472: Anna Vocino—Eat Happy

Mike sits down with comedian, voiceover pro, cookbook author, and culinary entrepreneur, Anna Vocino https://annavocino.com/. Anna shares how her Eat Happy journey—from her bestselling cookbooks Eat Happy https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Happy-Gluten-Recipes-Joyful/dp/1941536883/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2WQ2CGW7UHF7K&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9. JsX_mEjtIcfBBBPw0CsMXDYuJ7Z2wD_2djrHMnwLOnmmVNILKdFIXklwQAvvX2iRiaH962yGgCdEuISOFlqPsHWUZ7DYZZ7u8aTKvray7kjcqgci9y9OR-M5QeJXxw6VGTrk5-93ApuiOvPfgs0pJ-TgFz1b7KQGVJDcFlJmwW5EREaXR5DAV4X7-CvVnlYUGkdVMQvoNHrERRT2TdLK-g.fsO7-Mlror26mqst3b1d9ap8zG6tngNmTtrDIEGxF8o&dib_tag=se&keywords=Anna+vocino&qid=1771909085&sprefix=anna+vocino%2Caps%2C191&sr=8-1, Eat Happy Too https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Happy-Too-Gluten-Recipes/dp/1945330686/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1E8C3JLM6Z68L&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qFaeQFbBOi95FxMMqH2GRy6tW2VKp-3kSvG62llwX7DWwVIbnf2VpuCOiPJ4V-I-VPG63J_cf2TzOA9z2QUUUg. ItclpmxKwFGoL2tV_XA5dIXnGjxxzkfnWZfmB0m3w9M&dib_tag=se&keywords=Anna+vocino+Eat+Happy+too&qid=1771909121&sprefix=anna+vocino+eat+happy+too%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-1, and Eat Happy Italian https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Happy-Italian-Gluten-Free-Grain-Free/dp/163774529X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TJKI02RSUEDK&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9. EepoWvIr7VR-_XZVVfkvPBAvQVcBWCpo4bqPz2JgrAHGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps. GESZSqi5bQBcii_a_WAPQX4AOX44xJLwMaNOGvaD2qc&dib_tag=se&keywords=Anna+vocino+Eat+Happy+Italian&qid=1771909149&sprefix=anna+vocino+eat+happy+italian%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-1 to her podcast Fitness Confidential https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fitness-confidential/id521811037—grew out of personal health struggles and a lot of hustle. She also pulls back the curtain on her voiceover career and explains why getting a food product onto grocery store shelves is a lot harder than most people think. It's a candid conversation about creativity, rejection, persistence, and what it really takes to turn passion into product.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Mike Rowe?

  It is the way I heard it, and I'm still Mike Rowe. And my guest today is Anna Vojtino. And it's certainly possible that listeners, Chuck, have heard her name invoked in prior episodes.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Yes, 100%. Probably with a fellow by the name of Vinnie Torterich.

• 0:23Mike Rowe?

  No sugar, no grain. It is a drumbeat that I first heard on this podcast, I don't know, a few years back. I've been aware that sugar's 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.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 0:48Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think they're unraveling quicker and quicker nowadays. I think a lot of people are aware that seed oils are bad.

• 1:08Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:19Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Stuff like that.

• 1:20Mike Rowe?

  Stuff.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22Mike Rowe?

  Well, you know, Vinnie spoke very highly of Anna because she's basically his co-host, and she was his producer for a long time.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Right, right. And that's, what is that called?

• 1:32Mike Rowe?

  Was it Fitness Confidential?

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Fitness Confidential, yes.

• 1:35Mike Rowe?

  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...

• 2:00Mike Rowe?

  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 voiceover.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's got a great voice.

• 2:20Mike Rowe?

  She's silky smooth. And she's funny.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23Mike Rowe?

  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 voiceover 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.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  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.

• 3:03Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  You know, I've been buying her sauces ever since. They're really good. Her putanesca, my favorite is her arabeata, you know, and now she just introduces to these cheesy.

• 3:13Mike Rowe?

  Crispy crunchy cheese bites here. Listen to that.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18Mike Rowe?

  Mmm. Sometimes you just need a little crunch. Eat Happy with Anna Vocino, right after this.

• 3:31Mike Rowe?

  Couple of weeks ago, on this very podcast, I talked with Brooke Rollins, our Secretary of Agriculture, about the incredibly complicated business of delivering affordable beef to our citizens without disadvantaging American ranchers. We also discussed the very controversial decision to import 300,000 metric tons of ground beef from various foreign countries and the maddening policy that allows meatpackers to label imported meat as a product of the USA. Well. Shortly after that conversation, one of my sponsors, Good Ranchers, reported an unusually high level of interest in their product. And this is not surprising. Given a choice, most people would prefer to buy their meat

• 4:16Mike Rowe?

  from American Ranchers. And Good Ranchers is the number one company in America that delivers 100% American meat straight to your door. They partner with over 100 local farmers and ranchers to deliver pasture-raised meat with no antibiotics and no added hormones. They've got 25,000 five-star reviews on TrustPilot. 25,000, including my own. This month, when you visit GoodRanchers.com/row, you'll get a free Angus ground beef bundle with your first order. Again, that's GoodRanchers.com/row for four bonus pounds of ground beef raised right here in these United States. And that's guaranteed. Support your local ranchers by insisting on American meat

• 5:01Mike Rowe?

  delivered at GoodRanchers.com/row. If you could eat a steer, if you could eat a cow, don't take a chance on a foreign ranch.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Get Good Ranchers now. Hey, haul!

• 5:21Speaker 02

  What are your favorite varietals?

• 5:22Mike Rowe?

  Big, bold, obnoxious cabs.

• 5:25Speaker 02

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

• 5:27Mike Rowe?

  It's great.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  You like Cab Francs, you like the GSsims.

• 5:32Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Great, me too. Just got back from France, two weeks, doing Chateau Nuf de Pop, Burgundy, the whole, it was...

• 5:38Mike Rowe?

  That's a good one.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Dude, it was a sick itinerary. If you ever go to France and you want to do that, tell me. Because I'll tell you the itinerary.

• 5:45Mike Rowe?

  Have you found Last Bottle?

• 5:48Speaker 02

  No.

• 5:48Mike Rowe?

  Oh, God. Are we rolling?

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Keskasekasa.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Define rolling.

• 5:53Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:10Mike Rowe?

  So I just got an Alouette, I think.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  Great.

• 6:16Mike Rowe?

  It's like a $360 bottle of wine for $39.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  By the case? Or it's like they're like we have-

• 6:22Mike Rowe?

  You can get a case?

• 6:23Speaker 02

  We have 20 cases of this, so who first come first served.

• 6:25Mike Rowe?

  They don't tell you how much they have because it goes fast.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:29Mike Rowe?

  You know.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  By the bottle?

• 6:31Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:31Mike Rowe?

  It's such a classic supply and demand thing.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Wine is, it's so crazy.

• 6:37Mike Rowe?

  This is Anna Bocino, by the way. She knows everything about wine, everything about food.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  I don't know everything about wine. I'm just learning still.

• 6:43Mike Rowe?

  See, what you did was just tacitly confirm that you do know everything about food, which is ingenious.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Wow, thank you.

• 6:50Mike Rowe?

  You're welcome.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  For doing the reverse, I don't know, I feel like you psyched me up, bro.

• 6:55Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, yeah, it was, 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 hit it back, and it ultimately redounds to your benefit. I was gonna 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.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Just bleep it. Bleep it and post.

• 7:17Mike Rowe?

  Do we still bleep stuff, Joe?

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Bleep it.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, we bleep stuff.

• 7:21Mike Rowe?

  Fantastic.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  We bleep, we bleep. I don't, no, no, we don't bleep shit.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Shit's okay, they put, they say shit on like that with television now.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Where do we land on? We do. Uh, we don't, we definitely bleep that.

• 7:36Mike Rowe?

  Alright, so folks, it's all out of our system now. Prepare, strap in for a G-rated conversation.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 7:41Mike Rowe?

  I have been wanting, well, I've been wanting to meet you and talk to you.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  I have been wanting to meet you and talk to you, so the feeling is mutual.

• 7:49Mike Rowe?

  Why?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Because-

• 7:50Mike Rowe?

  Say something nice about me for a change.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Here's the thing, I'm gonna change it up and say something nice about you.

• 7:54Mike Rowe?

  Thank God.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  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," and I'm like, "Waaah!"

• 8:09Mike Rowe?

  It's happening, yeah. What if I screw it up?

• 8:13Speaker 02

  And I will.

• 8:13Mike Rowe?

  We'll let you know.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  And that's okay. Thank you, but later.

• 8:16Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, full disclosure, somebody canceled. We knew you were close.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I know.

• 8:19Mike Rowe?

  Did he really tell you that?

• 8:21Speaker 02

  I have a career based on people either not being available, canceling. That's how I got to voice promos for NBC for years.

• 8:29Mike Rowe?

  Love it.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Is because the woman was not available and they were like, "Well, we need to have a lady in there." So I was like, "I'll do it," and I got the job.

• 8:34Mike Rowe?

  You obviously know the answer to this because if you're not the queen of the voiceovers, you're certainly in the royal court. But Don LaFontaine was a producer for Paramount.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:44Mike Rowe?

  And his talent didn't show up for a movie. And that's how we got In a World.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  In a World.

• 8:51Mike Rowe?

  One man.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  He...

• 8:53Mike Rowe?

  A cookbook.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  He guested on a show. A woman with a mission.

• 8:58Mike Rowe?

  She's so hungry.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  In grocery stores.

• 8:59Mike Rowe?

  Riddled with tapeworms.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  It doesn't work when I do it. It works when you do it.

• 9:03Mike Rowe?

  Thank you.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  I have to do other things to make, you know... Ladies in voiceover, we get accused of being too shrill, so we have to like make sure that, you know.

• 9:11Mike Rowe?

  That is...

• 9:12Speaker 02

  We keep it velvety smooth.

• 9:14Mike Rowe?

  You know what? It is a criticism. I don't think it's fair.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  Of course not.

• 9:19Mike Rowe?

  But I'm not entirely sure it's grossly inaccurate.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Right. What do you mean? Shrill? There you go.

• 9:28Mike Rowe?

  Do you remember?

• 9:28Speaker 02

  There's a sample.

• 9:29Mike Rowe?

  I think one of the greatest reads in the history of commercial voiceovers on the female side of the fence.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:37Mike Rowe?

  Had to be Sally Kellerman.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Oh my God.

• 9:40Mike Rowe?

  For Hidden Valley Ranch.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  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.

• 9:50Mike Rowe?

  Hidden Valley Dijon Ranch, just right on the edge of dirty.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  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, we have to make it sound like it's conversational.

• 10:05Mike Rowe?

  Right, right, right.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Like the vocal fry and the millennial float and like those, all that stuff.

• 10:11Mike Rowe?

  Whoa, wait, what? The millennial float?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  That is from my friend Nancy Wolfson, credit to her, of the millennial float where you no longer will say, "Eat happy Italian." You'll say, "Eat happy Italian."

• 10:19Mike Rowe?

  Oh, right. Throw it away.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  We're not committing.

• 10:22Mike Rowe?

  Throw it away.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:23Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Throw it away.

• 10:24Mike Rowe?

  Maybe you do, maybe you don't.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Maybe you don't.

• 10:26Mike Rowe?

  Honestly, I'm not even Italian.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  I don't care.

• 10:27Mike Rowe?

  I can't even eat.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  I'm not attached to if you buy my product that we're advertising to you currently.

• 10:32Mike Rowe?

  I listened.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  I can't even eat.

• 10:34Mike Rowe?

  I, I heard a movie trailer the other day.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 10:41Mike Rowe?

  For The Exorcist. I was online.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Like an, like an old.

• 10:44Mike Rowe?

  The old movie trailer. And this really, Chuck, you'll appreciate this too.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. I've heard that recently as well.

• 10:51Mike Rowe?

  We kind of live in this world, and I'm drawing a blank on the guy's name. But they were doing something back in the seventies 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.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  But they were all newscaster reads then.

• 11:13Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, but for this horror movie, like, 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.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  I love the pregnant pause after church.

• 11:32Mike Rowe?

  Every, you're just like, you know what? It just brought a level of verisimilitude to it.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Thank you for saying verisimilitude.

• 11:40Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Oh, you're talking about as an issue with voiceover in general?

• 11:57Mike Rowe?

  Yes.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Yes. And hopefully, a good director will bring you out of that and to the performance that should happen.

• 12:04Mike Rowe?

  How often does that happen with you? How often does a director make you better?

• 12:08Speaker 02

  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.

• 12:27Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  When you, any piece of copy that says non-announcery, 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.

• 12:37Mike Rowe?

  Or suck less.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Suck less.

• 12:38Mike Rowe?

  We can live with a certain

• 12:40Speaker 02

  And then they

• 12:41Mike Rowe?

  A modicum of sucking.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  It's gotta be, it's gotta be read like you're talking to your friend, really off the cuff. We want somebody who's raw. They always say, we want raw. Okay. And then they write, you know, clean your toilets with Dow Chemical or whatever the thing is, you know, and they write the most salesy copy and you're like, wait, 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, um, somebody would be directing you, even for your audition, you'd go to your agent's office and someone would be a booth engineer directing you.

• 13:11Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Now you're by yourself, you have to be your own director, your own engineer and your own talent.

• 13:15Mike Rowe?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  And you have to figure out how to read this and go, oh God, like, how am I gonna say, clean your toilet with Dow Chemicals? Plug for Dow Chemicals.

• 13:24Mike Rowe?

  They do make a hell of a chemical.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Clean your toilet with Dow Chemicals.

• 13:27Mike Rowe?

  And now they're making toilets too.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Are they?

• 13:29Mike Rowe?

