Anya Fernald: Regenerative Farming and the Art of Cooking Meat
心理与人性生物与进化音乐与艺术技术与编程商业与创业
📋 章节目录
暂无章节信息
🔑 关键词
meatfoodeatdonexperienceanimalscookgrassanimalregenerativecookinggotfarmingmealflavorfedwholepiecebetterstuff
💬 精彩语录
暂无语录
🎙️ 完整对话（2489 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Anya Fernald,
以下是与 Anya Fernald 的对话，
Lex Fridman (00:02.720)
cofounder of Belcampo Farms,
贝尔坎波农场联合创始人，
Lex Fridman (00:04.760)
that was founded with the purpose to create meat
其成立的目的是生产肉类
Lex Fridman (00:07.340)
that's good for people, the planet, and the animals,
这对人类、地球和动物都有好处，
Lex Fridman (00:10.560)
specifically treating their animals as ethically as possible.
尽可能以合乎道德的方式对待他们的动物。
Anya Fernald (00:14.900)
In this, she sought to revolutionize the meat industry
在这方面，她寻求彻底改变肉类行业
Lex Fridman (00:18.120)
from the inside out.
从内到外。
Anya Fernald (00:19.600)
She's also a scholar and practitioner
她也是一位学者和实践者
Lex Fridman (00:22.120)
of regenerative agriculture,
再生农业，
Lex Fridman (00:24.080)
and she's a chef who has appeared many times
而且她是一位多次出现的厨师
Lex Fridman (00:26.940)
as a judge on Iron Chef.
担任《食神大厨》的评委。
Anya Fernald (00:28.760)
Plus, she has one of my favorite food related Instagrams.
另外，她还有我最喜欢的与食物相关的 Instagram 之一。
Lex Fridman (00:32.880)
On top of that, she's also a longtime friend
最重要的是，她还是我的老朋友
Anya Fernald (00:34.920)
of Andrew Huberman, which is how we first got connected.
安德鲁·胡伯曼 (Andrew Huberman) 的名字，这就是我们最初建立联系的方式。
Lex Fridman (00:38.500)
Quick mention of our sponsors,
快速提及我们的赞助商，
Anya Fernald (00:40.280)
Gala Games, Athletic Greens, Four Sigmatic,
盛大运动会、运动果岭、四西格玛、
Lex Fridman (00:43.520)
and Fundrise.
和基金上升。
Anya Fernald (00:45.620)
Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
在说明中查看它们以支持此播客。
Lex Fridman (00:48.780)
As a side note, let me say that I got the chance to visit
顺便说一句，我有机会参观
Lex Fridman (00:52.020)
and spend a few days with Anya
和安雅一起度过几天
Lex Fridman (00:53.840)
at Belcampo Farms in Northern California.
Anya Fernald (00:56.800)
I met many animals there, from cows to pigs,
Lex Fridman (00:59.920)
and saw the amazing land on which they grazed.
Anya Fernald (01:03.120)
I butchered meat, I watched Anya cook many amazing meals,
Lex Fridman (01:07.640)
I ate raw meat and cooked meat,
Lex Fridman (01:10.380)
and spent long hours at the bonfire talking with friends
Lex Fridman (01:14.400)
and listening to the sounds of nature.
Anya Fernald (01:16.800)
I hiked, swam in a cold mountain lake,
Lex Fridman (01:19.600)
and slept in a tent underneath the stars.
Anya Fernald (01:22.780)
It was an amazing eye opening experience,
Lex Fridman (01:25.480)
especially in my first ever visit to a slaughterhouse.
Anya Fernald (01:29.920)
The term slaughterhouse is haunting in itself.
Lex Fridman (01:33.600)
The animals I met lived a great life,
Lex Fridman (01:36.560)
but in the end, they were slaughtered,
Lex Fridman (01:38.960)
in the most ethical way possible,
Lex Fridman (01:40.720)
but slaughtered nevertheless.
Lex Fridman (01:43.020)
Seeing animals with whom just the day before
Anya Fernald (01:45.200)
I made a connection be converted to meat
Lex Fridman (01:47.960)
that I then consumed was deeply honest to me.
Anya Fernald (01:51.840)
This ethical farm, Belcampo,
Lex Fridman (01:54.480)
represents less than 1% of animals raised
Anya Fernald (01:56.660)
in the United States.
Lex Fridman (01:58.120)
The rest is factory farmed.
Anya Fernald (02:00.560)
I could not escape the thought
Lex Fridman (02:01.960)
of the 40 to 50 billion animals worldwide
Anya Fernald (02:05.000)
raised in terrible conditions on these factory farms.
Lex Fridman (02:08.400)
I've spent most of my life thinking about
Lex Fridman (02:10.680)
and being in contact with human suffering,
Lex Fridman (02:13.880)
but the landscape of suffering
Anya Fernald (02:15.200)
in the minds of conscious beings
Lex Fridman (02:16.800)
is much larger than humans.
Anya Fernald (02:19.000)
I must admit that I still am haunted
Lex Fridman (02:21.280)
by human suffering more than animal suffering.
Anya Fernald (02:24.480)
Perhaps I will one day see the wrong
Lex Fridman (02:26.640)
in me drawing such a line.
Anya Fernald (02:28.680)
Either way, the visit to Belcampo Farms
Lex Fridman (02:30.960)
made me realize that I have not thought deeply enough
Anya Fernald (02:34.200)
about the ethics of my choices
Lex Fridman (02:36.240)
and the choices of human civilization
Anya Fernald (02:38.120)
with respect to animals.
Lex Fridman (02:39.880)
And more importantly, I have not thought
Anya Fernald (02:42.920)
or learned enough about large scale solutions
Lex Fridman (02:45.800)
to alleviate animal suffering.
Anya Fernald (02:48.040)
Belcampo is paving the way on this
Lex Fridman (02:49.960)
and is the reason I wanted to show my support
Anya Fernald (02:52.160)
for their and Anya's efforts in regenerative farming
Lex Fridman (02:55.920)
and ethical treatment of animals.
Anya Fernald (02:58.740)
This is the Lex Friedman podcast
Lex Fridman (03:00.720)
and here is my conversation with Anya Fernald.
Anya Fernald (03:12.960)
If you're watching the video version of this
Lex Fridman (03:15.700)
and are asking yourself why we're in nature right now,
Anya Fernald (03:17.940)
there's actually a beautiful mountain in the background.
Lex Fridman (03:22.240)
There's an incredible vast landscape.
Anya Fernald (03:24.440)
There's a farm.
Lex Fridman (03:26.720)
We're sitting behind a table and nevertheless,
Anya Fernald (03:28.900)
I'm wearing a suit and tie amidst nature.
Lex Fridman (03:32.340)
We're at the beautiful Belcampo Farms.
Anya Fernald (03:35.400)
We're going to talk about that,
Lex Fridman (03:36.800)
this incredible place you have here,
Lex Fridman (03:38.280)
but you cooked some meat yesterday.
Lex Fridman (03:40.680)
It tasted delicious.
Lex Fridman (03:42.040)
So I'd love to talk about just the science
Lex Fridman (03:44.640)
and art of cooking first.
Anya Fernald (03:46.720)
You as a chef, when you think of cooking,
Lex Fridman (03:49.600)
is it a science or is it an art?
Anya Fernald (03:51.960)
Art and service together, probably.
Lex Fridman (03:55.560)
Art to me because it's about creating something of beauty
Lex Fridman (04:00.920)
and being responsive and creating something
Lex Fridman (04:03.400)
that's expression of creativity and love.
Anya Fernald (04:06.200)
Cooking also has a very strong element of service
Lex Fridman (04:09.560)
and it doesn't mean necessarily service to another person,
Lex Fridman (04:11.640)
but like service to health, wellness, environment.
Lex Fridman (04:15.040)
There's an element of supporting through food
Anya Fernald (04:17.440)
in how I approach cooking.
Lex Fridman (04:18.960)
So it's bigger than just like how the ingredients
Anya Fernald (04:21.280)
come together to form a taste.
Lex Fridman (04:22.680)
It's the whole pipeline.
Anya Fernald (04:23.760)
Like the fact that there's a lot of work
Lex Fridman (04:26.840)
that went into bringing the ingredients together
Lex Fridman (04:30.900)
and then giving you the ability to make the meal
Lex Fridman (04:36.560)
and then who gets to consume the meal and the whole thing.
Lex Fridman (04:39.160)
And you see that as service as opposed to just the taste.
Lex Fridman (04:43.060)
Yeah, I also think of food as one of the key ways
Lex Fridman (04:46.680)
that we interact with our environment, right?
Lex Fridman (04:51.040)
It's the part of our environment
Lex Fridman (04:52.540)
that goes inside us most visibly, right?
Lex Fridman (04:54.560)
Of course, we interact with our environment.
Anya Fernald (04:55.900)
We could have skin creams that have certain things in them
Lex Fridman (04:58.480)
or our clothes can then be absorbed.
Anya Fernald (05:01.000)
There's things in the air.
Lex Fridman (05:02.080)
There's our water and there's food, right?
Anya Fernald (05:03.960)
It's like how we're engaging in the world.
Lex Fridman (05:06.600)
Physiologically, it's the most significant way
Anya Fernald (05:08.680)
we engage in our environment.
Lex Fridman (05:10.640)
We're extracting resources, calories, energy
Anya Fernald (05:13.320)
from the environment in various ways
Lex Fridman (05:14.960)
in order to preserve our bodies.
Anya Fernald (05:19.120)
There's also so many feedback loops
Lex Fridman (05:21.320)
that I don't think we know the beginning of
Anya Fernald (05:23.800)
that our bodies are picking up on around nutrients,
Lex Fridman (05:27.000)
available nutrients, immune response.
Anya Fernald (05:29.600)
Like there's deep levels of sensory evaluation
Lex Fridman (05:33.800)
that lead to health and alertness and wellness.
Anya Fernald (05:38.200)
You hear about this a lot with babies that, you know,
Lex Fridman (05:42.040)
if there's a risk of an infection
Anya Fernald (05:43.880)
that a mom's breast milk will help the baby
Lex Fridman (05:46.380)
develop a resistance, like there's this way
Anya Fernald (05:48.760)
that our bodies can tune into health
Lex Fridman (05:50.320)
and can't extrapolate from that in any specific way,
Lex Fridman (05:52.640)
but think about that as an example of the many ways
Lex Fridman (05:55.240)
in which our bodies are reading available nutrients and food
Anya Fernald (05:58.400)
to signal other aspects of wellness and health.
Lex Fridman (06:01.680)
That said, the final product of cooking is,
Anya Fernald (06:06.680)
when done well, is really delicious.
Lex Fridman (06:08.540)
And what we ate yesterday was really delicious.
Lex Fridman (06:10.380)
So that aspect of it, bringing the ingredients together
Lex Fridman (06:15.420)
in a way that tastes delicious,
Lex Fridman (06:17.340)
do you see that as a science or art?
Lex Fridman (06:19.700)
That's the art of it.
Anya Fernald (06:21.020)
I mean, the art is like creating temptation
Lex Fridman (06:24.220)
and indulgence and giving people pause,
Anya Fernald (06:27.060)
you know, like creating experience that's like so sensual.
Lex Fridman (06:29.800)
And like, I love that about when I make something
Anya Fernald (06:33.220)
really simple and beautiful and delicious
Lex Fridman (06:36.460)
the way that, like there's that moment of silence
Anya Fernald (06:38.980)
at the table.
Lex Fridman (06:39.900)
And that to me is the moment of art, like appreciation.
Lex Fridman (06:43.700)
What about the buildup?
Lex Fridman (06:44.620)
I mean, we got to watch you make the stuff over a fire.
Lex Fridman (06:48.020)
So the calmness of the air, I mean, that's an experience.
Lex Fridman (06:51.060)
We don't often get to see that experience of the preparation.
Anya Fernald (06:54.780)
It's the anticipation, like you said.
Lex Fridman (06:56.540)
Maybe that's the most delicious part of a meal
Anya Fernald (06:58.180)
is the anticipation of it.
Lex Fridman (06:59.820)
That's something that I'm glad you bring up
Anya Fernald (07:01.540)
because it's an element that with eating so many
Lex Fridman (07:04.140)
of our meals, like out of a bag and you know,
Anya Fernald (07:08.140)
the instance where you start to eat the meals
Lex Fridman (07:09.860)
when the delivery shows up and you might smell something
Lex Fridman (07:12.140)
when you open the bag, right?
Lex Fridman (07:13.100)
And no judgment on that.
Lex Fridman (07:14.620)
That's something I do too, right?
Lex Fridman (07:16.180)
But that does take away a whole element
Anya Fernald (07:18.540)
of surprise and delight.
Lex Fridman (07:20.900)
And also I think of your body's ability to prepare for it.
Anya Fernald (07:23.540)
You know, you think about our most common memories
Lex Fridman (07:25.500)
of childhood for those of us who grew up in homes
Anya Fernald (07:28.220)
with parents who cooked is smell of things cooking.
Lex Fridman (07:31.740)
And it's not the eating of it.
Anya Fernald (07:33.060)
It's the smell of things cooking.
Lex Fridman (07:35.060)
So why is that so memorable?
Anya Fernald (07:37.460)
It's an anticipatory piece of food.
Lex Fridman (07:40.220)
That's what you remember about your experiences of food
Anya Fernald (07:42.540)
is the moment of like sweet anticipation
Lex Fridman (07:44.340)
of this great sensual experience.
Anya Fernald (07:46.180)
It's gonna be really gratifying on these emotional
Lex Fridman (07:48.820)
and physical levels.
Lex Fridman (07:49.980)
So I think we're also resonating on those memories
Lex Fridman (07:52.700)
because it's like, it's an experience of food
Anya Fernald (07:55.500)
where the sensuality of it is kind of extended.
Lex Fridman (07:58.060)
So it's a long kind of arc of buildup
Lex Fridman (08:00.140)
and then you're eating it and it's amazing.
Lex Fridman (08:01.620)
Then you're enjoying it and your body feels good.
Lex Fridman (08:03.740)
So all those pieces together,
Lex Fridman (08:05.340)
it's a much more memorable experience
Lex Fridman (08:06.860)
than just grabbing the cookie out of a bag, right?
Lex Fridman (08:08.980)
So look at our own and just revisit in your mind
Anya Fernald (08:12.660)
like the memories of food, the most compelling ones.
Lex Fridman (08:15.420)
It's the smell and then the experience
Lex Fridman (08:18.820)
and then sometimes how one felt, right?
Lex Fridman (08:20.940)
Yeah, and the people involved with the smell.
Lex Fridman (08:22.940)
So like somehow it's all tied in together
Lex Fridman (08:25.220)
whether it's family or people close to you
Anya Fernald (08:27.100)
or even if it's just chefs.
Lex Fridman (08:28.540)
There's something about the personality of the human
Anya Fernald (08:32.660)
involved in making the food
Lex Fridman (08:33.740)
that kind of sticks with you in the memory.
Lex Fridman (08:35.900)
And for me, I recently did a 72 hour fast
Lex Fridman (08:38.980)
and there's a kind of sadness after you eat
Anya Fernald (08:42.220)
that it's over.
Lex Fridman (08:43.060)
I think the most delicious part was the,
Anya Fernald (08:45.420)
I went to the grocery store and just actually walking around
Lex Fridman (08:49.580)
and looking at food with like everything looked delicious.
Anya Fernald (08:52.380)
Even like the crappiest stuff looked delicious
Lex Fridman (08:54.420)
and I missed that.
Anya Fernald (08:55.700)
I really enjoyed that anticipation
Lex Fridman (08:58.060)
and then I picked out the meal.
Anya Fernald (08:59.660)
I went home and I cooked it
Lex Fridman (09:01.100)
and the whole thing took, I don't know,
Anya Fernald (09:03.220)
maybe two, three hours, like the whole process.
Lex Fridman (09:05.500)
And that was the most delicious part
Lex Fridman (09:07.500)
and the first taste of course.
Lex Fridman (09:08.740)
And then after it was over, there's a bit of a sadness
Anya Fernald (09:13.620)
because the part I remember is the buildup, the anticipation
Lex Fridman (09:16.900)
and then once you eat, it's over.
Anya Fernald (09:20.020)
We kind of focus on the destination
Lex Fridman (09:22.060)
but it's the whole journey.
