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Oct. 4, 2022 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
44:10
Organic certifier Reuben Flamer and the Health Ranger take DEEP DIVE into organic agriculture
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All right, welcome to this extraordinary interview.
You're going to have a blast with this one.
I am sitting down in studio with Rabbi Rubin Flamer from Natural Food Certifiers.
This is an organization that certifies organic production, gluten-free, and other certification standards all across North America.
Rabbi Rubin, it's always an honor to have you on.
Thanks for joining me.
Thank you for having me.
It's always a lot of fun and I look forward to whatever comes out because I know it's all going to be spontaneous and it's going to be wonderful.
So I'm as much part of this entertainment audience as perhaps everyone listening.
Well, the honor is all mine, Rabbi Rubin.
It's great to have you here.
And you and I always get to talk very deeply about what's happening in the organics industry and food in general.
And you were mentioning something to me off the recording that I thought I would want to start with you.
And that is that a lot of vegan foods are actually produced using, ultimately, some type of animal inputs.
What do people not know about how vegan foods are grown?
Okay, let's qualify that, first of all.
And also, let's say up front, I'm actually a vegan.
But there's different reasons why people keep to a vegan diet.
What I meant, what I was referring to was...
On the ground level, on the growing level, in order to get the right mixture in your soil, a lot of times farmers will use, and when I say a lot of times, I don't know times when they don't.
They're going to use bone meal, they're going to use fish meal, they're going to use dried blood.
Byproducts that come from animals in order to have a good medium in the soil that they need in order to grow, to have the best output.
And so if you're a person that doesn't want Anything to do with any production that has anything that touches with animals, then you're going to have a problem.
Unless you grow it in your own backyard and hope for the best.
But when I say hope for the best, because you may be buying inputs that you don't know come from animal products.
So what you're saying is that animals are very often part of the ecosystem of soils and agriculture that ends up producing...
There's no question about that.
You know, I think that...
Despite where many vegans come from and many organic people come from, they like to sometimes choose to be very specific and very allopathic in their food, in their concept of food systems.
And I say allopathic because allopathic means I'm going to go and zoom in on this silver bullet to be able to, let's say, take away some disease as opposed to a holistic idea.
And Animals are always part of the process in farms.
What about manure?
Now, I understand there's industrial farm factories and so forth, and that's going to be a problem, and it is a problem with disposing of the manure, and I'm not talking on that level.
Let's say on a small level.
So yeah, I think that a lot of people don't understand the whole ecosystem.
Well, and also, one of the things I've noticed about a lot of vegan foods is they tend to be quite processed.
And I've even seen things in the grocery store like vegan cheese.
And then I think the first or second ingredient in vegan cheese is casein from milk.
And I'm like, well, how is that vegan cheese?
If it's from casing, I don't know.
Or maybe it's vegetarian cheese, which would be different.
But I'm like, hey, this is milk.
Why not just buy cheese?
I attended recently the plant-based expo at the Javits Center in New York City.
It was in the summer.
Out of maybe 200, 250 booths, most of them were like you're asking about.
It was very, very processed, plant-based.
Okay.
You know, this comes down to how people relate to food and what is food for and how do they understand, and I say this very specifically, the use of food in your life.
If you're going to go to a restaurant and spend $300 for your meal, it's not a use of food.
We'll call it enjoyment of food.
Which is nothing wrong with enjoyment of food.
But you're not using it for a purpose.
You're just having the gluttonous kind of...
It's not the daily utility of food.
Are all these products Really all that healthy when they're so processed.
I can't say that they are not, but I can't say that they are.
Now, if you want to say, if a person is transitioning from a full meat diet on shrimp and so on and so forth, and they want to be able to have their cheeseburger, so to speak, so they're going to buy plant-based cheese and they're Beyond meat and stick them together and put them on July 4th and put them on the barbecue.
Fine, I get that.
But as a Ongoing product in your diet, I guess that's why you don't sell those products, because I don't think it's a good idea.
No, we don't.
We don't sell any processed anything, really.
I mean, we sell tinctures.
That's an extract, but not anything processed food.
But you mentioned Beyond Meat, and that's been in the news quite a lot recently for a couple of reasons.
One reason is because the chief operations officer was arrested...
For allegedly biting the nose off another man in a fight in the parking lot after a football game.
That's way beyond meat.
That's like straight up cannibalism.