  They've got, oh yeah, yeah.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Poop in your Dow Chemical toilet and then clean it.

• 13:33Mike Rowe?

  With this.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  With Dow Chemicals.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Now like you're talking to a friend.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Okay. Hey friend, do you poop in a toilet that's not a Dow Chemicals toilet? We'd like you to please buy Dow Chemicals toilets so you can poop in that. Dow Chemicals. Okay, they're, now we're canceled by Dow.

• 13:48Mike Rowe?

  Here's when I, you know what, they've never, I don't even think we ever had a shot at getting a sponsorship with Dow Chemical.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  You don't think?

• 13:53Mike Rowe?

  No. Not with DuPont paying for this whole.

• 13:57Mike Rowe?

  Never happened.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Yes. The DuPonts from Delaware. They're from Delaware, by the way, the DuPonts.

• 14:02Mike Rowe?

  So, yeah, well, they, that's why, you know why? There's no sales tax in Delaware. DuPont pays it all. Everything.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  The DuPonts are thinkers, okay?

• 14:12Mike Rowe?

  Playing the long game.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Playing the real long game.

• 14:15Mike Rowe?

  Playing the long game with DuPont.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  With DuPont. We don't have to make dumb toilets like Dow does.

• 14:20Mike Rowe?

  Hmm, or clean them. That's why we poop in a hole. DuPont.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  We're from Delaware. Okay. I went to school in Delaware. I love you Delaware, sorry.

• 14:28Mike Rowe?

  Here's where I knew, well, two quick thoughts. One is, uh, doing voiceover, as Chuck and I did for decades. Sure gets different when you get famous. Sorry, dude.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Oh, of course it does.

• 14:42Mike Rowe?

  Wow. I mean, it's just, there's no more, like, all that nonsense.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  Everything you do is gold.

• 14:48Mike Rowe?

  It's just amazing.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  It's just gold. Oh, my god.

• 14:50Mike Rowe?

  It's just incredible.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  And then you, they get to say on the links out in East Hampton, "Well, we had Mike Rowe on the Ford thing, and then isn't that great?" And, "Oh, good for you, Chippy," or whatever, you know? And slap each other on the back. So, that's good. But there are people like me who are the, the journeyman 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. Except for if they have a separate contract for porn, I haven't done that.

• 15:19Mike Rowe?

  Well, I did.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  I haven't done porn voiceover.

• 15:21Mike Rowe?

  I didn't really, but I'm thinking you might be old enough to remember the Spice Channel?

• 15:29Speaker 02

  Yes, totally.

• 15:30Mike Rowe?

  I did the promos for the Spice Channel.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  You did?

• 15:33Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Of course you did.

• 15:34Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Yeah, and, uh, but they weren't like, super dirty. They were just...

• 15:38Speaker 02

  No, they can't be. It's still television.

• 15:40Mike Rowe?

  They were poorly written and just cheeky, you know?

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:44Mike Rowe?

  When Jane had a problem with the fireplace, Frank came by. Frank was very thorough, and Jane did not expect to get her ashes hauled. You know, and like, all of that.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:57Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  But Jane did.

• 15:59Mike Rowe?

  But Jane did.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  I'm involved in this story now.

• 16:01Mike Rowe?

  Jane was a sport.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  I'll say.

• 16:04Mike Rowe?

  Here's where I knew we really...

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Quite bendy, Jane.

• 16:11Mike Rowe?

  She's Gumby. When the disclaimer on the pharma spot.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:18Mike Rowe?

  Gets into forty, forty-two second territory. So you got an ad for.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  I voice those, yeah. I have that voice. I have a very like, you know, stop taking this thing if it's, if it causes anal leakage.

• 16:31Mike Rowe?

  Could cause.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Infection of the peristalsis, or whatever that part of your body is. I do a lot of medical things. I don't know what I'm saying.

• 16:37Mike Rowe?

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

• 16:42Speaker 02

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

• 16:52Mike Rowe?

  Well, it is amazing, isn't it, how we can create the illusion of knowledge in short bursts.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:58Mike Rowe?

  Based on the last thing we narrated.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  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 some copy and they can't do it. Cause you're like, okay, there's my job insurance.

• 17:13Mike Rowe?

  But, look, it's, you know, we, you still don't do, uh, lessons, do you Chuck?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  No, I don't teach anymore. I stopped during COVID.

• 17:23Mike Rowe?

  A lot of.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Unseemly.

• 17:25Mike Rowe?

  It was unseemly. Yeah, to be teaching voiceover during COVID. Yeah.

• 17:34Mike Rowe?

  I'd like to talk about initiative. If I could for just a moment, here at MicroWorks, we value it a great deal. In fact, it's the most important quality we look for in our work ethic scholarship applicants, but everybody wants it. I'm talking about the, uh, the quality in a Lyft driver that inspires him or her to carry your bags to the door without even asking, or the grocery clerk who shows you where an item is on the shelves, or a doctor who personally calls you to explain your test results. If you're hiring, you want to encourage initiative because it's invaluable. And ZipRecruiter has a way to allow a candidate to tell you, in their own words, why they're interested in your job. Not just why they're qualified, but why they're interested.

• 18:20Mike Rowe?

  This is a way that allows the best candidates to distinguish themselves from the competition. And a great way for you to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were. Right now, you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/row. ZipRecruiter is the number one hiring site, in large part because of this new initiative that shows you the most interested, qualified candidates first. So you meet the right people faster. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within one day. Try it for free. ZipRecruiter.com/row. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Build your team, build it sooner. Meet your match at ZipRecruiter.

• 19:05Mike Rowe?

  Try it free.

• 19:10Mike Rowe?

  What's gonna happen with AI?

• 19:12Speaker 02

  It's bad.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  One tear like Iron Eyes Cody, that's just...

• 19:19Mike Rowe?

  Who wasn't even an Indian, by the way.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  He was Italian.

• 19:22Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, he was.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  He was Sicilian, I think.

• 19:24Mike Rowe?

  That's probably why you know him. You're Italian, right?

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, we all know each other.

• 19:26Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Iron Eyes Cody was the sad Indian who stood by the side of the road in the 70s for the Keep America Beautiful campaign.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 19:34Mike Rowe?

  When a large container of

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Do not litter.

• 19:36Mike Rowe?

  Trash landed at his feet, and he had the little lip going, too.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. He really was...

• 19:41Mike Rowe?

  And the tear, he sold it.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  He was toe up about it.

• 19:44Mike Rowe?

  Toe, oh, toe up.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what the kids say.

• 19:47Mike Rowe?

  Um, we're gonna get to the reason you're here, but, but I...

• 19:51Speaker 02

  But why?

• 19:52Mike Rowe?

  Well, I'll tell you why.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:54Mike Rowe?

  Because nutrition is universal.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:56Mike Rowe?

  Food is certainly the great uniter. And you're building a brand.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  I am.

• 20:01Mike Rowe?

  And the brand that you're building is gonna rely, in large part, on your ability to talk about it.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 20:08Mike Rowe?

  To communicate it.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 20:09Mike Rowe?

  And a crisp, well-modulated alto. Megan, your sales director, is here, nodding furiously in the background because...

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Do we need to strike her from your eye line? No.

• 20:20Mike Rowe?

  No, it's okay.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Just checking.

• 20:21Mike Rowe?

  I didn't even see her. I'm just assuming she is.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:24Mike Rowe?

  No sales director could sit quietly in the midst of that and not nod in violent agreement.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 20:29Mike Rowe?

  So, really, all challenges are communication challenges.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  They are.

• 20:33Mike Rowe?

  Right?

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Brand building is a... Epic journey of communicating to people why they should buy your stuff when there's all sorts of other things they could be buying.

• 20:42Mike Rowe?

  Yes, Vinny 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 Vinny Torterich is a frequent guest and you are highly recommended on account of him.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:54Mike Rowe?

  You still, you're still doing his pod?

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Yes, we do the Monday show every week. We've been doing it for 13 years. I'm his original producer of the Fitness Confidential podcast. I was podcasting back when we had to update XML code in 2008 to 2012. But well, 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 William Morris told me I needed to do, get a podcast in order to release my book. And Nancy, who I mentioned earlier with the millennial float, said, you do, you know how to do podcasts. And I was like, Vinny, no, like, no, what? No. And I only knew him from working out with him, which he's a great trainer, by the way.

• 21:35Mike Rowe?

  Give me the millennial float again, real quick.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  I was like, Vinny, no.

• 21:42Mike Rowe?

  You know what? Like, from a punctuation standpoint, the millennial float really relies heavily on the ellipses.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  The ellipses or an M dash apparently now, but now an M dash is indicative of using chat GPT. And I was like, I just got attached to the M dash.

• 21:55Mike Rowe?

  Walk me through the M dash? I'm not clear.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  The, just the little hyphen. I call it a hyphen.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Where the letters touch on the either side.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  That's the M dash.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Like a M.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  That's the one I correct on your, your stuff.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Oh, that's the one you take it away from him.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  No, no, I give him the M.

• 22:09Mike Rowe?

  You give me the M dash, but it's, but it's like two, it's two dashes. Is right? Is that the M dash?

• 22:14Speaker 01

  No, it's one solid dash in between, you know, the end of a word and the beginning of the next.

• 22:18Mike Rowe?

  All right. People should know, but why do they call it the M?

• 22:22Speaker 02

  I don't know. I didn't know what it was. And now I know what it is. It's a hyphen.

• 22:26Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, or a dash. What's the, Chuck?

• 22:29Speaker 02

  I'm Gen X. We call it a hyphen.

• 22:30Mike Rowe?

  I want to understand the difference between a dash, a hyphen, and an M dash.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  And in the meantime, I'll talk about the Vinny origin story while you guys.

• 22:39Mike Rowe?

  I do want to hear that, but I just something, here's a symbol. I don't, are you familiar with, with the interabong?

• 22:46Mike Rowe?

  Oh, the interabong is fantastic. I was so excited a couple of 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

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Oh, interrogation.

• 23:04Mike Rowe?

  And question.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 23:06Mike Rowe?

  Like, so

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Like an explosive

• 23:08Mike Rowe?

  What would happen if you took

• 23:09Speaker 02

  An explosive question mark.

• 23:11Mike Rowe?

  Yes, or a statement that embodies equal parts surprise

• 23:17Speaker 02

  So I have to

• 23:17Mike Rowe?

  Curiosity.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  I have to do a question mark and an exclamation point when I feel those feelings.

• 23:21Mike Rowe?

  Well, that's what it is. An interabong, it's a question mark incorporated into an exclamation point. It's an actual thing.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  It's one

• 23:32Mike Rowe?

  Yes, it's one symbol.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  It's one wingding?

• 23:34Mike Rowe?

  Chuck, when you have a moment, if you could get us an interabong.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  I can only do one thing at a time. Here's your, I'm gonna put this up here and you could read it and I'll look for

• 23:42Mike Rowe?

  A hyphen is the shortest for compound words like well-known, full-time job.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Gluten free.

• 23:47Mike Rowe?

  Oh, it's an N dash, E N.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 23:50Mike Rowe?

  It says N dash.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  I was referring to the M. The N dash is shorter?

• 23:54Mike Rowe?

  About the width of the letter N used for ranges. And look at that. Yeah, the N dash is longer. Oh, and then there's the E M, the E M dash.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  That's what I was referring to.

• 24:05Mike Rowe?

  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 E N dash, about the width of an N, as in Nancy, who we keep mentioning, and M, E M, that's a hyphen, the width of the letter M, as in Mike.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  You get the longer dash. Congratulations.

• 24:31Mike Rowe?

  So

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:33Mike Rowe?

  In order to transition smoothly and live up to the conversationalist

• 24:38Speaker 02

  I love a good segue.

• 24:38Mike Rowe?

  That you've described me as, okay, well

• 24:40Speaker 02

  No pressure.

• 24:42Mike Rowe?

  As AI completely upends

• 24:46Speaker 02

  I forgot we were talking about that.

• 24:47Mike Rowe?

  The voiceover 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.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:02Mike Rowe?

  Is going to become super relevant. And I also think honesty in food.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:08Mike Rowe?

  Recipes, everything you and Vinnie have been doing is going to become hyper relevant. And since we're at the beginning of another year and everybody's

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Everyone's doing new year, new you right now. Great. Love it.

• 25:19Mike Rowe?

  So having said all that.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 25:21Mike Rowe?

  I think I can justify the last 18 minutes.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  A plus.

• 25:25Mike Rowe?

  Okay.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  A plus segue.

• 25:26Mike Rowe?

  Now let's move into the things you truly care about.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  The AI stuff, I always said for me personally, I watched really talented women above me and the generation above me in voiceover 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, it wasn't, didn't even have time to have a backlash at that point.

• 25:58Mike Rowe?

  Was gluten even a thing?

• 26:00Speaker 02

  I don't think so because I, 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. Cause I was like, well, I can have these. And back then, you know, that was a lot of money. My husband and I were young artists and we're like broke AF and

• 26:25Mike Rowe?

  Excuse me, but that's your Tara bong right there.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  That is shocking.

• 26:28Mike Rowe?

  Isn't that beautiful?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  It's a thing.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  That looks like an ear.

• 26:32Mike Rowe?

  I know. It looks like an ear. 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.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  I, that is shocking, but it's also not in the Apple keyboard yet.

• 26:53Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  Can you, can you be responsible? If I could set a goal for you.

• 26:57Mike Rowe?

  Sure.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  I want this to be like on your Wikipedia page that Mike Rowe is responsible for the

• 27:03Mike Rowe?

  For.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Interabom.

• 27:04Mike Rowe?

  For.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Appearing into keyboards in the Qwerty keyboard.

• 27:08Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, because look, somebody did the hard work. Somebody actually.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  Designed that.

