Ep. 91 Regenerative Farming with Sander van Stee

[00:00:06] I'm Michele Simms and this is The Beauty in the Mess, a community where people who crave a shift in mindset, personal growth, and connection to like-minded people come together to start rewriting their stories. Through engaging, honest, and insightful conversations, the show will help you embrace the mess to recognize the meanings and the lessons it holds and discover its hidden treasures to help you start making a mindset shift. Let's listen, learn, and reclaim who we were meant to be.

[00:00:33] Hi friend, welcome to The Beauty in the Mess. Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Sander Van Stee, a farmer with aspirations of becoming a fully regenerative farmer. Sander highlights his transition from traditional commercial farming to regenerative agriculture, emphasizing the benefits of healthy soil and the ethical treatment of livestock.

[00:00:55] Sander also discusses the differences between organic and regenerative farming, the health benefits of raw versus pasteurized milk, and the economic feasibility of regenerative farming. This conversation touches upon the importance of eating whole foods, the harmful effects of processed foods, and the critical role that consumers can play in driving change through their purchasing choices. Sander has always loved animals. Sander has always loved animals.

[00:01:22] He even considered becoming a veterinarian at one point, but he realized he could work more with animals as a farmer than he could as a veterinarian. In 2014, he and his family built a new dairy barn centered around cow comfort, but as the cows started to improve health-wise, Sander's own health began to slip. Years of neglecting sleep and recovery finally caught up to him. He saw several specialists, but no one was able to figure out why his body stopped producing testosterone.

[00:01:51] He started to question everything, the medical system, his health choices, even the way his family farmed. He was searching for ways to improve animal welfare when he came across regenerative agriculture. It took him six years overall to regain his health, and now he has four boys and a beautiful family. He wants to also make sure everyone knows that he raises pastured turkeys, which follow behind the grass-fed beef,

[00:02:17] much like how the birds used to follow the ancient herds of bison that used to roam the North America. Sander also introduces us to his company, Moral Eats, which is dedicated to improving farm animal welfare and producing high-quality foods. Hi, I'm Michelle Sims, your host. I'm just a regular person who, along with my family, have had our share of messes that we, too, have had to overcome. Along the way, I got curious as to how others get through their messes, even triumph over them. Maybe there's a better way, a faster way.

[00:02:48] Maybe we can accelerate our journeys by learning from someone else. That started my pursuit. I think we can all learn from each other through the sharing of our experiences, lessons, and knowledge. So join me for episode 91 of The Beauty and the Mess, called Regenerative Farming with Sander Van Stee. So without further ado, let's dive right into today's conversation. Hi, Sander. Welcome to The Beauty and the Mess. I'm so glad to have you with me today. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[00:03:19] Awesome. I know you want to be a fully regenerative farmer in the future. Before we start digging into that, I was wondering if you would tell us or could tell us some of your personal journey that led you down that path. What made you want to enter that realm of farming? Yeah, it wasn't an easy journey because we had a commercial farm that was profitable, that we did okay. So usually the rule of thumb is if it's not broken, don't fix it.

[00:03:45] So yeah, it wasn't an easy transition normally. And what started me going down that road actually was I started having hormonal issues and just tired, weak. And I had a hard time to kind of put my finger on what was going on because a lot of the symptoms were kind of broader. They're all over the place because your hormones, they affect your whole body. So it was kind of hard kind of piecing all the symptoms together into what was going on.

[00:04:12] And eventually I went to the doctor and then did some blood work. And I was asking him, like, is it possible that my testosterone is low? And he didn't believe me because I still had body hair and some muscle tone. But I insisted that I wanted the test done. So here in Canada, we have free health care, except for when you disagree with a doctor. Oh, wow. So I had a pocket for the blood work. But sure enough, yeah, my testosterone was next to nothing.

[00:04:38] So that started me down a very long journey of trying to heal myself. It took me a total of six years before my hormone balance to the point where I could no longer need to take hormone replacement therapy. And throughout the time, there was lots of growth, lots of frustrations. I can imagine low testosterone affects every aspect of my life as far as my relationship with my wife and the energy levels that I have just to be around my kids and to make it through a long day of physical labor.

[00:05:08] It was exhausting. It took like every ounce of motivation just to push myself through a full day. So I had no lack of motivation as far as creating change. And I ended up questioning all the different aspects of my life because I knew that I was doing something wrong to have gone down this road. And so I was questioning the health care system. I was questioning my own health priorities. But I also questioned the way we farmed.

[00:05:34] And the one thing that I was personally researching was animal welfare. So I was researching different ways that I could do things differently on our farm to improve their welfare. And ultimately, that led me to learning about regenerative agriculture slowly at first. But then there's one farmer in particular that really caught my attention, a man named Gabe Brown out of North Dakota. And he was interesting to me in particular because he had quite a large farm.

[00:06:03] I think he managed 5,000 acres at the time when I heard about him. And he has really short growing seasons as well. So I was like, it really kind of planted a seed that grew into the belief that regenerative agriculture is something that can be applied to commercial scale farms as well. It's not just the small hobby farms necessarily. So the belief changed and then it kept growing from there and trying to experiment on our own farm animal welfare.

[00:06:31] But also regenerative agriculture, how we can apply that. And yeah, it's been quite a journey. It sounds like it has been. So you ultimately restored your health. Did you find what the missing component was or what was affecting your health? Did you ever discover or is it just a compilation of everything? It was a difficult journey to figure out what was going on because ultimately, like I ended up going to like from one specialist to another. None of them were really able to figure out what was going on.

