 off your first order. That's code Mike for an extra 25 bucks off your first order. On top of the 500, you'll save this year when you subscribe at good ranchers.com.

American meat delivered. Yeah, so that kind of colors everything that I do along with the fact that I had a mother who was a sugar addict and in 2014, she went in for a routine, I mean, it's a serious

surgery, but it was routine. They're used to doing it heart valve replacement and she never woke up

and her body was not strong enough to fight the infection that she got in the hospital and a lot of that had to do. I wound up getting the autopsy was very dark, very dark time, but it colors a lot

“of why I do this, which is if I could not talk to her about it, she also had celiac, that's how”

I found out I needed to get tested. But she went the other route and got really addicted to sugar and that's all she ate was sugar and her body was not in a position to be able to fight as you need her to fight. I think I asked Vinny this too and I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but do you reckon is there a more addictive slash dangerous drug in the country right now than sugar? I mean, it's not one as pervasive. I mean, I guess sugar doesn't have fentanyl in it, so it's got

that going for it. Way to make lemonade. Yeah. I always look on the bright side, check.

Say sugar, now with less fentanyl with that millennial float. Sugar, now with less fentanyl. Is it fentanyl or fentanyl? To make out tomato? Well, look, I mean, it's so obviously your mom, I mean, that's that's an inciting incident. That's when things get dark and real, but in your interaction with Vinny, the guy had already written the book. Right, and the book is fabulous. But had no sugar no grains become a thing in his world yet. He was kind of starting, I'm not sure exactly when he coined it,

but I was like, you know what, I'm going to switch my focus on my little food blog, my little gluten-free and a food blog. I'm going to switch it and then it became what if I had the audacity to put all of these recipes into a, you know, bound book. And 2016, eat happy came out. Then I was like, I'm never doing that again. And then in 2019, eat happy two came out. And then I said, I'm definitely never doing

cookbooks. And then next fall, I have another book coming out. And now I really am done. I will say, you know what, it could be a bathroom, it could be a ghee, it's been a lot of discussion. I thought it was a really cute little shirt that had, but just had like a wrap close. But a lot of people said it's a bathroom, like from the Huntley hotel. All right, well done. I just want you to feel

at home in your kitchen as I have this one. Yes. I have your first one. You're soon to have your

soon to have this one because I brought you that one. I went through all of my favorite classics that I love. My Italian and my Italian American classics, but low carb. I know you're going to, that's the face of a man who wants to have pasta. I get it. It's so good. I know. Just.

“Well, look, again, I've all of sucked up properly in the preamble. You have to be recorded.”

And we'll make sure all this is clear, but you know, I've had a dozen recipes out of this book so far. Oh, really? Yeah. I'll get the, the woman I live with is many questions. She's a huge fan. Huge fan. That is so nice. Yeah. So we'll get to all that. Okay. But I'm still, like, I want people to understand who maybe don't have a gluten issue or it's really, it's gone beyond that. Right. Because now, like, I feel like we're in a world where really the mainstream, we did the low carb,

and if you've seen Vinnie's Docks, which clearly you have, but, you know, that many times. It's like, so the flag has been stuck in the ground. Agreed. Right. And now the communication really starts.

Right. Again, which justifies that first 18 minutes of free association. But like, we have to,

this whole thing is going to, the, the country's relationship with sugar, which is fundamentally bad and dangerous is only going to improve. We hope if we can articulate. Why? Yes. Yes. Well,

“here's the thing. I'm not a scientist. I choose to eat this way and offer solutions to people”

who are looking for, oh, you know what? I don't feel good when I have too much sugar. When I have for all this process food, I'd like to get back in the kitchen, but I'm scared. I'd like to do grocery shopping, but I don't even know where to begin. That's where I get practical with people. And that's where I'm helping people. Now, my marinara, for example, I'm like, I said, I'm Italian. I identify as an Italian American. And I've been making this marinara since I

could turn on a stove. Like, I just know how to do it. And I know that like, there are certain foods,

pizza is one of them. That's the first thing everyone goes through the temper tantrum phase. Right.

And I, because I explain that more. So like, the doctor said with Celia, I can 2002, you can't have gluten anymore. And I was like, well, what can I eat? And you know, you get real dramatic and you throw your toddler temper tantrum. And it's okay. It's part of the journey. And in fact, I know I get emails from people all the time. And especially usually it's women who are writing me and their furious that their doctors said that they can't have X, Y, or Z. And they looked in my

book and they wanted to have this, but then I, but then I had dairy in it and they can't have dairy and they're furious. And I'm like, you're doing the thing. And it's totally okay. And I'm here to support you. And I get it. You're going to come out the other end. And you're going to equip yourself. You've got to get the new folds in your brain about what you're going to cook for dinner. I don't know if coming out the other end is the best metaphor, but still, but still. So like,

“I think I'm maybe then at the second level of your past the temper tantrum? No, no, I'm still”

having a temper tantrum. Okay. But I'm, I'm, I'm no longer frustrated by the fact that I have to do things differently. Because I can see your, your excellent books and others out there provide a road map, how to think. The next level of the temper tantrum is, why is it so brick and hard? Why can't I walk right in the store? Why isn't there a whole aisle labeled stuff that won't make you fat or hurt you that's tasty that you can eat in a fairly robust quantity?

Why isn't it easy to find? And then I think the third stage will be, because that'll come. And there are stores. I mean, maybe it's a whole foods, maybe it's whatever it is, but you can find little nooks and crannies and aisles and corners and so forth. We're all that. Now, why is this brick and expensive? Right. Right. So there's plenty to justify a good long-term tantrum. There are a lot of stores that now have a better for you aisle, or maybe there, you know,

there's, in the grocery industry, there's conventional grocery, there's specialty, there's natural, those are specific channels like natural will be like whole foods or sprouts. And conventional is like giant or croaker or Albertsons. You know, we'll find the regular things. So when you're going into these stores and some stores have wonderful produce and great meat programs and some don't and it's really hard and there's food deserts. There's a big issue moving food

like me making very heavy pasta sauce in jars, which we had explored doing some R&D with doing

pasta sauce in the tetrapacks, you know, in the square tetrapack or those rectangular, you'll see a broth in those rectangular cardboard boxes or broth out, right? You can do tetrapack, they do it in Europe for their pasta sauces, but they don't do it. That'd be a good place for an enterabong. You put it in a terabong on a tetrapack. You'd be like, hey, what a surprise I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. This is great. I still have questions, but wow.

Isn't this one a terabong? What is this? Hey, that was a little shrill. How many people are on your blog now? Oh, my blog? Yeah, you're still blogging? Do you still have my monosub stack?

“I think about, like, 25,000 people in the blog? How important is reaching people through that media?”

It's very, very important. I actually love the sub-stack platform because I can reach people through

it and I can put all kinds of media on it. I do a thing where I call five customers every day. And I talk to them. Same five? Just hey, Wendy. It's me again. How are you doing? I could use a little pick me. Still fat? Sorry. That's actually, okay. Yeah. So, five of you are customers? I do call customers. I like to talk to people. I mean, does it freak them out? How do you gonna help her? Yeah, it does. So, like you just said, if they buy on Shopify and they put

their phone number in, you had a column. If they've opted in to communications, do you? Sometimes they pop. They said no and it's still calling. It's really good idea. Do you record them? I want to. I need to start recording them. I've recorded a couple, but you know, you have to ask permission. Sometimes I chicken out to ask permission. Because I just want to, I want them to feel like they can just talk. One woman called me back, but I posted the message. I got permission. Yeah. And I posted her message and

she was so excited that she found us in Fred Myers in Alaska in her town that she bought one of each and she just was so glad that I called her to tell her that we were in Fred Myers in her town. I was like, listen, if I have to call every single one of you and tell you that we're at a store in your you, I'll do it. Making sales director, nodding her head and filing agreement. I mean, look, well, look, a phone call is not much more complicated than a Zoom call. Nobody picks up the phone anymore.

Or Riverside, if you get their permission, why not record them? Get their permission obviously, but then, you know, you're at Substack or Instagram? Well, yeah, I mean, it's an honest conversation. I think, you know, I think people are very hungry for that because back to the AI thing,

“connection. Every single thing either has a patina of bullshit on it or doesn't. And that's why”

I think the AI is such an interesting corollary because it's going to touch on every single thing that you're doing. AI recipes are horrible, by the way. Where did they come from? I don't, well, I think that they scrape the internet and then you can put in, like, make me, you know, lemon bars or whatever, and chat, GPT pooped out something and you, and being a recipe writer, now having published 800 recipes, I can look at it and go, that does not work, like, no,

that does not work. I'm sure law of averages, chat, GPT would poop out some good recipes from time to time, but it's an issue. In fact, that was one of the hesitations I had coming out with the first book, and this is before AI, I thought, you can just Google, you know, chicken with zucchini and get a million hits, like, why does anybody need to buy a book anymore? And Vinnie was the one who got to talk me off that ledge, like, you know what? Just do it, wrap it up in a bow and do it.