Anya Fernald (09:23.420)
The whole like, even if you go to a restaurant,
Lex Fridman (09:25.900)
it's the conversations leading up to the meal
Lex Fridman (09:29.220)
and the first taste of the meal.
Lex Fridman (09:30.700)
That's where the joy is.
Lex Fridman (09:32.540)
And if you get to watch the making of that meal,
Lex Fridman (09:34.380)
that's incredible.
Anya Fernald (09:35.420)
That's where the smell, the visual,
Lex Fridman (09:38.260)
how the ingredients come together
Lex Fridman (09:40.260)
and especially as we were looking over the fire,
Lex Fridman (09:43.460)
like watching it, the fire play with the raw meat
Lex Fridman (09:50.220)
and over time bring out the colors, bring out the,
Lex Fridman (09:53.940)
I don't know, like you can visually associate the flavor,
Anya Fernald (09:57.220)
you know, how it becomes a little bit burnt on the outside,
Lex Fridman (10:01.180)
you know, it has a crispiness to it,
Anya Fernald (10:02.820)
it starts to gain that crispiness
Lex Fridman (10:03.940)
and immediately your past memories
Anya Fernald (10:06.220)
of the delicious crispiness of various foods you've eaten
Lex Fridman (10:08.620)
are somehow mapped into your,
Anya Fernald (10:10.500)
immediately you start to taste it visually.
Lex Fridman (10:13.180)
I don't know, yeah, that experience is magical.
Anya Fernald (10:15.180)
It's, and of course, maybe it's the Russian thing
Lex Fridman (10:17.780)
but I'm almost like saddened when it's over.
Anya Fernald (10:20.680)
I think fasting is gaining in popularity
Lex Fridman (10:24.680)
because we're having to relearn the importance
Anya Fernald (10:27.300)
of being hungry in anticipation and delight.
Lex Fridman (10:30.880)
Yeah.
Anya Fernald (10:31.920)
We have such a fear of hunger
Lex Fridman (10:34.400)
and that's really functional in evolution, right?
Lex Fridman (10:37.840)
But we have this deep fear of hunger
Lex Fridman (10:39.240)
and part of the great American experience has been
Anya Fernald (10:42.280)
that we don't have to be afraid of hunger at all
Lex Fridman (10:44.440)
because there's food everywhere and it's really cheap.
Anya Fernald (10:47.120)
In all that abundance, we've lost this edge of hunger
Lex Fridman (10:51.920)
and we don't let ourselves get hungry.
Lex Fridman (10:54.240)
And that's one thing that I learned
Lex Fridman (10:56.040)
in part of my journey as a cook and chef has been,
Anya Fernald (10:59.080)
you know, moving abroad was the first time
Lex Fridman (11:01.560)
when I lived out of the US,
Anya Fernald (11:03.760)
was the first time that I regularly experienced hunger
Lex Fridman (11:06.560)
because the time between meals was really long
Lex Fridman (11:09.880)
and that was just what everybody did.
Lex Fridman (11:12.120)
And so I was hungry for two hours before lunch.
Lex Fridman (11:14.840)
And that was the first time in my life
Lex Fridman (11:16.340)
that there hadn't just been readily available snacks.
Lex Fridman (11:19.200)
So I wonder if the intermittent fasting
Lex Fridman (11:21.720)
and part of the popularity around it,
Anya Fernald (11:23.760)
I'm sure there's all these amazing metabolic things
Lex Fridman (11:26.000)
that are happening, but also people might also feel better
Anya Fernald (11:28.600)
because they're really anticipating and enjoying food.
Lex Fridman (11:32.300)
And then if you look at the feelings of fullness,
Anya Fernald (11:34.800)
there's a really interesting thing that happens
Lex Fridman (11:37.320)
when you cook and your sense of fullness,
Anya Fernald (11:41.200)
which is if you cook and you're hungry,
Lex Fridman (11:45.320)
the experience of being around the food,
Anya Fernald (11:47.240)
smelling it, touching it, sampling it,
Lex Fridman (11:50.240)
you'll take your hunger down by 40%.
Lex Fridman (11:53.620)
And this is my own observation.
Lex Fridman (11:55.640)
But as, I mean, we've all had the experience
Anya Fernald (11:58.040)
of cooking Thanksgiving and the cook
Lex Fridman (11:59.840)
never kind of wants to eat that much Thanksgiving.
Anya Fernald (12:01.500)
That's an extreme experience.
Lex Fridman (12:02.960)
But when you really dive in and you're cooking
Anya Fernald (12:05.220)
for a few hours and you're smelling
Lex Fridman (12:06.660)
and smelling and smelling,
Anya Fernald (12:07.860)
it totally changes your threshold of satiety and fullness
Lex Fridman (12:12.040)
because of other sensory things that are happening.
Lex Fridman (12:15.520)
And for those of us looking to maintain weight
Lex Fridman (12:18.560)
and something to consider in this is that cooking
Anya Fernald (12:20.740)
is also part of what your appetite,
Lex Fridman (12:24.280)
when you're hungry, what are you hungry for, right?
Lex Fridman (12:27.000)
So we tend to think about calories, but when you're hungry,
Lex Fridman (12:30.000)
you might also be hungrier for a wider range of things.
Lex Fridman (12:33.480)
And it might be smells, it might be stopping.
Lex Fridman (12:36.800)
There's other elements and that's something,
Anya Fernald (12:38.720)
I think as a cook, that it's powerful to explore
Lex Fridman (12:42.960)
and be with and observe how your hunger changes
Anya Fernald (12:46.320)
when you're cooking.
Lex Fridman (12:47.920)
Well, let me ask the romantic question.
Lex Fridman (12:49.560)
When did you first fall in love with cooking?
Lex Fridman (12:53.400)
Me falling in love with cooking
Anya Fernald (12:55.340)
was about solving a problem in my family.
Lex Fridman (12:58.760)
And it had to do with my mom feeling very anxious
Anya Fernald (13:04.000)
about cooking and overwhelmed frequently
Lex Fridman (13:08.520)
when it came to meals.
Lex Fridman (13:09.640)
And I'm naturally very good at juggling a lot of things.
Lex Fridman (13:13.600)
And it was just something I could dive in and help
Lex Fridman (13:17.080)
and help my dad, who I'm very, very close to.
Lex Fridman (13:21.080)
So it was a very functional role where I would see
Anya Fernald (13:25.320)
this kind of crescendo of anxiety around meal times
Lex Fridman (13:28.920)
as a kid and would be able to dive in and solve things.
Lex Fridman (13:33.920)
And I also loved women who cooked.
Lex Fridman (13:37.040)
Like my father's mother was a great cook.
Anya Fernald (13:39.800)
She was, I remember her telling me as a kid,
Lex Fridman (13:42.360)
I was asking her about church and why she went to church.
Lex Fridman (13:45.040)
And she's like, I mostly go to church
Lex Fridman (13:46.400)
because I get to cook for the potlucks.
Lex Fridman (13:50.560)
And so there was an openness around that,
Lex Fridman (13:53.040)
but she just loved to cook for people
Lex Fridman (13:54.360)
and there was this real tenderness
Lex Fridman (13:56.160)
and expression of that love.
Lex Fridman (13:57.800)
So seeing women in my life who had this real tenderness
Lex Fridman (14:01.640)
and love that they shared through food
Lex Fridman (14:04.200)
and then also being able in my own home
Lex Fridman (14:06.840)
to kind of pitch in and add value
Lex Fridman (14:09.120)
and help my mom and dad was really powerful for me.
Lex Fridman (14:14.400)
Cause I felt like I had a superpower.
Anya Fernald (14:16.400)
I felt like, oh man, I just made this stressful thing
Lex Fridman (14:19.440)
go away.
Anya Fernald (14:20.720)
That was huge.
Lex Fridman (14:21.880)
It's kind of interesting.
Anya Fernald (14:22.720)
I don't know if you can comment on,
Lex Fridman (14:24.040)
especially for me growing up in Russia,
Anya Fernald (14:26.720)
it's probably true in a lot of cultures,
Lex Fridman (14:29.240)
maybe every culture.
Anya Fernald (14:30.400)
That food, and especially like in a family,
Lex Fridman (14:33.720)
the mother that cooks is the source of love
Lex Fridman (14:36.920)
and like ties the family together.
Lex Fridman (14:38.720)
It creates events where everyone comes together.
Anya Fernald (14:41.320)
It's one of the only chances of togetherness.
Lex Fridman (14:45.640)
The thing that bonds a family is like dinner
Anya Fernald (14:49.160)
or food, eating together.
Lex Fridman (14:51.120)
And I don't know what to do with that.
Anya Fernald (14:53.080)
It ties up with like dieting and so on.
Lex Fridman (14:55.720)
When I was on stricter diets,
Anya Fernald (14:57.120)
especially competing and cutting weight and stuff,
Lex Fridman (14:59.320)
it felt like I was almost like losing opportunity
Anya Fernald (15:02.680)
to connect with friends and family.
Lex Fridman (15:04.560)
It's interesting.
Anya Fernald (15:05.800)
It's almost like cultures,
Lex Fridman (15:08.720)
we cannot fully experience love and family without eating.
Lex Fridman (15:12.400)
And on the flip side of that,
Lex Fridman (15:13.800)
eating enables us to experience love and family.
Anya Fernald (15:17.680)
I don't know what to do with that.
Lex Fridman (15:19.200)
It's a tough one.
Anya Fernald (15:20.040)
Cause there's lots of layers around kind of gender roles
Lex Fridman (15:23.480)
and families changing and things.
Anya Fernald (15:26.440)
I'd say I agree around the alienation
Lex Fridman (15:29.440)
and I've done carnivore diet
Lex Fridman (15:31.120)
and I've tried some of these extreme protocols.
Lex Fridman (15:32.800)
And I too, I suffered from loneliness.
Anya Fernald (15:35.480)
It was like doing carnivore
Lex Fridman (15:37.160)
and not being able to eat what my kids ate
Lex Fridman (15:40.640)
and talk about it at the same time.
Lex Fridman (15:42.240)
Those pieces are real.
Lex Fridman (15:44.120)
And I wonder with all of these diets,
Lex Fridman (15:47.280)
if that structure is actually helping
Anya Fernald (15:50.200)
or just taking away from people's
Lex Fridman (15:52.040)
kind of sensual understanding.
Lex Fridman (15:54.200)
But I think that there's some rigor
Lex Fridman (15:55.720)
around that that helps people discover
Anya Fernald (15:57.280)
what's good for them by eliminating
Lex Fridman (15:59.680)
and then growing towards more intuitive food
Anya Fernald (16:02.400)
is a good evolution from that base.
Lex Fridman (16:05.320)
I love to cook for people.
Anya Fernald (16:08.960)
I love to pay attention to their way of being
Lex Fridman (16:13.680)
and read what they'd like to eat.
Lex Fridman (16:15.760)
And it's my purest way of love.
Lex Fridman (16:18.800)
And that's for everybody in my life.
Anya Fernald (16:20.720)
I actually love to cook for people I love.
Lex Fridman (16:23.640)
I would struggle to be putting out food all the time.
Anya Fernald (16:27.560)
It's like something for me, it's a real act of caretaking.
Lex Fridman (16:30.520)
So I definitely have that in my makeup.
Lex Fridman (16:33.400)
And I definitely notice in times of real stress,
Lex Fridman (16:41.480)
that's the piece that drops off.
Lex Fridman (16:43.720)
And it's like, if I'm unable to care for myself,
Lex Fridman (16:45.560)
I have a hard time cooking.
Lex Fridman (16:46.920)
So for me, it's very emotional.
Lex Fridman (16:48.400)
It's very connected to love.
Lex Fridman (16:51.000)
And individualistic.
Lex Fridman (16:52.880)
So like focused on the particular individual.
Anya Fernald (16:55.640)
It's almost like a journey of understanding
Lex Fridman (16:58.040)
what that person is excited about
Anya Fernald (17:00.200)
in the landscape of flavors.
Lex Fridman (17:02.760)
Like figuring that person out, what they like,
Lex Fridman (17:05.040)
what they love to eat.
Lex Fridman (17:06.760)
Yeah, I see cooking from, I mostly cook for myself.
Lex Fridman (17:10.400)
So I see that as almost, this is gonna be like
Lex Fridman (17:14.080)
the worst term, but like an act of self love.
Anya Fernald (17:17.360)
Uh huh.
Lex Fridman (17:20.200)
This is gonna be clipped out.
Lex Fridman (17:21.640)
But that like, it's almost an exploration
Lex Fridman (17:25.640)
of like what brings me joy.
Lex Fridman (17:27.960)
And it's surprising, because I usually don't share,
Lex Fridman (17:29.760)
because the things that bring me joy
Anya Fernald (17:32.640)
are the simplest ingredients.
Lex Fridman (17:34.160)
Like I'm one of those people,
Anya Fernald (17:36.400)
I don't know if you can psychoanalyze me,
Lex Fridman (17:38.080)
because you also like basic ingredients.
Anya Fernald (17:40.840)
I like a single ingredient to ingredients,
Lex Fridman (17:43.600)
because I feel like I can deeply appreciate
Anya Fernald (17:45.520)
the particular ingredient then.
Lex Fridman (17:47.360)
I get easily distracted.
Anya Fernald (17:49.440)
You know, people who are really good listening to music,
Lex Fridman (17:51.360)
they can hear a piece of music,
Lex Fridman (17:52.960)
and in their mind, extract the different layers,
Lex Fridman (17:55.680)
and enjoy different layers at a time.
Anya Fernald (17:57.640)
Like the bass, the drums, the different layering
Lex Fridman (18:00.440)
of the piano, the beats, and all that kind of stuff.
Anya Fernald (18:02.760)
That's what it means to truly enjoy music,
Lex Fridman (18:04.880)
to listen to a piece over and over.
Anya Fernald (18:06.680)
Like almost like as a scholar.
Lex Fridman (18:08.560)
In that same way for food, I just can't do more
Anya Fernald (18:10.640)
than like three, because then it's just,
Lex Fridman (18:13.280)
I have to give in to the chaos of it, I guess.
Lex Fridman (18:15.840)
But when it's just a basic ingredient,
Lex Fridman (18:17.600)
like just meat, or just a vegetable, like basic grilled
Anya Fernald (18:22.000)
without sauces, without any of that,
Lex Fridman (18:24.320)
that I've discovered is what brings me a lot of joy.
Lex Fridman (18:27.280)
But that's boring to a lot of people.
Lex Fridman (18:30.040)
So I usually have to be kind of private about that joy.
Anya Fernald (18:33.760)
So, but that's mine, so yeah, I figured that out.
Lex Fridman (18:36.200)
I guess as a chef, you have to figure that out
Anya Fernald (18:38.960)
about everybody that you care for.
Lex Fridman (18:41.880)
Well, also for you, you're very interested in things,
Lex Fridman (18:46.880)
and interested in things being done well
Lex Fridman (18:50.120)
and appreciating them.
Lex Fridman (18:50.960)
So the single ingredient also allows you to control
Lex Fridman (18:53.720)
for perfection in cooking that,
Anya Fernald (18:55.400)
which is probably really appealing to you.
Lex Fridman (18:58.280)
And I think sometimes I see people also in the beginning
Anya Fernald (19:01.760)
of their journey of culinary trying to do too many things.
Lex Fridman (19:05.280)
So there's another piece too, that you'll notice,
Anya Fernald (19:08.280)
if you recall last night, I grilled us a salad,
Lex Fridman (19:11.200)
and then I did all those pieces separately.
Lex Fridman (19:13.520)
And that's something in general to be really attentive of
Lex Fridman (19:16.240)
when you're building flavor,
Anya Fernald (19:17.680)
to make sure you pay attention to every piece separately.
Lex Fridman (19:23.000)
The idea that you can, okay,
Anya Fernald (19:24.720)
with a soup or something or a stew, there's workarounds,
Lex Fridman (19:27.520)
but like to make a great dish
Anya Fernald (19:29.280)
that's got four or five vegetables in it,
Lex Fridman (19:31.480)
cook them all separately to their optimal deliciousness
Lex Fridman (19:35.320)
and then combine them.
Lex Fridman (19:36.640)
So that's another way to approach that,
Anya Fernald (19:38.280)
is that you may also be able to look
Lex Fridman (19:39.640)
at the different ingredients separately
Lex Fridman (19:41.360)
and still have that sense of understanding of it.