[00:07:00] I was tested for every sort of rare genetic disorder you could think of because they were kind of baffled that a young, because I was 25 at the time, that a young man, seemingly healthy, had no testosterone. And I had to drive probably with the traffic three hours back and forth to the hospital. So it took a lot out of my day. And I remember on one of these appointments, I ended up bringing up like, is it possible that I'm just burnt out?

[00:07:29] But his explanation was that burnout is not a real condition. And I think he was just perfectly happy. I think he tried his best, but it really seemed like he was happy just prescribing the hormone therapy and having me be a regular patient of his. But as far as like the root cause, it was just this textbook stuff that he was looking for, not really a holistic thing. It was just all these tiny, insignificant, like, I don't know, there was countless different blood panels and stuff he ran.

[00:07:57] But I was even like looking for tumors and stuff like that. So that gave us a scare, but that ended up being nothing, thankfully. But yeah, I decided, well, burnout is real. I thought I'd pursue it anyway. So I went down the road of just applying any sort of health hack to my life and seeing what worked for me. And over the six year span, I kept stacking these different habits. As far as like exercising, got into a normal exercise routine to try to improve my diet.

[00:08:27] I was always fairly lean. That was never an issue, but I had room to improve as far as like whole foods. I tried the vegan diet for a while because the time when I got sick, that was 11 years ago. The vegan diet was supposed to basically fix all the world's problems. So, but anyway, I'm pretty open-minded almost to a fault. So I thought I'd give it a try despite the fact that I'm a dairy farmer. And yeah, I think there was an overall improvement in my diet. But the problem is that I really struggled getting in enough calories.

[00:08:56] So I started eating just lots of nut butters, lots of beans and stuff like that. I was conscious of the fact that I needed my proteins and my healthy fats and stuff like that. And I was doing it right. And I supplemented with B12. But ultimately, when I started adding meats back in whole foods diet, I really started seeing more improvements. And I kept kind of experimenting with it too, like the proportions of, as long as they're whole foods, it's already a massive step.

[00:09:21] But then I started experimenting on myself, like how I felt, what proportion of animal foods to plant foods. I was quite surprised actually where I ended up. Definitely far more animal foods than what's recommended is what makes me feel at my best. Wow. Yeah, but things like cold exposure I was trying. I tried meditation. Didn't stick with that. Yeah. Much benefit from meditation. But cold exposure, surprisingly, had a massive difference.

[00:09:50] Because it forces you to, when you have a cold shower, the idea is it's really stressful. And then you have to force your body to relax and calm down. And it made me hyper aware of what my stress response felt like, the hyperventilation, the shallow breathing. And then I would contrast to once I got good enough at it that I was successfully able to calm myself down. I would contrast that to how I felt afterwards.

[00:10:19] And I started becoming aware of where my diaphragm would be, like what that even felt like. So, like, it was through, like, practicing cold exposure that I started to realize that I was stress breathing the whole day through. Really shallow breaths. My diaphragm would always be sucked up. And there's really no reason for the stress. It was just a habit, really. So, like, manage my stress throughout the day. Just building that awareness through exposure to stress. So, lots and lots of small habits.

[00:10:48] But what really allowed my body to relax and finally brought my hormones back is I tried an extended fast. I did a three-day fast. And after that, my hormones came back. I felt stronger, better, healthier. And not that there's something necessarily magical about the fast. I think the fast is a really powerful biological reset. But I feel like had I done that year one, like when I first diagnosed, I don't think it would have done anything.

[00:11:14] But I think years of building these healthy habits and sticking to them consistently, then having that biological reset really was the final straw that brought my hormones back. Wow, that's amazing. I've actually heard of some pretty magical things that do happen with that three-day fast. You know, I mean, as far as the body, like you said, regenerating itself.

[00:11:38] And that's amazing that that was the final catalyst, I guess, that brought everything back to normal. That's pretty awesome. So, if you could, would you explain what regenerative farming is for us? What exactly? And I know it's a huge encompassing thing, but just for the average listener that's not heard of it yet. Put very simply, regenerative agriculture is when you're farming in a way that prioritizes the health of the soil.

[00:12:06] Which doesn't sound all that amazing in and of itself, but there are some very powerful knock-on effects when you do this. Because when you have a healthy soil, what you're really creating is a really diverse ecosystem of microbes in the soil. It's a thriving food chain. And when this is in place, once you successfully have this diversity of microbes in the soil,

[00:12:32] the plant can do things that seem almost magical because it can excrete sugars into the soil and trade those sugars for nutrients, for the microbes. So, the sugars are basically the foundation of this food chain. Oh, wow. And then the microbes trade nutrients, trade minerals that they mine from the rocks and from the clay and stuff in the soil. And they trade those with the plant so that the plant doesn't need synthetic fertilizers in order to grow. And it's amazing to watch when it's done successfully.

[00:13:03] Because, yeah, no fertilizers, no inputs. And then the plant just grows really, really well. So, like, the possibilities are amazing to try this to commercial agriculture and start producing food. Because the potential is there for being able to produce food even more efficiently than we currently do. Because the cost of synthetic fertilizers are massive. So, being able to cut that out would be greatly beneficial from the farmer's perspective.

[00:13:32] But just for the society as a whole, the benefits for the soil health would be amazing. Because when you have a healthy soil, all that life is carbon-based. And you also create a lot of organic matter, a lot of root mass and stuff like that. All that is carbon. And that carbon originates from the atmosphere, the CO2, a greenhouse gas.