And I appreciate him for supporting me in that way, because I always say, any doubt that you have

while you write your book, don't worry, you're going to get that reflected back to you in a review on Amazon. So, just let it go, because people, psychically, will know that one thing you feel insecure about in the future is, they'll find it. It's okay. It's part of the process. Yeah. And the way you handle it is part of the process. It is. So, like, everything is either going to go in the authentic category or the artificial category.

Yeah. I think, including... That's interesting. Yeah. Everything we've talked about from, you know, building a brand is communicating, voiceover is obviously the very definition of it. But, you know, so too is chewing and swallowing.

“We're all addicted to that. Yeah. And so, that's what I think is cool about the life you're”

living right now. You very few people can understand or relate to the challenges of reading copy with a millennial... Yes. Was it called a millennial? You'll float. A float and a cloth. And a cloth. It's going to lose her mind when she finds out

She is a very esteemed voiceover coach and a dear friend of mine since 2003. That's wonderful.

“Oh, that's nice. She... Yeah. She's taking new... Do you need pupils? I don't know. Maybe. No?”

Part of the reason the whole supplement industry has such a lousy reputation is because so many of the companies paint with a very broad brush. For instance, they'll tell men, especially men my age, that we need more discipline and better habits. When the issue is often biology,

obviously, if you're a lazy slug who never works out and needs a steady diet of crap,

you got problems. But if you've always looked after yourself, if you've exercised and made good choices at the buffet, but now you're suddenly low on energy or putting on weight, that's not your habits. That's your metabolism, which is why you might want to consider boost and burn from M drive. Unlike most of their competition, M drive is rooted in science. Not marketing. They don't over-promise, they don't overcharge, and they don't paint with a broad brush.

Consequently, they have thousands of very satisfied customers, regular guys of a certain age, who were still exercising and still watching what they ate, but not getting the results they used to. M drive can change that. You can find a donation wide. It sprouts or Amazon, or you can go to M drive for men.com and order straight from there. Try M drive boost and burn. Use code row

for 20% off your first purchase at M drive for men.com. That's M drive for men.com promo code row

to save 20%. I like I worry for the voiceover industry. I do too. If like for the non-famous part. Well, no, for people like me, the scale actors absolutely, and by the way, it used to be, hey, I would get this rate for the things and this video game that you say two lines and you get all this money. It's not that way anymore. I had a friend of mine who has paid some ungodly money by Toyota in the 90s, just not to do another car spot, and I was like, yeah, those days are a long gone.

Yeah, I was Mazda for years, and the majority of the money. And that was before you were micro the voice or that you were like, yeah, that was 95. Okay. Yeah. I want to tell the whole story because Chuck's hurt a thousand times, but all I had to say was Mazda. All I had to say was Mazda. And they lifted it. I went in. I went in and I said Mazda three times to give the engineer a mic check. Then the client came on and then so Tokyo's on the phone, shy at day in New York,

and in agency in Chicago. And of course, they all have different ideas about how to say Mazda, and then it was going to run in Japan, so they wanted it. So over there, it's Matsuda, unless you're in Hokkaido, which, and then it's Mazda. And then somebody on the call thought it would be a good idea. If I record it with the Japanese accent, for Tokyo, yes, it's 1995.

“Okay. Yeah. So it's, you know, Mazda. Did you have to grow before? Yes. Yes. I mean, I didn't have to,”

but they were paying for it. So I gave that's the value add with my grow. Yeah. Moral of the story is I'm in there for an hour because they paid for an hour. And what they went with was the second take of the mic test. Of course. They didn't take anything because that's when it's the best when it's the freshest when it's just like kind of throw it away like a millennial flow. Yeah. But is there a corollary for what's happening in the food business? Yeah. Because it feels like

an a voiceover business. Now, everybody's got the tech. You can hop on garage band or whatever the thing is like anybody can do it. And you can say what you want about it. But if you succeed with your brand, anybody's going to be able to make amazing dishes that are really, really healthy

“for them without the expert patina. Well, I think that it comes down to quality control and I want”

things to be really good because I want to purchase products that are good. You know what I mean?

I'm always kind of like, is that the golden rule like treat others? How you want to be treated?

That is the goal. Yes. Do one to others. Do one to others? As you would have others do one to do. I don't want people to do one to me, though. You know what I mean? But that sounds unto ward. Well, it's just just old. I know. You know, a lot of people. James is what it is. Actually, I don't think it is. No, it's just, I don't think it's biblical. Curitanical. I don't, I don't think the goal is in the Bible. Is it not? I don't think it is. Chuck have a look. Looking.

And if it is, I bet there's an at Tarabong after that. Do one to others is other to you?

I guess. I guess. I guess. You know what? Okay. Okay. That actually works because there is

the millennial float leaves you uncertain. And what we're desperate for. That's why I put the millennial float under like closer to the AI category if not firmly in it because in this world. In this world of nutrition where there's just so much nonsense out there, we're desperate. It is. People are desperate and I have found because like I don't, I'm a low carburetor, but I don't put like the carb grams or the calories and that kind of stuff in my book.

And that is really hard for some people. And it used to be hard for me because I was a professional dieter. I knew the points and the calories and the fat grams and the carb grams and every single thing. And when you're counting, you're not living your life. So if you're eating real food,

“chances are you know. Do you want your others to remember that you haven't just found as a golden rule”

and it's was famous source is the Bible. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. Well, that's that's according to ChatGPT Matthew and Luke. Oh, see. Rabbi Hillel the Elder said, "What is hateful to you? Do not do to your neighbor." He put a twist on it. He did. Yeah. Confucius that. Well, I mean, century. Oh, well, well. So I guess. Christian, they lifted it like they lifted like the pagan calendar kind of thing. Yeah, the Gregorian calendar, the Roman calendar,

okay, the calendars, such a mess. But relevant to what you're saying because it's the very manifestation of counting and keeping track of things. Our desperation to keep track of time is real. There is, I mean, it's the Tower of Babble without it. You're saying that if you're counting calories, if you're measuring that whole way of thinking is kind of doomed. I think it's doomed because it puts us in this mentality where we're not safe. We make it unsafe to be trusted. Like,

“I just can't trust myself. And to me, there's something to be unpacked there. And what I have found”

in my experience talking to people, most of the stuff comes from that kind of deep rooted. I'm not trusting myself. I can't be trusted around food. There's something I'm covering up. There may be a layer like there's a lot of stuff tied into. So when people quit eating process sugars and grains and they're no longer medicating by stuff in the food and the pie hole, stuff comes up and that's totally fine and normal. The temperature, the whatever the stuff's

going to come up. That's for your therapy session. Go do that. And that's great. We want those things

to not torture us anymore so that we're not fat sick and unhealthy anymore, right? But ultimately,

we still want to enjoy food. Food's a wonderful thing. Food should not be demonized. I think I think that food should be available to people in the grocery store shelves. I think it's really tricky with what some of the big food companies have done with cutting corners and putting fillers in and not labeling things correctly. And all the things that I've learned, trying to be somebody who manufactures food and finding the right partners who are going to

make a good product with me. And is that where you are now your manufacturer and your blitz? I'm not manufacturing. We work with contract manufacturers. Comments. So I now have five pasta sauce skews, four spice skews and three cheese bites, which are just cheese with the spices. So there's nothing. There's no anti-caking agents. There's no sugar, obviously. Everything has to be clean, clean, clean, clean. And no seed oils. And I am thinking with the mindset of somebody