Lex Fridman (19:44.520)
But there's too often that we're layering together
Anya Fernald (19:47.280)
like four or five things and then cooking them all at once
Lex Fridman (19:50.680)
and then surprise that it's not delicious.
Anya Fernald (19:52.520)
Cause you can't really optimize on multiple variables
Lex Fridman (19:56.040)
at the same time for peak awesomeness.
Lex Fridman (19:58.720)
And that's actually, the number one way you see this
Lex Fridman (1:00:01.620)
that lead to improved scaling of regenerative agriculture.
Anya Fernald (1:00:08.340)
That'd be interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:00:09.180)
But you're saying you should be open
Anya Fernald (1:00:10.200)
to all those possibilities.
Lex Fridman (1:00:11.040)
I don't think, I don't know the landscape to know what.
Lex Fridman (1:00:13.900)
But my sense is that it's very hard.
Lex Fridman (1:00:17.020)
It's very hard.
Lex Fridman (1:00:17.840)
And our farming operation to scale,
Lex Fridman (1:00:19.940)
it's been incredibly complex and challenging.
Anya Fernald (1:00:22.240)
We now work with partner farms.
Lex Fridman (1:00:24.380)
I see their operations, they're incredibly complex.
Anya Fernald (1:00:27.180)
You know, it just seems like there's got to be a way
Lex Fridman (1:00:28.920)
to make some of these things simpler and easier
Anya Fernald (1:00:31.860)
to share information.
Lex Fridman (1:00:32.860)
Yeah.
Anya Fernald (1:00:33.960)
I don't know what that answer is.
Lex Fridman (1:00:36.060)
You know what would be cool
Anya Fernald (1:00:37.220)
is if we can understand deeper ways
Lex Fridman (1:00:39.720)
to measure the happiness of an animal.
Anya Fernald (1:00:42.900)
Because then we can optimize,
Lex Fridman (1:00:44.500)
like certified humane could be literally
Anya Fernald (1:00:47.180)
an optimization problem.
Lex Fridman (1:00:48.180)
Just make sure, as opposed to kind of using our,
Anya Fernald (1:00:51.500)
projecting our own human values,
Lex Fridman (1:00:53.560)
actually measuring what the animal is happy doing.
Anya Fernald (1:00:56.140)
That could be, so understanding the pig brain
Lex Fridman (1:00:58.720)
might help us understand pig happiness
Lex Fridman (1:01:00.860)
and reframe what it means for a happy animal.
Lex Fridman (1:01:04.540)
And then maybe it's a lot easier to make a happy animal,
Anya Fernald (1:01:07.100)
to make the animal happy than we think.
Lex Fridman (1:01:09.860)
And it might have to do with a variety of delicious food
Anya Fernald (1:01:12.140)
in the case of the pig.
Lex Fridman (1:01:13.700)
Is there something you could say about grass fed meat?
Anya Fernald (1:01:16.380)
Is it all, just out of my own sort of curiosity,
Lex Fridman (1:01:18.940)
whenever people say sort of grass fed meat
Anya Fernald (1:01:21.620)
is better for you,
Lex Fridman (1:01:22.460)
are all grass fed meat made the same?
Anya Fernald (1:01:24.940)
Is there different like,
Lex Fridman (1:01:26.180)
it's like the word organic.
Lex Fridman (1:01:29.400)
Is there a lot of variety within that?
Lex Fridman (1:01:31.640)
Like the way Belcampo does it,
Lex Fridman (1:01:32.800)
will the others do it?
Lex Fridman (1:01:34.160)
Just more color if you could add to this whole word
Lex Fridman (1:01:38.360)
and what it means.
Lex Fridman (1:01:39.200)
Grass fed beef has been on grass its entire life.
Lex Fridman (1:01:43.160)
And you wanna look for the words 100% grass fed
Lex Fridman (1:01:45.340)
or grass fed and finished.
Anya Fernald (1:01:47.320)
Now, the challenge with feeding beef grass its whole life
Lex Fridman (1:01:52.320)
is that it gains weight more slowly.
Anya Fernald (1:01:57.560)
Although beef didn't evolve,
Lex Fridman (1:01:59.240)
eating corn and things, it can eat them.
Lex Fridman (1:02:02.560)
And in eating them, it gains weight more rapidly
Lex Fridman (1:02:05.920)
and has like a version of like an inflammatory response.
Anya Fernald (1:02:10.680)
If you actually look inside the rumen of the animal
Lex Fridman (1:02:14.000)
inside the stomach,
Anya Fernald (1:02:14.840)
it's like black and shiny inside compared to grass fed
Lex Fridman (1:02:18.040)
animals like greens, smells like compost.
Lex Fridman (1:02:20.240)
So the animals themselves, their whole physiology
Lex Fridman (1:02:22.480)
is damaged by that food,
Lex Fridman (1:02:24.560)
but they also gain weight really quickly
Lex Fridman (1:02:26.480)
and they put on a lot of fats.
Anya Fernald (1:02:27.680)
Like if you or me were to eat a bunch of processed food
Lex Fridman (1:02:30.400)
compared to eating a bunch of greens,
Anya Fernald (1:02:32.120)
it's the same impact, you're gonna blow up.
Lex Fridman (1:02:34.720)
So the problem for grass fed
Anya Fernald (1:02:37.080)
is getting the animals to gain weight.
Lex Fridman (1:02:39.880)
They're getting a ton of exercise,
Lex Fridman (1:02:41.560)
they're eating really clean, right?
Lex Fridman (1:02:43.440)
And they're super chill.
Lex Fridman (1:02:45.320)
So that's different from the animals that are kept still
Lex Fridman (1:02:49.240)
eating really nutrient dense foods
Lex Fridman (1:02:52.200)
and under a ton of stress, which is a confinement animal.
Lex Fridman (1:02:56.520)
So are all grass fed meats created the same?
Anya Fernald (1:02:59.280)
The diet, yeah, nutritional profile broadly,
Lex Fridman (1:03:02.640)
but the length of time that the animal lives
Anya Fernald (1:03:05.560)
is extremely important for the flavor of the meat.
Lex Fridman (1:03:10.200)
We're taking our beef to 24 to 26 months,
Anya Fernald (1:03:14.560)
conventional is around 18 months.
Lex Fridman (1:03:16.560)
So I'm always looking,
Lex Fridman (1:03:18.360)
and if you're evaluating grass fed animals,
Lex Fridman (1:03:20.080)
you wanna get animals that are typically
Anya Fernald (1:03:22.360)
allowed to live for longer
Lex Fridman (1:03:23.640)
because their flavor is gonna be better,
Anya Fernald (1:03:24.960)
there's gonna be a bit more fat
Lex Fridman (1:03:26.600)
and their omega ratios also vary very differently.
Lex Fridman (1:03:32.000)
And I've seen omega ratios,
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.040)
in our firm everywhere from one to three to one to one,
Anya Fernald (1:03:37.480)
ideal is one to one game is typically one to one
Lex Fridman (1:03:39.800)
or one to two omega three to sixes.
Lex Fridman (1:03:42.000)
But in operations where you don't have year round grass,
Lex Fridman (1:03:44.800)
it's more complicated, you know, you're feeding hay
Lex Fridman (1:03:46.720)
and you don't get that three to six ratio.
Lex Fridman (1:03:48.720)
Omega threes come from green grass,
Anya Fernald (1:03:51.640)
they're the fat in greens.
Lex Fridman (1:03:53.720)
And so they're scarce and costly, right?
Lex Fridman (1:03:56.760)
So you can have grass fed and finished animals
Lex Fridman (1:03:59.320)
that don't have that perfect ratio
Anya Fernald (1:04:00.480)
because maybe they're in a climate or for whatever reasons,
Lex Fridman (1:04:02.800)
we've had to do it too, during the droughts do hay finishing,
Anya Fernald (1:04:05.560)
it's not optimal, it changes the ratio a bit.
Lex Fridman (1:04:07.560)
So there's a little bit of variance within it.
Anya Fernald (1:04:10.160)
I'd say though, the variance is a little bit higher
Lex Fridman (1:04:14.000)
the variance within grass fed is still small
Anya Fernald (1:04:18.480)
compared to the variance between conventional
Lex Fridman (1:04:20.480)
and grass fed, right?
Lex Fridman (1:04:21.880)
So there's definitely things to look for within it,
Lex Fridman (1:04:24.520)
but the real difference is between those two.
Lex Fridman (1:04:27.800)
Also thing to notice is that it's not a verified word, okay?
Lex Fridman (1:04:33.080)
So grass fed means animals that have been on grass
Anya Fernald (1:04:37.320)
at some point in their life.
Lex Fridman (1:04:40.560)
The way the cattle industry is in the US,
Anya Fernald (1:04:43.920)
there's segmentation.
Lex Fridman (1:04:46.280)
So there's cow calf operations,
Anya Fernald (1:04:49.080)
then those calves get sold to stocker operations
Lex Fridman (1:04:52.080)
which raised animals in their teens basically,
Lex Fridman (1:04:54.320)
and then those get sold to feed lots.
Lex Fridman (1:04:56.720)
And so those three phases,
Anya Fernald (1:04:58.800)
that first phase of the cow calf is always on grass.
Lex Fridman (1:05:02.480)
It's mother cows and mom cows are amazing.
Anya Fernald (1:05:04.680)
They can thrive on anything
Lex Fridman (1:05:06.560)
and still put all their nutrients into their baby
Lex Fridman (1:05:08.440)
and their babies will be healthy.
Lex Fridman (1:05:09.720)
So you never are putting mother cows
Anya Fernald (1:05:11.120)
on really premium pasture.
Lex Fridman (1:05:12.760)
So it's usually just kind of like okay pasture,
Anya Fernald (1:05:15.160)
dirty lot, if you ever see kind of like,
Lex Fridman (1:05:17.080)
scrubly lots with lots of cows and calves on,
Anya Fernald (1:05:19.320)
that's a cow calf operation.
Lex Fridman (1:05:20.720)
So there's also a loophole, unfortunately,
Anya Fernald (1:05:24.000)
where people use the term grass fed,
Lex Fridman (1:05:26.280)
and they're actually referring to animals
Anya Fernald (1:05:27.680)
that at some point in their life had grass,
Lex Fridman (1:05:29.180)
but that might be pretty far in the rear view mirror.
Lex Fridman (1:05:31.480)
So you need to look at that grass fed and finished
Lex Fridman (1:05:34.720)
or grass fed 100%.
Anya Fernald (1:05:36.640)
That ratio of omega three to sixes,
Lex Fridman (1:05:38.440)
it changes in like a week on grain.
Lex Fridman (1:05:41.080)
So it's radically different.
Lex Fridman (1:05:42.120)
Unfortunately, it's the same thing for you and me.
Anya Fernald (1:05:43.920)
You can eat clean for a month,
Lex Fridman (1:05:45.280)
you eat junk for three days, you're garbage, right?
Lex Fridman (1:05:48.000)
It's not like you can just like coast on that, right?
Lex Fridman (1:05:50.160)
We know what that's like.
Anya Fernald (1:05:51.000)
Same thing for animals, our physiology changes.
Lex Fridman (1:05:52.720)
Food's the number one way we interact with our environment.
Lex Fridman (1:05:55.200)
And our body changes really rapidly and dramatically.
Lex Fridman (1:05:58.160)
So we know Belcampo and just the way
Anya Fernald (1:06:01.480)
sort of this regenerative farming approach of Belcampo
Lex Fridman (1:06:04.520)
and the sort of high humane is good for the land,
Anya Fernald (1:06:07.560)
is good for the animal.
Lex Fridman (1:06:09.780)
Can you comment on ways it's good for the human
Lex Fridman (1:06:12.600)
that eats the meat?
Lex Fridman (1:06:14.200)
Is this meat better for you?
Anya Fernald (1:06:16.680)
Yes, and this is where they kind of focus on the joy
Lex Fridman (1:06:21.360)
and animals doing yoga and all this sort of like
Anya Fernald (1:06:23.420)
cynical stuff about this type of agriculture.
Lex Fridman (1:06:27.780)
So just like set that aside,
Anya Fernald (1:06:30.280)
it really is better for your health.
Lex Fridman (1:06:32.760)
It's got a better fat ratio, it's less inflammatory,
Anya Fernald (1:06:35.680)
it's got higher protein, it's just better product.
Lex Fridman (1:06:39.440)
In the case of beef, it's lower in fat
Lex Fridman (1:06:43.000)
and that fat has a better quality and it's higher
Lex Fridman (1:06:45.400)
in poultry and pork, it's also higher in protein.
Lex Fridman (1:06:47.260)
So all the nutritionals are better.
Lex Fridman (1:06:49.000)
It's got higher density of vitamins,
Anya Fernald (1:06:50.480)
it's got higher density of minerals.
Lex Fridman (1:06:52.280)
And none of this stuff is radically different than,
Anya Fernald (1:06:55.360)
it's not like the product is black and white,
Lex Fridman (1:06:59.200)
but every metric meaningfully is better
Anya Fernald (1:07:02.640)
in the right direction across the board.
Lex Fridman (1:07:05.000)
So why wouldn't you?
Anya Fernald (1:07:06.840)
I hesitate to take anecdotal evidence
Lex Fridman (1:07:10.920)
as like final scientific conclusions,
Lex Fridman (1:07:13.000)
but it does seem I've eaten quite a bit
Lex Fridman (1:07:15.140)
of belcampo meat, for example,
Lex Fridman (1:07:16.600)
and it's just my body seems to respond,
Lex Fridman (1:07:19.580)
like it's less bothered by it.
Anya Fernald (1:07:22.460)
Meaning like less inflamed, I just feel better.
Lex Fridman (1:07:25.800)
Because I mostly eat a meat diet
Lex Fridman (1:07:28.260)
and it does seem to be a little bit of a difference
Lex Fridman (1:07:30.840)
what kind of meat I eat, where it comes from.
Anya Fernald (1:07:34.040)
I don't know if that's my own psychology also.
Lex Fridman (1:07:37.260)
I mean, there is an aspect to like,
Anya Fernald (1:07:39.180)
when you know that the meat came from a good place
Lex Fridman (1:07:42.060)
and all the ways we've defined good,
Anya Fernald (1:07:45.120)
you feel better about it.
Lex Fridman (1:07:46.880)
And that has an effect, like decreased stress.
Lex Fridman (1:07:49.480)
So I'm a huge believer in that,
Lex Fridman (1:07:50.840)
like outside of just nutrition,
Lex Fridman (1:07:53.240)
how you feel about the whole experience is a huge impact.
Lex Fridman (1:07:55.740)
But it does feel like the meat itself
Anya Fernald (1:07:58.720)
is actually just leading to less inflammation for me
Lex Fridman (1:08:01.320)
or like less, like the bloated feeling
Lex Fridman (1:08:04.920)
and all those negative effects that could come with meat
Lex Fridman (1:08:07.560)
versus like certain other ground beef that I eat,
Anya Fernald (1:08:10.480)
like store bought chicken breast or steak,
Lex Fridman (1:08:15.340)
all those kinds of things.
Anya Fernald (1:08:16.440)
My body's a little bit more,
Lex Fridman (1:08:19.220)
works a little bit harder to process that food,
Anya Fernald (1:08:21.140)
it feels like.
Lex Fridman (1:08:21.980)
I don't know if there's science to that,
Lex Fridman (1:08:23.040)
but sort of anecdotally, that seems to be the case.
Lex Fridman (1:08:25.360)
Omega sixes are a big part of that,
Anya Fernald (1:08:26.920)
for in the case of the beef.
Lex Fridman (1:08:27.760)
You eat a lot of beef, you love beef.
Lex Fridman (1:08:29.840)
And so in a conventional beef product,
Lex Fridman (1:08:33.000)
it's a one to 30 ratio of omega threes to sixes.
Lex Fridman (1:08:36.680)
And sometimes one to 20, one to 30,
Lex Fridman (1:08:39.440)
but that's the wrong direction.
Anya Fernald (1:08:41.400)
In our beef, it's as low as one to one.
Lex Fridman (1:08:45.320)
So that and the omega sixes are what's part of inflammation.