[00:13:55] So, basically, a healthy soil allows you to sequester and store all this carbon that would normally be in the atmosphere and store it into the soil. And then you can really improve the gases and the health of the environment in that way. And it's not just that. It's also just the diversity of microbes, yes. But also the diversity of plants and the diversity of wildlife that's also attracted to that farmland. Environmentally, there's all sorts of wins.

[00:14:24] When you're managing and prioritizing soil health. So, do you practice crop rotation and even the grazing rotation where the animals graze on different pastures, so to speak? Does that help the soil? When you're grazing animals and do it in a way where you rotate the animals from one piece to another piece, every single day you're moving the animals to a fresh piece of grass, you're naturally following the principles that allow for a healthy soil. You almost do it by accident.

[00:14:53] That's why usually when you hear about regenerative agriculture, you're talking about grass-fed animals. Because it's the easiest way to apply the principles of soil health. However, you can apply these same principles to row cropping, fruit production, vegetable production. It really doesn't matter what. It just takes a little more intention. So, those principles include biodiversity in the soil, but animals and the plants that you're growing as well.

[00:15:20] And then also, the second would be to minimize disturbances, whether that be work in the soil or chemical inputs or fertilizers. It doesn't matter either. Any sort of disturbance, you want to minimize any of that. And then, you need to have living roots all year round in the soil because those microbes, they live in association to roots. They need to have that relationship to have the sugars that comes from the plant, but also a lot of them actually just embed in the roots of the plant.

[00:15:48] And then, you need armor on the soil of just vegetation that protects the soil from the sun, stop it from drying out. And then, the last principle, the fifth one, is to have animal impact. So, like those five principles that you need to follow, you naturally do that when you're rotationally grazing animals. You have the pasture. The pasture is there year round. There's living roots. If you don't overgraze, at least, there's always going to be some armor on the soil.

[00:16:16] And then, of course, you have the animals grazing it for the animal impact. And it's really easy to have perennial plants and have a diverse species of perennial plants. It's really easy to manage that. So, having that diversity is nowhere near as difficult when you compare that to row cropping when you're planting corn and stuff like that. It's much more tricky to have that diversity. And then, also, you're not working the soil. And you don't need to add fertilizer to pasture. So, very little disturbances. Okay.

[00:16:45] I was reading where tilling is part of the problem with the carbon being released into the atmosphere, right? So, you don't have to till as often, I take it, if you have these perennial plants. Is that what you're saying? Exactly, yeah. But even more so, when you're tilling, you're disturbing the life that's in the soil. So, and especially the fungal life. The fungal life is like a keystone species. Well, the one species of fungal life in particular, the mycorrhizal fungi.

[00:17:12] They're like really long, filamental fungi that embed into the roots and reach out into the soil. And like transports the nutrients and the sugars back and forth. So, like the mycorrhizal fungi is a really keystone species to making that soil health, that whole system work. But as soon as you, like they're, but of course, they're also the most sensitive of all the microbes in the soil.

[00:17:36] So, like, yes, the tillage releases the carbon and makes it vulnerable to erosion and stuff like that and losing the carbon. But even more sinister is the fact that it wipes out the microbial life in the soil. So, now you can no longer have that relationship. You don't have that healthy ecosystem anymore. And like the fungal life, that mycorrhizal fungi that's so sensitive, that's so easy to kill. That is what's critical for having that relationship with a plant where you no longer need those synthetic inputs.

[00:18:05] So, what is the difference between organic farming versus the regenerative? Because it sounds like you're not using the fertilizers. I don't know if you use pesticides and herbicides and all that. But what is the difference?

[00:18:18] Yeah, over the years, I think organic farming has become more about following the rules of organic farming and less about the original, I don't know if your goal is the right word, but like the motivations. That's the original motivations behind starting organic farming. So, I think regenerative agriculture today is very similar. Like the motivations of regenerative agriculture is very similar to the original motivations of organic farming.

[00:18:48] But over the years, like as soon as you have a set of rules that this is what you have to follow to be certified a certain way, then there becomes gray areas within those rules. There's ways that you can bend those rules and still follow them and still be certified. But then do it in a way that's maybe not as ideal or is not as honest to the original motivations of organic farming.

[00:19:13] So, organic farming is almost more about like removing the chemicals, the synthetic chemicals and doing it in a more natural way. But it's not necessarily purely focused on soil health the way regenerative agriculture is. But like I think the original motivations were not nearly as different as they are today. Yeah, but it's definitely not the same thing. I think regenerative agriculture is almost more as a journey towards soil health.

[00:19:41] Not necessarily like these are the fixed rules that you have to follow or else you're not practicing regenerative agriculture. Oh, wow. So, for people that eat meat, the animal that eats these healthier plants from the healthier soil, how does it change the meat that we're eating? Yeah, it's not surprising that having healthier soils makes for healthier plants, healthier pasture, which then also makes for healthier animals. It's not surprising.

[00:20:10] It's logical. But it's not just theory. It's measurable. There's measurable differences between food produced in a regenerative way and food that's produced in the regular commercial way. So, like if you compare a biopsy from a muscle from an animal that's fed using grass-fed practices versus an animal that's grain-fed, you can see more evidence of aging in the grain-fed animals.