“who's trying to quit sugar. So that's why we've gone into those three different categories”

because as somebody who writes recipes, those are the things I'm looking for. For example, the cheese bites I was making in my kitchen for years, toasting cheese with my spices. And oh, that tastes like a ranch Dorito or that tastes like a, you know, a cheese it. Yeah. And but not wanting to have the carbs, but still needing that crunchy snack, right? So I started calling companies that work with cheese and going to trade shows, talking to people who's going to work

with me and make this product with me. So that's about 18 months, just finding somebody who will do it without putting the crap in it. Yeah. And then going back and forth on R&D to get a product plus the packaging design, which you know very well, that whole thing to get the CPG thing designed. And then where does it go on shelves? Well, right now we're talking because it's only available direct to consumer because we just launched it a few months ago. But we're talking

with the grocery stores where does it go? I'm talking with the buyers and they're like, does it go in salad? Like, because it's a salad top or does it go with crackers? Well, guess what? You're going to go up against Fredo Le and they're not going to like that very much. Hey, hey, they do hate that. So, you know, where do we find space on the shelf? And so my

approach has always been let's launch it direct to consumer first because my audience will tell me

that happens so that hopefully I've gotten ahead of any obstacles. But we launch it that way first

because A, the margins, we sell it direct to consumer. We have the money to pay for everything else. It's so expensive to go into grocery stores paying for the shelf space offering free fills, which is the free case, per skew, per store when you go into a big chain. And all of this stuff adds up. And we have done a little bit of crowdfunding with my cookbook audience who invested in my company. They own a portion of my company. That's smart. They're the best. They're the

word of mouth. They're the reason that I, how are you liking that too? Is it like a go fund me? Is

“a co-production? How do you think about it? It's called an equity crowd fund. That's what the”

legal term is by the SEC. And they only recently started doing this. I think at the past five or six

years, allowing people who aren't accredited investors to invest in a private company. So we raised close to $700,000 and which by most CPG brands is absolute chump change. But for me, I'm like, this is insane and awesome that people believe in what we're doing so much that they're going to put their hard earned money into the company. They want to be investors. And I know, like, I was a guy. This is, this is the long game here. You're not going to like see a fat dividend check every

quarter. This is not what we're doing. Well, you know, to answer my own question earlier, at least an observation, the temper tantrum that I experience when I can't easily find the stuff that I want is sort of indirect correlation to the difficulty of launching a brand that could

“in fact satisfy that and the ways that the retailers and the manufacturers and the whole giant”

top heavy glittering it is. Edifice just makes it virtually impossible. People should understand how hard it is to launch a brand. I want to give a one example. I didn't know. I thought when you saw the sale tags at the grocery store when you're like, oh, it's on sale. It's a dollar off. $2 or buy six, you know, get one free or whatever the thing is. I thought the store was paying for that. The brand pays for that. I didn't know that going into it. So not only, if I'm selling

something on my website for $14, but I sell it into the store for $6 and then I've also got a pay for $2 off on this, plus the fees that get added on and the shipping and the freight, the problem of moving the food across the country, I need these sales to be able to pay for that because we're losing money hand over fist over here until we get to a place where we've scaled and that's going to take getting multiple production partners across the country. See, this is one of the puzzles

that all has kind of got to raise up at the same time. Right. Right. Right. Right. But it's back to communicating because if people don't understand the fundamental difficulty of trying to do what you do, right. You have no hope of an equity funding thing. But that might be the way to get the thing that you want. You know, I know I told you this before we started rolling, but when dirty jobs was the biggest show on cable, I had a dirty job's cleaning product and I had it on shelves in

every single Walmart in this country. And that's huge. And here's the hardbreaker. The people loved it. Everybody who used it was like, this is the best cleaning product ever. Well, it's gone. You can't get it anymore. And the reason is because Walmart simply can't put a thing on their shelf if that thing isn't supported by an advertising commitment. Right. And I mean, you're this millions and millions and millions of dollars. Until or unless you're able to spend that kind of money

on your brand, then the existing shelf space, that's very expensive. And you have this beautiful

“platform that you've created for yourself. So I think that's why we're going to see a lot more people”

with platforms coming forth saying, hey, I really believe in this cause. I'm making these products that are an alternative to the ones that are out there. We have to have grassroots support. We have to in order for it to work or you just sell a bunch of equity and you get a huge investment and you blow it up the old fashioned way. I don't want to go that route yet. I know I'm going to need to get funding. I know I'm going to have to have investment at some point. I'm just not

ready to do it yet. I want to see how much we can take it as a community first. I think that's

smart because I think it's happened in a lot of other verticals where everything is like this combination of homemade and low-fi. You're messaging, you can handle that yourself, the tech permits, your distribution, get on all the social channels. Tell your story is best you can, and then now, but then you come back to logistics, transportation, and those real capital costs. And I don't

It's got to be shipped. There's a free frozen or refrigerated stuff. I bow to your logistics prowess because we have shelf stable. I mean, our pasta sauce is three year shelf stable. I mean, it's a jarred sauce that could last decades. You know what I'm saying? Like it's been properly done for anybody who's doing refrigerated stuff, frozen stuff, holy crap. That's what I mean, you know, go back to Hidden Valley, Sally Kellerman. She probably had the cushiest gig of that whole

entire adventure because you, I mean, that Hidden Valley story is amazing, by the way,

“you should Google it. I do need to Google it because I sell a ranch that's better. What?”

Why is it better? Because it's clean and it's delicious. What's it called?

Eat happy kitchen ranch dust. Ranch dust. Yeah, and here's the thing. I sell ranch dust. I sell it

specifically. I've been, again, I've been making this recipe at home. It's actually a recipe in my second cookbook. By the way, that's the other thing, democratization. Get my cookbooks. You don't have to buy any of my stuff. Make the recipes in the cookbooks. Oh, there you go. I'm literally like making things available, right? So no, the ranch dust is because first of all, I love ranch. What Americans don't like ranch? Ranch is delicious. Mm-hmm. But when you buy the

Hidden Valley, it has some things in it that you're not going to love seeing on the ingredient list. Don't come at me, Hidden Valley, they're laughing. They're laughing all the way to the bank, right? Good. They're going to be okay. They're going to be just fine. So yeah, so I just come up with stuff that I have not found clean versions of that I've been making and make it and sell it. Do you think when you do this, are you are you mostly trying to do stuff that's pleasing to you or, you know,

do you have your finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing and are you trying to make something to satisfy a demand that is out there? Well, I hope a little bit of both because I think

“that you have to infuse it with your own little bit of, you know, inspiration, but you want to”

catch some, catch some tailwinds with it. Yeah. I ask everybody a version of that simply because

if you're not pleasing yourself, you're never going to last. Right. But if you're only pleasing

yourself, then you're just building little statues to yourself and that's not a business. Yes, no. So how do you decide which recipes go into these books? What kind of testing do you do? Well, how do I, well, I generally write a whole bunch of recipes and then I'm like, like for the next book, for example, I've always wanted to do a party book. I think being social is very important relationship to, and maybe this is a fallout from the whole COVID isolationism.

But I think that a socializing and finding a way to socialize without having to just get completely hopped up on sugar and alcohol and I love alcohol. By the way, I'm not saying I'm not a storyteller. Clearly, clearly. What's in this cup? What is it? What is it? So I thought, let me put together party recipes. And then it just, I don't know, it just kind of, I just kind of think of Adam like, you know, be fun. Chipped beef. I don't know. Like I just like think like, you know what's

yummy? I just, I have a friend of mine who you can say to him, what would be good right now? And he'll

always, he just knows what would be good right now. And I just kind of, I always love that. I'm like,

“and I think, you know, what would be funded? We need this kind of a thing. I don't know. I just,”

see, I think I, I start to get it a little bit. I think part of eating happy has to be letting go of counting the calories weighing your food and doing all the physical, chemical, measurable things. The other thing is, you know, I think the first time I talked to Vinnie, I said, can you just, can you give me something? Because I'm at this point. Yeah. I don't care. Just tell me what to do, bro. Just tell me what to do. And I said, I don't care what it looks like. I just want something

that I, when I'm hungry, I can grab it and it's satisfying. Right. And what did he say to this Chuck, what are those things that nut the nut butter nut butter nut butter. Yeah. It is good. He stopped making them. He stopped for a minute. He's going to come back to him, but he stopped. Everyone's like, give him a minute, butters. Well, it was an interesting thing for me because when I'm in the mind, said of saying, I don't need a meal. I don't need an experience. I need something

that tastes good and that is easy to, I need fuel. Right. But fuel is not eating happy. It can't be fuel. And if you're fueling yourself, what if it also tastes good and wasn't killing you in the process? Great. That'd be great. Sure. But if it looks like soil and green, okay? Like, if we have all bought those products that were like, if it's beige, put it in a shape or an and drink it. Oh, right. Yeah. It's like, okay. So it tastes better than I thought, but it's still

And that's, yeah. It's not Italian. No. I mean, I'm a feeder. I like to feed people. So I, you know, what can I say? Well, you want to be happy. I do. And the happiness also stems from for me being in a creative profession, having a lot of ups and downs. It's not great on the mindset. And when I did shift my focus to low carb and was no longer on this crazy sugar carb train, my brain chemistry did a wonderful thing. And that was my experience. And I'm thrilled about it. So I literally

became a happier person by cutting out the process foods. You know what, before I ask you these questions,

“that's actually worth, really. How would you describe for people who haven't done this yet?”