I don't know if he eats his own product, but it just gives you an indication that just because you don't eat meat doesn't mean you can't be an animal.
Well said.
Well said.
It's almost a bumper sticker right there.
But yeah, I mean...
He has since been suspended, by the way, but the Beyond Meat company has lost, I believe, somewhere around 87% of its stock value from its high.
And there was even a Wall Street Journal article, I think it was Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg, did an article that said, well, why aren't people buying Beyond Meat?
Two reasons.
So number one, it just doesn't taste good.
And then secondly, The perception is that the company is too woke, and there's a lot of backlash against the woke culture.
So Beyond Meat tried to do tests with Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's and Burger King and Hardee's and even Pizza Hut somehow, and all those tests failed.
And they pulled it out after the test.
What do you think is going on?
I'm not a demographer, but this is my hunch.
The people who are health conscious don't look to go to Kentucky Fried Chicken to have vegan knock-off chicken.
And the ones who go to Kentucky Fried Chicken, like you said, they're not going to like Beyond Meat, the taste of Beyond Meat, because it doesn't taste like meat.
So who are you trying to fool here?
But there's also politics.
And what I mean by politics specifically is how much is meat production destroying the environment and influencing the environment in a negative way, and how much will The less and less use of meat contribute to a better environment.
Right down to the discussion of why is there a hurricane in Florida is because there's too many cows on the planet.
Now, you know, it's a little bit beyond my pay grade to speak intelligently and educated on that subject, but I... Think that there's a little bit of wokeness that corporate America likes to throw in there, like Pepsi owning some nice woke company, but meanwhile have a Pepsi with your Beyond Meat kind of thing.
And they're taking that call up and that flag saying we're going to be against global warming, so have our Kentucky Fried Chicken that doesn't have chicken in it.
Kentucky fake chicken.
Yeah, Kentucky fake chicken.
So I think there's a lot of confusion.
Well, I think also there's a lot of misinformation or lacking information because I looked at the ingredients of Beyond Meat recently.
We're actually going to do a little infographic on that.
And those ingredients come from all over the world.
And so think about the road miles.
So even someone who is green conscious or climate conscious...
They would have to, if you do the calculations, like, wait a second.
You know, this comes from South America.
This comes from Canada.
This comes from China.
What's the carbon footprint of putting all that together versus just having a cow wander around somewhere in Texas finding its own food, not even burning any gas at all, not using truck parts or rubber or having any exhausts other than cow farts?
Exactly.
I mean, the cow seems more green to me.
Than having all these machines all over the world transporting and manufacturing components.
Right.
You know, I think we like to window dress our contribution to the world a lot of times.
And I'll give you an example.
We talk about conservation, we talk about the environment, we talk about being green.
And like you said, the carbon footprint and the miles.
There's a Jewish concept called baltashchit, which means don't waste.
There's prohibition of wasting.
So when...
Is there a time or an amount where it's not wasting...
And you can, so to speak, throw it out.
Or is not wasting any amount.
In other words, it's a consciousness place of, I have something that I've been blessed with, I can't discard it unwantly.
Whether even if it's not contributed in a negative way to the environment.
Why should I waste it?
It's saying like, it's treating the blessing as that it's not a blessing.
That's your consciousness.
So it's like every time that there's a, let's say there's a tragedy and people give charity to that, because of the tragedy.
The hurricane just happened in Florida, right?
So I'm sure people will, which is great that they're going to donate food or they're going to make money for food or some medical supplies.
But do you give charity every day?
It's a headspace.
It's a consciousness of that I'm a conduit for what I'm getting and giving away.
It's not mine anyways because it came from something higher than me.
But we like to have those little moments that make us feel okay and then we can keep on going.
That doesn't work.
So I think a lot of the The way we approach good eating, environment, global warming, green stuff, it could be a little bit of that window dressing, that's what's happening, and I think we have to change our consciousness on that.
Well, I completely agree with you on that, and it brings to mind What's happening with Russia and Ukraine and the pipeline and the shutting down of natural gas, and that natural gas is used to create ammonia, which is used to create nitrogen-based fertilizers that feed about half the planet, roughly 4 billion people.
I was shocked to find that a lot of people, including those in vegan and vegetarian communities, were not aware that natural gas was used to create the fertilizer that grows most of their food.
And that if you shut down all fossil fuels...
Most of their non-organic food.
Okay.