[00:20:37] So, what you see is there's more proteolysis in the grain-fed animals. There's more oxidative stress and there's more advanced glycation end product. So, basically, those are all different ways of measuring aging at a microscopic level. But what that ends up with is the actual meat using regenerative practices, using the grass-fed meat, is much higher in omega-3 fatty acids, which has been known for quite a while. But it's much more than that, they realize.

[00:21:05] There's also more vitamin E, more vitamin A. There's more phytonutrients, which phytonutrients are just nutrients that originate from plants. But the incredible thing is that if you look at these phytonutrients, it's not just nutrients that come from plants. There's actual nutrients that originated from the fungal life and the microbial life that's in the soil that's made its way up the food chain to the meat that's ultimately on your plate.

[00:21:33] So, there's a lot of phytonutrients that make it all the way up the food chain and all have different antioxidant kind of effects like anti-inflammatory effects on your body. Wow. Yeah, I know inflammation's huge these days. It seems like autoimmune and everything is just on the rise. So, first, I wanted to also mention that it's not just what's in these animals that's not in a more poorly fed animal, but it's also what's not there, right?

[00:22:02] Like, I'm assuming you don't put hormones into the meat to the cows and the, I think you raised turkeys, right? That's right. So, you don't put hormones into them and you don't put antibiotics like all these other commercialized farming seems to do. I don't know. Yeah. In that way, it's very similar to like a lot of the organic principles. It's very common to have food that's raised in a regenerative way that also happens to be organic.

[00:22:29] We don't certify organic because it's quite a paper burden to do that. Okay. But, yeah, in that way, it's very similar to like snow hormones and stuff like that. And, yeah, there's consequences to that. Like some of those hormones allow you to finish your beef a little earlier. So, you have animals that take longer to finish. But from my perspective, that's ultimately a bonus from a welfare perspective because I think any sort of management practices that allow the animals to live longer is an improvement in welfare.

[00:22:58] So, like that's also like having finishing them on grass instead of finishing them on grain also takes longer. The animal ends up being in 24, 25, 26 months old. Whereas with a grain finish, a regular commercial steer can be finished in 15, 16 months. So, it takes longer. But I think ultimately it's a bonus from a welfare perspective to give them that extra time.

[00:23:23] And for those of us that aren't farmers, the grass finished, grain finished just means that that's what they've eaten their whole life? Is that with them? Not necessarily. No? Okay. No. Like it depends where they're sourced from. But typically, all steers, all beef spends the first part of their life at all pasture typically. And with just a regular cow-calf farm or farm work where they have the beef cows, they'll spend the first portion of their life on grass or forages.

[00:23:51] And the real difference is in the last two, three months of their life where they're just fed a finishing diet. So, they have the frame and then they feed the grain to really put on that fat as quick as possible. And normally, like an animal that's 15, 16 months old wouldn't really be ready to put on a whole lot of fat because they're still growing into their frame until they're at least 24 months old. So, you're almost like fighting nature a little bit by getting them finished that early.

[00:24:20] But it's a more efficient process because you don't need to feed them for as many days. Whereas this is where you kind of get a more cost-effective product ultimately when you do it that way, when you're finishing them on grain because you don't need to feed them as many days. But yeah, it's the real difference is in the last bit of their life where they get fed a heavy grain diet.

[00:24:39] Whereas like where the grass fed stay on a purely grass diet and you really have to manage that grass so that it's young, healthy and nutrient-dense grass or else you won't be able to have that gain, the growth that you need to finish the animal. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Like I said, for those of us that aren't farmers, we sometimes get lost in the language of all of this stuff.

[00:25:02] So, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on like unpasteurized milk versus pasteurized milk. Because I'm hearing a lot about drinking raw milk and I just wondered what your thoughts on that were. I got lots of thoughts on raw milk. Unfortunately, here in Canada where I am, raw milk is still illegal. Okay. And I think it's an absolute travesty. One of the things that I had to cut out of my diet when I started trying to improve my own health was dairy.

[00:25:31] And I didn't realize it at the time because I ate dairy for like every single meal. But it was causing a lot of digestive issues for me. And it wasn't until I reincorporated raw dairy that I was able to consume dairy again. But not only that, when I started adding in raw dairy back into my diet, that's what really started to improve the health of my gut. Like because before then I would avoid foods that caused me digestive issues.

[00:25:58] But I would accidentally slip up or something that I eat some of these foods like gluten or whatever else. I would have a massive flare up. And so, I didn't feel like I was really improving my gut health. I was just avoiding the food that were irritating me. But it wasn't until I started adding in the raw dairy that I really started noticing that my gut health was actually improving. Whereas if I did slip up, I wouldn't notice anything. I could slip up without any sort of negative consequences.

[00:26:22] And you mentioned earlier too how we were in an absolute epidemic of autoimmune conditions now. And it seems to be on the rise continuously. And one of the best things, in my opinion, that you can do when you're having digestive issues or autoimmune issues is just return to the first food of life, which is raw milk. The first food of life is a complete food. It's almost a miracle product that benefits.

[00:26:51] Especially here in Ontario or in Canada where I am, you hear a lot that there's really no difference between raw milk and pasteurized milk. But there's 60 different functional enzymes in raw milk. Oh, wow. Every single one of them is damaged to the point where it's no longer functioning after you pasteurize it. And you can't tell me that there's 60 different enzymes have absolutely no function, that they do nothing.

[00:27:17] So, if you look at the enzymes, there's lots of proteases, like enzymes that help digest proteins. You have lipases that help you digest the fats in milk. There's even lactases. There's enzymes that help you digest the lactose in milk. So, what you end up with is milk that's far more digestible. Because that milk, that raw milk, will digest itself in your gut. Wow.