• 27:13Mike Rowe?

  Right. So why is it not on a keyboard? And you, when you start looking for it, like our brain does this with everything, right? It finds whatever you tell it to look for. If you start looking for phrases or moments in your own phraseology that incorporate that mix of questioning with excitement, you're gonna start using the interabom all over the place.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  I have 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.

• 27:40Mike Rowe?

  I don't have time for two punctuation marks.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  So yeah, so I bought the $17 bag of cookies and it tasted like absolute dog shit. And I wound up having my Tara moment of like, I will, I will figure out how to make yummy cookies. So help me God. And, um, and I did. And then, working on camera and, and working in the entertainment industry, I was eating all this gluten free stuff and figuring, and putting on weight and putting on weight. And by the way, when I was coming up in Hollywood, there was, you were a character actor or you were, you know, a ingenue or a lead actress. There wasn't a lot of wiggle room. So I would always starve myself so I could go be the mom on the commercial, on the whatever.

• 28:21Mike Rowe?

  You were either a question mark or an exclamation point.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  So I, there was a little bit of that. And then stuff obviously has 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. Um, the mindset messes with folks a little bit, I think of us older generation. So I met Vinnie Torterich and, um, he was training me and he said, I don't know how to turn on a computer. Please, can we do this podcast? And he said, I wrote this book, Fitness Confidential, plug. And he.

• 28:55Mike Rowe?

  Still holds up, by the way.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  It does. He sent it to me and I read it on a girl's trip on my iPhone three. And when I couldn't sleep, we were in Hawaii and I was reading it, little PDF, page by page. And it was so good. And I begrudgingly said yes. And that completely changed the course of my life.

• 29:12Mike Rowe?

  Why begrudge it?

• 29:14Speaker 02

  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, I'm like, I don't know. I guess I'll do it.

• 29:29Mike Rowe?

  Hell, maybe.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Hell, maybe. Millennial float, you know, I don't know.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  So, but that was one of those things. And then I said, okay, well, if we're gonna produce it, Vinny, here's how it's gonna go. Cause he's like, we're gonna do drop ins and sound effects. Cause he comes from the radio world in the eighties. And I was like, no, we're not doing any of that. We're gonna turn on the mic. Cause we did three shows a week in my garage every Sunday in North Hollywood. We're gonna do, we're gonna turn on the mic and we're gonna talk.

• 29:56Mike Rowe?

  Sorry, 2000 when?

• 29:58Speaker 02

  This is 2012.

• 29:59Mike Rowe?

  Okay, 12.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Turn on the mic, turn it off, turn on the mic three times every Sunday.

• 30:04Mike Rowe?

  So this is like when Rogan is starting his thing.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  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, 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. Cause I was putting on weight. I was pre diabetic, getting the thyroid issue, like as I was aging as well.

• 30:31Mike Rowe?

  Did you know what was causing this at the time?

• 30:34Speaker 02

  No, of course not. No doctors were saying like, 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. Cause I know I'm shooting this thing. And it was like crazy crash dieting, basically. I knew that if I starved myself, then 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.

• 30:59Mike Rowe?

  Well, sure.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  But I wanted, I don't, I don't, it 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. And it, and it works.

• 31:25Mike Rowe?

  Sure.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  But it's not sustainable and it's not fun.

• 31:28Mike Rowe?

  It's not fun.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  I am Italian. I like food.

• 31:30Mike Rowe?

  You are Italian. You're full on Italian, right?

• 31:32Speaker 02

  Full on. No, I'm half. I'm half.

• 31:34Mike Rowe?

  What you have?

• 31:35Speaker 02

  I don't know. I can't say.

• 31:36Mike Rowe?

  Is it divided lengthwise or horizontal?

• 31:43Mike Rowe?

  What if, say, five years ago, some big oil company offered a promotion that gave you a chance to lock in the price of gasoline at $2.50 a gallon for the rest of your life? Would you have taken that deal? Or what if a nationwide grocery store had given you an opportunity to lock in the price of ground beef at, say, $2 a pound for as long as you live? Would you have taken that deal? Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, those deals were never on the table, but this one is. Today, as in right now, for a very, very limited time, Pure Talk is offering every American the opportunity to purchase unlimited talk, text, and data, along with a 30 gig hotspot,

• 32:27Mike Rowe?

  for just $29.95 a month for life. Not your phone's life, your life. No contracts, no commitments, just a very rare opportunity to lock into a ridiculously low rate for unlimited talk, text, and data for the rest of your life. It's the Unlimited Data Plan from Pure Talk, and it will not be around for long. $29.95 a month for as long as you live. Taxes and fees not included. Some restrictions do apply. See puretalk.com for details. Offer ends 11/15/26. So chop, chop.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  The smart half?

• 33:12Mike Rowe?

  The smart half.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that kind of... It 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. It was a 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

• 33:58Speaker 02

  in a position to be able to fight what she needed to fight.

• 34:01Mike Rowe?

  I think I asked Vinnie this too, and I'm pretty sure I know the answer. But do you reckon... Do you reckon?

• 34:07Speaker 02

  I reckon.

• 34:08Mike Rowe?

  Is there a more addictive slash dangerous drug in the country right now than sugar?

• 34:15Speaker 02

  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.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Way to make lemonade.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:24Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  I always look on the bright side, Chuck.

• 34:28Mike Rowe?

  Say sugar, now with less fentanyl, with that millennial float.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Sugar, now with less fentanyl.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Is it fentanyl or? Fentanyl, fentanyl.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Tomato, tomato.

• 34:39Mike Rowe?

  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, and real. But in your interaction with, with Vinnie, the guy had already written the book.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Right, and the book is fabulous.

• 34:53Mike Rowe?

  But had no sugar, no grains become a thing in his world yet?

• 34:56Speaker 02

  He was kind of starting, he was kind of starting, I'm not sure exactly when he coined it. But I was like, you know what, I'm gonna switch my focus on my little food blog, my little gluten-free Anna food blog. I'm gonna 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, and then I was like, I'm never doing that again. And then in 2019, Eat Happy 2 came out. And then I said, I'm definitely never doing that again. And then last year, Eat Happy Italian came out, and I was like, well, I'm done writing cookbooks. And then next fall, I have another book coming out, so. And now I'm really, I'm done, I will say.

• 35:37Mike Rowe?

  Are you wearing a bathrobe?

• 35:39Speaker 02

  You know what, it could be a bathrobe, it could be a gi, it's been a lot of discussion. I thought it was a really cute little shirt that had, but just had like, it was like a wrap clothes. But a lot of people said.

• 35:48Mike Rowe?

  That's a bathrobe, probably from the Huntley Hotel.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  All right, well then, I just want you to feel at home in your kitchen as I do in mine.

• 35:55Mike Rowe?

  I have this one.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:55Mike Rowe?

  I, I have your first one.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  You're soon to have, you're soon to have this one, because I brought you that one. I went, 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 gonna, that's the face of a man who wants to have pasta, I get it. I know, just.

• 36:11Mike Rowe?

  Well, look, again, I will have sucked up properly in the preamble, yet to be recorded. And we'll make sure all, all this is clear. But, you know, I've had a dozen recipes out of this book so far.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 36:24Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I'll get, the, the woman I live with has many questions. She's a huge fan, a huge fan.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  That is so nice.

• 36:31Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. So we'll get to all that.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 36:33Mike Rowe?

  But I'm still. Like, I want people to understand who maybe don't have a gluten issue or is it celiac.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  It's gone beyond that.

• 36:43Mike Rowe?

  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 docs, which clearly you have, but

• 36:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:54Mike Rowe?

  You know, that

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Many times, yes.

• 36:56Mike Rowe?

  So, the flag has been stuck in the ground.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 37:00Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  We hope.

• 37:25Mike Rowe?

  If we can articulate.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  Why?

• 37:27Mike Rowe?

  Yes, yes.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  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, you know what, I don't feel good when I have too much sugar, when I have all this processed 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, I'm, like I said, I'm Italian, I identify as an Italian American, and I have 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?

• 38:13Mike Rowe?

  Explain that more.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  So like, the doctor said with celiac in 2002, you can't have gluten anymore, and I was like, well then, 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 they're furious that their doctor 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. I'm here to support you and I get it. You're gonna come out the other end and you're gonna equip yourself. You gotta get the new folds in your brain about what you're gonna cook for dinner.

• 38:53Mike Rowe?

  I don't know if coming out the other end is the best metaphor for what we're talking about. But still, but still, so like, I think I'm maybe then at the second level of.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  You're past the temper tantrum?

• 39:04Mike Rowe?

  No, no, I'm still having a temper tantrum.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Okay, that's okay.

• 39:07Mike Rowe?

  But 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 roadmap. A how to thing. The next level of the temper tantrum is why is it so frickin hard?

• 39:23Speaker 02

  It is hard.

• 39:24Mike Rowe?

  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 where all that. Now, why is it so frickin expensive?

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:54Mike Rowe?

  Right, so there's plenty to justify a good, long-term tantrum.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  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, and conventionals like Giant or Kroger or Albertson's. You know, where you'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 across this country. That is really tricky because it's very expensive. So you have upstarts like me making very heavy pasta sauce in jars, which we had explored doing some R and D with doing pasta sauce in the tetrapacks.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  You know, in the, the square.

• 40:47Mike Rowe?

  Tetrapacks.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Tetrapack or those rectangular, you'll see a broth in those rectangular cardboard boxes.

• 40:53Mike Rowe?

  Oh.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Or broth out, right? You can do Tetra Pak.

• 40:56Mike Rowe?

  Tetra Pak.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  They do it in Europe for their pasta sauces.

• 40:59Mike Rowe?

  That'd be a good place for an interabong. You put an interabong on a Tetra Pak. You'd be like, hey, what a surprise. I didn't know.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  I didn't know.

• 41:06Mike Rowe?

  This is great.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  I didn't know!

• 41:07Mike Rowe?

  I still have questions, but wow.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Isn't this wonderful? What is this?

• 41:13Mike Rowe?

  Hey, that was a little shrill.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  What is it?

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 41:18Mike Rowe?

  How many people are on your blog now?

• 41:21Speaker 02

  On my blog?

• 41:21Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, you still blogging?

• 41:22Speaker 02

  I am, I'm on a Substack. I think I've got like 25,000 people on the blog.

• 41:26Mike Rowe?

  How important is reaching people through that media?

• 41:31Speaker 02

  It's very, very important. I actually love the Substack 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.

• 41:45Mike Rowe?

  Same five?

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Hey Wendy, it's me again. How are you doing? I could use a little pick-me-up.

• 41:52Mike Rowe?

  Still fat? Ah, sorry.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  That's actually, okay, yeah.

• 41:58Mike Rowe?

  So five of your customers?

• 42:01Speaker 02

  I do call customers. I like to talk to people.

• 42:03Mike Rowe?

  I mean, does it freak them out? How do you get their numbers?

• 42:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does.

• 42:06Mike Rowe?

  So like you just get, you get the data.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  If they buy on Shopify and they put their phone number in, I call them. If they've opted into communications.

• 42:13Mike Rowe?

  Do you?

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Sometimes they've opted, they've not, they said no and I still call them.

• 42:16Mike Rowe?

  It's a really good idea.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  I broke the law!

• 42:19Mike Rowe?

  Do you record them?

• 42:21Speaker 02

  I want to. I need to start recording them. I've recorded a couple, but you know, you have to ask permission. And sometimes I chicken out to ask permission. Cause I just want to have, I want them to feel like they can just talk. One woman called me back, I posted the message, I had got permission.

• 42:34Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  And I posted her message and she was so excited that she found us in Fred Meyer's 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 Meyer's 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 near you, I'll do it.

• 42:54Mike Rowe?

  Megan, sales director, nodding her head in violent agreement.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Oh, she knows.

• 43:00Mike Rowe?

  Well, look, a phone call is not much more complicated than a Zoom call.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  Nobody picks up the phone anymore.

• 43:05Mike Rowe?

  Or Riverside. If you get their permission, why not record them? Get their permission, obviously, but then, you know, whether it's 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.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Connection.

• 43:24Mike Rowe?

  Every single thing either has a patina of bullshit on it or it 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.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  AI recipes are horrible, by the way.

• 43:40Mike Rowe?

  Where do they come from?

• 43:41Speaker 02

  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 ChatGPT poops 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 ChatGPT 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 kind of talked 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.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  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.

• 44:42Mike Rowe?

  They'll find it.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  They'll find it. And it's okay. It's part of the process.

• 44:46Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, and the way you handle it is part of the process.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  It is.

• 44:50Mike Rowe?

  So like, everything is either going to go in the authentic category, or the artificial category, I think, including...

• 44:58Speaker 02

  That's interesting, yeah.

• 44:59Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:14Mike Rowe?

  And so that's what I think is cool about the life you're living right now. You've, very few people can understand or relate to the challenges of reading copy with a millennial, what's it called, a millennial?

• 45:27Speaker 02

  Millennial float.

• 45:28Mike Rowe?

  A float.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  Nancy Wolfson's gonna lose her mind when she finds out that we...

• 45:32Mike Rowe?

  Why do I know Nancy Wolfson?

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Nancy Wolfson is, she is a very esteemed voiceover coach and a dear friend of mine since 2003. She's wonderful.

• 45:42Mike Rowe?

  Oh, that's nice. Is she, she taking new pupils?

• 45:46Speaker 02

  I don't know, maybe.

• 45:52Mike Rowe?

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• 46:34Mike Rowe?

  ask your questions, and get help comparing the costs and benefits. So if your current plan is still the right fit, they'll tell you. If there's a better option, they'll tell you that too, and they'll help you switch. Again, the service is free, and a review can take less than 20 minutes. This is the time of year to make sure you're squared away for 2027. So if you haven't checked your Medicare coverage lately, give Chapter a call. It's a simple way to make sure your plan still works for you, and with potential savings of $1,100 a year, it's worth a free review. 804-Chapter. Call them today. 804-C-H-A-P-T-E-R.