Anya Fernald (1:08:50.120)
Now, the magic in animals
Lex Fridman (1:08:52.460)
is that they're incredibly efficient processors.
Lex Fridman (1:08:55.000)
And in the same way that the body can process
Lex Fridman (1:09:02.160)
and take out tons of things that are toxic
Anya Fernald (1:09:04.160)
out of the environment,
Lex Fridman (1:09:05.000)
I mean, animals bodies can do that too.
Lex Fridman (1:09:06.640)
So the beauty of meat is that it can be pretty clean.
Lex Fridman (1:09:09.880)
Things like Roundup and stuff don't end up in the meat.
Anya Fernald (1:09:12.600)
When we have antibiotics in our meat,
Lex Fridman (1:09:14.800)
we're not worried about getting like tetracycline
Anya Fernald (1:09:16.840)
from the chicken breast.
Lex Fridman (1:09:18.420)
What we're worried about
Anya Fernald (1:09:19.400)
is the workers getting tetracycline,
Lex Fridman (1:09:21.600)
the chicken growing faster than it should,
Anya Fernald (1:09:23.280)
the meat being chewier and not as high quality.
Lex Fridman (1:09:26.320)
But the actual antibiotics don't,
Lex Fridman (1:09:28.120)
the animals great at filtering that, right?
Lex Fridman (1:09:30.280)
They get that out.
Lex Fridman (1:09:31.120)
So you have to think about meat not as like contamination
Lex Fridman (1:09:34.720)
of like, oh, there's gonna be some of that garbage
Anya Fernald (1:09:36.320)
they used in the farming in my meat,
Lex Fridman (1:09:39.600)
but it's the more subtle things.
Anya Fernald (1:09:41.080)
It's the fat ratio, it's the protein density.
Lex Fridman (1:09:43.720)
And there's also just, I think in my experience,
Anya Fernald (1:09:48.440)
there's just more complex flavor
Lex Fridman (1:09:50.580)
and things that taste more complex.
Anya Fernald (1:09:52.520)
This is, science backs this up, they fill you up faster.
Lex Fridman (1:09:56.840)
So if you're looking to limit,
Anya Fernald (1:09:59.000)
to eat for fullness and, but not eat as many calories,
Lex Fridman (1:10:03.400)
more complex foods are the way to do that.
Lex Fridman (1:10:06.380)
And that hit, you hit your satiety,
Lex Fridman (1:10:08.920)
help you hit that satiety.
Lex Fridman (1:10:10.140)
So things like, I mean, all the key amino acids
Lex Fridman (1:10:13.600)
that help you feel full, mostly from meat, right?
Lex Fridman (1:10:16.440)
So those are, that's part of it, like it,
Lex Fridman (1:10:17.800)
but all meats have those.
Anya Fernald (1:10:19.080)
Then there's other kind of micronutrients
Lex Fridman (1:10:20.800)
and things around that complex flavor
Anya Fernald (1:10:21.960)
that help you feel full faster.
Lex Fridman (1:10:25.000)
Forgive me for this question,
Lex Fridman (1:10:26.520)
but it is kind of an interesting one
Lex Fridman (1:10:28.120)
that people are curious about.
Lex Fridman (1:10:30.020)
What does it feel like to be a,
Lex Fridman (1:10:33.680)
or what does it take to be a woman CEO of a meat company?
Anya Fernald (1:10:38.120)
I mean, you're no longer CEO of Belcampo,
Lex Fridman (1:10:39.960)
but you did, you ran, you cofounded Belcampo,
Anya Fernald (1:10:42.800)
you ran it for many, many years.
Lex Fridman (1:10:45.640)
Is there something that you could say
Lex Fridman (1:10:48.600)
in terms of challenges associated with that?
Lex Fridman (1:10:51.220)
And how did you personally overcome it?
Lex Fridman (1:10:54.320)
So to be a female running a meat and livestock operation,
Lex Fridman (1:10:59.480)
it felt very alone, a lot, you know, for a long time.
Anya Fernald (1:11:04.960)
I felt very, like everybody waiting for me to fail
Lex Fridman (1:11:11.600)
or watching and assuming that I was like,
Anya Fernald (1:11:14.520)
just good at marketing or whatever else.
Lex Fridman (1:11:17.240)
And so it's taken me a while to not internalize that.
Anya Fernald (1:11:27.480)
I think the only reason I'm here
Lex Fridman (1:11:31.200)
is we have our own supply chain in Slaughterhouse.
Lex Fridman (1:11:34.920)
And I think had I really been playing
Lex Fridman (1:11:36.320)
in the broader meat industry,
Anya Fernald (1:11:37.320)
it would have been a shorter journey.
Lex Fridman (1:11:38.780)
You know, it would have been very hard
Anya Fernald (1:11:40.040)
to make it even get to this phase.
Lex Fridman (1:11:42.440)
But I do, you know, I think the mission is my life's work.
Anya Fernald (1:11:54.560)
The mission of cleaner ingredients that tastes so amazing.
Lex Fridman (1:11:59.920)
You don't need to do too much to them.
Anya Fernald (1:12:02.400)
You know, I like creating food
Lex Fridman (1:12:04.720)
that's in support of good health.
Lex Fridman (1:12:07.680)
And then secondary to that, it's the environment,
Lex Fridman (1:12:10.080)
but I want healthy food to be a joy to eat, right?
Lex Fridman (1:12:13.600)
And that's, you know, creating innovation in the space
Lex Fridman (1:12:20.840)
for this company has been about building a brand
Anya Fernald (1:12:23.980)
that people understand and is transparent
Lex Fridman (1:12:26.240)
and that people believe in in an industry
Anya Fernald (1:12:28.560)
that's broadly perceived of as pretty corrupt.
Lex Fridman (1:12:30.800)
So those are things I feel enormously proud of.
Lex Fridman (1:12:33.560)
So you focused on the mission and the pushback,
Lex Fridman (1:12:37.280)
all the mess of the industry.
Anya Fernald (1:12:40.920)
You try not to internalize it,
Lex Fridman (1:12:42.120)
trying not to let it affect you and focus on the mission.
Anya Fernald (1:12:44.200)
You know, and it's in the joy of it
Lex Fridman (1:12:46.220)
and the part where it's gotten fun for me
Anya Fernald (1:12:49.280)
has been returning to what I love about it.
Lex Fridman (1:12:51.760)
And I've only had the privilege
Anya Fernald (1:12:53.100)
of doing that pretty recently.
Lex Fridman (1:12:55.800)
So I think for me personally, you know, starting,
Anya Fernald (1:12:58.880)
I host these events on the farm called Meat Camps,
Lex Fridman (1:13:01.880)
where I cook and teach people to cook
Anya Fernald (1:13:03.720)
and, you know, taste and talk about flavor
Lex Fridman (1:13:06.400)
and all the like sensual aspects of it that are my fire.
Anya Fernald (1:13:10.320)
Like, thank goodness I did that stuff
Lex Fridman (1:13:12.080)
because otherwise it was just such a beating.
Anya Fernald (1:13:14.400)
You know, so there were parts of it
Lex Fridman (1:13:15.440)
where I got to feed my fire.
Lex Fridman (1:13:17.200)
And then now in the, you know, the past year,
Lex Fridman (1:13:19.600)
since resigning, I've been, I do all the recipe development.
Anya Fernald (1:13:22.200)
I shoot all the content.
Lex Fridman (1:13:23.600)
I, you know, taste product.
Anya Fernald (1:13:25.020)
I'm developing all of our new products.
Lex Fridman (1:13:26.840)
I launched our meatballs.
Anya Fernald (1:13:27.840)
I'm just about to launch our chicken meatballs,
Lex Fridman (1:13:29.660)
doing a high protein bone broth.
Anya Fernald (1:13:31.480)
Like those are, that's why I did this
Lex Fridman (1:13:34.160)
was to be able to build this great product
Anya Fernald (1:13:36.680)
that I could build on.
Lex Fridman (1:13:37.960)
So I'm kind of at that place now,
Lex Fridman (1:13:40.160)
but it's taken a lot longer.
Lex Fridman (1:13:41.360)
And I think, you know, looking at the landscape
Anya Fernald (1:13:43.960)
of what to do in food, this is definitely,
Lex Fridman (1:13:48.400)
we tackled the most complicated problem.
Anya Fernald (1:13:52.920)
That I can imagine, you know, I did it like
Lex Fridman (1:13:55.660)
in the most old fashioned way, right?
Lex Fridman (1:13:57.640)
So it's been super complex.
Lex Fridman (1:13:59.520)
And then I also look at it and I'm like, yeah,
Lex Fridman (1:14:00.880)
and it's been messy and it's gonna continue to be hard,
Lex Fridman (1:14:03.720)
but I'm proud of having tackled the hard problems.
Lex Fridman (1:14:07.080)
So the hard problem here is not
Lex Fridman (1:14:08.560)
in the space of technologies.
Anya Fernald (1:14:10.560)
It's in the space of bringing something
Lex Fridman (1:14:13.680)
that we've done for a long, long time in our human history
Lex Fridman (1:14:17.400)
and scaling it in the face
Lex Fridman (1:14:21.160)
of all the other economic pressures.
Anya Fernald (1:14:24.400)
Like doing so successfully,
Lex Fridman (1:14:25.980)
also communicating to the rest of the world
Anya Fernald (1:14:27.760)
that this is a powerful solution.
Lex Fridman (1:14:29.600)
So inspiring the rest of the world that regenerative farming,
Anya Fernald (1:14:32.360)
like running a company in this kind of way
Lex Fridman (1:14:34.960)
that's humane for animals, good for the land,
Anya Fernald (1:14:38.120)
good for people, even if it costs,
Lex Fridman (1:14:41.100)
like if there's an increased cost to the meat,
Anya Fernald (1:14:44.040)
even if that, if you have a broader vision
Lex Fridman (1:14:46.120)
that means eating less meat overall,
Anya Fernald (1:14:48.920)
that that is like inspiring the world
Lex Fridman (1:14:52.240)
that this is a future we want.
Lex Fridman (1:14:54.640)
And just taking that on and getting that done.
Lex Fridman (1:14:58.800)
Got a chance to eat a little bit of cheese,
Anya Fernald (1:15:00.980)
which is a good opportunity
Lex Fridman (1:15:03.680)
to talk about your experience in Italy.
Anya Fernald (1:15:06.400)
You spent some time, or as south of Europe,
Lex Fridman (1:15:08.720)
I'm not sure if it was Italy.
Anya Fernald (1:15:09.920)
Yeah, I lived in Italy, but.
Lex Fridman (1:15:11.440)
And there's cheese involved, right?
Anya Fernald (1:15:14.760)
Like what did you take away from that experience,
Lex Fridman (1:15:18.860)
both as a chef and as a human being?
Anya Fernald (1:15:21.600)
I moved to Europe right after my early 20s
Lex Fridman (1:15:25.540)
and I worked as a cheese maker.
Lex Fridman (1:15:27.560)
And I lived in really small rural farms
Lex Fridman (1:15:32.520)
in the countryside.
Lex Fridman (1:15:34.920)
And I got up early and milked animals, made cheese.
Lex Fridman (1:15:39.400)
And I got to live in a traditional agricultural society
Lex Fridman (1:15:44.680)
and learn how they ate.
Lex Fridman (1:15:48.360)
So it shaped me as a cook
Anya Fernald (1:15:50.520)
because it was a chance to have incredible ingredients,
Lex Fridman (1:15:55.520)
learn how to cook very simple food.
Anya Fernald (1:15:58.000)
I had been immersed in thought
Lex Fridman (1:15:59.640)
that I wanted to be like a chefy chef, right?
Anya Fernald (1:16:02.760)
Because I love food and I love cooking
Lex Fridman (1:16:04.240)
and I was just drawn to that world.
Lex Fridman (1:16:06.880)
But I don't like the experience
Lex Fridman (1:16:09.880)
of that sort of like fancy food experience
Anya Fernald (1:16:11.440)
is not what is exciting for me about it.
Lex Fridman (1:16:15.400)
So I loved working in that environment
Anya Fernald (1:16:18.960)
because I got to eat lunches and dinners
Lex Fridman (1:16:21.880)
and everything with the farm that I lived in.
Anya Fernald (1:16:24.720)
The farm that I lived on
Lex Fridman (1:16:26.400)
and just very traditional, simple way to eat.
Anya Fernald (1:16:31.080)
The other piece of it is I went to high school in the 90s,
Lex Fridman (1:16:34.760)
child of like the low fat generation, right?
Lex Fridman (1:16:37.720)
And it was just really liberating and amazing
Lex Fridman (1:16:40.500)
to eat tons of super fatty foods
Lex Fridman (1:16:43.920)
and olive oil all over the place
Lex Fridman (1:16:46.680)
and bleak slabs of bread and salami
Lex Fridman (1:16:48.800)
and being this like vibrant health,
Lex Fridman (1:16:50.580)
like be leaner, you know, happy, no skin stuff,
Anya Fernald (1:16:55.320)
you know, stop getting split ends.
Lex Fridman (1:16:57.680)
Like I stopped having flaky nails,
Anya Fernald (1:16:59.360)
like just stuff that had bothered me my whole life,
Lex Fridman (1:17:02.220)
including like just moodiness.
Lex Fridman (1:17:04.400)
And that all just changed.
Lex Fridman (1:17:05.960)
And granted, I was also like living on a farm in Italy
Lex Fridman (1:17:08.520)
and getting up with the sunlight.
Lex Fridman (1:17:10.500)
And like there were lots of great aspects of my life as well
Anya Fernald (1:17:14.440)
that happened in that time.
Lex Fridman (1:17:15.600)
But I was just immersed in this diet
Anya Fernald (1:17:18.280)
that I realized like, man, this is so simple.
Lex Fridman (1:17:20.520)
And I also loved that I had like, you know,
Anya Fernald (1:17:23.600)
you'd have dinner and it was just like some ricotta cheese
Lex Fridman (1:17:26.520)
with some olive oil, some bread
Lex Fridman (1:17:27.880)
and like a bowl of fava beans.
Lex Fridman (1:17:30.960)
It's like, that's dinner.
Lex Fridman (1:17:32.400)
And it kind of broke down my assumptions too
Lex Fridman (1:17:34.640)
about like dinner always has to be this, you know,
Anya Fernald (1:17:37.200)
a protein and a vegetable and, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:17:38.880)
being more fluid and more seasonal was exciting for me.
Lex Fridman (1:17:43.400)
So I just learned kind of a lot about paying attention
Lex Fridman (1:17:46.840)
to food, simple preparation
Lex Fridman (1:17:49.640)
and the vibrancy of health that I personally experienced
Lex Fridman (1:17:54.980)
kind of made me double down on that.
Anya Fernald (1:17:58.120)
Our mutual friend, Andrew Huberman,
Lex Fridman (1:18:01.360)
mentioned something offline to me
Anya Fernald (1:18:02.880)
about something involving the mob.
Lex Fridman (1:18:06.020)
Oh yeah.
Anya Fernald (1:18:06.860)
Is there something you could share or is this,
Lex Fridman (1:18:09.040)
or are people going to hurt if you share this?
Anya Fernald (1:18:11.960)
It's far enough in the rear view mirror.
Lex Fridman (1:18:13.600)
I mean, I was hired by this group in Sicily on,
Lex Fridman (1:18:18.600)
and this is, you know, I was all of like 21 years old
Lex Fridman (1:18:23.640)
and to get a permit to work there,
Anya Fernald (1:18:26.040)
you have to show that you have a competency
Lex Fridman (1:18:28.000)
that nobody else in Italy has.
Lex Fridman (1:18:30.060)
And that competency for Anya Fernald at the time
Lex Fridman (1:18:32.520)
was cheese expert.
Lex Fridman (1:18:33.840)
So it was like, stupid American girl being like,
Lex Fridman (1:18:36.840)
going to the consulate.
Lex Fridman (1:18:37.840)
So I already knew that it was like,
Lex Fridman (1:18:38.920)
there was something wobbly about this organization,
Lex Fridman (1:18:41.020)
but I wanted to work for them.
Lex Fridman (1:18:42.720)
And my boss from that time did end up in federal prison
Anya Fernald (1:18:47.720)
for corruption many years later, embezzlement primarily.
Lex Fridman (1:18:53.280)
But, so I was definitely in an environment
Anya Fernald (1:18:56.000)
that was answering to multiple masters.