[00:27:46] Causing your gut with healthy bacteria. And if you look at some of these other enzymes, like what the actual functions are is like all the different minerals that you can find in milk. And there's a lot of them. Every single one has an enzyme that helps with its absorption. For example, phosphatase is an enzyme that helps you absorb calcium.

[00:28:08] And they actually measure whether or not pasteurization is successful by seeing whether or not phosphatase is inactive. Calcium is one of the main reasons people drink milk in the first place. Right. And you're stripping it of that enzyme. But there's also, apart from the enzyme, there's things called cytokines, which are signaling molecules. You're not just eating nutrients. You're not just eating calories. It's actually communicating with the bacteria in your body.

[00:28:37] So it has cytokines. There's a long list of different effects of different cytokines, of different signaling molecules, what they do. But a lot of them have anti-inflammatory effects. And some of them, there's a lot of research in calves where there's cytokines that help mature the lining of the gut to help it grow. And so, like, with people with digestive issues, those same cytokines can help heal the gut lining.

[00:29:05] I know people that run, like, ultra marathons and, like, have these really extreme bouts of endurance. Athletes like that, the raw milk helps a lot because it helps. Once you put yourself under so much stress, you actually break down the lining of your gut and you have gaps in there. And those cytokines will help heal that, as well as giving you the proteins for muscle building and, like, the electrolytes.

[00:29:27] So, like, it does an awful lot of benefits that almost seems to be ignored when you compare it to, like, what the mainstream talks about. Yeah, it's kind of like when I was looking it up, I saw a lot of great things about raw milk. But then you would see some organization would post a warning, your risk of E. coli, your risk of this and that all goes up with that. Do you think that's all kind of exaggerated for the most part? I know we're not medical folks talking here.

[00:29:56] We're not giving medical advice or anything like that. But just do you think that's overly exaggerated? Yeah, when I looked at the data and numbers are tricky because it can tell you a very different story depending on how you crunch the numbers. Yeah, and they can legally crunch it any way they want. Exactly. So, I looked at the data from 2014 from all the numbers that are actually published.

[00:30:22] And 2014 is what I found, like, there's a lot of information from that year as far as the total amount of foodborne illnesses from different sources. And on a population level, there's definitely far more risk in drinking raw milk. If you look at these numbers were from the U.S. because there's certain states that allow and others that don't. But if I take those numbers and I look at the population of the U.S. in 2014, the total number of people that lived in the U.S.,

[00:30:50] I can figure out what is my individual risk if I drink raw milk. And those numbers are not what's published. They're just publishing, oh, like, if you drink raw milk, there's a 97% increase in risk of getting sick. And that's a real risk. But, like, everybody should have their own choice and look at the backs of the matter for themselves.

[00:31:12] But if I look at my personal risk of drinking raw milk, if I look at the 2014 numbers, it comes down to if I drink milk every single day for a whole year, in that year, I have a 0.0075% chance of getting sick. Which works out. Like, if I drink milk every single day, I will get sick about once every 13,000 years. Wow. That's amazing.

[00:31:38] So, like, if I compare that to the guaranteed benefits that I have every single time I drink it, I don't have the massive bloating and digestive upsets and inflammation throughout my entire body. That's guaranteed. I had that every single time I drink a glass of milk. So, like, if I compare the risk, like, for me, it's worth it. Yeah. That's an amazing way to help us visualize the actual risk. So, thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. And I was going to ask you, is it feasible?

[00:32:08] Is it really sustainable for more farmers to do what you're doing? But I read where it's actually more cost effective. And I know you touched on that as well. Since everybody's worried about climate change, everybody's worried about the food that they're eating, or a lot of people are. Why aren't more farmers going this route? Or maybe they are, and I'm not aware. Yeah. There's a lot of different ways I can go with that question. I think a lot of commercial farmers are trying different things.

[00:32:35] And the government is stimulating certain initiatives as well, like till and stuff like that. But, unfortunately, you don't really see, especially from, like, a soil health and from a profitability perspective, you really don't see much benefit, much return on those investments until you get all the puzzle pieces in place. So, like, for cover cropping, for example, to do cover cropping, you have to go over your field one more time. You have to buy all that extra seed, pay for the fuel, the time.

[00:33:04] And in cases like myself, I don't do field work. I pay for a custom worker to do it. There's a lot of extra costs involved to following these initiatives. So, like, but then, unfortunately, if you don't get all the pieces in place, there's really not much as far as return. You can say, like, over long term, you might improve your soil health. You might improve the organic matter in your soil. But what does that actually do? It doesn't really seem to make much of a difference as far as the yields or the profitability year per year.

[00:33:31] So it's difficult to warrant those investments when you don't really see a return each year. So, like, that's why you don't really see it exploding across from a farmer's perspective. But on the other hand, there's definitely a huge increase as far as interests in the environment and where the food comes from. But if you really look at what is the average consumer picking when they go to the grocery store, they'll look at a stick of butter and then they'll pick the ones that's 10 cents cheaper or name your product.

[00:34:00] If you look at supply and demand, they're always creating the demand for the cheapest food possible. That's the mass market. That's the average consumer. Now, luckily, there is a growing trend towards, like, sourcing your food responsibly. And there's pay a little bit extra to ensure that it is raised in a certain way. And that trend is growing. But it's definitely not the average consumer yet that's more conscientious of their food choices.