• 47:13Mike Rowe?

  Look, I worry for the voiceover industry.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  I do too.

• 47:17Mike Rowe?

  Like, for the non-famous part.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  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, you say two lines and you get all this money. It's not that way anymore. I had a friend of mine was paid some ungodly money by Toyota in the 90s just not to do another car spot. And I was like, yeah, those days are long gone.

• 47:39Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I was Mazda.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 47:42Mike Rowe?

  For years. And the majority of the money.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  And that was before you were Mike Rowe the voice? Or that you were being Mike Rowe?

• 47:51Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, that was 95, maybe.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah.

• 47:54Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. I won't tell the whole story because Chuck's heard it a thousand times, but all I had to say was Mazda, you know? All I had to say was Mazda.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  And they lifted it.

• 48:03Mike Rowe?

  I went in. I went in and I said Mazda three times to give the engineer a mic check.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:09Mike Rowe?

  Then the client came on. And then, so Tokyo's on the phone, Shaiate in New York and an agency in Chicago.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 48:18Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 48:26Mike Rowe?

  So over there, it's Matsuda. Unless you're in Hokkaido, which then it's Mazda-ra. And then, somebody on the call thought it would be a good idea if I record it with a Japanese accent for Tokyo. Yes, it's 1995.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, yeah.

• 48:44Mike Rowe?

  So it's, you know, Mazda!

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Did you have to growl before?

• 48:48Mike Rowe?

  Yes.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:49Mike Rowe?

  Yes. I mean, I didn't have to, but they were paying for it, so I gave them.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  That's the value add with Mike Rowe.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:55Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 49:04Mike Rowe?

  They didn't take anything.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Because that's when it's the best, when it's the freshest, when it's just.

• 49:08Mike Rowe?

  Well, I kind of threw it away, like a millennial float.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  Like a millennial float.

• 49:10Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. But is there a corollary for what's happening in the food business? Because it feels like in the voiceover business now, everybody's got the tech, you can hop on GarageBand 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.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  Well, I think that it comes down to, um... Quality control and I want things to be really good because I 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?

• 49:53Mike Rowe?

  That is the golden rule, yes. Do unto others.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  Do unto others.

• 49:56Mike Rowe?

  As you would have others do unto you.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  I don't want people to do unto me, though. You know what I mean? Like, that sounds untoward.

• 50:04Mike Rowe?

  Well, it's just old.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  I know.

• 50:07Mike Rowe?

  You know, a lot of people-

• 50:07Speaker 02

  It's King James is what it is.

• 50:09Mike Rowe?

  Actually, I don't think it is.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  No, it's just-

• 50:11Mike Rowe?

  I don't think it's biblical.

• 50:12Speaker 02

  Puritanical.

• 50:13Mike Rowe?

  I don't, I don't think the golden rule is in the Bible.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Is it not?

• 50:18Mike Rowe?

  I don't think it is. Chuck, have a look.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Looking.

• 50:21Mike Rowe?

  And if it is, I bet there's an interabong after it.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  Do unto others as others are doing to you?

• 50:30Mike Rowe?

  I thought of that! Give it to me as a millennial-

• 50:35Speaker 02

  Do unto others as others are doing to you, I guess.

• 50:39Mike Rowe?

  I guess. I guess. You know what? Okay.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 50:43Mike Rowe?

  That actually works because there is, the millennial float leaves you uncertain. And what we're desperate for, that's why I'd 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-

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:05Mike Rowe?

  We're just desperate.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  People are desperate, and I have found, because like, I don't, I'm a low-carber, 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-

• 51:36Mike Rowe?

  Do unto others, you know, as you do you, is known as the golden rule, and its most famous source is the Bible. I don't believe it. I don't believe it.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Well, that's that's according to ChatGPT. Matthew and Luke.

• 51:49Mike Rowe?

  Oh, see?

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Rabbi Hillel the Elder said, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor."

• 51:56Mike Rowe?

  Well, he put a twist on it.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  He did.

• 51:58Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Huh.

• 52:00Speaker 02

  Confucius said it.

• 52:02Mike Rowe?

  Well, I mean-

• 52:03Speaker 02

  Fifth century.

• 52:04Mike Rowe?

  Oh, well, eight, well, so I guess-

• 52:07Speaker 02

  So, Christian, they lifted it, like, they lifted, like, the pagan calendar, kind of thing?

• 52:12Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, the Gregorian calendar, the Roman calendar. Okay, the calendar is 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-

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 52:27Mike Rowe?

  Is real. There is, I mean, it's the Tower of Babel without it. You're saying that if you're counting calories, if you're measuring, if you're, that, that whole way of thinking is kind of doomed.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  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, we can't, 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 might be a layer of-" Like, there's a lot of stuff tied into, so when people quit eating processed sugars and grains, and they're no longer medicating by stuff in the food in the pie hole, stuff comes up, and that's totally fine and normal, the temper tantrum, the whatever stuff's gonna come up, that's for your therapy session, go do that.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  And that's great. We want those things to not torture us anymore, so that we're not fat, sick, and unhealthy anymore, right? Um, 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, you know, 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 gonna make a good product with-

• 53:55Mike Rowe?

  And is that where you are now? You're manufacturing?

• 53:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 53:58Mike Rowe?

  You're like, tell me about-

• 53:58Speaker 02

  I'm not manufacturing. We work with contract manufacturers, co-mans. So I now have five pasta sauce SKUs, four spice SKUs, and three cheese bites, which are just cheese with the spices. So there's nothing, there's no like anti-caking agents, there's no sugar, obviously. Um, everything has to be 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 that I'm looking for. For example, the cheese bites I was making in my kitchen for years.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  Uh, toasting cheese with my spices and it, oh, that tastes like a ranch Dorito. Or that tastes like a, you know, a Cheez-It.

• 54:37Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  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 gonna 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.

• 54:54Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  And then going back and forth on R and 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 topper, does it go with crackers? Well, guess what? You're gonna go up against Frito-Lay and they're not gonna like that very much.

• 55:20Mike Rowe?

  They hate that.

• 55:20Speaker 02

  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 if they like something or if they don't like it. I try to have it as dialed in as possible before that happens. Um, so that hopefully I've gotten ahead of any obstacles. But we launch it that way first, because A, the margins. If we sell it direct to consumer, we have the money to pay for everything else. Okay? It's so expensive to go into grocery stores, paying for the shelf space, offering free fills, which is the free case per SKU per store, um, 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.

• 56:05Mike Rowe?

  That's smart.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  They're the best, they're the word of mouth, they're the reason that I have this company.

• 56:11Mike Rowe?

  What are you liking that too? Is it like a GoFundMe? Is it a co-production? How do you think about it?

• 56:15Speaker 02

  It's called an equity crowdfunding, that's what the legal term is by the SEC. And they only recently started doing this, I think in the past five or six years, allowing, uh- 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 like, guys, 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.

• 56:53Mike Rowe?

  Well, you know, to answer my own question earlier, or at least an observation, the temper tantrum.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:59Mike Rowe?

  That I experience when I can't easily find. The stuff.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:04Mike Rowe?

  That I want is sort of in direct correlation to the difficulty. Of launching a brand.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:13Mike Rowe?

  That could in fact satisfy that and, and the ways that the retailers and the manufacturers and the whole. Giant top heavy glittering.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  It is.

• 57:24Mike Rowe?

  Edifice just makes it virtually impossible. People should understand how hard it is to launch a brand.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  I, I want to give you 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 to pay for $2 off on this. Plus the fees that get added on all the, 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.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  And that's going to take getting multiple production partners across the country.

• 58:21Mike Rowe?

  See, this is why I think.

• 58:22Speaker 02

  It's a puzzle that all has kind of got to raise up at the same time.

• 58:26Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:32Mike Rowe?

  You have no hope of an equity of funding.

• 58:35Speaker 02

  No.

• 58:36Mike Rowe?

  Thing. But that might be the way to get the thing that you want, you know, I, I know I told you this before.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:44Mike Rowe?

  We started rolling, but when Dirty Jobs was the biggest show on cable.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 58:50Mike Rowe?

  I had a Dirty Jobs cleaning product and I had it on shelves in every single Walmart in this country.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  And that's huge.

• 58:56Mike Rowe?

  And here's the heartbreaker, the people loved it.

• 59:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:00Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 59:18Mike Rowe?

  And I mean, you're just millions and millions and millions of dollars until or unless you're able to spend that kind of money on your brand.

• 59:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 59:26Mike Rowe?

  Then the existing shelf space, that's very expensive.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:00:08Mike Rowe?

  I think that's smart because I think it's happened at a lot of other verticals where everything, it's like this combination of homemade and lo fi. Your messaging, you can handle that yourself. The tech permits it. Your distribution, get on all the social channels.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:25Mike Rowe?

  Tell your story as best you can. And then, no, but then you come back to logistics, transportation.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:32Mike Rowe?

  And like those real capital costs.

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:00:35Mike Rowe?

  And I don't know how to.

• 1:00:38Mike Rowe?

  You know, this is an ingestible we're talking about. It's gotta be refrigerated. It's gotta be shipped.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  Oh, people who are in 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. It 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 a lot.

• 1:01:05Mike Rowe?

  Well, I mean, 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.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

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

• 1:01:23Mike Rowe?

  Why is it better?

• 1:01:24Speaker 02

  Because it's clean and it's delicious.

• 1:01:27Mike Rowe?

  What's it called?

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  Eat Happy Kitchen Ranch Dust.

• 1:01:30Mike Rowe?

  Ranch Dust?

• 1:01:31Speaker 02

  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. Bake the recipes in the cookbooks. See? 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. But when you buy the Hidden Valley, it has some things in it that you're not gonna 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.

• 1:02:09Mike Rowe?

  They're gonna be okay.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  They're gonna 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.

• 1:02:27Mike Rowe?

  So, as some of you may have heard, I went to Congress 16 years ago to testify before a House Subcommittee. And then again, a year later, to testify before a Senate Subcommittee about the need to reinvigorate the skilled trades with some kind of national effort that would make a more persuasive case for a lot of good jobs out there that didn't require a four-year degree. Well, 15 years later.

• 1:02:54Mike Rowe?

  I finally heard back from the government and I am delighted to tell you about a program called BuildFreedom.us. This is the national PR campaign that MicroWorks has been talking about for a decade and a half now and it's focused on three or 400,000 excellent jobs in the defense industrial base. These are the electricians and the plumbers and the steam finners and the pipe fitters and the CNC operators and the ship builders and so forth. But in this case, all of those trades are focused on building out our national infrastructure through the defense industrial base. So people who are building our autonomous weapons, our planes, our ships, it's only

• 1:03:39Mike Rowe?

  a matter of national security and it's a very big deal. And on a personal level, it's really been very gratifying. Build Freedom donated $10 million to MicroWorks. The money's available right now for you if you want to pursue a skill that's in demand and work in the defense industrial base. I think it's an opportunity of a lifetime. Go to BuildFreedom.us, see what's available and then apply for a scholarship from MicroWorks. The money's there, burning a hole in my pocket. Go get some. BuildFreedom.us. 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

• 1:04:21Mike Rowe?

  wind is blowing and are you trying to make something to satisfy a demand that is out there?

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:04:39Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. I ask everybody a version of that simply because if you're not pleasing yourself, you're never going to last.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:04:46Mike Rowe?

  But if you're only pleasing yourself, then you're just building little

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:04:49Mike Rowe?

  statues to yourself.

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:04:51Mike Rowe?

  And that's not a business.

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  Yes, no.

• 1:04:53Mike Rowe?

  So how do you decide which recipes go into these books? What kind of testing do you do?

• 1:04:58Speaker 02

  Well, how do I decide? Well, I generally write a whole bunch of recipes and then I'm like...

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Like for the next book, for example, I've always wanted to do a party book. I think being social is very important. Relationships are right, and maybe this is a fallout from the whole COVID isolationism. But I think that us 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 teetotaler. Clearly.

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  What's in this cup?

• 1:05:33Mike Rowe?

  What is it?

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  What is it?

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  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 about it. I'm like, you know, it'd 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 fun? We need this kind of a thing. I don't know, it just.

• 1:06:03Mike Rowe?

  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, and doing all the, 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? Cause I'm, at this point, I don't care.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  Just tell me what to do, bro.

• 1:06:27Mike Rowe?

  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. And what did he send us, Chuck? What are those things that nut?

• 1:06:38Speaker 02

  The nut butter.

• 1:06:39Mike Rowe?

  Nut butter. Yeah, it is good.

• 1:06:42Speaker 02

  He stopped making them.

• 1:06:43Mike Rowe?

  He stopped?

• 1:06:43Speaker 02

  For a minute. He's coming, he's gonna come back to him, but he stopped. Everyone's like, give me my nut butters.

• 1:06:49Mike Rowe?

  Well, it was an interesting thing for me because when I'm in the mindset 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.

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:07:02Mike Rowe?

  But fuel is not eating happy. It can't be.

• 1:07:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, but if you're fueling yourself, what if it also tasted good and wasn't killing you in the process?

• 1:07:11Mike Rowe?

  Great.

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  Wouldn't that be great?

• 1:07:12Mike Rowe?

  Sure, but if it looks like Soylent Green. Okay, like if

• 1:07:16Speaker 02

  We've all bought those products that we're like,

• 1:07:18Mike Rowe?

  If it's beige.

• 1:07:19Speaker 02

  Put it in, put it in a shaker and then you drink it.

• 1:07:22Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 1:07:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Mike Rowe?