Lex Fridman (1:18:59.320)
That's a nice way to put it.
Anya Fernald (1:19:01.580)
It was, I couldn't have asked for a better way
Lex Fridman (1:19:04.680)
to kind of get with life and understand
Lex Fridman (1:19:07.840)
how things happen in the world though.
Lex Fridman (1:19:09.800)
You know, of learning as somebody who tends
Anya Fernald (1:19:13.800)
to be super direct and not very subtle,
Lex Fridman (1:19:17.560)
it was amazing to be in this world
Anya Fernald (1:19:19.120)
where like everybody communicates in multiple levels.
Lex Fridman (1:19:22.120)
Like we're going to lunch with my boss,
Anya Fernald (1:19:24.900)
with somebody we're gonna do a business deal with
Lex Fridman (1:19:26.560)
and by the, they ordered a glass of wine
Lex Fridman (1:19:30.440)
and with that order communicated like, disappointment.
Lex Fridman (1:19:35.120)
Because that, the father of the person
Anya Fernald (1:19:36.720)
who had made that wine had offended that other guys.
Lex Fridman (1:19:39.800)
I like that level of stuff, like nothing happened directly.
Lex Fridman (1:19:42.360)
I'm like, what are we talking about afterwards?
Lex Fridman (1:19:43.440)
I'm like, what happened that lunch?
Anya Fernald (1:19:44.380)
It's like, oh, I just, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:19:45.620)
I told him this by ordering that, whatever.
Anya Fernald (1:19:47.760)
You know, that kind of thing.
Lex Fridman (1:19:48.600)
So understand that there's different ways of communicating.
Lex Fridman (1:19:52.160)
But it was also, you know, it was interesting to see.
Lex Fridman (1:19:56.880)
And I think I, you know, it's kind of the struggle
Anya Fernald (1:19:58.680)
that I've lived again and again in my life.
Lex Fridman (1:20:01.040)
Fundamentally, what we were doing in that operation
Anya Fernald (1:20:03.600)
was there's a very traditional cheese
Lex Fridman (1:20:05.920)
called the Raguzano cheese in Southeastern Sicily
Anya Fernald (1:20:08.720)
where I lived, Ragusa.
Lex Fridman (1:20:09.720)
And it was about scaling that operation.
Lex Fridman (1:20:12.080)
So it was European Union money
Lex Fridman (1:20:14.280)
that my boss was also unfortunately using for other things.
Lex Fridman (1:20:16.360)
But fundamentally it was to take that,
Lex Fridman (1:20:19.720)
this type of very small scale cheese,
Anya Fernald (1:20:21.520)
get them exported, help them scale.
Lex Fridman (1:20:22.840)
And we did it.
Lex Fridman (1:20:23.680)
And it was really challenging.
Lex Fridman (1:20:24.760)
And I learned a lot about the safety issues
Lex Fridman (1:20:27.160)
and collaboration issues
Lex Fridman (1:20:28.960)
and creating groups of farmers for scale.
Lex Fridman (1:20:31.240)
So it's kind of been doing the same thing again and again.
Lex Fridman (1:20:34.720)
But Sicily, it, you know,
Anya Fernald (1:20:37.640)
it was also just the first place
Lex Fridman (1:20:39.260)
where I would regularly forage for food.
Anya Fernald (1:20:44.440)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:20:45.280)
You know, like there I'd go to friends houses
Lex Fridman (1:20:48.360)
and we'd like go out and pick nettles
Lex Fridman (1:20:50.480)
or go out and pick wild asparagus.
Lex Fridman (1:20:52.080)
So every season there were stuff that you'd be gathering.
Lex Fridman (1:20:54.160)
And that was just part of how you lived.
Lex Fridman (1:20:55.920)
And it was part of your health.
Lex Fridman (1:20:57.520)
So that was, I just learned a ton in that time
Anya Fernald (1:21:00.380)
about like simple eating and really that healthy food,
Lex Fridman (1:21:05.380)
the simpler it is, the better, right?
Anya Fernald (1:21:08.380)
Like this sort of sense that healthy food
Lex Fridman (1:21:10.280)
isn't in a tiny package, granola bar,
Anya Fernald (1:21:12.040)
lots of labels, lots of powders.
Lex Fridman (1:21:13.360)
It's like the more simple, essential,
Anya Fernald (1:21:14.760)
closer to the land can actually lead to optimal health.
Lex Fridman (1:21:17.120)
You've learned to appreciate the simplicity of food,
Anya Fernald (1:21:19.520)
the beauty within the simplicity.
Lex Fridman (1:21:22.920)
I think it's because it was the first time
Anya Fernald (1:21:23.760)
that I had amazing food quality.
Lex Fridman (1:21:28.280)
Okay.
Anya Fernald (1:21:29.120)
Cause in the, where I grew up,
Lex Fridman (1:21:31.200)
there wasn't that food quality.
Anya Fernald (1:21:32.800)
Like I had some stuff from my garden and things
Lex Fridman (1:21:36.960)
that were great, but that's the kind of place
Anya Fernald (1:21:38.600)
where when artichokes in season,
Lex Fridman (1:21:39.800)
all of a sudden there's guys selling artichokes
Anya Fernald (1:21:42.700)
on their bicycles in the street
Lex Fridman (1:21:44.520)
and they're just fresh picked and you'd get that one thing
Anya Fernald (1:21:47.000)
or the torpedo onions or they like,
Lex Fridman (1:21:48.760)
so there's a seasonality and celebration of things
Anya Fernald (1:21:50.680)
in their peak moment.
Lex Fridman (1:21:51.860)
And you would just have that one thing.
Lex Fridman (1:21:53.920)
And that was the first time I'd ever eaten in that way.
Lex Fridman (1:21:56.800)
You were a judge several times on Iron Chef.
Lex Fridman (1:22:00.400)
How do you judge a good meal, like what your own,
Lex Fridman (1:22:05.080)
other people's, like what rating system is good?
Anya Fernald (1:22:09.920)
I mean, I go on experience and think about how many
Lex Fridman (1:22:11.800)
of your like most memorable, fantastic meals
Anya Fernald (1:22:13.920)
are like three star Michelin meals.
Lex Fridman (1:22:16.280)
It's more about the experience, right?
Lex Fridman (1:22:17.960)
It's more about that slow down, who are you with?
Lex Fridman (1:22:20.620)
And some of our best meals are like the most simple things.
Lex Fridman (1:22:23.680)
So Iron Chef, those were fun experiences.
Lex Fridman (1:22:28.080)
It's a lot of sous vide though.
Anya Fernald (1:22:29.600)
It's a lot of sauces.
Lex Fridman (1:22:31.200)
It's a lot of powders.
Anya Fernald (1:22:32.580)
I mean, it's kind of like magic food.
Lex Fridman (1:22:34.280)
So that's not, I mean, it's incredible
Anya Fernald (1:22:37.000)
to watch it as science, but I don't know
Lex Fridman (1:22:39.440)
if those are my most memorable meals.
Lex Fridman (1:22:41.440)
So the experience is how you judge a good meal.
Lex Fridman (1:22:44.160)
For you personally, if you were a judge
Anya Fernald (1:22:45.800)
of the entirety of the human experience
Lex Fridman (1:22:48.320)
in terms of the culinary journey,
Anya Fernald (1:22:50.660)
that would be like the people you're eating with,
Lex Fridman (1:22:53.160)
the environment, like how you feel,
Anya Fernald (1:22:56.560)
the journey, the building up to that meal, the whole thing.
Lex Fridman (1:22:59.680)
You can't separate it out.
Anya Fernald (1:23:00.680)
When I was learning as an apprentice cheese maker in Greece,
Lex Fridman (1:23:06.800)
one of the best meals of my life
Anya Fernald (1:23:08.160)
is like a bowl of cold sheep milk yogurt
Lex Fridman (1:23:10.840)
with like a crust of cold fat on top.
Lex Fridman (1:23:13.080)
So like the way that these fatty,
Lex Fridman (1:23:15.000)
sheep milk can have double the percentage
Anya Fernald (1:23:17.240)
of fat than cow milk.
Lex Fridman (1:23:18.440)
So like there's the yogurt and then there's this crust
Anya Fernald (1:23:20.400)
of fat and then they pour the fresh honey over the top
Lex Fridman (1:23:23.540)
and you just eat like this bowl of probably top five meals
Lex Fridman (1:23:27.680)
of my life, right?
Lex Fridman (1:23:29.460)
I mean, that's the simplicity, it's just the best thing.
Lex Fridman (1:23:31.920)
And it was the fact that it's in Terracotta
Lex Fridman (1:23:33.520)
and I'd had this amazing day
Lex Fridman (1:23:34.840)
and all of these things come together,
Lex Fridman (1:23:36.780)
but I still remember that feeling.
Lex Fridman (1:23:38.000)
And I think most of us have those like really great
Lex Fridman (1:23:40.780)
sensual memories of food and they're not about necessarily
Anya Fernald (1:23:45.480)
that one fancy over the top restaurant or something.
Lex Fridman (1:23:49.440)
It's really about the cold context of enjoyment.
Anya Fernald (1:23:52.680)
Maybe you can help me with something.
Lex Fridman (1:23:54.480)
So I think Offline said that we're both introverts a bit,
Lex Fridman (1:23:58.440)
but I certainly find joy in repetition.
Lex Fridman (1:24:04.400)
So I kind of hide away as an introvert
Lex Fridman (1:24:07.080)
and eat the same thing over and over and over again.
Lex Fridman (1:24:09.840)
But at the same time, I had this conversation
Anya Fernald (1:24:11.920)
with Tyler Cohen, who's an economist,
Lex Fridman (1:24:14.160)
but he's also a food critic.
Anya Fernald (1:24:15.960)
He writes these incredible posts about different foods.
Lex Fridman (1:24:19.580)
And we had this conversation about
Lex Fridman (1:24:23.520)
what his last meal would be.
Lex Fridman (1:24:24.920)
If he had to choose, like what is the best meal
Lex Fridman (1:24:26.840)
he's ever eaten that he would want to eat?
Lex Fridman (1:24:29.740)
And he had a good answer about it.
Anya Fernald (1:24:31.160)
It had to do with experience, I think.
Lex Fridman (1:24:33.000)
For him, it was a particular Mexican restaurant
Lex Fridman (1:24:35.380)
and it had in Mexico because of the ingredients,
Lex Fridman (1:24:37.680)
because of the experience, because of the work it took
Anya Fernald (1:24:40.000)
to get there and all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:24:42.120)
But it also made me realize, like when I was going home
Anya Fernald (1:24:44.720)
after that conversation, that I couldn't answer
Lex Fridman (1:24:47.800)
that question myself, like what is the best meal
Lex Fridman (1:24:50.560)
I've ever eaten?
Lex Fridman (1:24:51.600)
Because I really haven't experienced much.
Lex Fridman (1:24:54.680)
And so it almost was like a challenge to myself.
Lex Fridman (1:24:58.020)
Like I feel like I should journey out a little bit more
Anya Fernald (1:25:00.920)
in this life and try stuff.
Lex Fridman (1:25:03.680)
And to try to see like what is the best meal
Lex Fridman (1:25:07.780)
for me in the world?
Lex Fridman (1:25:09.820)
You know, like both the experience and the taste, right?
Lex Fridman (1:25:13.440)
So I was kind of wondering, first I'd love to ask you
Lex Fridman (1:25:16.100)
like what your last meal would be
Lex Fridman (1:25:18.140)
or what is the greatest meal you've ever eaten?
Lex Fridman (1:25:20.880)
But also, and you're still very young,
Lex Fridman (1:25:23.400)
and so there's still more experiences to be had, right?
Lex Fridman (1:25:28.340)
And for me, like how do you go about finding
Lex Fridman (1:25:31.480)
the best meal in the world?
Lex Fridman (1:25:34.040)
Is there a device you could give essentially?
Lex Fridman (1:25:38.460)
There's that sense of anticipation, right?
Lex Fridman (1:25:42.320)
So if it's the best meal, I'd say for you,
Anya Fernald (1:25:46.920)
it would need to be on the heels of something
Lex Fridman (1:25:49.700)
where you'd pushed yourself with a fast
Lex Fridman (1:25:52.240)
or with an athletic event, right?
Lex Fridman (1:25:54.040)
Or something like you would be coming into it
Anya Fernald (1:25:56.460)
with a sense of anticipation because of deprivation.
Lex Fridman (1:25:59.200)
You'd be hungry for it in a bigger sense of the word,
Anya Fernald (1:26:01.560)
like hungry for deep nutrition on your soul level
Lex Fridman (1:26:04.140)
as well as your belly.
Lex Fridman (1:26:05.460)
So I'd say that you'd have to think about it
Lex Fridman (1:26:06.880)
as a phase of things, like multiple things.
Lex Fridman (1:26:09.980)
And then I also think, you love meat, you love cheese.
Lex Fridman (1:26:14.240)
You have to have some things that come together, right?
Anya Fernald (1:26:16.760)
Like there's gotta be some specific elements
Lex Fridman (1:26:19.160)
of just your favorite flavors in that.
Lex Fridman (1:26:21.720)
But there could be flavors yet to be discovered.
Lex Fridman (1:26:23.520)
That's a whole other thing because I just emotionally
Lex Fridman (1:26:28.120)
and physically feel good on meat,
Lex Fridman (1:26:29.660)
but that doesn't mean like maybe like a rice based dish,
Anya Fernald (1:26:34.620)
like sushi or something like that,
Lex Fridman (1:26:36.760)
or Indian cuisine where it's like sauces
Lex Fridman (1:26:39.400)
and the breads and whatever.
Lex Fridman (1:26:40.840)
I love that stuff too.
Lex Fridman (1:26:42.120)
So we're not talking about like a meal is an experience
Lex Fridman (1:26:46.460)
that could be like a one night stand,
Lex Fridman (1:26:49.640)
but with a piece of food, right?
Lex Fridman (1:26:52.400)
It could be a totally different
Anya Fernald (1:26:53.880)
than what actually makes you feel good
Lex Fridman (1:26:56.040)
when you eat it every day.
Anya Fernald (1:26:57.360)
Yeah, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (1:26:58.520)
Completely, completely analogous.
Anya Fernald (1:27:00.420)
I get that.
Lex Fridman (1:27:01.260)
I mean, you also though, there's elements of comfort
Lex Fridman (1:27:03.160)
and love and those different pieces for you.
Lex Fridman (1:27:05.400)
But I think you gotta look at like,
Lex Fridman (1:27:07.720)
where would you go somewhere?
Lex Fridman (1:27:09.640)
Like would you go to a place where you could hike in Japan
Lex Fridman (1:27:13.240)
and then end up in a little place where you eat something?
Lex Fridman (1:27:15.720)
That's where I would think you were gonna have
Anya Fernald (1:27:17.160)
that magic moment.
Lex Fridman (1:27:18.600)
Maybe someplace you go to Mongolia
Lex Fridman (1:27:20.120)
and you're in a really extreme environment
Lex Fridman (1:27:22.500)
for three or four days,
Lex Fridman (1:27:23.400)
and then you come back and you're in a farm
Lex Fridman (1:27:25.700)
and you get something on the table that's a surprise
Lex Fridman (1:27:27.720)
and you're hungry.
Lex Fridman (1:27:28.560)
Like that's gonna be the moment where you're gonna explode
Anya Fernald (1:27:32.040)
in the instance of like the culinary level
Lex Fridman (1:27:34.940)
for Alexa levels up, right?
Anya Fernald (1:27:36.560)
That's the journey for you.
Lex Fridman (1:27:37.560)
But it has to be, I think from understanding you,
Anya Fernald (1:27:39.960)
like a combination of that pushing yourself anticipation
Lex Fridman (1:27:44.600)
and something about the, exactly, and the environment.
Anya Fernald (1:27:47.920)
Well, I definitely, definitely,
Lex Fridman (1:27:50.240)
like some fasting is part of a great meal for me.
Lex Fridman (1:27:53.400)
So like 24 hours is like the minimum.
Lex Fridman (1:27:56.640)
You're more sensitive to the richness of any experience
Anya Fernald (1:28:01.000)
for me when I fast 24 hours.
Lex Fridman (1:28:04.880)
And so that's a requirement.
Anya Fernald (1:28:06.400)
For a good meal is 24 hour fast, I think.