When you're really off sugar, for a day, for three days, for a week, from months, what is that

trip like? If you really do it right, if you really cut it out? So the first time is always the hardest.

Hardest. I was just waiting for a first time joke. But it is the most difficult because you are resetting things in your body. I don't know the science behind it, but I know that you will go through some sort of withdrawal. I don't understand it. You could perhaps have hot flushes and headaches, some people get like a migraine. They always say take more salt, you know, if you can take a salt pill or electrolytes or whatever, but then don't get like a sugar. So there's a bit of withdrawal that

happens. You can get cranky, you can have the plunges of your emotions, might plunge up and down. And it gets hard because I think that we're just conditioned. It's like smoking. You're just

associate certain places. Like, I always stood outside of my theater in the 90s and would have a

“cigarette. And then you have to be like, okay, I'm not doing that anymore. So I have to figure out”

how I can have an association with that location, right, without the thing that you're trying to give up and have it be a positive association. So about a week in, gosh, I feel like you should really be feeling better. Maybe you wake up and your feet don't ache when they hit the floor. Maybe it's that your hands aren't so achy because that's another thing with too much sugar and processed foods. There's a lot of joint pain, inflammation. Yeah, inflammation will go down. Maybe you'll find one

night in the middle of the night, around a weekend, you're peeing. You have to get up to pee like three times. You're like, oh my God, why am I peeing so much? A lot of that is the flush, because when your body is less inflamed, you'll release all that water and literally pee it out. And then generally, you'll find you drop maybe three, five pounds that first week and everyone is riding high because you got little evidence that it's working, right? And then things taper off with that because you've

dropped the water weight. And me, if you're really big, you might drop a lot of water weight over some time, but eventually that kind of tapers off and then it becomes about kind of dialing it in. Like, am I still carb creeping here or you take, you're like, I got this, everyone, you know how we all do. When things are going great, we think we have it dialed in and we don't put in the work. Like, that's on every topic and I'm the exact same one. But things are great. I don't need to

“meditate, or things are awesome. I don't need to do the thing that you have to do every day.”

And about a month in, you're going to be like, oh, you know what I can have now ice cream? I did it. I'm going to have ice cream. And it's for a reward. I'm going to the reward is huge, right? We love a reward. And it's really hard to go, okay, how do I figure out what the reward is?

And and have it not be food because a lot of us food is always the reward.

That's how we rewarded as kids or that, you know, you got to grade, you got to go out for ice cream, you got to, you know, and I never want to demonize any kind of food. I feel like life should have these things. I don't want food to not be innovated or like, I don't want to live in a world where there's not the fun things to eat. And I learned that too from Vinnie because he's a voice of reason and a very like crazy space. And it makes sense to me and it resonates with me. But yeah,

then you go for like, I'm going to have that whole pizza, my favorite pizza place. And either you wake up feeling like crap or you don't and you continue to do it until you wake up feeling like crap and then you're like, oh God, I got to go back to it. Yeah, and that's, I mean, that just strikes me as way more mental. It is. And physiological. That's generally when the stuff comes up, like things come up. You're like, no, but I'm going to that party and so until already, always makes

their XYZ thing that I eat and I want to eat it. Great. Go eat it. Go eat it and enjoy your life. Do you, what do you think about cheat days? The concept. I don't care. I don't care. You want to

awesome. If you go and have a cheat day, then that becomes a cheat six weeks. And then you're off the rails again. There's probably something to look at there. Well, I just don't, it seems to me, even if you are fairly disciplined, the argument says, well, look, you're human. And if you really love this stuff, treat yourself every so often. Sure. Just don't be a lunatic. But if you do that, then that means the thing you're holding out for is still the thing that you crave most.

For sure. So you haven't eliminated the craving. You've just, you've just closed the window.

“You haven't eliminated the relationship to that thing that is dysfunctional. That's what you haven't”

eliminated. If something is making you crave something so hard, it's not about that thing. Something else is going on. That's what I'm trying to say. If so, then you can just have, I love that thing. I'm going to have a few bites. And you literally will be like, that was good. I'm done. Oh, that tasted too sweet. I'm surprised. Oh, wait. I quit sugar. So everything tastes extra sweet now. So I can have a couple bites of that thing. And it doesn't torture me. And I

go, oh my God, it's freedom. But this happens over the course, probably of several months to years. Because we're all trying to redefine our relationship with food. But there's also the collective. There's also. Yes. There's grandmother's. There's no one knows. There's call for God. And don't tell Mexicans not to have the tortilla. Don't tell Italians not to have the pasta. Don't tell Asian folks not to have the right. It's a whole, I get it. Everybody has the cultural

pressure. And I'm a feeder. I like to feed people. And when they're like, oh, I don't eat fat.

“I'm like, what? No, you have to eat my meatballs. I don't eat red meat. What? No, you know, I get it.”

We're pushers. I mean, how do you? The thing that tasted quote unquote good. 500 years ago. Right. What was that? I don't know. And what did it taste like? And on what basis did the fat part of the bat? Like the most people go, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the meat. That's it.

That's the thing. Never had meat. No, I would like to try. Is it not good? Is it too sweet?

What's in the box? What you bring me? Oh, is there meat in there? No, does the spice is in pasta sauce and cheese bites. Oh, with use the crunchy things you were talking about? That's ranch. Is this good for me? Yeah, it's just cheese and spice. That's all it is. I eat not bad for me. Eat happy kitchen. White onion and cheddar, which is kind of like a sour cream and cheddar situation, but it doesn't have sour cream. You don't understand? But that's a flavor profile of it.

Uh-huh. And then there's a barbecue one. Where's a barbecue one? Here it is. Oh, cut. Very satisfying. Sometimes you just need a little crunch. Sometimes you just need a little crunch. Can you just do a little ad for it right now? Sometimes you just need a little crunch. Well, you know what, you're adjacent to a copyright infringement. A very um, oh, you, you'll remember sometimes you feel like a nut. Mmm. Sometimes you don't. Oh, man, just got nuts, man. Don't be

because. Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don't. Yeah. That will forever be in the brain. See, now we're getting somewhere. Yeah, now we're getting somewhere when you five hours. Well, you take voice over. Yeah. And you put music behind and you've got a whole new genre called jangles. Jingles are very powerful. Very powerful. They're like metaphors. And that whole, sometimes you feel like a nut. That's a um, I believe it's called a totology,

where oh, God, Chuck, what was the totology like T.A. U.T.ology? Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of like a

“syllogism. It's never mind. That's even worse. Um, pedantic. I am, uh, genos. Remember genos?”

Oh, yeah, genos. Piecerals? Uh, genos. Um, everybody goes to genos because genos is the place to go. Yeah, brilliant. Everybody, you in the DC area when June re-self defense, the commercial's played. I remember every word of that. I'm not going to sing it because

racist. Yeah. Um, but it's in my, it will always be there. Uh, Matsuda.

Masuda. Yeah. You can be very careful. The lead in the vocalization that goes into the lead in of saying it. I appreciate that so much because I just did a session yesterday where they're like, you know, give it a little pre-life. They call it pre-life. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Give it a little pre-life. So that was pre-life. What? So pre-life is the sound you may be for you articulate, uh, you know, I was hungry. And I thought, I need to meet happy kitchen. Like, that's pre-life.

Give it a little pre-life. It makes it sound natural. What would post-life sound like? I was hungry. I don't know. It just, like, you just let the word linger like a legato, like a full note, but never. It's just kind of trails all along. And then just go, then you do a little

PC-agulera. I don't know. I don't know. It never ends. The actual jingle with the music,

Everybody goes to genos because genos is the place to go, and it just, and then you're going to

genos. It goes through the circle of fits. And if you really think about it, it's an indictment of how easily we're the guide. Because you would just sit there and not really question it. In fact, the logic is irrefutable. Where was genos? In Baltimore. In Baltimore. Yeah, there's only one. Yeah. Oh, no. They were, which makes the question, how did everybody win? I can't say anymore. Over and over. Yeah. They certainly didn't have it in DC. I'll tell you the

other one. Okay. Since you're a big drinker.

“Shafie. You remember, Shafie? We call it in high school. Shafie?”

That's still a case of Shafie. Two ninety-nine a case when I was in college. Yeah.