  It's like, okay, so it tastes better than I thought, but it's still beige and it's in some sort of thing.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Mike Rowe?

  And that's not a meal and that's not communal and that's

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:34Mike Rowe?

  It's not Italian.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I'm a feeder. I like to feed people. So I, you know. What can I say?

• 1:07:43Mike Rowe?

  Well, you want to be happy.

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  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 processed foods.

• 1:08:10Mike Rowe?

  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, for a month, what is that trip like? If you really do it right, if you really cut it out?

• 1:08:33Speaker 02

  So the first time is always the hardest.

• 1:08:37Mike Rowe?

  Hardest?

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  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 electrolytes or 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, you associate certain places. Like I always stood outside of my theater in the nineties and would have a cigarette.

• 1:09:23Speaker 02

  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. Cause that's another thing with too much sugar and processed foods, 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.

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  Cause 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. Cause you got a little evidence that it's working, right? And then things taper off with that because you've dropped the water weight. I mean, 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. Everybody, 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. Like, things are great. I don't need to meditate or things are awesome.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  I don't need to do the thing that you have to do every day. And about a month in, you're gonna be like, ooh, you know what I can have now? Ice cream. I did it. I'm gonna have ice cream. Time for a reward. Time, I'm gonna, 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 were rewarded as kids or that, you know, you got good grades. 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.

• 1:11:34Speaker 02

  And I learned that too from Vinnie because he's, he's a voice of reason in 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 gonna have that whole pizza at 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 gotta go back to it.

• 1:12:01Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, and that's, I mean, that just strikes me as way more mental.

• 1:12:06Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:12:07Mike Rowe?

  Than physiological.

• 1:12:08Speaker 02

  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 and so already always makes their XYZ thing that I eat and I want to eat it. Great, go eat it. Go eat it, enjoy your life.

• 1:12:20Mike Rowe?

  Do you, what do you think about cheat days? The concept.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  I don't care. I don't care. You want to have a cheat day? Great, if that's what keeps you in the mindset of living your best life, that's 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.

• 1:12:41Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 1:12:51Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:12:51Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 1:13:02Mike Rowe?

  So you haven't eliminated the craving, you've just lessened, you've just closed the window.

• 1:13:07Speaker 02

  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 could just have, I love, oh, I love that thing, I'm gonna have a few bites. And you literally will be like, mm, 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.

• 1:13:44Mike Rowe?

  But there's also the collective. There's also.

• 1:13:47Speaker 02

  There's grandmothers, there's nonnas, there's cultural. 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.

• 1:14:10Mike Rowe?

  I want, I mean, how do you? The thing that tasted quote unquote good. Five hundred years ago.

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:14:18Mike Rowe?

  What was that?

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  I I don't know.

• 1:14:19Mike Rowe?

  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 mead, that's it. That's the thing.

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  I've never had mead. I would like to try, is it not good? Is it too sweet?

• 1:14:35Mike Rowe?

  What's in the box? What'd you bring me?

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:14:39Mike Rowe?

  Is there mead in there?

• 1:14:40Speaker 02

  No, just spices and pasta sauce.

• 1:14:42Mike Rowe?

  Well, that's.

• 1:14:42Speaker 02

  And cheese bites.

• 1:14:44Mike Rowe?

  Were these the crunchy things you were talking about?

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's ranch.

• 1:14:49Mike Rowe?

  Is this good for me?

• 1:14:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's just cheese and spice. That's all it is.

• 1:14:53Mike Rowe?

  I E. Not bad for me. Eat happy kitchen.

• 1:14:56Speaker 02

  White onion and cheddar, which is kind of like a sour cream and cheddar situation, but it doesn't have sour cream. You know what I'm saying? But that's the flavor profile of it.

• 1:15:02Mike Rowe?

  Uh huh.

• 1:15:02Speaker 02

  And then there's a barbecue one. Where's the barbecue? There it is.

• 1:15:08Mike Rowe?

  Okay. Very satisfying. Sometimes you just need a little crunch.

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:15:20Mike Rowe?

  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. Sometimes you don't.

• 1:15:30Speaker 02

  Almond juice got nuts. Mounds don't because. Sometimes you feel like a nut.

• 1:15:35Mike Rowe?

  Sometimes you don't.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:37Mike Rowe?

  That is a, um.

• 1:15:38Speaker 02

  That will forever be in my brain.

• 1:15:40Mike Rowe?

  See, now we're getting somewhere.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  Now we're getting somewhere. Only took five hours.

• 1:15:45Mike Rowe?

  Well, you take voiceover.

• 1:15:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:47Mike Rowe?

  And you put music behind them. You got a whole new genre called jingles.

• 1:15:51Speaker 02

  Jingles.

• 1:15:52Mike Rowe?

  Jingles are very powerful.

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  Very powerful.

• 1:15:54Mike Rowe?

  They're like metaphors. And that whole, sometimes you feel like a nut. That's a, um. I believe it's called a tautology. Where. Oh, God, Chuck, what was the?

• 1:16:04Speaker 02

  Tautology, like T A U T ology?

• 1:16:07Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, yeah, it's sort of a, like a syllogism. Never mind, that's even worse.

• 1:16:12Speaker 02

  You pedantic.

• 1:16:13Mike Rowe?

  I am, uh, Gino's. Remember Gino's?

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  Gino's pizza rolls?

• 1:16:18Mike Rowe?

  Uh, remember it?

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  Oh, I was saying, um. Everybody goes to Gino's.

• 1:16:23Mike Rowe?

  Cause Gino's is the place to go.

• 1:16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:26Mike Rowe?

  Brilliant.

• 1:16:27Speaker 02

  Were you in the DC area when June Ree's self-defense commercials played?

• 1:16:33Mike Rowe?

  I remember June.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  I remember every word of the, I'm not gonna sing it because...

• 1:16:37Mike Rowe?

  Racist?

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:38Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:38Speaker 02

  Um, but it's in my, it will always be there.

• 1:16:41Mike Rowe?

  Uh, Matsuda! Mazda! Yeah, you can be very careful.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:16:57Mike Rowe?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:58Speaker 02

  Give it a little pre-life. So that was pre-life, what you're doing.

• 1:17:00Mike Rowe?

  So pre-life is the sound you make before you articulate a word.

• 1:17:05Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:17:13Mike Rowe?

  What would post-life sound like?

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  I was hungry! I don't know. It just like, it just let the word linger like a legato, like a whole note that never ends.

• 1:17:23Mike Rowe?

  It just kinda trails off.

• 1:17:23Speaker 02

  And then just go, then you do a little Christina Aguilera, I don't know, I don't know. It never ends.

• 1:17:28Mike Rowe?

  The actual jingle with the music, everything was, "Everybody goes to Gino's 'cause Gino's is the place to go. Everybody goes to Gino's 'cause Gino's is the place to go." And it just...

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  And then you're going to Gino's.

• 1:17:44Mike Rowe?

  It goes through the circle of fifths. And if you really think about it, it's an indictment of how easily we're beguiled. Because you would just sit there and not really question it. In fact, the logic is irrefutable.

• 1:17:58Speaker 02

  Where was Gino's?

• 1:18:00Mike Rowe?

  In Baltimore.

• 1:18:01Speaker 02

  In Baltimore.

• 1:18:01Mike Rowe?

  There was only one.

• 1:18:02Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:18:03Mike Rowe?

  No, no, they were, which begs the question, I don't think everybody went.

• 1:18:07Speaker 02

  I guess not. They didn't open one...

• 1:18:09Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:09Speaker 02

  They certainly didn't have it in DC.

• 1:18:11Mike Rowe?

  I'll tell you another one.

• 1:18:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:18:12Mike Rowe?

  Since you're a big drinker. Um, uh, Schaefer. Remember Schaefer beer?

• 1:18:18Speaker 02

  Chaffier, we called it in high school.

• 1:18:20Mike Rowe?

  Chaffier.

• 1:18:20Speaker 02

  When we got to steal a case of Chaffier.

• 1:18:22Mike Rowe?

  $2.99 a case when I was in college.

• 1:18:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:24Mike Rowe?

  Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one.

• 1:18:33Mike Rowe?

  That is just-

• 1:18:34Speaker 02

  That is, that's just good copyrighting right there.

• 1:18:36Mike Rowe?

  I mean, that's Mad Man stuff.

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is.

• 1:18:38Mike Rowe?

  That's like-

• 1:18:39Speaker 02

  That is, Don Draper sold that-

• 1:18:40Mike Rowe?

  You see Don Draper walking down the hall going, "Hey, fellas, I got something. I think I'm onto something."

• 1:18:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:46Mike Rowe?

  The one beer to have when you're having more than one. And by the way, are you the kind of guy that only has one beer? You're in the wrong room, champion.

• 1:18:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, my god. Yeah, Chafier.

• 1:18:56Mike Rowe?

  So, you need a tautology for-

• 1:18:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:18:59Mike Rowe?

  Eat happy.

• 1:19:00Speaker 02

  I do.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  And the definition of a tautology is saying the same thing twice in different words, generally considered to be a fault of style.

• 1:19:10Mike Rowe?

  That's right.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  They arrived one after the other in succession.

• 1:19:14Mike Rowe?

  That's it.

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  That sounds like being redundant. Is that the same-

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  It does sound it.

• 1:19:17Mike Rowe?

  It is. Well, if it's unintentional, it's a mark of idiocy, right? But if you do it on purpose, then you're either in on the joke or you're selling something.

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:19:28Mike Rowe?

  Because, of course, the magic of advertising is-

• 1:19:31Speaker 02

  Well, I'm selling something, kids.

• 1:19:32Mike Rowe?

  That's to say, kids, I'm selling something. You know, kids, you just, everything, you just repeat it and repeat it. And repeat it.

• 1:19:42Speaker 02

  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 1/10th of 1% 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.

• 1:20:08Mike Rowe?

  Think about the habits you're trying to create. And think about the thinking you're going to have to debunk.

• 1:20:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:20:18Mike Rowe?

  Now, think about the money and the time and the brilliance that was spent in creating the habit, the pre-existing thing.

• 1:20:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:20:29Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  I'm up against it.

• 1:20:30Mike Rowe?

  Go down the list.

• 1:20:31Speaker 02

  I quit, Mike.

• 1:20:32Mike Rowe?

  Coca-Cola, could it?

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  I quit. I quit.

• 1:20:34Mike Rowe?

  What do you mean you quit?

• 1:20:34Speaker 02

  It's too much work.

• 1:20:35Mike Rowe?

  Oh, right.

• 1:20:36Speaker 02

  I'm done.

• 1:20:37Mike Rowe?

  Okay, I'm not trying to discourage you.

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me. No, no, no, but it is, that's exactly, I'm unwinding, I'm attempting to unwind that programming.

• 1:20:46Mike Rowe?

  Yes, and I want people who are listening, if anyone still is.

• 1:20:52Mike Rowe?

  God bless you, people.

• 1:20:53Speaker 02

  We love you.

• 1:20:54Mike Rowe?

  We love you a lot.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  We love you.

• 1:20:57Speaker 02

  We love you.

• 1:21:00Mike Rowe?

  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 conspiratorial, but that's what advertising is. We've been taught that Crest is different than Gleam, and that Gleam is different than Colgate.

• 1:21:26Speaker 02

  Gleam, good throwback.

• 1:21:27Mike Rowe?

  Remember Gleam?

• 1:21:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 1:21:29Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 1:21:35Speaker 02

  The fluoride or the whatever they think.

• 1:21:36Mike Rowe?

  Which, by the way.

• 1:21:37Speaker 02

  Don't we like?

• 1:21:38Mike Rowe?

  Until five minutes ago, fluoride was the thing that kept my teeth from falling out.

• 1:21:42Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:21:42Mike Rowe?

  Now, apparently, it's why there's blood in my urine.

• 1:21:45Speaker 02

  Fortnightly, yes.

• 1:21:46Mike Rowe?

  Wait, what? Oh, I haven't told you? Yeah, a lot of blood in the urine.

• 1:21:53Speaker 02

  A lot?

• 1:21:54Mike Rowe?

  Lot. No, I'm kidding, of course, there's not. But, look, you don't need a lot.

• 1:21:59Speaker 02

  Call the doctor.

• 1:22:00Mike Rowe?

  You don't need a lot of blood in the urine to really get your attention.

• 1:22:03Speaker 02

  Honestly, that is very true.

• 1:22:05Mike Rowe?

  Just a drop.

• 1:22:06Speaker 02

  Just a slight bit is cause for alarm.

• 1:22:09Mike Rowe?

  Well, it diffuses in such a way that you would think, maybe you threw a rod, you know, or like something really cataclysmic happens.

• 1:22:16Speaker 02

  It's not good.

• 1:22:17Mike Rowe?

  Well, it's like, it's never good, but it's rarely as bad as it seems.

• 1:22:20Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:22:21Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 1:22:27Speaker 02

  Blood in the urine, it's never as bad as it seems, or is it? We don't know.

• 1:22:31Mike Rowe?

  In Tarabong. We don't know.

• 1:22:34Speaker 02

  We don't know.

• 1:22:35Mike Rowe?

  We're curious and surprised. Yeah, that's what happens, Chuck. When you look down and you see that there's blood in the bowl, your first reaction is gonna be, what the heck is that? Wonder, questioning, alarm.

• 1:22:50Speaker 02

  And then cool ear wingding with the.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  And then you remembered you ate some beets yesterday. Some red beets.

• 1:22:57Mike Rowe?

  That is such a spoilt.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  That is a real mind meld, isn't it?

• 1:23:00Mike Rowe?

  That's not a urine thing. That's back to what she started with, the whole Dal pooping up your bowl thing.

• 1:23:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:06Mike Rowe?