[00:34:29] So, unfortunately, not every farmer can afford to take these risks and try to change up their management practices and, like, move away from what's worked in the past, basically, to fulfill a demand that's not necessarily at the mass scale yet. But, like, that's the magical thing about, though, like, supply and demand. If you want to have that trend grow and food produce in a more responsible way, it's just a matter of putting your dollars where your mouth is.

[00:34:58] Instead of just saying that these things are important, if you actually, like, create that demand, farmers will fulfill it. And then another way that I can explain this is that sometimes you can actually be more profitable once you have the management practices in place with regenerative agriculture. But in some ways, you can be more profitable, more efficient. But in other ways, you actually can be less profitable and less efficient using these practices.

[00:35:24] So, I can give you an example of both circumstances, especially in areas like in Texas and stuff like that or in areas where you don't get a lot of rainfall. You can actually, when you use regenerative practices and you use rotational grazing, you can actually improve the health of the soil to such a degree that when it rains, all that organic matter acts like a sponge and it holds on to that water for longer. Wow.

[00:35:49] That pasture can go longer without rain and it can continue growing grass for longer. So, when you successfully use these regenerative practices, there's areas like that where you can actually increase your stocking density. You can have more animals per hectare per acre and have more animals, raise more animals on the same farm using these practices by having the soil health and enjoying the benefits of that water holding capacity.

[00:36:16] So, in areas like that, you're actually more profitable using these practices because you're able to raise so much more animals on the same amount of land. But the opposite example where you're less efficient is like I was speaking before about how when you grain finish an animal, you can have them ready for market at 15, 16 months of age. Whereas when you're grass finishing an animal, they're not going to be ready for at least 24 months old.

[00:36:42] So, you're spending money on this animal for far longer, up to 10 months longer before you get your paycheck. So, in instances like that, you're actually less efficient and less profitable. I know every farm is different and the size is different. But for your particular case, how long has it taken you to convert from commercialized to regenerative? Yeah. Yeah. In my case, I'm highly motivated to make that transition from our commercial dairy farm.

[00:37:12] At the moment, we don't offer dairy products because we're still fully supplying the commercial market on the dairy side. So, one of the things that you end up doing when you're following regenerative practices, you end up diversifying your farm. It's not just monocultures and single specialized products that you produce, nothing but milk. That's all we did is produce milk. And that's what we specialized in. That's what's really common in the commercial market. You focus on and you specialize and you look for efficiencies that way.

[00:37:40] But with regenerative agriculture, you move much more towards diversity. And not just like I was speaking before with diversity of species and stuff like that, but also just diversities of income and different sources of income. So, now we're moving towards the grass-fed beef and keeping the bull calves from our dairy cows and raising them as grass-fed beef. And we're able to do that because they're cross-bred to beef. The dairy animals, they don't put on meat very well.

[00:38:07] So, it's really difficult to have grass-fed and grass-finished animals that are 100% dairy. But because they're half-beef animals, they're cross-bred to beef genetics, they actually finish quite well. And then also the turkeys, they complement the beef really, really well because we have the beef grazing. And then the turkeys follow three days behind the beef. So, the beef, they eat the majority of the grass, which is fine because the turkeys, they're much smaller animals.

[00:38:36] They struggle walking through the really tall grass. So, the turkeys follow about three days behind the beef. And they'll also have the added benefit of eating the insects that are attracted to the manure of the beef animals that have already passed. And then in return, the turkeys, they have manure that's really high in nitrogen. And grass loves nitrogen. So, then when the bulls come back around, they have the benefit of the extra growth from the manure that the turkeys left behind.

[00:39:04] So, they complement each other really well. And there's lots of synergies that you can find in regenerative agriculture, which is one of the things that improves the profitability of regenerative agriculture again. Yeah, so like on our farm, because our dairy farm is a decent size, it's very intimidating for me to find a market and sell direct to consumer across our whole dairy farm. Whereas, I started off with like the beef and the turkeys and practicing the skill of marketing and reaching out and finding people.

[00:39:34] And then, so for our farm, the real bottleneck is just finding the people that are our ideal customers, that are interested and are more conscientious this way, that they're looking for. They're more interested in where their food comes from and how it's produced. And then, they're interested in the regenerative practices. That's really the bottleneck. I think if that was not the bottleneck, I could probably make the transition in a matter of three years. Oh, wow. So, it's a matter of like, how much risk do I take on myself without having the customer base yet?

[00:40:02] And just like, hopefully, if there's periods of less profitability, that I can swallow that. But yeah, timing has a lot to do with it too, and the different markets and things like interest rates too, investments that we will have to make to make a certain transition. Yeah, like, there's lots of different things to consider. So, I'm not sure how long it will take us. But yeah, a lot of this is kind of stems around just finding ways to reach people.

[00:40:30] It's probably an odd question, but I was just wondering if farmers help other farmers make this conversion, or is the competition too high? And it's, hey, you're my competitor, I'm not helping you. No, actually, the community that I found locally of other farmers have been very open and very supportive. Like, for example, with our beef, we rent freezer space from another farmer that produces meat regeneratively. Oh, wow.

[00:40:55] And we rent freezer space from him, so we don't have to right away build a walk-in freezer of a certain capacity. We can just grow within his freezer. So, that's been great. And then there's other farmers too that have been doing deliveries for us. They're doing their own route, and we just add some of our meat to their route. And for a small fee, they'll deliver it for us. It's a very supportive community. That's wonderful. Wonderful. Good to know. And I was thinking also, my brain goes all different places, sorry.