Lex Fridman (1:28:10.120)
It's just like you're able to taste,
Anya Fernald (1:28:11.640)
I don't know, maybe it's psychological,
Lex Fridman (1:28:13.120)
but you're able to disassemble the various flavors
Anya Fernald (1:28:17.600)
in a meal as simple as like even a chicken breast.
Lex Fridman (1:28:20.320)
There's all kinds of flavors going on.
Anya Fernald (1:28:22.100)
Because like when you cook a chicken breast,
Lex Fridman (1:28:24.280)
there's like the outside, the inside.
Anya Fernald (1:28:26.900)
I mean, the volume of the meat tastes different
Lex Fridman (1:28:29.340)
as you eat like the different fibers.
Lex Fridman (1:28:31.680)
And you can like tell all those differences as you're eating
Lex Fridman (1:28:34.640)
when you're fasting, and you can appreciate that.
Lex Fridman (1:28:37.520)
And of course, you're right,
Lex Fridman (1:28:38.760)
part of the journey is important.
Anya Fernald (1:28:40.640)
It makes me think like whether restaurants
Lex Fridman (1:28:42.880)
is the right place to explore or what.
Anya Fernald (1:28:45.840)
I'm envisioning it on a farm for you.
Lex Fridman (1:28:47.960)
And I'm envisioning it in a place
Anya Fernald (1:28:49.280)
that's like really into ag and food.
Lex Fridman (1:28:51.920)
You know, like even a place like Romania.
Lex Fridman (1:28:54.040)
You know, like they have incredible farms, right?
Lex Fridman (1:28:56.300)
Where it's not gonna get any like fancy restaurants there,
Lex Fridman (1:28:58.840)
but you're probably gonna have some amazing little cheeses
Lex Fridman (1:29:02.360)
and cured meats, and you might go to some, you know,
Anya Fernald (1:29:04.800)
have some experience and end up in a place
Lex Fridman (1:29:06.400)
with like four things on the plate
Lex Fridman (1:29:07.600)
and each of them blows your mind.
Lex Fridman (1:29:09.120)
You know, like, or Japan is another place like that.
Anya Fernald (1:29:12.000)
I think Vietnam, Laos, like, I mean, those are countries
Lex Fridman (1:29:14.560)
where there's like these incredible niche ingredients
Lex Fridman (1:29:16.600)
and this essentialism around food.
Lex Fridman (1:29:18.960)
That's fascinating.
Anya Fernald (1:29:19.800)
Or maybe it's in Russia with Putin.
Lex Fridman (1:29:21.800)
That might be the best meal in the world.
Anya Fernald (1:29:23.240)
With him on the farm.
Lex Fridman (1:29:24.080)
Yeah, that'd be, it's hard to reproduce that.
Anya Fernald (1:29:27.640)
If that is in fact a good meal, it'd be, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:29:29.920)
it's hard to get them out to the farm,
Lex Fridman (1:29:32.400)
but maybe one time they'd be the best meal.
Lex Fridman (1:29:34.760)
What about you?
Anya Fernald (1:29:35.720)
For me, like it's the ingredients that I associate
Lex Fridman (1:29:39.840)
with like indulgence, like be fresh bread
Anya Fernald (1:29:42.280)
with like my favorite cultured butter on it,
Lex Fridman (1:29:44.520)
be food of my childhood.
Anya Fernald (1:29:46.360)
I grew up in Oregon.
Lex Fridman (1:29:47.320)
We always had salmon and I smoked salmon or salmon eggs,
Anya Fernald (1:29:50.440)
like really good salmon eggs.
Lex Fridman (1:29:51.740)
I love cheese.
Anya Fernald (1:29:52.580)
I love goat cheese.
Lex Fridman (1:29:53.420)
I love all kinds of cheese.
Anya Fernald (1:29:54.380)
There'd be cheese.
Lex Fridman (1:29:55.440)
I love meat, obviously.
Anya Fernald (1:29:56.560)
I'm imagining it's sort of like an abundance
Lex Fridman (1:29:59.040)
of like 10 things I love.
Anya Fernald (1:30:00.200)
It's not a dish.
Lex Fridman (1:30:01.040)
You know, it's like all the yummy things.
Anya Fernald (1:30:02.040)
All of your indulgences on the same plate, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:30:04.840)
And there isn't like, for me, there's not like a big cake
Anya Fernald (1:30:07.040)
or something super like that.
Lex Fridman (1:30:08.080)
It's like really yummy things that I love,
Anya Fernald (1:30:10.880)
like really fresh, crusty, delicious bread that's warm
Lex Fridman (1:30:13.520)
and it's got a bunch of butter on it
Lex Fridman (1:30:14.760)
and I can put some salt on it and eat a big slab of that.
Lex Fridman (1:30:17.280)
That's just, that's where I'm at.
Anya Fernald (1:30:19.300)
That's funny.
Lex Fridman (1:30:20.140)
And so meat to you is not like one of those indulgences?
Anya Fernald (1:30:24.480)
Oh, definitely.
Lex Fridman (1:30:25.320)
There'd definitely be steak there too.
Anya Fernald (1:30:26.400)
I'm just imagining not like there isn't a specific dish.
Lex Fridman (1:30:28.440)
It's like eight or 10 things, right?
Anya Fernald (1:30:30.440)
It's the fresh bread.
Lex Fridman (1:30:31.960)
It's something like fishy, yummy,
Anya Fernald (1:30:34.000)
probably be really good fresh berries too.
Lex Fridman (1:30:36.900)
There'd be a steak or a pork chop
Anya Fernald (1:30:38.960)
or something like meaty and delicious and savory.
Lex Fridman (1:30:42.480)
There'd be some cheese,
Anya Fernald (1:30:43.640)
just a bunch of different things that I love to eat
Lex Fridman (1:30:46.160)
that like all kind of check boxes for me
Anya Fernald (1:30:48.040)
is probably what would make me happiest.
Lex Fridman (1:30:49.660)
I'm afraid of variety.
Anya Fernald (1:30:51.680)
I like the focus when you can just,
Lex Fridman (1:30:53.620)
this is all you have,
Anya Fernald (1:30:54.460)
the scarcity of just this is the one ingredient
Lex Fridman (1:30:57.640)
and really appreciating it or maybe one thing,
Anya Fernald (1:31:01.760)
like one full complex flavor, whatever the heck that is.
Lex Fridman (1:31:06.040)
It's like the distraction,
Anya Fernald (1:31:08.440)
the serial dating nature of having a bunch of things
Lex Fridman (1:31:11.560)
on a plate is, yeah,
Anya Fernald (1:31:15.000)
for some reason that prevents me
Lex Fridman (1:31:16.860)
from fully enjoying any one of them.
Anya Fernald (1:31:19.280)
I don't know why that is.
Lex Fridman (1:31:20.800)
The more healthy way to do it is the variety.
Anya Fernald (1:31:23.160)
Your way is the healthier way to do it.
Lex Fridman (1:31:25.840)
Is alcohol involved?
Anya Fernald (1:31:27.600)
I don't drink very much.
Lex Fridman (1:31:29.120)
I like red wine, but I just don't really,
Anya Fernald (1:31:32.760)
I love red wine with good food.
Lex Fridman (1:31:37.680)
I also cofounded a rum business that's an organic rum,
Lex Fridman (1:31:41.560)
so I love that product,
Lex Fridman (1:31:42.760)
but that's not, for me,
Anya Fernald (1:31:44.160)
it's like I'm more interested in the food, I'd say.
Lex Fridman (1:31:49.160)
Is there some connection between your chef life,
Lex Fridman (1:31:52.780)
cooking and music?
Lex Fridman (1:31:54.540)
Does this music have a role in the experience?
Anya Fernald (1:31:57.200)
I love artistic expression,
Lex Fridman (1:31:59.400)
and that's always had a role in my life
Anya Fernald (1:32:02.120)
in the same way I love to paint and draw
Lex Fridman (1:32:03.520)
and all the different things.
Anya Fernald (1:32:05.880)
I was a professional musician when I lived in Sicily,
Lex Fridman (1:32:09.040)
by definition, technicality,
Anya Fernald (1:32:10.600)
because I played in the municipal band.
Lex Fridman (1:32:14.840)
So I would march around the town with all the funerals.
Anya Fernald (1:32:19.400)
I get like 50 euro every time I'd march in a funeral
Lex Fridman (1:32:22.340)
playing my oboe, so it's given me,
Anya Fernald (1:32:24.280)
I like that because I like to,
Lex Fridman (1:32:25.720)
like you were talking about going to farms,
Anya Fernald (1:32:27.000)
like what I quested for was experience and connection,
Lex Fridman (1:32:30.840)
in places where I could learn things.
Anya Fernald (1:32:32.680)
That's been the through line of my learning journey.
Lex Fridman (1:32:34.720)
I've learned things and sought knowledge
Anya Fernald (1:32:36.880)
that I can't get in any conventional learning environment,
Lex Fridman (1:32:40.000)
and so what are the tools that let me do that?
Anya Fernald (1:32:42.100)
It was like being adaptable and comfortable
Lex Fridman (1:32:45.600)
in different cultures,
Lex Fridman (1:32:46.440)
but also having common ground points
Lex Fridman (1:32:48.400)
that allow you to connect with people,
Lex Fridman (1:32:51.320)
so music's one of those things.
Lex Fridman (1:32:52.740)
So I love music, but I also,
Anya Fernald (1:32:56.400)
there's any number of enjoy of food,
Lex Fridman (1:32:57.800)
being able to pitch in and help in the kitchen,
Anya Fernald (1:33:00.480)
you know, like cards,
Lex Fridman (1:33:01.480)
like those are when you're dealing with
Anya Fernald (1:33:02.640)
getting into like farming communities and stuff,
Lex Fridman (1:33:04.680)
that stuff really helps, right?
Lex Fridman (1:33:06.360)
So I basically have cultivated tools
Lex Fridman (1:33:08.380)
that let me drop into places where I can learn,
Lex Fridman (1:33:11.400)
and so those are all kind of a piece.
Lex Fridman (1:33:14.160)
Those are just tools to get in there.
Anya Fernald (1:33:15.920)
That said, we did listen to Justin Bieber earlier today.
Lex Fridman (1:33:19.000)
I need to get more into him.
Anya Fernald (1:33:20.280)
I need to understand the full complexity of the Biebs.
Lex Fridman (1:33:23.560)
You're trying to achieve what hunting stands for,
Lex Fridman (1:33:25.560)
but at a much larger scale,
Lex Fridman (1:33:27.480)
which is what kind of Belcampo stands for,
Lex Fridman (1:33:29.560)
but what are your thoughts on hunting as a source of meat?
Lex Fridman (1:33:32.480)
It's amazing, 100% pro hunting.
Anya Fernald (1:33:35.960)
I think the reason that hunting flips the switch
Lex Fridman (1:33:39.080)
for so many people is because it's the first thing
Anya Fernald (1:33:42.000)
they've had clean meat in their lives.
Lex Fridman (1:33:46.080)
Okay, so I think that the hunter's journey,
Anya Fernald (1:33:48.720)
when people get so turned on by hunting,
Lex Fridman (1:33:51.120)
they're just like, oh my God, I'm never going back.
Anya Fernald (1:33:53.840)
I'm saying that's great if you've got access to that,
Lex Fridman (1:33:56.240)
or if you know the guy who'll give you the backstrap,
Anya Fernald (1:33:57.800)
awesome, but that's not achievable for most of us,
Lex Fridman (1:34:02.640)
and I do think that talking to hunters
Anya Fernald (1:34:04.980)
about their experiences, what they love about it,
Lex Fridman (1:34:07.120)
many of them are just outdoors,
Lex Fridman (1:34:09.000)
and I say that because most of them are men,
Lex Fridman (1:34:10.080)
but most of them love the outdoors aspect of it
Lex Fridman (1:34:11.760)
and being out in the wild,
Lex Fridman (1:34:14.160)
but a lot of them, it's because of how they feel
Anya Fernald (1:34:15.920)
when they eat the meat, and it's because they're eating,
Lex Fridman (1:34:18.480)
I mean, 99% of meat in America is made a very specific way,
Lex Fridman (1:34:22.120)
and it's in a way that is pretty inflammatory,
Lex Fridman (1:34:25.800)
not incredibly delicious, and when you're on that extreme,
Lex Fridman (1:34:30.200)
and then you toggle to having
Lex Fridman (1:34:32.240)
this totally different style of product,
Anya Fernald (1:34:34.280)
it feels radically different in your body,
Lex Fridman (1:34:36.180)
so of course you're like, I'll never go back.
Lex Fridman (1:34:38.420)
So when I talk about us being on that spectrum,
Lex Fridman (1:34:40.640)
it's like, well, it's, hunted meat's,
Anya Fernald (1:34:42.640)
I mean, I can never on any commercial operation
Lex Fridman (1:34:45.760)
create the variety of the biodiversity of species
Anya Fernald (1:34:49.560)
that an elk gets when it's wandering around of its own,
Lex Fridman (1:34:53.120)
I mean, there's no way you can do that on a farm,
Lex Fridman (1:34:55.340)
so there's always gonna be that extra five or 10%
Lex Fridman (1:34:58.720)
that those wild animals are gonna have,
Lex Fridman (1:35:00.880)
and those wild animals also fast for longer,
Lex Fridman (1:35:02.700)
so they go through periods of starvation,
Lex Fridman (1:35:04.360)
and that creates an even slower growth for musculature
Lex Fridman (1:35:07.760)
that's gonna create even more unique flavor
Lex Fridman (1:35:10.800)
and characteristics, so that's why there's that extra
Lex Fridman (1:35:14.220)
in the hunted meat, but you can come a lot closer
Anya Fernald (1:35:18.080)
with regenerative traditional farming
Lex Fridman (1:35:19.880)
to that flavor and health
Anya Fernald (1:35:21.960)
than with any other type of farming I know,
Lex Fridman (1:35:24.000)
so that's where I see it on the spectrum.
Anya Fernald (1:35:25.560)
I love that people are getting excited about game,
Lex Fridman (1:35:29.700)
because it's better for your health,
Anya Fernald (1:35:33.680)
it's got all the same characteristics
Lex Fridman (1:35:35.920)
as regenerative farmed meat,
Lex Fridman (1:35:37.480)
and it gets people turned on to simple, delicious food.
Lex Fridman (1:35:41.280)
You know, you shouldn't have to cover food
Anya Fernald (1:35:44.640)
with sauce that's got corn syrup and soy,
Lex Fridman (1:35:48.560)
a bunch of junk in it to make it palatable.
Anya Fernald (1:35:51.240)
If you gotta put sauce on your food,
Lex Fridman (1:35:52.560)
you need to look at your ingredients.
Anya Fernald (1:35:54.680)
You need to revisit what you're starting from,
Lex Fridman (1:35:57.000)
because if you have to put a bunch of things
Anya Fernald (1:35:59.740)
to mask flavor onto anything you're eating,
Lex Fridman (1:36:02.860)
you're trying to basically fool your palate
Anya Fernald (1:36:04.840)
into doing what's not best for your body.
Lex Fridman (1:36:07.200)
We're trying to tell our palates,
Anya Fernald (1:36:08.800)
like, just make it through this plate
Lex Fridman (1:36:10.120)
so you can get the calories in,
Lex Fridman (1:36:12.020)
and we're masking the fact
Lex Fridman (1:36:13.320)
that we don't actually find it very appetizing.
Lex Fridman (1:36:15.600)
So we're kind of teaching ourselves
Lex Fridman (1:36:17.360)
to overcome our instinct with food.
Anya Fernald (1:36:21.440)
We're saying, here's this kind of bland base substrate,
Lex Fridman (1:36:24.240)
not very interesting, I'm not like sparking to it.
Anya Fernald (1:36:27.280)
Awesome, put sugar and salt on it.
Lex Fridman (1:36:29.400)
This up the hyperprocess flavor profile.
Anya Fernald (1:36:31.440)
Great, done.
Lex Fridman (1:36:32.600)
And then you're sparked to it.
Anya Fernald (1:36:34.380)
That's a very short road,
Lex Fridman (1:36:35.960)
and that's, I think, a lot of the health problems
Anya Fernald (1:36:37.560)
we have now is because we're masking flavors
Lex Fridman (1:36:41.200)
and basically trying to get ourselves
Anya Fernald (1:36:43.080)
to move down this path of the same way
Lex Fridman (1:36:44.600)
we behave around all hyperprocess foods.