  I showed up late for a shoot once. I missed, there was nothing at Craft Services left but beets, and they were delicious, and I ate probably two pounds of beets. I was starving. And I went home that night and had a relatively normal dinner. And the next morning, you know, into the bathroom, took care of business, looked in the bowl, my god.

• 1:23:29Mike Rowe?

  My god, I was

• 1:23:30Speaker 02

  Have you had beets since?

• 1:23:32Mike Rowe?

  Well, I hopped on the internet, you know. Oh yeah, I eat beets all the time now.

• 1:23:36Speaker 02

  Okay, now you know.

• 1:23:38Mike Rowe?

  Now I eat as many as I can because it tickles me to look in there and go like, nah, see, not blood.

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  I love to know your hobbies, thank you.

• 1:23:44Mike Rowe?

  It's a big one.

• 1:23:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:45Mike Rowe?

  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 doctors was, unless of course you've had an inordinate amount of beets, which really will

• 1:23:58Speaker 02

  And you had had all the beets.

• 1:23:59Mike Rowe?

  Mess with your stool in a big way.

• 1:24:01Speaker 01

  You've never seen it in your urine either?

• 1:24:04Mike Rowe?

  No, I haven't.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:06Mike Rowe?

  Why does asparagus have such an impact on our pee?

• 1:24:11Mike Rowe?

  Is this in any of your books?

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  It's not. I have asparagus recipes, so if anybody wants to do some at-home tests, isn't it a genetic thing? Like, some people have attached earlobes, some people have stinky asparagus pee.

• 1:24:22Speaker 01

  You know, that

• 1:24:23Speaker 02

  Or does everyone have stinky asparagus pee?

• 1:24:25Mike Rowe?

  I think everybody I think everybody got it. I don't think you get a pass on that.

• 1:24:28Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:24:29Mike Rowe?

  What about the crease in the earlobe? Do you think there's any truth to the fact that

• 1:24:32Speaker 02

  Is that not from like just sleeping funny?

• 1:24:34Mike Rowe?

  I thought it was, but somebody, I have a crease in this one.

• 1:24:37Speaker 02

  But not in that one.

• 1:24:37Mike Rowe?

  But not in this one, and then it's like, well, you've got a real blood flow issue.

• 1:24:40Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:24:45Mike Rowe?

  Oh, they're attached. They're just not attached to your jawline.

• 1:24:48Speaker 02

  They're removable.

• 1:24:51Mike Rowe?

  I have some questions for you from my household.

• 1:24:52Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, Sandy's Questions.

• 1:24:54Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:54Speaker 02

  This is a segment we like to call Sandy's Questions.

• 1:24:59Mike Rowe?

  Sandy's

• 1:25:03Mike Rowe?

  Recipes that we've made from this book.

• 1:25:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:25:07Mike Rowe?

  Okay, zucchini pasta bolognese.

• 1:25:09Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 1:25:09Mike Rowe?

  Chicken with artichokes, spinach and cherry tomatoes.

• 1:25:12Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. We're gonna rename that one Date Night Chicken because people have written me saying that they get laid when they make that recipe.

• 1:25:18Mike Rowe?

  Huh.

• 1:25:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:20Mike Rowe?

  How about that?

• 1:25:21Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:25:21Mike Rowe?

  So first.

• 1:25:22Speaker 02

  You need to have a chat.

• 1:25:22Mike Rowe?

  First, the chicken lays the egg and then.

• 1:25:25Speaker 02

  And then.

• 1:25:25Mike Rowe?

  Jimmy crack corn and I don't care. Eggplant Parmesan.

• 1:25:29Speaker 02

  Great.

• 1:25:30Mike Rowe?

  Roasted asparagus with manchego and pine nuts.

• 1:25:32Speaker 02

  Pinolis, yes.

• 1:25:33Mike Rowe?

  Yep. Ginger cilantro cauliflower rice.

• 1:25:36Speaker 02

  Oh, yum.

• 1:25:37Mike Rowe?

  Chimichari sauce.

• 1:25:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:39Mike Rowe?

  Chicken cauliflower rice bowl. I was concerned about that because of the rice. Is rice good, bad? You don't care? It's, I mean, I know it's happy, but I thought rice.

• 1:25:47Speaker 02

  It's cauliflower rice. You're not having rice.

• 1:25:50Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, that's true. All right. It was the word rice that threw it off.

• 1:25:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I put it in quotes because it's not. I should, should I use an M dash next time?

• 1:25:58Mike Rowe?

  I'd go with an N.

• 1:25:59Speaker 02

  An N dash.

• 1:26:00Mike Rowe?

  Warrants a giant.

• 1:26:01Speaker 02

  Not a full M.

• 1:26:02Mike Rowe?

  No, and certainly not an interabong. Roasted tomato basil soup.

• 1:26:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:07Mike Rowe?

  That's actually, I mean, I like them all. Oh, it is?

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you have that book too.

• 1:26:12Mike Rowe?

  Oh, man. God, I got all your books. We've also used barbecue dust on pork tenderloin.

• 1:26:18Speaker 02

  And I've got some barbecue dust here for you.

• 1:26:20Mike Rowe?

  Nice. It's, I mean, dust is such an interesting noun to really incorporate into the culinary space.

• 1:26:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, it sounds like it's dirty, but it's not. You could just put a little dusting on there and put a little dust.

• 1:26:32Mike Rowe?

  Dusty. Dill dust.

• 1:26:33Speaker 02

  Dill dust, which we've now changed to ranch dust for the obvious alliterative.

• 1:26:38Mike Rowe?

  Obviously.

• 1:26:40Mike Rowe?

  And here's one that surprised me. Dildo dust.

• 1:26:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's in there too.

• 1:26:44Mike Rowe?

  That, whoa.

• 1:26:44Speaker 02

  You have to order the books. It's like a surprise ending.

• 1:26:47Mike Rowe?

  That's the.

• 1:26:47Speaker 02

  In the choose your own adventure.

• 1:26:49Mike Rowe?

  I, I think it's a happy ending and I think you might want to save that for your pop up.

• 1:26:55Mike Rowe?

  Marinara sauce.

• 1:26:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:56Mike Rowe?

  Arribaata sauce, putanesca.

• 1:26:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that won pasta sauce of the year in 2024.

• 1:27:01Mike Rowe?

  Did?

• 1:27:01Speaker 02

  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 putanesca. It's like the best. We're gonna kill it. And then now I realize why no one's doing putanesca because Americans don't know what a putanesca sauce is. And then it won pasta sauce of the year. And so I have a moral imperative to discuss putanesca sauce, which basically means hooker sauce.

• 1:27:27Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, it's a horse. It's a horse thing.

• 1:27:28Speaker 02

  It's horse sauce. There's all sorts of conflicting, like Italians can argue about anything, but especially about the origin of putanesca sauce and like, did the whores make it? Then there's a story like, no, the wives made it to make their husbands stinky so they wouldn't go. It doesn't make any sense. It never makes sense. So it's a sauce that's a red sauce that adds olive, caper, onion, oregano, red pepper flake. 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 we achieved that same briny flavor with the caper brine in our putanesca sauce. And it won pasta sauce of the year last, uh, in 2024. Now it's 2023.

• 1:28:04Mike Rowe?

  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 them?

• 1:28:19Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:28:34Mike Rowe?

  What do you think about cooking shows in general? And what are your favorites and why?

• 1:28:39Speaker 02

  I love cooking shows. Um, 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 Ina Garten and I love Gordon Ramsay. And who else do I love? Meghan? Giada's great.

• 1:29:02Mike Rowe?

  Giada? Yeah, she's big. I see her all the time now.

• 1:29:05Speaker 02

  She's fabulous. And and all these people have been doing this for so long and. And uh, 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 um, 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 ghostwritten 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, I, all I have is like, that my shit's good.

• 1:29:41Mike Rowe?

  So that goes in the AI column?

• 1:29:43Speaker 02

  That could go in the AI column.

• 1:29:44Mike Rowe?

  Like the artificial, something's fake, something's ghostwritten, something's not.

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:48Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, look, my theory is, not yet, but sooner or later, that's all gonna fall weirdly out of favor. Would you do a cooking show for a network?

• 1:29:56Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Oh, a thousand percent.

• 1:30:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:01Mike Rowe?

  You know what? I pitched, you'll appreciate this. I was at one of those up-fronts a couple of years ago, and the head of the Food Network was there, and he was like, would you ever do a, a cooking show? And I said, well, you know, probably not. I don't cook much, but I'd do an eating show, you know, for sure. And he's like, well-

• 1:30:17Speaker 02

  I could cook and you could eat.

• 1:30:18Mike Rowe?

  Well, I had two pitches. The first was called um, Mess Kit, where I'd go to famous battlefields with a cook and a historian.

• 1:30:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:30:27Mike Rowe?

  To your point.

• 1:30:27Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, and yeah, I love this.

• 1:30:29Mike Rowe?

  And the historian would tell me exactly what happened.

• 1:30:31Speaker 02

  Fascinating.

• 1:30:31Mike Rowe?

  Hastings, or, you know, Normandy, wherever.

• 1:30:34Speaker 02

  And you'd have to eat that shit.

• 1:30:35Mike Rowe?

  That's it. I'd have a cook there who would, you know, and together we would cook-

• 1:30:38Speaker 02

  We're making hard tacks.

• 1:30:39Mike Rowe?

  Whatever they were eating.

• 1:30:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:41Mike Rowe?

  That's what you eat. He liked it.

• 1:30:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:43Mike Rowe?

  But the one he really sparked to, uh, I would go, I would go out into the world and find people, you know, with the, nothing like your books, like the old Betty Crocker books.

• 1:30:54Speaker 02

  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. I love it.

• 1:31:00Mike Rowe?

  But it was, for me, it was the casserole, like the meatloaf casserole.

• 1:31:04Speaker 02

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:31:04Mike Rowe?

  And anything with gelatin that was just like, what in the world?

• 1:31:07Speaker 02

  A congealed salad?

• 1:31:08Mike Rowe?

  A congealed 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-

• 1:31:19Speaker 02

  I have several of those books. I collect, I love old cookbooks.

• 1:31:23Mike Rowe?

  I called it Eat Me.

• 1:31:26Mike Rowe?

  And I thought, I thought it could really-

• 1:31:28Speaker 02

  Oh, how clever.

• 1:31:28Mike Rowe?

  Just a thing I could shoot, you know, with the people, just the real, you know-

• 1:31:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:32Mike Rowe?

  The real people. So, he said he'd get back to me, but never did.

• 1:31:36Speaker 02

  You're still waiting to hear?

• 1:31:37Mike Rowe?

  I'm still waiting.

• 1:31:38Speaker 02

  That's what my husband likes to say to me when I see a, "Oh, I auditioned for that role." And he goes, "You still waiting to hear?" I'm like, "Yeah, I am." They never got back to me.

• 1:31:46Mike Rowe?

  I was up for the lead role in The Merchant of Venice. What happened? I didn't get it. We used to laugh, man. I mean, for years, the amount of auditions, you know?

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:31:59Mike Rowe?

  And the thing is, you just never, you never tell anybody what you're doing.

• 1:32:02Speaker 02

  No, you can't. You learn that, you learn that early on.

• 1:32:04Mike Rowe?

  Because all they're gonna do.

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  Well, what happened to that McDonald's audition you went to? I actually was thinking, when I, when I came here, not to, uh, docks 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.

• 1:32:18Mike Rowe?

  Hmm.

• 1:32:19Speaker 02

  And, uh, and I was like, "Oh, these are giving me feelings, coming back to this neighborhood."

• 1:32:23Mike Rowe?

  A little PTSD-ish.

• 1:32:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little bit. Trying to find parking at 5:00 PM on a Friday to do a McDonald's callback where there's 14 people staring at their laptops and not paying attention and, yeah, it's cool.

• 1:32:33Mike Rowe?

  Another, another ingenious jingle, man. You deserve a break today.

• 1:32:37Speaker 02

  You deserve it.

• 1:32:38Mike Rowe?

  So, get up and get away.

• 1:32:39Speaker 02

  No, what's the, um, no, it's the, um, icy cold, thick shakes, sundaes and apple pie, two Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish.

• 1:32:48Mike Rowe?

  Oh, two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, onions.

• 1:32:52Speaker 02

  Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese. No, but it's the, um, it's the theme where they used to, it's the 80s.

• 1:32:57Mike Rowe?

  Hmm, man.

• 1:32:58Speaker 02

  They're too, they're too young.

• 1:32:59Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, too young. Sorry, I'm, I'm-

• 1:33:00Speaker 02

  Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish, quarter pound of french fries, icy cold, thick shakes, sundaes and apple pie. That's what they would say.

• 1:33:06Mike Rowe?

  Yeah?

• 1:33:06Speaker 02

  Like a, like a mantra. Like you're, like you're in a parade and you're doing, like the drum line is-

• 1:33:12Mike Rowe?

  It's so interesting that that's stuck in your crawl.

• 1:33:15Speaker 02

  I guess.

• 1:33:16Mike Rowe?

  You know? And-

• 1:33:17Speaker 02

  TV theme songs, too.

• 1:33:19Mike Rowe?

  Oh my God. I started with those.

• 1:33:21Speaker 02

  Don't, don't, well, that's another show.

• 1:33:22Mike Rowe?

  No, it's actually, it's not. It's all part of communicating. And I'm, I'm sure I can hit you with some theme show-

• 1:33:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:29Mike Rowe?

  -trivia that would warrant the use of an interabong.

• 1:33:32Speaker 02

  Does it involve Alan Thicke?

• 1:33:35Mike Rowe?

  Thick Alan, we used to call him.

• 1:33:37Speaker 02

  Alan Thick, who is Thick Alan.

• 1:33:38Mike Rowe?

  You knew Alan Thick, didn't you Chuck?