Shafie is the one beard I have when you're having more than one. That is just, that's just good copywriting. I mean, that's madman stuff. Yeah, that's like that is done draper. We see Don Draper walking down the hog on. Hey, fellas. I got something. I think of all this stuff. Yeah. The one beard I have when you're having more than one by the way. Are you the kind of guy that only has one beard? You're in the wrong room, Shafie. Yeah.

Oh my god. Yeah. Shafie. Yeah. Shafie. Mm. So, you need a topology for yeah, I do. I do. And the definition of a topology is saying the same thing twice in different words generally considered to be a fault of style. That's right. They arrived one after the other in succession. That sounds like being redundant. Is that the same thing? It does sound good. It is. Well, it's if it's unintentional, it's a mark of idiocy, right? But if you're doing on purpose,

then you're either in on the joke or you're selling something. Okay. Because of course, the magic of advertising is. Well, I'm selling something, kids. That's to say, kids, I'm selling something. You know, kids, you're just everything. You just repeat it and repeat it. And repeat it. I'm learning that, by the way. I'm learning that as somebody who's building a brand because I feel like I've said all the things that I need to say on social media,

how many more times can I repeat myself? And it turns out I have not even done one tenth of one percent of saying all the things the number of times I need to say them. It's which is bonkers and makes sense because we see during the NFL, during the football games, we see all the same things over and over again. And there's obviously a reason for that. Think about the habits you're trying to create and think about the thinking you're going to

have to debunk. Right. Now think about the money and the time and the brilliance that was spent in creating the habit. The pre-existing thing. Oh, yeah. Right. I'm up against it. I'm up with my Coca-Cola. I quit. I quit. I quit. What do you mean? It's too much work. Oh, right. I'm done. Okay. I'm not trying to disturb you. No, no, no, no. But it is. That's exactly. I'm unwinding. I'm attempting to unwind that programming. Yes. And I want people who are listening.

If anyone still is. God bless you people. We love you. We love you a lot. We love you. We love you. It's important that people understand why they buy the foods. They buy separate and apart from the cravings. They think they have. We've been manipulated and that might

“sound a little too conspiratoral. But that's what advertising is. We've been taught that”

crest is different than gleam and that gleam is different than coalgate. Gleam. Good throw. Remember gleam? Yeah. Well, now there's something called happy tooth, which doesn't have any of the stuff in it. All the, you know, the bad stuff. The fluoride or the whatever they which by the way. No, we like fluoride until five minutes ago fluoride was the thing that kept my teeth from falling out. Right. Right. Now apparently it's, it's why there's blood, my fortnightly. Yes.

What? Oh, I haven't told you. Yeah. A lot of blood in the urn. Oh, a lot? A lot. No, I'm kidding. Of course. There's not. But look, you don't need a lot. Oh, the doctor. You don't need a lot of blood in the urn to really get your attention. Honestly, that is very true. Just a drop. Just a slight bit is caused for alarm. Well, it diffuses in such a way that you would think maybe you throw a rod, you know, or like something really cataclysmic happens.

It's not good. Well, it's still his never good, but it's rarely as bad as it seems.

Okay. I don't know if that's true. By the way, but if I were to write a jingle about it,

“I would say, you know what I would not write in the urn. It's never as bad as it seems or is it?”

We don't know. In Terabong. We don't know. We don't know. We're curious. It was surprised. Yeah.

your first reaction is going to be, what the heck is that? Wonder? Questioning. Yeah. A alarm.

And then cool earwinding with it. And then you remembered you ate some beats yesterday. It's a red beats. That is such a boy. That is a real mind melding. That's not a urn thing. That's back to what she started with the whole dial pooping up your bowl thing. Yeah. I showed up late for a shoot once. I missed. There was nothing a craft service is left, but beats. And they were delicious. And I ate probably two pounds of beats. I was starving.

And I went home that night and had a relatively normal dinner. And the next morning. Now, into the bathroom, took care of business. Looked in the bowl. By God. My God. I was... Have you had beats since? Well, I hopped on the internet. Oh, yeah. I eat beats all the time now. Because now I eat as many as I can. Because it tickles me to look in there and go like, "Ah, see? Not blood."

I love to know your hobbies. Thank you. It's a big one. Yeah. But I was so sure that I was either bleeding out or something really catastrophic had happened. And the last thing I saw before I went to the doctor's was, unless, of course, you've had an ordinary amount of beats. Which really will. You had all the beats. Mess with your stool.

In a big way. Turn it over. You've never seen it in your urine.

“Either. No, I haven't. Oh, yeah. Why does aparagus have such an impact on our pee?”

Is this an any of your books? It's not. I have aparagus recipe. So if anybody wants to do some at-home tests, isn't it a genetic thing? Like, some people have attached to your lobes. Some people have stinky asparagus pee. Or does everyone have stinky asparagus pee? I think everybody gets... I don't think you get a pass on that. Okay. What about the crease in your lobe? Do you think there's any truth to the fact that- Is that not from, like, just sleeping funny?

I thought it was, but somebody- I have a crease in this one. But not in that one. Not in this one. And then it's like, well, you've got a real bloody lobe. I did the 23 in me and they were like, you probably have attached earlobes and I don't. So I don't know how accurate that data is. Oh, they're attached. They're just not attached to your jawline. They're removable. I have some questions for you from my house. Oh, yes, Sandy's question.

Yeah. This is a segment. We like to call Sandy's questions. Sandy's question? Then, then, then, then, then, then, then. Recipes that we've made from this book. Okay. Okay. So can't you post a bowl of nays? Love it. Chicken with Artichoke, spinach and cherry tomatoes. Oh, that's good one. We're going to re-ening that one date night chicken because people have written me saying that they get laid

“when they make that recipe. Oh, yeah. How about that? Hmm. So first, you need to have a”

check-in. First, the chicken lays the egg. And then, Jimmy Crack corn. And I don't care. Eggplant Parmesan. Great. Roasted asparagus with manchego and pine nuts. You know all these, yes. Yep. Ginger cilantro, cauliflower rice. Oh, yum. Jimmy, cherry sauce. Yeah. I love it. Chicken, cauliflower rice bowl. I was concerned about that because of the rice. It's rice. Good, bad. You don't care?

I mean, I know it's happy, but I thought rice... It's cauliflower rice. You're not having rice. Yeah, that's true. All right. It was a word rice that throw it all. Yeah. Well, I put it in quotes. Because it's not. I can't should I use an M-dash next time. I'd go with an N. I don't think it warrants a giant. Not a full N. No, and certainly not an interabong. Roasted tomato basil soup. Yeah. That's actually, I mean, that's from the... I like them all. Oh, it is? Yeah, so you have that book too.

I don't know. I got all your books. We've also used a barbecue dust on pork tenderloin. And I've got some barbecue dust here for you. Nice. It's, I mean, dust, it was such an interesting noun to really incorporate into the culinary space. Yeah. It sounds like it's dirty, but it's not. You can just put a little dusting on there. A little dusty. Dill dust? Dill dust, which we've now

changed to ranch dust for the obvious, elitrative. Obviously. Uh, then here's what you're trying

“to see. Dill dough dust. Yeah, that's in there too. That, whoa. You have to order the books. It's like”

a surprise ending. That's the thing. In the choose your own adventure. I think it's a happy ending. And I think you might want to save that for your pop-up. Um, marinara sauce. Yeah. Rebiata sauce. Poutineesca. Yeah, that one passed the sauce of the year in 2024. Dude, it did. I was, I will talk about that till the day I die. By the way, here's the thing about having being green to the grocery industry. I thought to myself, no one's doing Poutineesca.

It's like the best. We're going to kill it. And then now I realize why no one's doing Poutineesca, because Americans don't know what a Poutineesca sauce is. And then it won't pass the sauce of the year. And so I have a moral imperative to discuss Poutineesca sauce, which basically means hooker sauce. Yeah, it's a horse sauce. It's horse sauce. There's all sorts of conflict like Italians can argue about anything, but especially about the origin of Poutineesca sauce. And like, did the

horse make it? Then there's a story like, no, the wives made it to make there has been stinky.

sauce that adds olive caper onion, oregano, red pepper flakes. And if you're doing it properly,

a little bit of anchovy, but in America, we can't do that because most Americans are not a fan of the anchovy. So we achieve that same briny flavor with the caper brine in our Poutineesca sauce. And it won't pass the sauce of the year last in 2024. Now it's 2020. It's so interesting. But to my earlier point, was there a time in our species when the plurality said, "Oh, anchovies, delicious."