Lex Fridman (1:36:46.880)
And that gets us into a mess with our health.
Lex Fridman (1:36:49.220)
So if we can get things like game
Anya Fernald (1:36:51.420)
where people love the flavor out of the gate,
Lex Fridman (1:36:53.760)
but it's natural, simple, mentally processed,
Anya Fernald (1:36:55.720)
that's a win.
Lex Fridman (1:36:56.600)
Yeah, it reverses that hyperprocessing trend
Anya Fernald (1:37:01.400)
that we're on as a human species.
Lex Fridman (1:37:03.940)
And that's the promise of regenerative farming,
Anya Fernald (1:37:07.080)
that's the promise of hunting.
Lex Fridman (1:37:08.160)
Obviously, the former can be scaled,
Lex Fridman (1:37:10.800)
the hunting, I think, cannot be scaled, right?
Lex Fridman (1:37:14.080)
But in many ways, the hunting inspires the world
Anya Fernald (1:37:17.760)
that this is the right way to eat.
Lex Fridman (1:37:19.520)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:37:20.440)
And that naturally leads to then
Lex Fridman (1:37:25.360)
the humane farming, regenerative farming idea,
Anya Fernald (1:37:28.720)
which is this idea that hunting represents.
Lex Fridman (1:37:31.880)
How do you scale that?
Anya Fernald (1:37:33.040)
Well, if you look at, we're talking about
Lex Fridman (1:37:35.560)
people use this sort of marketing language
Anya Fernald (1:37:37.260)
of happy cows or that kind of thing.
Lex Fridman (1:37:39.680)
You're talking about the happiest animals,
Lex Fridman (1:37:40.840)
it's wild animals, right?
Lex Fridman (1:37:42.160)
So if you wonder why these practices are good,
Anya Fernald (1:37:45.400)
talk to hunters.
Lex Fridman (1:37:46.440)
You're talking about animals that have lived
Lex Fridman (1:37:47.960)
in their evolutionary capacity, right?
Lex Fridman (1:37:50.120)
Who have played their role in the ecosystem,
Lex Fridman (1:37:51.500)
who've lived their meaning of life, right?
Lex Fridman (1:37:54.400)
And that's a very powerfully different kind of role
Anya Fernald (1:37:58.480)
than livestock production.
Lex Fridman (1:38:00.680)
So I think if we can make our livestock production
Anya Fernald (1:38:02.960)
as similar to wild as possible,
Lex Fridman (1:38:05.480)
then we're a lot of steps closer.
Lex Fridman (1:38:07.560)
So you said the animals are happiest in the wild
Lex Fridman (1:38:10.480)
and that's where they find meaning.
Lex Fridman (1:38:12.560)
What about us, the human animal?
Lex Fridman (1:38:14.960)
What's the meaning for us, do you think?
Anya Fernald (1:38:17.880)
You've monitored the life cycle of a lot of living beings.
Lex Fridman (1:38:21.920)
You ever look in the mirror and think like,
Lex Fridman (1:38:23.960)
why the hell are we humans here?
Lex Fridman (1:38:27.180)
I mean, thriving, reducing suffering, creating goodness.
Anya Fernald (1:38:32.320)
I mean, those are the things I see in animals behavior.
Lex Fridman (1:38:36.240)
They're mostly interested in reducing suffering
Lex Fridman (1:38:39.880)
and nurturing, right?
Lex Fridman (1:38:42.960)
Those are the things that I think evolutionarily.
Lex Fridman (1:38:45.400)
And we humans are just clever
Lex Fridman (1:38:46.760)
and we wanna be able to try to do that
Anya Fernald (1:38:48.680)
at a bigger and bigger scale.
Lex Fridman (1:38:51.820)
As much as possible, reduce the suffering in the world.
Lex Fridman (1:38:55.260)
And somehow that alleviates us of our own suffering.
Lex Fridman (1:38:58.560)
That's the Russian thing, life is suffering
Lex Fridman (1:39:01.040)
and somehow helping others alleviates it
Lex Fridman (1:39:03.880)
and come up with creative solutions to do that.
Anya Fernald (1:39:07.440)
That's really interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:39:11.120)
It's almost consciousness is the thing
Anya Fernald (1:39:14.400)
that led to suffering, but it also led
Lex Fridman (1:39:17.480)
to the desire to alleviate the suffering.
Anya Fernald (1:39:19.920)
It's a feedback loop.
Lex Fridman (1:39:23.220)
Consciousness creates suffering
Lex Fridman (1:39:24.560)
and the desire to alleviate it.
Lex Fridman (1:39:27.540)
Is there yet a pretty nonlinear life?
Anya Fernald (1:39:30.300)
Your parents were professors.
Lex Fridman (1:39:32.080)
You have done a lot of sort of incredible things
Anya Fernald (1:39:36.660)
that many would say kind of like,
Lex Fridman (1:39:38.820)
how the hell are you gonna get this done?
Anya Fernald (1:39:40.620)
Is there advice you can give to young people today,
Lex Fridman (1:39:44.200)
like high school, college, about how to do,
Lex Fridman (1:39:48.880)
how to live a similarly nonlinear crazy life
Lex Fridman (1:39:51.380)
and accomplish, be as successful as you have been
Lex Fridman (1:39:54.460)
about whether it's just their career or life in general?
Lex Fridman (1:39:59.340)
The greatest gifts I've been given
Anya Fernald (1:40:04.020)
have come from pursuing curiosity.
Lex Fridman (1:40:10.060)
Just trying to understand the thing you're curious about
Lex Fridman (1:40:13.300)
and allowing yourself to be curious about it
Lex Fridman (1:40:14.940)
and just going with it.
Lex Fridman (1:40:16.460)
And also pursuing things that are like deeply joyful for me.
Lex Fridman (1:40:23.300)
Not what society wants, but you just personally,
Anya Fernald (1:40:25.580)
just on your own, you're happy that you did it.
Lex Fridman (1:40:27.020)
And that's something that in the times
Anya Fernald (1:40:28.580)
when I strayed from that, my life has been harder.
Lex Fridman (1:40:33.420)
So it's fundamentally, what are we on earth to do?
Anya Fernald (1:40:37.700)
To live and thrive.
Lex Fridman (1:40:39.160)
And so pursuing things that are curious
Lex Fridman (1:40:45.960)
and satisfying and interesting and joyful
Lex Fridman (1:40:47.900)
and allow me to grow.
Lex Fridman (1:40:50.340)
So I made a number of choices to do things
Lex Fridman (1:40:55.340)
that were more complicated and not considered cool
Anya Fernald (1:41:01.200)
at the time.
Lex Fridman (1:41:02.040)
Although now it's cool to work on farms.
Anya Fernald (1:41:03.560)
It wasn't when I started my career in animal agriculture.
Lex Fridman (1:41:06.560)
And it was like, but just deeply interesting to me.
Lex Fridman (1:41:10.040)
And I felt like there was just lots to learn.
Lex Fridman (1:41:12.400)
And so that's been the path for me
Anya Fernald (1:41:15.360)
is like going for something that's curious and hard
Lex Fridman (1:41:17.960)
and sticking with it and being open to it.
Lex Fridman (1:41:20.640)
And growing elements that give me joy through that.
Lex Fridman (1:41:25.640)
So I also, for people who are starting out
Anya Fernald (1:41:29.640)
in their careers and want to do something different too,
Lex Fridman (1:41:31.360)
it's like, get out of your comfort.
Anya Fernald (1:41:33.920)
Go to a place that you've got something to learn from
Lex Fridman (1:41:35.880)
and let it teach you that.
Lex Fridman (1:41:36.920)
And you'll get beat up.
Lex Fridman (1:41:38.960)
Like I got beat up by that experience.
Anya Fernald (1:41:40.840)
Like it was really hard.
Lex Fridman (1:41:42.640)
I laugh about now working in Sicily for,
Lex Fridman (1:41:46.640)
and the funny experiences I had there, but it was hard.
Lex Fridman (1:41:50.640)
I was lonely and cried a lot.
Anya Fernald (1:41:52.120)
It was stressful.
Lex Fridman (1:41:52.960)
It was like, it was hard.
Anya Fernald (1:41:53.800)
It was really hard.
Lex Fridman (1:41:54.640)
And when you're inside of it,
Anya Fernald (1:41:55.480)
you didn't know how it's going to turn out.
Lex Fridman (1:41:56.880)
You didn't know it's going to turn out well.
Lex Fridman (1:41:57.720)
And I'm like, why didn't I get a job doing something
Lex Fridman (1:42:00.320)
that all my friends are doing?
Lex Fridman (1:42:01.160)
And I didn't speak the language yet.
Lex Fridman (1:42:03.520)
I had to learn foreign language and learn how to function.
Lex Fridman (1:42:06.080)
And it was very lonely and very challenging,
Lex Fridman (1:42:09.000)
but then that's where my resilience started to grow.
Lex Fridman (1:42:12.400)
So the things I learned, they helped me grow.
Lex Fridman (1:42:14.960)
So the things I learned there ended up just being
Anya Fernald (1:42:17.840)
about resilience and understanding the language
Lex Fridman (1:42:21.520)
of subtlety in meaning.
Lex Fridman (1:42:23.400)
So that's something that's carried me through my life.
Lex Fridman (1:42:25.360)
But it was a curiosity about cheese making
Lex Fridman (1:42:27.320)
and about like just living in a village that was there.
Lex Fridman (1:42:29.600)
I'm like, wouldn't it be amazing
Anya Fernald (1:42:30.440)
to just live in a really rural village.
Lex Fridman (1:42:32.240)
And you just went with it.
Lex Fridman (1:42:33.080)
And I just like, this seems incredible
Lex Fridman (1:42:34.520)
and have a place where you can,
Anya Fernald (1:42:36.280)
the people seem interesting, the food seems good.
Lex Fridman (1:42:40.600)
And let's just like try this and see what I can learn.
Lex Fridman (1:42:43.680)
And that like putting yourself out of your comfort zone
Lex Fridman (1:42:47.160)
in a place where you have a chance to learn
Lex Fridman (1:42:48.720)
and grow is the secret.
Lex Fridman (1:42:51.960)
Because it's, you grow through discomfort.
Anya Fernald (1:42:55.080)
People think that you grow when you get
Lex Fridman (1:42:57.600)
into this environment where everything's
Anya Fernald (1:42:58.800)
like kind of sailing along,
Lex Fridman (1:43:00.760)
but like growth actually comes through pain.
Anya Fernald (1:43:03.960)
It's like growth comes from being cut down
Lex Fridman (1:43:06.680)
and beat down and having to regrow and double down.
Lex Fridman (1:43:10.200)
And so that kind of opportunity,
Lex Fridman (1:43:13.200)
you have to seek it out.
Anya Fernald (1:43:14.040)
You have to put yourself in the line of fire a bit.
Lex Fridman (1:43:16.200)
If the situation sucks,
Anya Fernald (1:43:18.280)
it's a sign that you might be doing something right
Lex Fridman (1:43:21.200)
in the sense that you're on the path
Anya Fernald (1:43:23.960)
at the end of which you'll be a better person
Lex Fridman (1:43:26.160)
if you allow yourself to grow in that way.
Anya Fernald (1:43:27.840)
Like as opposed to resisting it,
Lex Fridman (1:43:29.560)
just going along with the journey and persevering.
Lex Fridman (1:43:33.440)
And that ended us up in this incredible place.
Lex Fridman (1:43:37.040)
This whole conversation, I'll probably overlay a video.
Anya Fernald (1:43:40.440)
I'm looking at a gorgeous mountain
Lex Fridman (1:43:43.200)
and it's an incredible farm.
Anya Fernald (1:43:45.440)
Thank you so much for a meal yesterday.
Lex Fridman (1:43:47.320)
That was incredible.
Anya Fernald (1:43:49.400)
The cheese, the fish eggs,
Lex Fridman (1:43:51.400)
just everything about this place.
Anya Fernald (1:43:53.760)
Looking up, you can see the stars.
Lex Fridman (1:43:56.200)
The stars at night are beautiful
Lex Fridman (1:43:58.160)
and there's a peacefulness to it.
Lex Fridman (1:44:00.160)
I had a pretty hard week actually,
Anya Fernald (1:44:02.960)
just emotionally in many ways.
Lex Fridman (1:44:05.480)
And just coming here, it's immediately,
Lex Fridman (1:44:07.240)
so much of it is lifted.
Lex Fridman (1:44:08.360)
So I really deeply appreciate Anya
Anya Fernald (1:44:11.440)
that you would invite me here
Lex Fridman (1:44:13.080)
and that you have this conversation.
Anya Fernald (1:44:15.160)
This was really awesome.
Lex Fridman (1:44:16.240)
So thank you so much.
Anya Fernald (1:44:17.440)
Thank you.
Lex Fridman (1:44:19.600)
Thanks for listening to this conversation
Anya Fernald (1:44:21.160)
with Anya Fernald and thank you to Gala Games,
Lex Fridman (1:44:24.440)
Athletic Greens, Four Sigmatic and Fundrise.
Anya Fernald (1:44:28.600)
Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
Lex Fridman (1:44:32.080)
And now let me leave you with some words
Anya Fernald (1:44:33.880)
from the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.
Lex Fridman (1:44:36.240)
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Anya Fernald (1:44:42.120)
Thank you for listening.
Lex Fridman (1:44:43.160)
I hope to see you next time.
Anya Fernald (20:01.200)
is roasting a whole chicken, which is a really difficult,
Lex Fridman (20:03.800)
it's the simplest dish, but it's very difficult
Anya Fernald (20:05.720)
because you have the breast meat, which is bigger chunks.
Lex Fridman (20:08.640)
They cook faster.
Anya Fernald (20:09.600)
You have the thighs and drums,
Lex Fridman (20:11.440)
which are smaller and they cook slower.
Anya Fernald (20:14.200)
To optimize that and pay attention to it
Lex Fridman (20:16.120)
and do it all right,
Anya Fernald (20:17.240)
you're actually solving for different outcomes.
Lex Fridman (20:19.440)
So there's one example, but oftentimes food
Anya Fernald (20:22.480)
is less delicious with multiple ingredients at the start
Lex Fridman (20:25.360)
because we're not able to pay attention
Anya Fernald (20:27.440)
to how each one needs to end up.
Lex Fridman (20:29.760)
So there's a way to parse that apart
Lex Fridman (20:31.560)
and achieve a better outcome.
Lex Fridman (20:33.840)
I don't know if you've seen Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
Anya Fernald (20:36.240)
It's a documentary about, yeah.
Lex Fridman (20:39.240)
So there's an obsession that that particular,
Anya Fernald (20:43.200)
first of all, set of humans,
Lex Fridman (20:46.480)
but also the particular cuisine
Anya Fernald (20:50.320)
that focused on the basics of the ingredients.
Lex Fridman (20:53.720)
What do you think of that kind of trying to achieve mastery
Anya Fernald (20:56.560)
through repeating the making of the same meal
Lex Fridman (21:00.120)
over and over and over for like decades?
Anya Fernald (21:02.840)
Like, do you find beauty in that journey towards mastery
Lex Fridman (21:06.200)
or do you think it should be always an exploration
Anya Fernald (21:09.560)
to where you're always trying things,
Lex Fridman (21:11.200)
you're always kind of injecting new flavors,
Lex Fridman (21:14.560)
new experiences, all that kind of stuff?
Lex Fridman (21:17.800)
I think you have to decide on a palette.
Anya Fernald (21:19.480)
You know, if we're talking about an art,
Lex Fridman (21:20.960)
it's equivalent to saying, am I a sculptor or a painter?
Anya Fernald (21:24.120)
That, the sushi lexicon thing,
Lex Fridman (21:26.560)
that's a very, very narrow, small canvas
Anya Fernald (21:28.880)
that you're painting on.
Lex Fridman (21:30.080)
And that is a beautiful road, right?
Anya Fernald (21:32.080)
There's a beauty and a perfection to that.
Lex Fridman (21:34.760)
It's like, I mean, there's many things culturally
Anya Fernald (21:36.680)
around that that you could extrapolate
Lex Fridman (21:38.440)
for specifically for Japan.