• 1:33:39Speaker 02

  I knew.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  I'd met him a couple of times, yeah, because of Rico's show.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  His widow was a friend of mine.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:33:44Speaker 02

  Tanya, she's lovely, yeah.

• 1:33:46Mike Rowe?

  Does she eat happy?

• 1:33:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh, absolutely. She's in Carpinteria, I give her, absolutely. Alan Thick's widow gets whatever she wants, okay?

• 1:33:55Mike Rowe?

  Remember Leave It To Beaver?

• 1:33:57Speaker 02

  Yes, but they were in reruns by the time I was watching, but yes.

• 1:33:59Mike Rowe?

  Remember the theme song?

• 1:34:01Speaker 02

  It was like a whistling thing, and then they showed Jerry, Jerry Mathis.

• 1:34:06Mike Rowe?

  Jerry Mathers as the Beaver.

• 1:34:07Speaker 02

  As the Beaver, and Eddie Haskell, and who was, da-da, that's it, yeah.

• 1:34:13Mike Rowe?

  There was a second one.

• 1:34:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:16Mike Rowe?

  That's it. Six seasons in, they changed the theme song.

• 1:34:19Speaker 02

  They did?

• 1:34:20Mike Rowe?

  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 da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, to da-dun, dun, da-da, da-da.

• 1:34:34Speaker 02

  Oh, they jazzed it.

• 1:34:36Mike Rowe?

  Yep. Yep. I thought that was amazing. Gilligan's Island, you know that one, right?

• 1:34:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Sit right back and hear a tale, tale of a people.

• 1:34:45Mike Rowe?

  The original.

• 1:34:47Speaker 02

  There wasn't original, what was that?

• 1:34:49Mike Rowe?

  Gilligan the Skipper to the millionaire's wife, the movie star, and the rest here on.

• 1:34:55Speaker 02

  Professor and Mar- they didn't count on Professor and Mary Ann both being the two hotties that would really, they thought Ginger was gonna be it.

• 1:35:01Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:02Speaker 02

  They didn't know they needed a girl next.

• 1:35:03Mike Rowe?

  Agent called and said, "What, what do you mean, and the rest?"

• 1:35:10Mike Rowe?

  If you work in boots all day long and your feet sweat, I feel your pain, and I'd recommend trying the socks that I wear every day from Camel City Mill. These guys sent me a box as a gift, long before they sponsored this podcast, and I started wearing them, and eventually I reached out to them because I love the product, and I wanted more sponsors on the podcast who make things in America. And now here they are again sponsoring another episode. Camel City Mill makes their socks in North Carolina with American wool in an American factory. Their merino wool blends help wick sweat away from your skin and their no sweat vent lets heat and moisture escape. That helps keep your feet dry and comfortable when you're spending long days in work boots.

• 1:35:54Mike Rowe?

  They also reinforce the heel and the toe with double plated nylon to stand up to the wear those boots put on your socks. Remember it's not the feet that wear out your socks, it's your boots and they back their socks with a 10 year durability guarantee. If you get a hole or a tear in the first decade, they'll replace them for free. If you're a hardworking guy dealing with sweaty uncomfortable feet, I'm telling you, these are worth trying. I wear mine every day and I'm glad to have the company on the podcast. CamelCityMill.com. Use code ROW, get 10% off my favorite work socks. CamelCityMill.com, code ROW.

• 1:36:33Speaker 02

  Dawn Wells gave me a blanket in 2004 at Slam Dance when I had a film in the film festival and I still, I cherish that blanket and she was the nicest human and it was like, again, still very early on in my career. So shout out to Dawn Wells giving me a blanket in 2004. It's still in my car right now.

• 1:36:51Mike Rowe?

  Is Dawn still in your cars?

• 1:36:53Speaker 02

  I did not kidnap her.

• 1:36:55Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 1:36:56Speaker 02

  I wanted to. She was lovely. No, she passed.

• 1:36:59Mike Rowe?

  I'm sorry. She was something.

• 1:37:01Speaker 02

  She was lovely.

• 1:37:02Mike Rowe?

  She really was. Here's some questions I promised to ask.

• 1:37:04Speaker 02

  The young people in the room are like, who is that?

• 1:37:05Mike Rowe?

  Oh no, these dudes know Dawn Wells. They know.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  I saw her do The Odd Couple with Marsha Wallace.

• 1:37:11Speaker 02

  On Broadway?

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:37:13Speaker 02

  Just?

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  Out here in the hallway.

• 1:37:15Speaker 02

  In North Hollywood?

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  They did it in my office for me. It was great. It was amazing.

• 1:37:19Mike Rowe?

  Command performance.

• 1:37:20Speaker 02

  That's weird.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  I forget where it was. I knew Marsha because I had done a pilot with Marsha and so she said, oh, you want to come see me on this play? I'm doing it. I'm like, oh, it's Dawn Wells.

• 1:37:28Speaker 02

  Hell yeah.

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  Meet Dawn Wells? Yeah.

• 1:37:31Mike Rowe?

  Why wouldn't you?

• 1:37:32Speaker 02

  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 like, once your show was off the air, you then have to go back to auditioning for things. And he was like, oh my God, Joni's here, you know, it was like such a thing. And then one time I went in, it was, it was a radio spot for Blockbuster. Okay, so it's radio, we're not even on camera, right? And they're partnering us all up back when they would still hire, you know, four actors to be in one radio spot where they had the money to pay for that.

• 1:38:04Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 1:38:05Speaker 02

  And, um, and this woman is rolled in by her caretaker in a, 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 Dick Van Dyke Show.

• 1:38:19Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 1:38:20Speaker 02

  And I was like, you did not make Rose Marie audition for a Blockbuster like does have one line as grandma. And I was like, oh, is this, this is Hollywood. This is the real Hollywood.

• 1:38:31Mike Rowe?

  Oh, man.

• 1:38:32Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:38:32Mike Rowe?

  Such a great story, though.

• 1:38:34Speaker 02

  Isn't that crazy? I was like, oh my God. And also too, I was probably the only one nerdy enough to like, know who she was. So we had a lovely conversation and I'm still waiting to hear.

• 1:38:48Mike Rowe?

  I'm still waiting. Here, jot that down. I'm still waiting to hear. That's not a bad title for this. Uh, what are your thoughts on seed oils? Do you think they are all bad?

• 1:38:57Speaker 02

  Okay. I always say refer to Dr. Kate Shanahan'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 avoid them all the time because every restaurant, like, there's no way a restaurant can stay in business without using some form of seed oil. It's really tricky.

• 1:39:17Mike Rowe?

  But this is my temper tantrum. Like, what are you, I mean, this, these things to me seem right, like you could justify putting a skull and crossbones on them. They're just not good for you.

• 1:39:29Speaker 02

  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 $9.99 shelf price when I sell it online for 14 bucks a jar.

• 1:39:49Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:49Speaker 02

  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. Cause restaurants are already operating on razor thin margins. So you just really have to like, either you find some guy and you're just gonna 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 that 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.

• 1:40:24Mike Rowe?

  You know what, it feels-

• 1:40:25Speaker 02

  Olive oil, coconut oil, butter, done, tallow, great.

• 1:40:28Mike Rowe?

  It feels like fraud to me.

• 1:40:30Speaker 02

  It is food fraud.

• 1:40:31Mike Rowe?

  No, I mean literal, like, like the reason, I'm looking at Minnesota and I'm looking at California, not to get political, but the, 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.

• 1:40:49Speaker 02

  I know. Being a homeowner and a taxpayer here, yes, yes, I agree.

• 1:40:53Mike Rowe?

  And so we're used to, 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, and blah, blah, blah. We just take it.

• 1:41:04Speaker 02

  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 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 gonna change this and make a difference? Maybe it's a community garden, maybe it's that you share a cow with your buddies.

• 1:41:37Mike Rowe?

  You're gonna have to be a big ass garden man.

• 1:41:39Speaker 02

  A big ass garden, but I agree.

• 1:41:42Mike Rowe?

  We're a sick country, right?

• 1:41:43Speaker 02

  We're very sick and the seed oils don't help. And I'm, 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 was like, you're crazy, you're nuts. And then the science kinda 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? Then the, then 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, well, sesame oil is a seed oil. I'm like, that's not the same thing. You can have some sunflower seeds.

• 1:42:24Mike Rowe?

  Corn syrup.

• 1:42:24Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 1:42:25Mike Rowe?

  Corn syrup.

• 1:42:26Speaker 02

  Corn syrup is, it's just batshit bonkers crazy.

• 1:42:29Mike Rowe?

  Bonkers bananas.

• 1:42:29Speaker 02

  That it's everywhere.

• 1:42:30Mike Rowe?

  And yet, that, so maybe.

• 1:42:32Speaker 02

  And yet.

• 1:42:32Mike Rowe?

  So that's a better example. It's like, what are you gonna do? Like, like we throw our hands up.

• 1:42:36Speaker 02

  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 gonna change their formulas to take those things out. So we do have some power there.

• 1:42:53Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 1:43:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:04Mike Rowe?

  Now, I'm sticking with, with this metaphor for another 10 seconds because, you know, when I see Nick Shirley, citizen journalist.

• 1:43:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:43:13Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 1:43:31Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 1:43:32Mike Rowe?

  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?

• 1:43:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:43Mike Rowe?

  Why didn't we do that? It's gonna happen with corn syrup. I bet it's gonna happen with seed oils.

• 1:43:48Speaker 02

  I feel like it's happening with corn syrup. They are taking it out of formulas, they're gonna 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 now political and you're, you're nutty if you wanna get rid of, there's nothing wrong with seed oil, you're bonkers if you wanna get rid of seed, like they're spinning the messaging with communication. And so, I, no.

• 1:44:14Mike Rowe?

  But you've gotta make it, if people are going to defend corn syrup. You can do it. You can write a tautological jingle and use all the entire bongs in the world and get people distracted. But look what they're doing now. They're otherwise rational people are defending the fraud.

• 1:44:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:44:32Mike Rowe?

  They're saying, look, it's bad. But if we eliminate fraud, what damage might we cause? What, you know, it's like, what are you even saying?

• 1:44:41Speaker 02

  Isn't that like, kind of what happened with the tobacco in the 80s?

• 1:44:44Mike Rowe?

  Yes, that's exactly what happened.

• 1:44:46Speaker 02

  Everyone was terrified of like, well, you can't get rid of a whole industry. Well, you can. And we'll come up with the new ways of economic prosperity.

• 1:44:52Mike Rowe?

  You made the point perfect. Standing outside, smoking a cigarette.

• 1:44:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:57Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 1:45:06Speaker 02

  A little dopamine hit.

• 1:45:07Mike Rowe?

  Where, yes.

• 1:45:07Speaker 02

  And you got to chat with your friends.

• 1:45:09Mike Rowe?

  And all of that thing got baked into the habit.

• 1:45:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:45:13Mike Rowe?

  Right? And that's why it's tough to break. But it's, uh, we use beef tallow, ghee, and olive oil.

• 1:45:20Speaker 02

  Wonderful.

• 1:45:20Mike Rowe?

  Are you concerned about using plastic and aluminum? If so, have you replaced them in your kitchen?

• 1:45:26Speaker 02

  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. First was the BPAs, then it was like, well, the nonstick's not good. And then it's like...

• 1:45:39Mike Rowe?

  What's a BPA?

• 1:45:40Speaker 02

  The polytetrafluoroethylene.

• 1:45:42Mike Rowe?

  Ah, right, right. Yeah, of course.

• 1:45:43Speaker 02

  You're with me. Um, but anything that's coated in the plastic that's toxic for us. Like, maybe it's nonstick cookware that's been coated.

• 1:45:51Mike Rowe?

  Oh, PTFE, polytetrafluoroethylene.

• 1:45:53Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:45:53Mike Rowe?

  Inside of what you call T-FALL.

• 1:45:57Speaker 02

  T-FALL cookware.

• 1:45:58Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:59Speaker 02

  You can't find it that much anymore.

• 1:46:00Mike Rowe?

  Ah, yes, you know, because of, you know, the polytetrafluoroethylene, yeah.

• 1:46:04Speaker 02

  Polytetrafluoroethylene.

• 1:46:06Mike Rowe?

  Polyethyl.

• 1:46:07Speaker 02

  Polyethyltetrafluoroethylene. Ethyl, ethyl. Don't bring ethyl into this.

• 1:46:12Mike Rowe?

  So close. Uh, glass storage containers, metal cutting boards?

• 1:46:16Speaker 02

  I've not used the metal cutting boards. I'm a big fan, because I just like, people, fans have made me these beautiful handmade wooden cutting boards that I'm obsessed with, and I love the booze. I just love them. So, for butchering and stuff like that. I mean, you can't in a restaurant. You have to use metal and plastic and stuff.

• 1:46:31Mike Rowe?

  How much actual butchering do you do?

• 1:46:32Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, let's say I'm just spatchcocking a chicken, or I'm taking a prime rib, and I'm cutting it into ribeyes.

• 1:46:37Mike Rowe?

  Spatchcocking?

• 1:46:38Speaker 02

  Spatchcocking, yeah.

• 1:46:40Mike Rowe?

  Just walk me through the etymology.

• 1:46:42Speaker 02

  You take apart the chicken, and then you lay it flat.

• 1:46:45Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:45Speaker 02

  In parts, basically, you're basically like splaying it.

• 1:46:48Mike Rowe?

  Oh, okay, splaying, that one I know.

• 1:46:50Speaker 02

  Um, but it's called spatchcocked.

• 1:46:53Mike Rowe?

  Two of my favorite words grouped up in a most surprising way. Is it hyphenated or do you go with an M dash?

• 1:46:57Speaker 02

  I, I think it is a compound noun.

• 1:47:00Speaker 01

  It's all together.

• 1:47:01Mike Rowe?

  Is that one word?