Okay.
But then we go back to the animals.
But wait a second.
Most of their non-organic food.
Because you're talking about fertilizer.
Yeah, fertilizer.
So you're the right person to ask this question.
Can't they fertilize organic crops with nitrogen-based fertilizers that came from natural gas?
It's more of, what's your organic system that you're creating?
The way I understand it, the way I see it is, what's your entire ecosystem of your farm?
What is your organic plan?
Okay, so...
What's your organic plan based on?
It's not based on fertilizer and inputs.
And whatever inputs you can use is not your first approach.
Your first approach is soil.
What's in the soil naturally?
What kind of environment is allowing all the microbes to grow?
And so on and so forth.
And that's going to come from natural sources.
So you're not going to need the NPK that everyone's using, the nitrogen and so forth, and the potassium, that you're going to put in from sources that are really from outside your system.
And that's, we go back, by the way, to animals again.
Because the animals contribute to a lot of that.
But does an organic farm...
If they use nitrogen-based fertilizers like urea, for example, does that prohibit their organic certification?
Put a stop.
I want to read.
So let me just read directly from the National Organic Program's standards, and anyone can get this on the web.
It's published.
It's public.
And it's section 203, soil fertility and crop nutrients management practices for your land that you're growing food in.
So let me just, besides what I already said, which is you have to base your system on natural inputs, which includes manure again, but listen to what you're not allowed to use.
Any fertilizer or composted plant and animal material that contains a synthetic substance that's not on the list.
Now, there is a list that goes through a lot of research by lay people as well as government officials, because it's the National Organic Standard Board, which is a combination of both lay and professional people, or government people, I should say, that decides what is allowed.
Let's say copper.
Like, is that allowed?
How much of it is allowed?
When is it allowed?
So, number one is it can't have a synthetic...
Okay, but would urea?
I mean, that's not a synthetic substance.
Right.
Sewage sludge.
Well, that makes sense.
Okay, well...
Or burning as a way of disposal of your crop residues.
Okay.
Okay, now...
So you can't just burn the crop ash?
So let's now...
Now we're going to...
If we go to...
What you're asking, which is what about that list?
This is going to get us into Sri Lanka, by the way.
I'm going to have to ask you about Sri Lanka.
I don't know if I know about Sri Lanka.
Well, you know, they banned what they called synthetic fertilizers, which is natural gas-based fertilizers in, I think, 2020.
And that's what caused massive crop failures in 2021, which led to the revolutions and the fall of the Sri Lankan government and their financial collapse and so on.
Some folks are blaming that on the banning of the nitrogen fertilizers, by the way.
And myself, as, you know, I'm a food scientist and I'm a pro-organic person, but I'm not afraid to use urea or, you know, some form of nitrogen fertilizer that came from natural gas, in my mind.
But the question is, why are you relying on it?
Right.
Maybe it's an augmentation.
Right.
And maybe you couldn't get enough animal manure or something and you augmented it.
But I'm curious if this would knock a farm out of organic status.
Not that I'm an organic farmer or anything.
That's not what we do.
Okay.
But on my own basis, I'm an organic grower of my own foods and stuff for my smoothies and things.
Right.
If you go to the National Organic Program Standards, and you go to Section 205-601, you can look it up, those synthetic substances allow for organic crop production.
But there's a preamble to it, so to speak.
And it is that...
You're allowed to use synthetic, some synthetic materials, provided that use of each substance does not contribute to a contamination of crops, soil, or water.
Oh, interesting.
Substances allowed by this section, except for disinfectants and sanitizers, may only be used when the provisions set forth in another section prove insufficient.
So what does this mean?
So in other words, whatever we're going to list now, is that if you don't have, if you have your own, let's say on the best of scenarios, I have a farm, 10-acre farm, I have a few cows, I have a few pigs, and I have a couple of acres of a vegetable garden.
I'm going to have most of my cycling of nutrients that go flow through my system are all within my system to begin with.
That would be ideal.
That would be ideal.
But that's not always possible.
Of course.
Of course not.
And that's why I said before about the vegans, because then you're going to use these kinds of things like bone meal and fish meal and kelp and other items that are going to help the soil be built back up.
But let's go to a couple of lists here.
From a farmer's perspective, though, if I'm growing crops, those crops are pulling up elements from the soil, which could include forms of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, trace minerals, everything.
And then I'm shipping those out.