[00:41:21] But I was also thinking, you know, I hope people do start thinking of where these products are being sourced from and how they're being raised. Because, I mean, you're starting to see things not only of the fake meats that are coming on the market, which are highly processed. And I used to eat them. I admit it. I was a vegan vegetarian for 10 years for health reasons. But I started realizing that those products were just as bad for my health as anything else I could be sticking in my body.

[00:41:51] But now I'm starting to see, like, the lab-grown meats. You're starting to see, like, people putting huge investments in this stuff. And I'm thinking, oh, my gosh. Who would want to put that in their mouth, let alone put it in their kid's mouth? Well, I'm sorry. I just, I have major objections to a lot of this stuff. It's very scary to me. Absolutely, yeah. And if you boil down, like, what's going on with society, the average people are being overfed but undernourished. Right, true.

[00:42:18] So, like, what that really means is, like, you're eating food that's devoid of nutrition. So, if you're eating this highly processed diet, and then your body is still, like, craving for more food, like, it's for more nutrition, sorry. Like, it doesn't have everything that it needs. So, then you're never satisfied. You have all these different cravings. And it's impossible to get off this. It feels like it's impossible anyway to get off this wagon of just constantly craving foods.

[00:42:44] And then your body thinks it wants a bag of chips, but what it really after is some minerals. So, like, it's like your body doesn't know. It's not that intelligent as far as cravings. It just tells you what it thinks based off of what you're already eating that it wants. But it's like, if you look at these, like, the lab-grown meat is a perfect example. Like, it doesn't get much more processed than that. Yeah. You're changing things that are used to be a bean. And, like, the list of ingredients is insane. And they talk about it like this.

[00:43:14] It's an improvement in health. It's horrible. Beyond me, as far as, like, people actually believe that. Because, like, it's literally something to build growing out of the lab. The real health, and especially for regenerative agriculture, the health benefits comes from the contact with the soil. Healthy soil. And like I was saying before, the nutrients that make its way up the food chain. Starting from the microbes in the soil to the plants, to the animals. Even if you produce vegetables and fruit this way, it's the same idea.

[00:43:40] Like, it's in contact with the soil where you really get all these extra health benefits. All that nutrition. All the nutrients. The extra nutrients in the food. So, like, it's beyond me as far as, yeah, as far as, like, how people believe that that's an improvement and a solution to anything. But, like, ultimately, we need to kind of come back to our roots and, like, what were we originally eating? I don't think you can argue that going back to whole foods.

[00:44:06] I think no matter what extreme diet you're on, whether it be the two opposites, eating just meat or eating just plants, everybody agrees that you got to be eating whole foods. Get the processed stuff out of your diet. Exactly. And it doesn't help, though, that these companies are allowed to put in chemicals that actually cause you to be addicted to the fattening, sugary foods. You eat it and your brain gets a dopamine hit. So you want more. And like you said, but your body is really starving for what it needs.

[00:44:36] Not starving in a literal sense, but starving for what it needs nutritionally. So. That's right. Yeah, and sugar is a perfect example because if you actually look at brain scans and the dopamine hit that you're mentioning, your brain lights up the exact same way when you eat sugar as it does when you get a hit of cocaine. It's literally addictive. And we're feeding this to our children. And then you're setting them up for failure because you basically have a bunch of sugar addicts going into the world.

[00:45:02] If you go from one craving to the next, it's impossible for you to make healthy food choices when you're just listening to your body when you're starting off that way. Like you have almost like that's like going back to like fasting is really powerful that way because you kind of give your body a reset as far as the food that you're putting in there. And you give it a break. I give it a rest. It can heal. It can break down some of the senescent cells, some of the old dying cells in your body, but also reset your cravings.

[00:45:30] And if you then can educate yourself and go back to just eating single ingredient foods, simple foods, whole foods, even if it's not regenerative foods yet. Like that's another step. But just go back to eating whole foods is already a massive improvement. And then your body can then start craving things that it actually needs, actually healthy foods. If you reset your taste buds, you will crave healthy whole foods.

[00:45:58] And you know, you got it right when basically you don't really have much for cravings anymore. I remember when I was eating a vegan diet for a while, it didn't matter how much I ate. Like I could have a massive mixing bowl size salad and I'd be like bloated and full, but still craving and like still craving food, especially chocolate. I couldn't satiate my cravings for chocolate. And so I always had it in the house and I would eat some every single time. I just have to leave the house and get back to work or else I just keep eating it.

[00:46:28] You know what I mean? Like I wasn't able to like satiate that craving. And I try to get like healthier chocolate. It'd be like dark chocolate, like 90% dark chocolate. This is supposed to be great for me. So that's what we bought and it helped. But like I couldn't satiate that craving. Whereas later on, I started adding in more animal foods to the point now where I eat a significant, like a large, a much larger amount than I ever thought I would. Just trying to listen to my body.

[00:46:54] And the crazy thing is now chocolate could be sitting in the cupboard for months at a time and I won't touch it because not that I'm motivated. I just don't crave it anymore. And I realized after the fact that dark, oh, not just dark chocolate, but chocolate in general is one of maybe two plant sources of saturated fat. It's the same thing that I was telling before. Like it's like your body is craving something, but you don't really know what it's short on. But like after the fact, looking back, I was probably short on saturated fat.