• 1:47:02Speaker 02

  I feel so validated.

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:47:04Mike Rowe?

  You think there's any validity to the idea of eating foods in a particular order for digestion? And to help manage blood sugar spikes?

• 1:47:12Speaker 02

  I'm not an expert in that, but it, if it blows your hair back, sure.

• 1:47:16Mike Rowe?

  Okay.

• 1:47:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:17Mike Rowe?

  I'm gonna file that under unpersuasive.

• 1:47:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:20Mike Rowe?

  Okay. Um, allulose, monk fruit?

• 1:47:25Speaker 02

  Here, okay, here's my thing, I have a

• 1:47:27Mike Rowe?

  As sugar substitutes?

• 1:47:28Speaker 02

  I have a dessert chapter in all of my books because like I said earlier, I believe in living a life. When you quit sugar, you're gonna 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 coconut sugar, maybe it's regular sugar, whatever, but it's sugar and sugar is sugar. I learned that from Vinnie. Your liver doesn't know the difference.

• 1:47:48Mike Rowe?

  Hmm.

• 1:47:48Speaker 02

  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 tea socks and I don't want any part of that. Hmm. 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 wanna mess with it, go for it, brah.

• 1:48:14Mike Rowe?

  So, I mean, what is your recommendation then? Is there a sugar substitute that you like?

• 1:48:20Speaker 02

  There is a sugar substitute.

• 1:48:21Mike Rowe?

  What's it called?

• 1:48:22Speaker 02

  That I like?

• 1:48:22Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:48:24Mike Rowe?

  See, you're, you're really not playing the game. You can't pass.

• 1:48:27Speaker 02

  Because everybody wants to know, like, what, I mean,

• 1:48:30Mike Rowe?

  Everybody goes to Geno's.

• 1:48:31Speaker 02

  If you like stevia, Geno's is where everybody goes.

• 1:48:33Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:34Speaker 02

  Everybody eats stevia because stevia, like, if you like stevia, use stevia. If you like monk fruit and erythritol, use it. I avoid the tals. The tals are sugar, alcohol, malatol, erythritol, but why they, that's why they cut erythritol with some monk fruit to keep you from getting disaster pants. Um, because the sugar alcohol is malatol, what did I say? Malatol, xylitol?

• 1:48:54Mike Rowe?

  What are disaster pants exactly? What do you mean?

• 1:48:56Speaker 02

  Just when you can't trust a fart.

• 1:48:59Mike Rowe?

  Oh, right.

• 1:49:00Speaker 02

  That kind of situation. Um. 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 adversely, so, and I don't like the taste, so why, I don't mess with it.

• 1:49:15Mike Rowe?

  I wonder if there's a disclaimer on the product that speaks to that untrustworthiness of the owner.

• 1:49:20Speaker 02

  Because I think it's considered grass by the FDA, generally regarded as safe.

• 1:49:24Mike Rowe?

  Are you concerned about products like Appeal? Does it concern you?

• 1:49:28Speaker 02

  I don't know what that is.

• 1:49:28Mike Rowe?

  It's a, it's the coating that they put on fruits to make it look...

• 1:49:34Speaker 02

  Oh, Appeal, I get it.

• 1:49:35Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, A.P.

• 1:49:36Speaker 02

  Like how they polish, they wax the apples?

• 1:49:38Mike Rowe?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:49:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I don't like that. I have an apple tree at home, it makes, I have the best apples.

• 1:49:46Speaker 02

  So plant an apple tree in your house, that's all.

• 1:49:48Mike Rowe?

  I wasn't gonna say anything, but your apples are pretty sweet.

• 1:49:50Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 1:49:51Mike Rowe?

  You're so welcome. What's the best cookware there is?

• 1:49:55Speaker 02

  Uh, stainless steel is great. I use some Allcloud, I use a couple of Allcloud, uh, nonsticks. And I love cast iron. I haven't messed with Hexclad, that's my next, that's actually a project that I have is to, to get some Hexclad and, and work with that and go down the rabbit hole.

• 1:50:11Mike Rowe?

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

• 1:50:14Speaker 02

  Hexclad.

• 1:50:16Speaker 02

  I'll do your VO if you send me some pans. I work for Pans Plus 10, thank you.

• 1:50:23Mike Rowe?

  Uh, what do you think of the new FDA nutrition guidelines?

• 1:50:27Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, something just came out today, I saw Nina Tyschels put 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 gonna be clear to Americans.

• 1:50:37Mike Rowe?

  Now, Vinny sat right there and said he believes the greatest lie ever foisted on Western civilization was the food pyramid.

• 1:50:43Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I agree with him on that, and it's not just because I've been completely brainwashed by him, which I have.

• 1:50:50Mike Rowe?

  He is beguiling.

• 1:50:51Speaker 02

  Isn't he?

• 1:50:51Mike Rowe?

  Uh, any thoughts on intermittent fasting?

• 1:50:54Speaker 02

  I love it. I do it.

• 1:50:58Speaker 02

  But also, if you're hungry, eat.

• 1:51:01Mike Rowe?

  So what do you mean you do it, like four or five hours at a time?

• 1:51:05Speaker 02

  Definitely between lunch and dinner, sometimes between breakfast and lunch. I like not eating, you know, if I can.

• 1:51:12Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:12Speaker 02

  Not eating after like 7pm 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 and everyone's like, "Yeah, I'm doing 5'2", bros." And then like you hear a guy talking about macros, "I'm counting my macros." And I don't mean to like, I'm not trying to like, you know.

• 1:51:35Mike Rowe?

  Culturally appropriate?

• 1:51:36Speaker 02

  I'm not culturally appropriating the bros, but I am. But generally, they're the, they're the launchpad, the biohackers are the, 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 voiceover to do. I'm busy.

• 1:51:54Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:55Speaker 02

  I don't need to sit and be like, "Oh, I'm counting, I'm counting."

• 1:51:57Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, man, you know, the biohacking thing is, I, I, I, do you think we've gone too far? I mean, do you think Huberman and so many of these people, it's like, everything seems to have a, a hack.

• 1:52:10Speaker 02

  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 then we have this beautiful thing called podcasting, where we can have these long-form conversations. And you can hear from Huberman about how cold 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. It's something, you know, I didn't even know. I listen to him sometimes and I'm like, "I don't know what that is, but that sounds cool."

• 1:52:43Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:45Speaker 02

  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 cold plunge, which by the way, I love a cold plunge.

• 1:52:57Mike Rowe?

  Well, it's because you don't have any testicles.

• 1:52:59Speaker 02

  That's true. Well, you don't know that for sure.

• 1:53:02Mike Rowe?

  Pretty sure.

• 1:53:03Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:53:04Mike Rowe?

  Pretty sure.

• 1:53:05Speaker 02

  Pretty sure.

• 1:53:06Mike Rowe?

  Now, look, I've been taking, I mean, that's a great example. I didn't buy a cold plunge.

• 1:53:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd go in my pool in the winter.

• 1:53:13Mike Rowe?

  Well, I'd take cold showers.

• 1:53:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, that to me is braver because I feel like when you, on the head, it's too much. If I just dip into the neck, I'm like, at least it's not my head.

• 1:53:23Mike Rowe?

  Well, I'll tell you what's tough is I like to shave in the shower. It's very tough to shave, you know, when you're shaking. As a rule, you've got.

• 1:53:30Speaker 02

  But aren't you supposed to take a regular shower and then you end with a cold shower?

• 1:53:34Mike Rowe?

  No, I go cold the whole time.

• 1:53:35Speaker 02

  The whole time?

• 1:53:36Mike Rowe?

  The whole time, yeah.

• 1:53:37Speaker 02

  Well, that's a, probably a short shower then.

• 1:53:40Mike Rowe?

  Eight, 10 seconds.

• 1:53:42Speaker 02

  Just enough to get the bits.

• 1:53:44Mike Rowe?

  Um, do you think grass-fed meat is actually better than grain-fed meat? Do you care?

• 1:53:50Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah, if you can.

• 1:53:52Mike Rowe?

  Do you think European flour products are cleaner and better than US flour products?

• 1:53:56Speaker 02

  I am almost 100% sure on my N equals 1 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.

• 1:54:12Mike Rowe?

  I'm super interested in this. I, totally anecdotal, but I have some neighbors who are gluttons and they're constantly being very careful about what they eat, but they had like a cheat two weeks. They go to Italy and they just eat like a house of fire.

• 1:54:28Speaker 02

  You must.

• 1:54:28Mike Rowe?

  Pasta three times a day.

• 1:54:31Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:54:32Mike Rowe?

  Each of them lost three pounds.

• 1:54:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then you come home and you're like, what sort of sorcery is in our food?

• 1:54:39Mike Rowe?

  Can we get European flour? Does it take an act of Congress? Am I gonna have a temper tantrum over availability or cost or anything?

• 1:54:48Speaker 02

  Send your cousin Joey over there to get some flour, get some semolina.

• 1:54:53Mike Rowe?

  What's the difference between semolina and flour?

• 1:54:55Speaker 02

  I don't know, it's probably the grind. I don't eat gluten. Get off me. I don't know.

• 1:55:02Mike Rowe?

  This is funny. She asked, I mean, it's not funny, it was very personal.

• 1:55:05Speaker 02

  I did get personal. Oh, she's, she's asking a personal, okay.

• 1:55:08Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, these are all her questions. Why do you think so many people have gluten issues?

• 1:55:12Speaker 02

  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 in my small intestines. So if we remember back to 7th grade biology, the villi are the little microscopic particles on the duodenum in 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, not anorexic, I did deal with anorexia, but I was, what's it called?

• 1:55:48Mike Rowe?

  Pneumonic?

• 1:55:49Speaker 02

  No, anemic.

• 1:55:50Mike Rowe?

  Anemic.

• 1:55:51Speaker 02

  Anemic. So I was extremely anemic.

• 1:55:53Mike Rowe?

  That's iron, right?

• 1:55:54Speaker 02

  That's iron.

• 1:55:54Mike Rowe?

  Iron deficiency.

• 1:55:55Speaker 02

  And I was extremely, I was diagnosed with osteopenia, which is the stage right before osteoporosis at age 28.

• 1:56:02Mike Rowe?

  Jeez.

• 1:56:03Speaker 02

  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 and 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-celeak gluten sensitivity, something like that, where they legit feel better not having gluten. It can be inflammatory. I don't know if it's the roundup, I don't know if it's the, you know, we're just, we've evolved. It used to be called celiac sprue

• 1:56:47Speaker 02

  back at the turn of the 19th century.

• 1:56:49Mike Rowe?

  Sprue?

• 1:56:49Speaker 02

  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 rickets or something.

• 1:56:55Mike Rowe?

  She's got the sprue.

• 1:56:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's got the sprue.

• 1:56:57Mike Rowe?

  Hmm.

• 1:56:58Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:57:09Mike Rowe?

  Well, see.

• 1:57:10Speaker 02

  Are we all covered in chemicals, or is it, I don't know.

• 1:57:13Mike Rowe?

  If you don't have a name for a thing, is there a thing?

• 1:57:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:57:17Mike Rowe?

  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.

• 1:57:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:57:26Mike Rowe?

  And now, it's...

• 1:57:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, now it's... Yeah. And a very common mistake is people think they're gonna lose weight automatically just by cutting out gluten. And my experience was the opposite. I was a size zero and could, I 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 be like, no, no, no, and started 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 gonna happen, but everyone's in, different and doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna lose weight.

• 1:58:10Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:11Speaker 02

  But people think, well, I'm gonna go gluten-free. That's gonna solve all my problems. And I'm like, there might not be that.

• 1:58:15Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:16Speaker 02

  It might not be. It might be, but it might not be.

• 1:58:18Mike Rowe?

  We're complicated, man. I mean, we're-

• 1:58:20Speaker 02

  We're a pain in the ass, aren't we?

• 1:58:21Mike Rowe?

  We are. We're, we're a tautology. We're complicated. Uh, 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.

• 1:58:41Speaker 02

  We do the best we can. And listen, we all want a set of rules and it's gonna be different for everybody.

• 1:58:48Mike Rowe?

  Where should the people go who just can't get enough of you?

• 1:58:50Speaker 02

  I would love for the people to go to either eat happy kitchen.com. Check it out. All my books are on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, wherever you buy, all of our fine book selling retailers.

• 1:59:01Mike Rowe?

  Well, I've got two of them, apparently. I knew I had one, but yeah.

• 1:59:04Speaker 02

  And now you have Italian. AnnaVicino.substack.com is where I publish all new recipes that are not in a cookbook.

• 1:59:11Mike Rowe?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:59:12Speaker 02

  And, um, yeah.

• 1:59:14Mike Rowe?

  Hey, you gonna take my advice? You gonna start zooming with some of your customers? Get their permission? Record them? Put them out there?

• 1:59:21Speaker 02

  I, I, yes.

• 1:59:22Mike Rowe?

  All right.

• 1:59:23Speaker 02

  I think that's wonderful. I want the people to see.

• 1:59:25Mike Rowe?

  You're welcome.

• 1:59:26Speaker 02

  Well, thank you for having me.

• 1:59:27Mike Rowe?

  You bet. If you're done, please subscribe. Leave some stars, ideally five. Five lousy-

• 1:59:51Speaker 03

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• 2:00:23Speaker 04

  What's that?

• 2:00:24Speaker 05

  My fresh detector.

• 2:00:25Speaker 04

  Uh, your what?

• 2:00:27Speaker 05

  There it is.

• 2:00:28Speaker 04

  What is it detecting?

• 2:00:29Speaker 05

  Fresh produce, fresh meat.

• 2:00:32Speaker 04

  Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

• 2:00:37Speaker 05

  Apparently, we celebrate.

• 2:00:39Speaker 04

  At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices when your fresh detector is going off. Head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.