So my soils are losing nutrients.
Correct.
So obviously these nutrients have to be replaced.
I know this is what you're talking about, just clarifying for our audience.
But the system can't be self-contained.
There have to be external inputs to replace those elements.
Okay, but you can have cover crops?
Okay, so they can fix nitrogen out of the atmosphere, yes.
But the phosphorus and the potassium aren't going to come in.
Oh, there's no way to replace it?
You'd have to bring in some material, physical material.
No, physical material, but where is its source?
Yeah, physical material.
Right.
Well, it could be animal feed that goes to the animals and then the animal manure.
Correct.
So what I'm saying is that relying on manufactured fertilizer is not part of that thinking of a holistic system that is, we'll call it as organic as possible.
Okay, but hold on, Ruben.
Okay, so the Haber process...
Takes nitrogen from the atmosphere, combines it with hydrocarbons from natural gas to make ammonia, NH3. You mentioned cover crops like legumes, let's say.
Legumes.
Alfalfa.
Or they do the same thing.
They pull nitrogen out of the atmosphere.
I know they do.
They fix it in the roots.
So what's the difference between a factory pulling nitrogen out of the atmosphere versus a cover crop?
You understand what I'm saying?
I understand perfectly.
I love your provocative questions.
I really do.
Well, I'm really curious about all this.
And you know what?
One of my favorite lessons in life comes from Albert Einstein.
And he said, it's not intelligence that makes you smart, I'm paraphrasing, but curiosity.
Curiosity, yes.
So I'm only going to give you what I know.
Sure.
The organic...
standards have been growing and for from the USDA point of view 20 years but from the industry point of view since before the World War II and it's constantly being upgraded in the sense of the science that we know and so forth So my understanding is, is that the, again, there's two things.
The system should be as complete as possible, that you don't have to rely, we'll say system, I mean farming system, on outside inputs, number one.
Number two, as we just read in 205-601, is that synthetic substances do not have the same impact on the environment as natural substances.
Sources to, let's say, cover cropping, putting that down into the soil, fixing the nitrogen, and so forth.
Synthetics have a...
Where do they go?
Where do they flow?
How long does it take for them to...
What happens?
The plant's growing.
We know that.
I'm not going to suggest...
I don't have the science to say that the plant comes out differently.
I don't.
And if there's someone out there who could tell us that There'll be, so to speak, more of these elements of a stronger plant because of natural fertilizers versus synthetic fertilizers.
I don't know that.
The end result I'm talking about.
But after you apply it on the farmland, what happens to all of that synthetic basis, the synthetic fertilizer?
But the spirit, and I say spirit because organic now is a legal system as well as a spirit, but the spirit behind organic was you keep it as natural as possible in your growing system.
So, okay, this is truly fascinating.
Let me bring up two questions that come to mind based on this.
So let's say a vegan organic farmer Wants to produce food with the fewest animals possible.
So instead of using animal manure, they would prefer to use synthetic fertilizers because they don't involve any animals necessary on that system.
Like an animal-free vegan farming operation.
Maybe he would want, or she would want to choose that, but this comes up now to another principle.
Okay.
And that is what we said before.
What is a natural ecosystem?
Right.
And granted, bat guana, which has got a lot of nitrogen in it, which is basically the waste products from bats, bat guana doesn't usually reside on most farms.
So it's coming from outside the system in that sense.
And you can also argue and say, how big is the ecosystem?
It's the whole globe, right?
And that's why some synthetics are allowed in organic farming, but they're on a very specialized list.
And there is a long...
Review system and arguments for years sometimes as to whether to allow that synthetic on the national, this list of allowed inputs.
So you know, in your backyard, I guess you're going to farm differently in your backyard because you don't have a full farm.
And I have a lot of farms that we certify that don't have animals on them.
That's possible, obviously.
It's not a prerequisite.
But I think that the spirit of the entire picture is you want to use what's a natural connection between the natural system as possible.
So here's something that's happening in Europe that's going to collide with everything that you've just said.
In the Netherlands, they're saying that nitrogen is a pollutant when it comes from animals.
Why?
Yeah, they're talking about cows, sheep herds.
Hog herds and so on.
In huge numbers.
In large numbers, right?
Concentrated animal operations.
But sometimes they're trying to get relatively small ranchers to shut down.
They're saying, well, these animals are producing nitrogen, which now the government of the Netherlands says is a pollutant.