“Pass the anchovies. Who doesn't want that? I think that would be a great topic for one of those”

podcasts that does the deep dive on the history of different kinds of foods because I would like to know that as well because I love anchovies anchovy paste. I put it in all kinds of things, but I understand that mentally people have a hard time with it, but it's just salty goodness. What do you think about cooking shows in general? And what are your favorites and why? I love cooking shows. I want to do a cooking show, but I'm also doing a cooking show because

it's called the internet. So we have the ability to produce our own cooking shows. So I put cooking content on the internet all the time. My favorite cooking shows, I think are more personality based. Like I love I'm a garden and I love Gordon Ramsay and who else do I love Megan? Jada's great. Jada, yes, she's big. I see her all the time, no? She's fabulous. And all these people have been doing this for so long. But one thing I learned about recipe writing because I had to make

“and test all of my own recipes because I'm not the celebrity coming at it from that. I don't have”

people writing recipes for me. I'm writing all of my own recipes. I found out that there's a lot of non-testing of recipes because I would get a cookbook from somebody that I liked and then the recipe wouldn't work and then I would find out that it was being ghost written and not tested or corrected. I was like, "Well, hey, I don't want to have that kind of rep. If I don't have anything else to stand on, all I have is like the machine's good." So that goes in the AI column.

That could go in the AI column. I'm not a professional. That's great. That's great. Something's gross to written. Something's not. Yeah, look, my theory is not yet, but sooner or later that's all going to fall weirdly out of favor. Would you do a cooking show for a network? Oh, yeah. Oh, a thousand percent. Yeah. You know what? I pitched. You'll appreciate this. I was at one of those upfront a couple of years ago and I had the food network was there and he was like, "Would

you ever do a cooking show?" And I said, "Well, you know, probably not. I don't cook much, but I do an eating show, you know, for sure." And he's like, "You're going to cook and you could eat."

Well, I took pictures. The first was called "Meskit" where I'd go to famous battlefields

with a cook and a historian to your point. And the historian would tell me exactly what happened with it. Hastings or Normandy, wherever. And you'd have to eat that shit. That's it. I'd have a cook there who would, you know, and together we would cook. Or make it hard, Jack.

“Whatever they were eaten. Yeah. That's what she liked it. Yeah. But the one he really sparked too,”

I would go, I would go out into the world and find people, you know, with nothing like your books. Like the old Betty Crocker books. I love those books. I love vintage. I want to make a steak Diane. I want to do pineapple rings on ham. I want to do all that. Is that? But it was for me. It was the casserole, like the low casserole. Hell yeah. And anything with gelatin that was just like what a concealed salad. A concealed salad. Right. I wanted to go and find the descendants

of people who put those recipes in there who would have surely owned the books themselves and then go and and make this. And just have several of those books. I collect, I love old cook books. I called it eat me. And I thought, I thought, I could really... No more clever. Just a thing. I could shoot, you know, with the people, just the real, you know, the real people. So, he said he

get back to me, but never did. You still wait in here. Still wait. That's what my husband

likes to say to me when I see a... Oh, I auditioned for that role because he's still waiting to hear. I'm like, yeah, I am. They never had any of this. I was up for the lead role. Literally the merchant of Venice. What happened? I didn't get it. We used to laugh. I made for years the amount of auditions, you know, and the thing is you just never, you never tell anybody what you're doing. No, you can't. Especially your mother

and that role. Like because all they're going to do, did you hear back from the people? I actually was seen when I came here not to docs where you guys are. There's an audition place right down the street that I used to go to as a baby actor when I first moved to town. And I was like, oh, these are giving me feelings coming back to this neighborhood. A little PTSD issue. Yeah, a little bit. Trying to find parking at 5 p.m. on a Friday to do a McDonald's callback

where there's 14 people staring in their laptops and not paying attention. And yeah, it's another, another ingenious jangle man. You deserve a break today. Oh, it's a very mental way. So what's the, um, no, it's the, um,

Oh, I, uh, Jo, I'll be patty special. She was on the other side of the sauce, let me see. No, but it's the, um, it's the thing where they used to, is the eighties. Oh, they're too young. Yeah, too young. Sorry. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm. This Mac, fillet of fish, quarter pound of French fries. I used to call thick shakes, Sunday is an

“apple pie. That's what they would say. Yeah. Like a, like a mantra. Like you're like, you're in a”

parade and you're doing it like the drum line is, it's so interesting that that stuck in your crawl. It's, I guess. You know, and two all be songs, too. Oh, my god. Yeah, start it with those. Don't, well, that's another show. No, it's actually, it's not. It's all part of communicating. And I'm, sure, I can hit you with some theme show trivia that would warrant the season of interabon. It does it involve Alan thick. Thick Alan, we used to call him. Alan thick, who is thick, Alan.

You know, Alan thick didn't you? I knew I'd met him a couple times. Yeah, because because of recognition. Oh, no, it's a friend of mine. Oh, yeah, she's lovely. Yeah. Oh, no. Does she? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. She's in Carpenteria. I give her, absolutely. Alan thick's widow gets whatever she wants. Okay. Remember, leave it to Beaver? Yes, but they were in reruns by the time I was watching. Remember the theme song? It's, it was like a whistling

thing. And then they showed Jerry, Jerry Mathis. Jerry Mathis, and another as the Beaver, and Eddie. Yeah. There was a second one. Yeah. That's it. Six seasons in, they changed the theme song.

They did without changing the notes. What they did was they changed the rhythm. And it had never

been done before, but they updated it. So it went from that at that at that at that too. That at that at that at that at that. Yep. That was amazing. Gilligan's Island. You know that one right? Yeah. So it right back in here at Taylor. The original. It wasn't original. What was that? Gilligan, the skipper to the millionaire and his wife, the movie star and the rest. Yeah. Professor, and they didn't count on Professor and Mary Ann both being the two hoties that would really, they bought Ginger was going to be it.

“Yeah. They did no Donald Wells's agent called and said, what do you mean and the rest?”

Don Wells gave me a blanket in 2004 at slam dance when I had a film in the film festival. And I still, I cherished that blanket and she was the nicest human and it was like again, still very early out of my career. So shout out to Don Wells giving me a blanket in 2004. It's still in my car right now. Is Don still in your car? I did not kidnap her. No, I was still around. She was lovely. No, she passed. Yeah. She was something. She was lovely.

She really was. Here's some questions I promised to ask. The young people in the room were like, who is there? Oh, no. These dudes know Don Wells. They know. I saw her do the odd couple with Marcia Wallace. On Broadway? No. Just in the whole interview with Hollywood.

They did it in my office for me. It was amazing. That is command performance.

That's weird. I forget where it was. I knew Marcia because I'd done a pilot with Marcia and so she said, "You want to come save me on this plan?" I'm like, "Oh, it's Don Wells. Hell yeah." Me, Don Wells? Yeah. Yeah, that was great. Why wouldn't you? When we first moved to town and my husband was sitting, he had an audition because he started as an actor and then became a writer and he was sitting next to Aaron Moran at the audition and he was like, and that we didn't know that once your show was

off the air, you then have to go back to auditioning for things. He was like, "Oh my god, Joanie's here. It was such a thing." And then one time I went in, it was a radio spot for Blockbuster. Okay, so it's radio. We're not even on camera. And they're partnering us all back when they would still hire four actors to be in one radio spot when they had the money to pay for that. And this woman is rolled in by her caretaker in a wheelchair. And I go to the sign in and I'm

signing, I'm like, "Oh, and I look and it's Rose Marie from the Van Dyke show." No. And I was like, you did not make Rose Marie auditioned for a Blockbuster like does have one line as grandma and I was like, "Oh, this is this is Hollywood. This is the real Hollywood." Oh, man. That is such a great story, though. It's that crazy. I was like, "Oh my god." And also too, I was probably the only one dirty enough to, like, know who she was. So we had a lovely conversation. I'm still waiting to hear.

I'm still waiting here to jot that down. That's still waiting here. That's not a bad title for this.

“What are your thoughts on seed oils? Do you think they are all bad?”

Okay. I always say referred to Dr. Kate Shannahan's book Dark Calories,

but now there's several books as well, but she wrote a really good book and I interviewed her and she makes a lot of sense. I avoid the seed oils whenever possible. It's not possible to

some form of seed oil. It's really tricky. But this is my temper tantrum. Like, what do you

tell me? I mean, these things to me seem right like you could justify putting a skull and cross bones on it. They're just not good for you. I would, I don't touch them. However, at home, however, okay, so this is the price complaint. Everybody wants cleaner food on the shelves. Nobody wants to pay for it. It's become untenable. I even get kicked back. We have eaten so much in our margins to get to a 999 shelf price when I sell it online for 14 bucks a jar.