[00:47:22] Like every cell wall is built on saturated fat. Cholesterol is demonized. But like every cell wall also has cholesterol in it. Your brain is 20% cholesterol. Yeah, the brain loves cholesterol. I had all kinds of hormonal issues. And then one of the things I tried was going to the vegan diet and make my diet devoid of cholesterol, devoid of the building blocks for healthy hormones. It doesn't make any sense. And we can go down that road too if you want, but like the science behind demonizing cholesterol is very shoddy.

[00:47:53] It is. And I will just add that, you know, they're starting to see with statins, which are robbing your brain of cholesterol, that there's like a 25% increase in the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's. And so it's horrifying. And I would rather, I have heart problems. I would rather have the heart attack if it comes than to have Alzheimer's. I mean, if I have to pick one. Yeah. Yeah. I'll take that one.

[00:48:18] There's no way I'm going to give myself on purpose a 25% risk of Alzheimer's. No, that's right. Yeah. I totally agree with you. And like the burden that puts on your family too. Oh yeah. Yeah. And when it's like, you're still alive, you're still the same person, but mentally you're not the same person. It's pretty incredible the changes that can happen mentally, but your body is still physically capable of surviving. So it's, yeah, it's unfortunate. Right. But yeah, that's just one example.

[00:48:45] But yeah, like they're almost using cholesterol as a scapegoat. Whereas the real issue comes back to inflammation and autoimmunity and the metabolic issues being basically metabolically unwell and all the inflammation that comes from that. Yeah. And I will add to that also that they also demonize fat to your point. And it's really the sugar that's causing a lot of the inflammatory problems.

[00:49:09] There's other reasons for inflammation, obviously, but sugar is the biggest culprit, but they demonize fat. And so people stopped eating fat, but started eating more sugar or fake sugar. It's just scary what they're allowed to do and tell us. And we believe it because why would they want to hurt us? Why would they want to do something bad? Well, it's all about money. You know? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Very scary. Everybody is looking after their own interests.

[00:49:35] But yeah, it's unfortunate because like you said, there's that trend towards lower fat and more sugars as a replacement to make food still taste good. And look at the result. Like the cardiovascular disease is the number one. It's a leading cause of death now in North America. So like, and that's like a condition in our known history of that where like heart attacks weren't even described originally. People didn't die from heart disease. And now like children are getting heart attacks. Yeah, it's horrifying. Fine. Fine. Yeah.

[00:50:03] Well, I know you're a very busy man and I want to be mindful of your time. So I wanted you to tell us a little bit about your company or your website, whatever you want to share with the listeners. Yeah. Yeah. Like I was mentioning at the start of the interview, like my passion was really centered around finding ways to improve welfare. So that's where the real mission of More Leads is to improve the lives of farm animals.

[00:50:25] And I would love that impact to be as big as possible, whether that be through our products directly or through like our social media and stuff like that, or like the interviews like I'm doing right now. Like it's to have that positive impact on the welfare of farm animals. There's so much room for improvement. And every product that we produce for More Leads is raised in a way that has that positive impact on animal welfare.

[00:50:48] We talk about all the different initiatives that we're doing on our farm and then we want to expand beyond our farm on our website, which is moreelites.com. And yeah, we have an online store that's on there as well, as far as like, as well as like links to our social medias and also our email list. Like our favorite way to communicate to people is through our email list because it goes directly into your inbox.

[00:51:12] I don't have to resort to the algorithm to put my content in front of you. That's awesome. So on social media, they can find you under More Elites also? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. We're on Instagram. We're More Elites. I think on Facebook, we're More Elites Farms. But on YouTube, it's my name, Sander Vansty. And on TikTok as well, actually, Sander Vansty. Okay. Awesome. So is there anything we didn't talk about today that you want to make sure that the listeners hear? Or did we pretty much cover the gamut?

[00:51:42] Yeah, I think we did a pretty good job going across everything. Yeah. The last thing, maybe the thing I'd like to emphasize is like the power of change is in the hands of every person that's listening. It's through supply and demand. That's how we really truly create change in agriculture. By creating the demand for products to be produced in a more responsible way. I think that's awesome. And I hope more people start waking up to what they're putting in their bodies.

[00:52:07] So I thank you for sharing all your wisdom and knowledge with us today. I appreciate you. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Bye-bye. Good luck. As we wrap up today's episode, I hope Sander sharing his knowledge, experience, and wisdom has helped you in some way. Is it just me or do you feel like this episode was packed full of good information? Because I sure do.

[00:52:30] I loved hearing a success story about regenerative farming and how it all works and how soil health is vital to what we put on our tables. However, one of the most important things to me was that Sander found a path that enabled him to heal himself. And that is so important and it's absolutely phenomenal. And I think it comes down to food. You know, it can be our poison or it can be our medicine. And we get to make that choice.

[00:52:57] It sounds like going back to basics, back to whole foods may be an answer for many of us. And I'm so glad that I asked Sander about raw milk. His insights and knowledge about it were absolutely amazing. Neither one of us are doctors, so we aren't giving any medical advice. We were just talking about options. But talk to your doctor or health advisor before you try anything new. I hope you enjoyed today's show. I would love to hear from you.

[00:53:26] As always, I hope this episode helps at least one person. And with that, I hope you have a blessed week, my friend. Thank you for listening to The Beauty and the Mess. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share it with a friend. And if you haven't already, please subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on your favorite pod player. If you have any questions or comments, any topic ideas you would like to hear about, or you think you would be a great guest on the show,

[00:53:54] you can reach me directly at thebeautyandthemess.com. Thanks for listening.