So they're trying to regulate, and this is happening across the EU, nitrogen Output, they're trying to down-regulate nitrogen output by forcing farmers to cull their herds.
This is why they've had all the farmer protests and setting things on fire.
So you know what?
I'm very big on zooming in on the principles.
What's the principle behind this movement?
In the Netherlands?
Yeah.
The government action?
Yeah.
Oh, well, they're just trying to starve the world, I think.
They're just trying to shut down all food production.
And we're back to the thing again about global warming and farms and animals.
I mean...
Let's use that as an example.
I'm throwing this back out at you.
So you have this, and I'm not familiar with the details, but you have this intense farming community in the Netherlands and they're producing a lot of manure from their cattle and so forth.
You have a pollutant issue.
No question about it.
What do you do with all that stuff?
Now, I'm going to contrast that with your, what's it called?
The cutting forest.
Clear cutting?
Clear cutting forest in the Amazon.
In order to make room for raising cattle, for meat, for McDonald's to have 99 cent burgers, right?
Do you see the two as the same?
No.
Right.
So I think that people have to put their heads together here and think, what is the principle that's operative here?
And if you have animals that are producing a large load of manure...
Maybe there are other answers as to what to do with this large amount of manure.
Maybe it has to go to the country next door to the Netherlands.
Or a set of farms next door.
Exactly.
Because it is a source of nitrogen, also in the urine.
But what I'm saying is that...
It sounds like what they're saying is that we have this pollutant thing, we have global warming, we don't like animals anyways, so let's put the whole package together and shut down these farms.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, the farmer is in a bind, is what I'm saying.
So the farmer is being told on one hand that synthetic fertilizers are not considered organic or not part of an organic ecosystem.
But then on the other hand, they're being told, well, animals are polluters because they have nitrogen coming out of them.
But isn't it the nitrogen that we want?
Yes.
By the way, let me ask you a question.
How many of these farmers that are being told to shut down use their manure in an organic fashion to grow their crops?
Maybe very few.
Yeah, maybe that's the answer.
But, you know, here's what's interesting from a science perspective is that the Haber process that we've talked about Using a factory to make ammonia, animals do that for free without requiring a giant factory.
There you go.
So animals are taking atmospheric nitrogen, and through respiration and the animal chemistry, they're fixing the nitrogen in their urine.
So it's like, technically, we don't need the Haber process if we harvest all the urine, but that would require systems.
Right.
Right.
I mean, we go back again to what is the food system.
The administration now, the Biden administration, with their deep wisdom, has said they want to stop hunger by 2030 in America.
I have no idea what that means, and I have no idea how they're going to do that.
They're going to feed everybody beyond meat burgers.
I remember a few of my grandparents saying they did the same thing in Russia.
It didn't work.
But what is the food system?
Does that mean that everybody should be entitled to, I go back to them, I'm not picking on them, a McDonald's hamburger?
Is that what a food system means?
What is the use of food?
Is it just to keep your hunger away?
Or is it to be healthy?
I have a certain diet that I follow, and whenever I go into Whole Foods, which is a relatively good, healthy environment, I can't purchase, I won't purchase 95 or 98% of what they sell because I just don't eat those kinds of foods because I'm more on a, what we'll call it, plant-based, but not only plant-based, but not multi-ingredient complex products.
Right.
You know, I'm not going to lay my trip on everybody, but I'm just saying that we're going to look at a system, and it's not perfect.
Organic is not perfect.
You know, there's people who believe we shouldn't...
What is his name?
There's this guy in Israel, I forget his name, Harari, I think it is.
And he's into, like, the worst thing that ever happened in human history.
The W-E-F guy, Yuval Harari?
Yeah, Yuval Harari.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
He's one of the ammonium manure producers for me.
So, any case...
And I hope he hears this because I'd love to talk with him.
So he advocates that the worst thing that ever happened in the history of mankind was agriculture.
Really?
Yeah.
Read his stuff.
He says that was the fall of mankind, the beginning of the fall of mankind.
And there's people advocating that we're going to have, what's it called, meat grown from cells and printed food and so on and so forth, which sounds extreme to people, right?
But in the organic world, by the way, just to show you how principles work, in the organic world, they think hydroponics is extreme.
They think hydroponics is extreme.
Yes, because you're not using soil.
Organic is a soil-based system.