Yeah. I'm selling a really nice sauce, right? So, think about something like olive oil, as compared to highly processed seed oils. And I'm not, it's not okay. But I'm just saying like, this is why restaurants have to use it because restaurants are already operating on razor thin margins. So you just really have to like either you find some guy and you're just going to pay an upcharge and you're okay with that. By the way, the people who originally started buying all of my stuff, you know,

I'm indebted to them because they're the ones who chose with their wallet and to pay for expensive food until I could even get the price down a little more. So it's tough. And seed oils, I'm not a fan. You know what? It feels olive oil, coconut oil, butter, done, towel, great. It feels like fraud to me. It is food fraud. No, I mean literal. Like the reason I'm looking at Minnesota and I'm looking at California, not to get political, but we're so used. The taxpayers are so used to paying.

So much of their money knowing it's going to be wasted. Right? We know it. I know. And so homeowner in a taxpayer here. Yes. Yes. And so we're used to it. We're used to seed oils. It's like, well, it's in everything and gosh, to take it out of everything would be

so onerous and blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, we just back it. The second part of your statement

is what I disagree with because we have to start taking action to take it out. But it's almost like this confluence of events has to happen. People have to understand how expensive everything is.

“People have to under start choosing where they can. You have to start treating picking different”

food things that you're allocating where your resources are going, not everybody has endless resources, of course. So how are we going to change this and make a difference? Maybe it's a community garden. Maybe it's like you share a cow with your buddies. Like I think it'd be a big ask garden man. It's a big ask garden. We're sick. I agree. We're sick. We're sick. And the seed oils don't help. And I'm actually really sorry that this has now become a completely divided political issue.

That should not be a political issue. Vinny and I were talking about no seed oils back long before and everybody's like, you're crazy. You're nuts. And then the science kind of started coming out and people were writing about it and bringing the attention to it. And all things being equal wouldn't you rather have the oil that's pressed out of the olive than the super, now that being said, sesame oil, right? That's taking a sesame seed and cold pressing it and you put a little bit

of sesame oil in your beautiful stir fry, right? That's not the same thing because people write me about what, what, what, the sesame oil is a seed oil and like that's not the same thing. You could have some sunflower seeds. You can corn syrup. Corn syrup. Corn syrup is, but it's just batch it, bonkers crazy. The corn syrup is everywhere. And yet, so that's a better

“example. It's like, what are you going to do? Like we throw our hands off. But here's the thing,”

we started having the corn syrup dialogue a long time ago and now it has been pulled out of things. And by the way, big food, the big food companies, if they hear you complaining enough and not buying their products, guess what? They're going to change their formulas to take those things out.

So we do have some power there. Yes. All the way back to the very first point an hour and a half ago,

communication. You've got to grab the country by its metaphorical lapels and you have to shake them. Now, I'm sticking with this metaphor for another 10 seconds because, you know, when I see Nick Shirley, Citizen Journalist, getting the country's attention vis-a-vis the fraud in Minnesota, you know, they knew about it for the last nine years in Minnesota. Like, they were charges had been filed. They were aware. But there was no urgency. There was no

outrage. There was no holy crap. Look at that. Interesting. Now, Nick Shirley goes in and now, every news outlet is really having, I guarantee you they're having staff meetings going, you know, why weren't we there? Yeah. Why didn't we do that? It's going to happen with corn syrup. I bet it's going to happen with seed oils. I feel like it's happening with corn syrup. They are taking it out of formulas. They're going to continue to with seed oils. I feel like the kickback to create

it into a political issue has been, I was like, oh, that's strategic. They're communicating

“that it's not political. And you're, you're nutty. If you want to get rid of, there's nothing”

wrong with seed oils. Your, your bonkers, if you want to get rid of seed, like they're spinning

defend corn syrup, you can do it. You can write a total logical jingle and use all the entire

bonds in the world and get people distracted. But look what they're doing now, they're otherwise rational people are defending the fraud. Right. They're, they're saying, look, it's bad. But if we eliminate fraud, what damage might be cause, what, you know, it's like, what do you even say? What isn't that like kind of what happened with the tobacco in the 80s? Yes, everyone was terrified of like, well, you can't get rid of a whole industry, what you can and we'll come up with a new

ways of economic prosperity. And you made the point perfect standing outside smoking a cigarette. Yeah, wasn't about the cigarette. It was about the place you were standing, the people you were standing with. It was about the routine. It was the cheat moment in your day. Well, dopamine hit where yes. And you got to chat with your friends and all of that thing got

“baked into the habit. Right. Right. And that's why it's tough to break. But it's, uh, we use beef”

talo, gui, and olive oil. Wonderful. Are you concerned about using plastic and aluminum? If so,

have you replaced them in your kitchen? Um, yeah, I try to be clean about that. I always feel like

every three or four years. We find out new information about our cookware. Uh, that you then have to be like, okay, well, wait, the first was the BPAs. Then I was like, well, the non sticks are good. And then what's the BPA? The by polyput feed power. All right, right. Yeah, of course. You're with me. Um, but anything that's coated in the plastic that's toxic for us, like maybe it's non stick cookware that's been coated. Oh, PTFE, poly tetrofluorethylene. Thank you. Inside of, uh,

which is called, uh, T-fall. T-fall cookware. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can't find it that much anymore. I ask, you know, because it's, uh, yeah, that, yeah, poly tetrofluorethylene, yeah, poly tetrofluorethylene. Polyethyl. Polyethyl tetrofluorethylene, tetroethyl, ethyl, ethyl, ethyl, ethyl. So don't bring ethylene. So close. Uh, glass storage containers, metal cutting boards. I'm not using the metal cutting boards. I'm, I'm a big fan, because I just like people fans have made me these beautiful hand

made wooden cutting boards that I'm obsessed with. And I love the booze. Well, I just love them. So for woodchering and stuff like that. I mean, you can't a restaurant. You have to use metal and clush. I'm a casual butchering. Do you do? Well, I mean, let's say I'm just batch cocking a chicken or I'm taking a prime rib and I'm a cutting and it's a rib eyes, batch cocking. Okay, batch, batch cocking. Yeah. Well, you just walk me through your mouth. Take a part. You

take a part of the chicken and then you lay it flat in part space with me. You're basically

like spling it. Uh, okay, spling. I do that when I know. Um, but it's called spatch cocked. Until my favorite words grew up in a most surprising way. Is it hyphenated or do you go with an

“MDA? I suppose I think it is a compound known. It's all together. Was it one word?”

Spatch. It's so challenging. Yeah. You think there's any validity to the idea of eating foods in a particular order for digestion and to help manage blood sugar. I'm not an expert in that, but it, if it blows your hair back, sure. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to file that under unpersuasive. Yeah. Okay. Um, alielos, monk fruit. Here. Okay. Here's my thing. I have as sugar substitutes. I have a dessert chapter in all of my books because like I said earlier, I believe

and living a life. When you quit sugar, you're going to be shocked how sweet things taste. So I use the least amount of sweet possible, but I use real sugar. Maybe it's, maybe it's a coconut sugar, maybe it's regular sugar, whatever, but it's sugar and sugar sugar. I'll learn that from Vinny. Your liver doesn't know the difference. Now, the sugar substitutes and the sugar, um, artificial sugars. I hate the way they taste. I think they taste like you brewed sugar through

dirty t-socks and I don't want any part of that. I don't like the way they taste the way they make the food taste and they upset my stomach. I know I might be in the minority on that,

“but I don't work with them. So I, again, an unpersuasive, if you want to mess with it, go for it,”

brah. So, I mean, what is your recommendation then? Is there a sugar substitute? There is a sugar substitute. What's it called? That I like? Yeah. No. See, you're, you're really not playing the game. You can't pass. Because everybody wants to know like, I mean, everybody goes to genos, because genos, this is where everybody goes. Yeah. Everybody eats stevia, because stevia, like if you like stevia,

you stevia. If you like monk fruit and a rithrital, you said, I avoid the tals. The tals are sugar alcohol, malatol, a rithrital, but by the, that's why they cut a rithrital, with some monk fruit to keep you from getting disaster pants, um, because the sugar alcohols malatol, what do I say? Malatols, is that your pants exactly? What do you mean? Just, when you can't trust a fart? Oh, right. That kind of situation.

So, you know, but not everybody has that reaction. Some people just eat it and that their tummies are great. It can affect some gut flora, inversely. So, and I don't like the taste.

still bad because I don't trust where the industry lasts by the FDA generally regarded as safe.