That is the argument.
Most of what I grow is hydroponic, by the way.
What's blended into this is kale from my hydroponic system.
No, we're not talking about that.
Well, it's not grown in a factory, though.
It's harvested from the sea.
It's grown at my ranch in hydroponic bins.
Did you say kale?
Kale.
But it's grown only with hydroponics?
Yeah, I only use water.
I don't use any soil.
So I'm saying that in the organic world, there's a huge argument about whether the word organic can be applied to hydroponics.
That's crazy, because, I mean, of course hydroponic can be organic.
Well, it depends what you're deaf.
So if you look at the, you know, there's the, you know, one of the, as a rabbi, it's a very fascinating contrast to deal with the regulations of the organic system versus the regulations I have to follow as a Yeah, that is I say it's from God right well you know what the USDA is not from God yeah but so so but the here's you have an idea it says
in the in the in the regulations at the beginning and the preambles and the explanation organic as a soil not to exclude hydroponics organic is all about soil huh well that means you can't have hydroponics right well what about all the Right now you're allowed to.
Right now you're allowed to.
I mean, you've got astaxanthin, chlorella, spirulina.
No, I'm not talking about if it's grown in natural systems.
And yes, in the sea it's allowed.
I'm not talking about that.
And yes, it's an interesting thing.
Let's say chlorella grown in ponds and aquaculture.
But there's a big controversy.
The controversy comes down to a little bit more in the pocketbook stuff.
Like if I'm a tomato farm, tomato grower in Vermont, And you have hydroponers going in the Bronx, in your five-floor building.
You can grow much easier than me.
And it's all year round, right?
So how dare you call it organic?
So, I mean, there's lots of financial issues, there's This is what's interesting about principles.
True.
That's why, you know, rabbis can sit for 3,000 years discussing the same topic.
So you're asking good questions.
Those questions have been asked, and if people want to kind of sift through it, if you go to, do any Google search, NOSB, which is the National Organic Standard Board, comma, and then put in your question.
There has probably been a discussion on it.
Mm-hmm.
And it's captured, and you can read all the discussion about why it was advocated not to be permitted, or why it was advocated to be prohibited, and then the end result, and it ended up coming out on a vote!
But we've also got to consider the large-scale social implications, obviously, of these decisions.
This is why I mentioned Sri Lanka.
So the new Sri Lankan president wanted the whole country to go organic, banned importation of nitrogen fertilizers, I think, for crop year 2020.
And then that resulted in massive farm failures.
And what year did he ban...
What year did he make the state...
When did he ban it?
I think he banned it in 2020.
And when was the collapse of the system?
2021?
Yeah, exactly.
So without knowing anything about it, because I don't...
Yeah, and I'm just...
I'll tell you a very simple answer why it collapsed.
Okay.
Because if you're going to go off of synthetic-based inputs...
You've got to build up your soil in other ways.
And you know what?
It doesn't happen overnight.
You need a transition plan.
Yeah, exactly.
So if you want to say, you know, it's like they're saying, well, you have California now saying there are no more new cars after 2030, I think they said.
With combustion.
With combustion, right.
Okay.
They're not even handling what the electric cars now on their grid anyways, but that's besides the point.
So, which means that within 10, 15 years after that, I guess.
There will be no gasoline-based automobiles.
Well, no, wait.
I think people just buy them from other states.
Okay, if that's the...
Oh, fine.
Well, then I don't know what the rule means.
I mean, there's got to be a massive market of used vehicles.
Right.
And not only that, but I think you should get...
And there'll be premium price.
I think with all of the land in Texas, you should open up a huge place to put in old cars that are made in 2021, because in 30 years from now, there are going to be collector's items.
Look, combustion engines are going to be around for a hundred more years, if not longer.
And people are going to want that.
I mean, look, the hurricane in Florida right now, I just saw a headline that people with electric cars can't evacuate because the power grid's down.
They can't even charge their cars.
So, you know, Biden wants to put in charging stations all across America.
That's great until there's a storm.
And then what do you do?
So you're stuck in the middle of a hurricane with your electric car feeling like a fool.
Right.
Well, I can recall that in the hurricane, what we had in the effects of Hurricane Sandy in New York is there was no distribution of gasoline.
True.
Yeah, but you could stockpile that.
Yeah, of course.
Right, where you can't really stockpile battery juice.
Right, battery juice.