Are you concerned about products like appeal? Does it concern you? I don't know what that is. It's, uh, it's the coating that they put on fruits to make it look appeal, I get it. Yeah, AP. Like how they polish, they wax the apples? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I don't like that. I have an apple tree at home and makes, I have the best apples. So, plan an apple tree in your house. That's all. I want to go to say anything, but you're apples are pretty sweet. Thank you so much.

You're so welcome. What's the best cookware? There is. Stainless steel is great. I use some all-cloud. I use a couple of all-cloud, uh, non-sticks. What do you mean? I love cast iron. I have it messed with hex cloud. That's my next. That's actually

a project that I have to get some hex cloud and work with that and go down the rabbit hole.

“You mean like to do the VO for them in their new campaign?”

Hexclad. I'll do your VO if you send me some pans. I work for pans plus 10. Thank you. Uh, what do you think of the new FDA nutrition guidelines? Oh, yes. Something just came out today. I saw Nina Tichels, but up the reverse pyramid. I was confused. I didn't understand. Why did they just flip? Like, I understand what they're doing, but like, I don't think it's going to be clear to Americans. Now, Vinnie sat right there and said he believes

the greatest lie of her voice that on Western civilization was the food pyramid. Absolutely. I agree with him on that and it's not just because I've been completely brainwashed by him, which I have.

He is begiling. Isn't he? Uh, any thoughts on intermittent fasting? I love it. I do it.

But also, if you're hungry, eat. So what do you mean you do it? Like four or five hours at a time? Definitely between lunch and dinner, sometimes between breakfast and lunch. I like not eating, you know, if I can, not eating after like 7 p.m. and then going to bed and having some coffee and then

“waiting until I'm legitimately hungry the next morning. But I'm also, I think people need to find”

what works for them. I think part of the issue is that you hear a guy talking about intermittent fasting that everybody's like, "Yo, I'm moving five two bros." And then like, "You hear a guy talking about Matthew. You don't come on macros." And I don't mean to like, I'm not trying to like, you know, culturally appropriate. I'm not culturally appropriating the bros, but I am. But generally they're the, they're the launch pad that I owe hackers are the law. And I love

biohacking. I think that's awesome. Figure out what works for you. But at a certain point for me, it's like, "I want to live my life. I want to eat good food. I have a business to build. I have voice over to do. I'm busy." Yeah. I don't need to sit and be like, "Oh, what can I put in the counseling?" Yeah, I mean, yeah, the biohacking thing is I, do you think we've gone too far? I mean, do you think human and so many of these people? It's like, everything seems to have a hack.

“Everything seems to have a hack. It does. No, here's the thing. I don't think it's gone too far”

in the sense that people should be able to have access to this information because I feel like we haven't. And now we have this beautiful thing called podcasting where we can have these long-form conversations. And you can hear from human about how coal plunges will affect your life at certain temperatures. Isn't that cool? That's great. Or how psilocybin is a molecule that matches the serotonin or, I don't know. I don't even know. I listen to him sometimes and I don't know what

that is with that sounds cool. But when you're like taking it all to heart and that becomes your identity, maybe that might be too far. Again, I want to be a voice of reason. So if it works for you to do the coal plung, which by the way, I love a coal plung? Well, it's because you don't have any testicles. That's true. Well, you don't know that for sure. Pretty sure. Pretty sure. Now, look, I've been taking, I mean, that's a great example. I didn't buy a coal plung. Yeah,

I'd go in my pool in the winter. Well, I take coal showers. Yeah. That to me is brave or because I feel like when on the head right into the neck, I'm like, at least it's not my head. Well, I'll tell you what's tough is the, I like to shave in the shower. It's very tough to shave when you're shaking. As a rule, you've got, but aren't you supposed to take a regular shower and then you end with the cold shower? No, I go cold the whole time. The whole time. The whole time.

Well, that's probably a short shower, then. Eight, ten seconds. Just enough to get the bits. What is it? Do you think grass fed meat is actually better than grain fed meat you care? Sure. Yeah. What if you can? Do you think European flower products are cleaner and better than US flower products? I am almost 100% sure on my Enicles one experiment that European food is much cleaner than our food supply. Just from being a manufacturer and owning a brand and having to

make multiple things and also spending a lot of time in Europe. Yes, it's completely different. I'm super interested in this. I totally anecdotal, but I have some neighbors who are gluttones

they go to Italy and they just eat like a house a fire. You must. Pasta three times a day. Of course. Each of them lost three pounds. Yeah. And then you come home and you're like, what sort of sorcery is in our food? Can we get European flower? Does it take an act to Congress? I'm

“going to have a temper tantrum over availability or car. Sure. Sure. I think send your cousin Joey over there”

to get some flower. It gets some semolina. What's it? What's it difference between semolina and flower? I don't know. It's probably the grind. I don't eat gluten. Get off me. I don't know. This is funny. She asked it. I mean, it's not funny. It was very personal. Why didn't get personal? She's she's asking a personal. Yeah, these are all her questions. Why do you think so many people have gluten issues? Gosh, I wish I knew the answer to that being one who has

them. So celiac is an autoimmune disease. So that means when my body, when I eat gluten, my immune system attacks the villi and my small intestines. So if we remember back to seventh grade biology, the villi are the little microscopic particles on the duodenum and the small intestines that absorb the nutrients after you've digested your food. You flatten the villi. You start to have a breakdown in different systems because you're not absorbing any nutrients. So when I was diagnosed

at age 28, I was extremely, and not antaraxic, I did deal with antaraxia, but I was, what's it called? No, anemic. Anemic. So I was extremely, that's iron. And I was extremely, that was diagnosed with osteopenia, which is the stage right before osteoporosis at age 28.

So for me, like basically my body's like you haven't digested a nutrient. So that's where I

was starting to break down. Didn't even realize I was sick. I had the blessing of being tested

“because my mom who was 58 diagnosed said I had to get tested. That's how I learned. She was really,”

really ill. And so people with celiac have a legitimate reason to not eat gluten. A lot of people find they feel better, not eating gluten. So there's now non, I think it's like, I can't remember what it's called, non gluten sensitivity or non celiac gluten sensitive, something like that. Where they legit feel better, not having gluten. It can be inflammatory. I don't know if it's the round up. I don't know if it's the, you know, we're just, we've evolved. It used to be called

celiac sprue back at the turn of the 19th century sprue, which is kind of like an interesting sprue gives me, like, the vibes of like, oh, she's got, you know, the vapors or wickets or some

sprue. Yeah, she's got the sprue. And I always thought that was like a fascinating thing,

and it was very rarely diagnosed. It wasn't a thing. And now it's a thing. Like the peanut

“allergy, why do the kids have the peanut? I don't know. Well, see, are we all covered in chemicals?”

Or is it, I don't know. If you don't have a name for a thing, is there a thing? Right. Like what really happens when you name it? You know, I mean, it seems like 15 years ago. I just wasn't hearing about gluten at all. Yeah. And now it's, yeah. And a very common mistake is people think they're going to lose weight automatically, just by cutting a gluten. And my experience was the opposite. I was a size zero and couldn't gain any weight ever. I was like, this is great. I'm just

always skinny. And then when I got healthy, is my body started digesting food and being like, no,

no, no, no, we're in sort of packing on the pounds. So for me, it was opposite. Some people do lose weight, just because they, when they switch to a gluten free diet, maybe they're cleaning up some of the processed foods that they're eating. So it can happen. I'm not saying it's not going to happen. But everyone's in different and doesn't necessarily mean you're going to lose weight. But people think, well, I'm going to go gluten free. That's going to solve all my problems. And I'm like, they might

not be that. Yeah. It might not be. It might be. But we're complicated, man. Let me wear a cane in the ass. Aren't we? We are. We're, we're a tallology. We're complicated. We're predictable and yet unique. And we're desperate to paint with a broad brush. And of course, what's true for one might not be nearly as relevant for another. So we just do the best we can. We do the best we can. And listen, we all want a set of rules. And it's going to be different for everybody. Where should the

people go? Who just can't come off of you? I would love for the people to go to either eathappykitchen.com, check it out. All my books are on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, wherever you buy. All of our fine book selling retailers. Well, I've got two of them apparently. I know I have one. But now you have Italian. Anoviciner.substack.com is where I publish all new recipes that are not in a cookbook. And yeah. Hey, I'm going to take my advice. You're going to start zooming with some of your customers.

people to see. You're welcome. Well, thank you for having me. You bet. If you're done, please subscribe, leave some stars. I deal, if I've five. Five lousy little stars.