Isn't life interesting?
That's why I always love talking with you, because we can get into so many details.
Right, that's why next time we come, we're going to be here for a whole day.
Oh wow.
Are we going to do interviews?
Yeah sure.
It depends what the reaction is here today.
If there's not one comment or if they're all like throwing tomatoes at me I'm not going to do another.
Okay folks don't throw tomatoes at Rabbi Rubin or we won't get to do this again.
I love...
Well, if you do, make sure they're organic tomatoes.
Yeah, there you go.
They're organic tomatoes.
Well, I love the fact that, see, you being in the organic industry, you are a thinking man, you're a philosophical man.
You are a practicing Orthodox Jewish man, and you are a principled, or a principled-driven person, whereas you're not just a paper pusher, like, oh, we're gonna rubber stamp this, and it fits that, and it's okay because of this thing.
No.
You're going through the process of the spirit of organics.
And that's why I like to kind of try to stump you with some of these questions, by the way.
Which you have.
Well, it's a complex answer.
These are complex systems.
People want clean food.
For me personally, I want clean food too.
And I understand that creating ammonia and urea through the Haber process uses energy.
Whereas an animal creates urine for free.
Right.
So there's an energy consumption in the synthetic process that doesn't exist necessarily with the animals.
So there's a lot of subtlety.
I'm going to research this question.
Okay.
And I'm going to double back and get back to you about it because it's intriguing.
Well, if it makes you feel better...
I have goats, and they have nice little pellet-sized poop pellets.
I gather those after a rain, because the rain pushes them all into one area.
I gather them, and then I work them into my avocado tree soil and fig soil.
So that's what I'm doing.
That's my nitrogen.
I'm out hunting for goat poo.
Well, you know, speaking about this, I'm going to share with you a very famous story in the community I come from.
It's called Chabad.
There was a very illustrious individual who spent 30 years in the gulag.
Because he saved, it was less than 30 or 20 years, he saved a bunch of people by getting them false passports and actually, and even there was a time where it was legitimate passports.
And people went out from Russia to Poland and got out.
It was like in the 40s, maybe 50s, excuse me.
But he stayed behind.
Even his wife, He went to England and he was caught and stayed there.
And he was a very famous kind of individual.
That was his background.
So he was once speaking at and engaged with college students.
And he's talking about God, godliness, godliness like life force, like we're talking about.
And this guy gets up, this college student, and he says, what, God?
What life force?
What are you talking about?
You're crazy, and so on and so forth.
So his name is Mendel.
So he says, Rabbi Mendel says to him, let me ask you a question.
He says, what does a cow eat?
He says, he eats grass.
Okay.
He says, what comes out the other end?
So he goes, shit.
So he says, what's it look like?
So he says, you know, long, big circular piles.
Okay.
Now in your case, he said, what does a goat eat?
Grass.
He says, what comes out the other end?
He says, little pellets.
So he says to him, how come they eat the same thing?
And pancakes come out of the cow and pellets come out of the goat.
So he says, the student thinks to himself, and he says, I don't know.
So Mendel says to him, well, if you don't know about shit, don't go ask questions about what about God in the way that you just said.
So, you know, organic is working with the natural world.
It's working with the world that was created for us.
So I don't know if, and so is synthetics in a certain, you know, obviously it's part of creation.
Yeah.
It's an exploration.
It's a continuing sifting through what's the goal and what do we want to arrive at?
Well, I'm also a believer in the resiliency of low-tech systems.
So when you go low-tech like using animal manure, then you're not dependent on complex global supply chains for parts and electronics that run factories and things like that.
If the power grid goes down, my goats will still poop.
I can depend on that.
We're not against technology.
We're sitting here using it.
Yeah, exactly.
We're not against technology.
I'm not eating it.
Well, and technology is vulnerable.
It's way more vulnerable than simple systems.
And we have 4 billion people or something like that on the planet.
And it takes machinery like you have in your own facility.
It takes machinery that's going to make more than it would be if we just did it manually.
So there's nothing wrong with technology.
But...
Food, to me, is a sacred item that we have to be careful with.
Right there with you on that.
And health.
Yeah.
Yeah, right there.
Well, thank you, Rabbi Rubin.
This has been a real pleasure.
It's always a pleasure with you.
I love talking with you.
I hope we get to do this again soon.
We're gonna.
Okay.
Take care.
Thank you so much.
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