Lex Fridman (21:40.520)
But I encourage people on the journey in food
Lex Fridman (21:44.400)
to choose like kind of a language
Anya Fernald (21:47.480)
that they're working within.
Lex Fridman (21:49.280)
And if you wanna step out of that occasionally
Lex Fridman (21:51.280)
and have one or two dishes,
Lex Fridman (21:52.960)
but if you wanna get mastery with food,
Anya Fernald (21:55.240)
you probably aren't gonna be able to get more than say,
Lex Fridman (21:58.440)
20 ingredients that you use regularly
Anya Fernald (22:00.560)
that you really understand.
Lex Fridman (22:02.400)
And so we often see, you know, I see the American pantry,
Anya Fernald (22:06.600)
it's got tons of sauces and tons of spices
Lex Fridman (22:08.720)
and tons of spice blends.
Lex Fridman (22:10.560)
And then really people only use just a couple of things.
Lex Fridman (22:13.880)
And the idea that you can sort of splash out
Lex Fridman (22:15.600)
and do Korean one night and then tacos the next night,
Lex Fridman (22:17.760)
you can absolutely, but to get in a regular cadence
Anya Fernald (22:20.680)
of specific ingredients,
Lex Fridman (22:21.640)
you're probably gonna get more mastery with that sooner.
Lex Fridman (22:24.880)
And I think as much as you can do
Lex Fridman (22:27.040)
to get an understanding of the basics around salt and acid
Lex Fridman (22:30.840)
and understand your palette,
Lex Fridman (22:31.880)
like for me, it's lemon and usually sherry vinegar, right?
Lex Fridman (22:34.520)
So that's my acid palette.
Lex Fridman (22:35.880)
And my fat palates, you know, suet and butter, olive oil.
Lex Fridman (22:39.160)
So you can sort of choose your language,
Lex Fridman (22:40.760)
what you're painting with,
Lex Fridman (22:42.320)
but I wouldn't splash out and say, do I use sesame oil?
Lex Fridman (22:44.360)
Yeah, every once in a while,
Lex Fridman (22:45.520)
but that's not part of my base palette, right?
Lex Fridman (22:48.440)
Can you say again what your fat palette is?
Anya Fernald (22:50.800)
It'd be butter, suet and olive oil.
Lex Fridman (22:53.680)
And olive oil, so not, why olive oil?
Lex Fridman (22:56.640)
Is it your roots in Italy?
Lex Fridman (22:58.280)
I like the flavor for finish
Anya Fernald (22:59.800)
because of the bitterness that it adds.
Lex Fridman (23:02.160)
So I like the bitter and acid contrast on meat
Lex Fridman (23:05.720)
and vegetables, which is mostly what I eat.
Lex Fridman (23:07.640)
And so I love that way that the bitterness
Lex Fridman (23:11.000)
and astringency complements
Lex Fridman (23:12.800)
and allows the flavors to come out.
Lex Fridman (23:14.280)
What do you think about coconut oil?
Lex Fridman (23:16.240)
I recently discovered that there's a, I don't know,
Anya Fernald (23:19.720)
there's a sweetness or there's something to it
Lex Fridman (23:21.880)
that I really enjoy, maybe because it's new.
Anya Fernald (23:27.040)
It's good with heat.
Lex Fridman (23:29.120)
And I really love it for some reason.
Lex Fridman (23:31.000)
As a chef, do you ever try it?
Lex Fridman (23:33.680)
What do you think about it?
Anya Fernald (23:34.520)
I like it in coffee.
Lex Fridman (23:35.800)
I like it as a treat a little bit.
Anya Fernald (23:37.960)
I find the flavor a little bit challenging in foods.
Lex Fridman (23:41.400)
I also find that it's difficult
Anya Fernald (23:46.000)
on the quality of that ingredient.
Lex Fridman (23:48.160)
So I've found often that I buy a high quality coconut oil
Lex Fridman (23:51.280)
and there's rancidity in it.
Lex Fridman (23:53.080)
And I don't totally know why.
Anya Fernald (23:54.160)
I think it's just the cold chain
Lex Fridman (23:55.480)
and how that product's packaged.
Lex Fridman (23:57.280)
So I've had some issues with product quality in that.
Lex Fridman (24:00.080)
But for me, it's a little bit too much sweetness
Anya Fernald (24:03.080)
in my foods, but then again,
Lex Fridman (24:05.040)
I don't cook in like a Southeast Asian palette.
Anya Fernald (24:07.080)
I try to not have much sweetness in my foods in general.
Lex Fridman (24:09.000)
So I, just because of the palette that I like to cook with.
Lex Fridman (24:12.040)
So for me, coconut's got a little bit too much
Lex Fridman (24:14.120)
of those high notes and earthiness,
Anya Fernald (24:15.960)
which is a nice combination, but it's more like a treat.
Lex Fridman (24:18.320)
Yeah, it is almost like a treat.
Anya Fernald (24:19.640)
It has a flavor of its own that almost stands on its own.
Lex Fridman (24:23.560)
Like I could probably just eat coconut.
Anya Fernald (24:27.360)
That's probably the only oil I could enjoy by itself.
Lex Fridman (24:29.480)
It sounds weird to say,
Lex Fridman (24:30.360)
but it feels like fat is often a thing
Lex Fridman (24:33.360)
that enriches the flavor of something else.
Anya Fernald (24:35.520)
Coconut can almost stand on its own.
Lex Fridman (24:37.360)
You might also be responding to that.
Anya Fernald (24:39.000)
It's a complex flavor.
Lex Fridman (24:40.720)
So there's also, there's an analogous,
Anya Fernald (24:44.400)
you know, if you look at butter, for example,
Lex Fridman (24:46.560)
a lot of the butter that we eat in the US
Anya Fernald (24:48.400)
is just sweet cream butter.
Lex Fridman (24:50.280)
It's not cultured.
Anya Fernald (24:51.400)
If you explore like a cultured fermented butter,
Lex Fridman (24:55.440)
maybe a grass milk, grass fed and finished butter,
Anya Fernald (24:58.160)
you're gonna get a ton more complexity.
Lex Fridman (25:00.480)
And so you may also just be responding
Anya Fernald (25:02.760)
to having fats with more flavor,
Lex Fridman (25:05.040)
which is the journey in the US
Anya Fernald (25:09.120)
has been towards refined foods that are very neutral.
Lex Fridman (25:12.760)
And then you have to combine more of them
Anya Fernald (25:14.680)
to make things taste like things.
Lex Fridman (25:17.320)
And so if you're coming from a background
Anya Fernald (25:19.960)
of using mostly just generic butter
Lex Fridman (25:21.960)
or let's say canola oil to cook with,
Anya Fernald (25:23.640)
those are very neutral oils.
Lex Fridman (25:25.280)
So you can also take some of your favorite fats
Lex Fridman (25:27.680)
and look for versions of them that are more flavorful.
Lex Fridman (25:30.040)
I mean, I love olive oil as a treat in a spoon.
Lex Fridman (25:33.320)
Really?
Lex Fridman (25:34.160)
Like a good California extra virgin olive oil.
Anya Fernald (25:35.400)
I'll just like have it as,
Lex Fridman (25:36.240)
I'll eat a piece of butter as a treat.
Anya Fernald (25:37.760)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (25:38.600)
That's like, or butter with salt on it.
Anya Fernald (25:40.000)
Like good fats can, all of them can be,
Lex Fridman (25:43.120)
if they're minimally processed
Lex Fridman (25:44.600)
and they're fabulous and it's so delicious, right?
Lex Fridman (25:47.720)
But there are things that you have to like look for
Anya Fernald (25:49.960)
a version of them that's got that full palette of flavor.
Lex Fridman (25:53.120)
Well, for me also the flavors are inextricably tied
Anya Fernald (25:56.720)
to the memories I've had with those flavors.
Lex Fridman (25:58.720)
So for better or worse,
Anya Fernald (26:01.920)
back when I used to eat a lot of ice cream,
Lex Fridman (26:04.200)
I for some reason had a lot of pleasant experience
Anya Fernald (26:06.240)
with coconut ice cream.
Lex Fridman (26:07.440)
So that particular flavor just permeates
Anya Fernald (26:10.440)
throughout my life now.
Lex Fridman (26:11.360)
Like I'm stuck with it for better or worse
Anya Fernald (26:14.080)
as a flavor that brings up pleasant memories.
Lex Fridman (26:17.440)
And as I have a few such flavors,
Anya Fernald (26:19.640)
I have such relationship with all kinds of meat too.
Lex Fridman (26:22.560)
Like it's just so many pleasant memories and that's it.
Anya Fernald (26:26.160)
Like you're almost tasting the memories.
Lex Fridman (26:28.960)
And that there's no way to separate the flavor
Anya Fernald (26:33.160)
from the memories, I suppose.
Lex Fridman (26:34.560)
And that's a powerful thing.
Lex Fridman (26:35.920)
What's your favorite meal to cook?
Lex Fridman (26:39.080)
I'll roast a couple of chickens
Lex Fridman (26:41.480)
and then I'll poach them, like I'll boil them
Lex Fridman (26:44.760)
and let it cool down.
Anya Fernald (26:45.600)
It's a complicated one.
Lex Fridman (26:47.320)
I'll let them cool down.
Anya Fernald (26:48.800)
I'll pull all the meat off, put the bones back into the pot
Lex Fridman (26:51.720)
and then cook that for like three or four hours
Lex Fridman (26:54.960)
and then add in like shiitake mushrooms
Lex Fridman (26:57.160)
and all the chicken meat.
Lex Fridman (26:58.800)
And I'll throw in a bottle of white wine
Lex Fridman (27:01.280)
into the stock as well, a bunch of thyme and garlic.
Lex Fridman (27:04.640)
And I love it because it's the way the house smells.
Lex Fridman (27:09.840)
It's very laborious.
Anya Fernald (27:10.960)
It's soothing for me to spend time picking apart meat
Lex Fridman (27:14.000)
and chopping things up.
Anya Fernald (27:14.920)
There's like a lot of manuality around it.
Lex Fridman (27:17.640)
So I'd say from a personal, like, I mean,
Anya Fernald (27:19.360)
I love grilling a steak and doing those things as well,
Lex Fridman (27:21.040)
but there's something about making a stock from scratch
Lex Fridman (27:24.560)
and the way it smells, the way I feel,
Lex Fridman (27:26.760)
the time it takes, the kind of checking in on it
Anya Fernald (27:29.760)
that I really, really love.
Lex Fridman (27:31.380)
There's many things I love to make
Anya Fernald (27:33.240)
that I don't even love to eat.
Lex Fridman (27:35.440)
I think you see this a lot in like baking and bakers,
Anya Fernald (27:38.160)
people who bake a ton and they love the process of it,
Lex Fridman (27:40.880)
even if they don't eat that many baked goods.
Lex Fridman (27:42.640)
So anything for me that's really like enjoyable
Lex Fridman (27:45.360)
is typically things like making cinnamon buns.
Anya Fernald (27:47.280)
I don't eat very many cinnamon buns,
Lex Fridman (27:48.640)
but I love making them because it takes all the sort
Anya Fernald (27:51.080)
of like futzing around and taking your time and watching it
Lex Fridman (27:54.160)
and the way it smells, the way the house smells.
Anya Fernald (27:56.360)
All of that stuff is like,
Lex Fridman (27:57.880)
it's like almost like a meditative exercise for me.
Anya Fernald (28:01.360)
Is there a science, is there an art to cooking meat well
Lex Fridman (28:04.440)
and the different kinds of meats?
Anya Fernald (28:05.960)
Is there something you can convert it towards
Lex Fridman (28:09.480)
in to say ideas, how to bring out the best of it
Anya Fernald (28:15.560)
out of what particular meat,
Lex Fridman (28:17.420)
whatever steak we're talking about,
Lex Fridman (28:18.440)
whatever beef we're talking about?
Lex Fridman (28:20.360)
Is there something that can be said?
Anya Fernald (28:21.800)
The basic approach to cooking any type of meat
Lex Fridman (28:27.440)
beyond the artistry of it is pretty scientific.
Lex Fridman (28:30.500)
And it's what type of muscle is it in the animal
Lex Fridman (28:35.160)
and what's the surface area to volume ratio?
Anya Fernald (28:38.700)
Okay, so let's look at those two questions.
Lex Fridman (28:40.720)
So the first piece is what's the type of muscle
Lex Fridman (28:44.080)
in the animal?
Lex Fridman (28:44.920)
What's the functionality?
Anya Fernald (28:46.300)
You don't necessarily need to know that to evaluate it,
Lex Fridman (28:49.160)
but you need to understand, is it a tender muscle
Lex Fridman (28:51.520)
that's not used very frequently in the animal?
Lex Fridman (28:53.640)
Or is it a big load bearing muscle
Lex Fridman (28:55.200)
that gets a lot of action, like the cheek, right?
Lex Fridman (28:57.340)
Or the shin or those pieces?
Anya Fernald (29:00.360)
The muscles like those along the spinal cord
Lex Fridman (29:04.200)
that make up rib eyes and New York steaks and things,
Anya Fernald (29:06.560)
those aren't very exercised.
Lex Fridman (29:08.200)
They're right next to the spinal cord.
Anya Fernald (29:10.160)
Spinal cord's doing most of the work there.
Lex Fridman (29:11.680)
They're kind of like stabilizing muscles
Anya Fernald (29:13.720)
around this big functional piece of skeletal structure
Lex Fridman (29:17.640)
in the animal.
Anya Fernald (29:19.320)
Other muscles, like the ones around the diaphragm
Lex Fridman (29:21.720)
with the flat iron steaks and skirt steaks and things,
Anya Fernald (29:23.720)
those are really functional muscles
Lex Fridman (29:25.640)
that are doing a ton and moving.
Lex Fridman (29:27.340)
And if they're moving a lot, what happens?
Lex Fridman (29:30.400)
Well, functionally, they've got lots of muscle sheaths
Anya Fernald (29:34.080)
because muscles that move frequently
Lex Fridman (29:36.000)
have to do a lot of like complex contraction.
Anya Fernald (29:39.320)
That's why there's, in the cheek, for example,
Lex Fridman (29:43.020)
there's tons of visible fiber
Anya Fernald (29:45.020)
of like collagenous connective tissue.
Lex Fridman (29:47.320)
That connective tissue is everything in how the meat cooks
Anya Fernald (29:52.860)
because connective tissue doesn't respond to high heat
Lex Fridman (29:56.700)
with becoming more tender.
Lex Fridman (29:58.220)
Muscles do, right?
Lex Fridman (29:59.260)
They can get a sear on them.
Anya Fernald (30:00.100)
You can cut them and eat them.
Lex Fridman (30:01.300)
The collagenous tissue will glom up and get really tough.
Lex Fridman (30:04.820)
So you either have to liquefy it
Lex Fridman (30:06.380)
with really low, slow heat with moisture, right?
Anya Fernald (30:10.940)
Or you have to barely cook it.
Lex Fridman (30:12.620)
And so that's the major piece.
Lex Fridman (30:15.020)
So that's the question of like,
Lex Fridman (30:15.860)
why wouldn't you just throw a brisket on the grill?
Lex Fridman (30:18.220)
Okay?
Lex Fridman (30:19.060)
It's not about the fat.
Anya Fernald (30:19.900)
You can cut the fat out.
Lex Fridman (30:20.740)
The reason you're not gonna throw a brisket on the grill
Lex Fridman (30:22.500)
and cook it hot and fast
Lex Fridman (30:23.340)
is it's got too much collagenous connective tissue in it.
Anya Fernald (30:25.980)
Those are these giant muscles that have all this collagen
Lex Fridman (30:28.860)
and these fibers and tendons in them effectively.
Lex Fridman (30:31.220)
So you're never gonna be able to just cook that up
Lex Fridman (30:33.580)
hot and fast.
Lex Fridman (30:35.180)
So that's the first piece.
Lex Fridman (30:36.020)
It's like, where's this muscle in the architecture
Lex Fridman (30:38.660)
of the animal?
Lex Fridman (30:39.500)
And then what does that mean for what's going on
Lex Fridman (30:42.300)
in the muscle?
Lex Fridman (30:43.140)
And that's actually more important than fat content.
Anya Fernald (30:46.820)
We get really kind of,
Lex Fridman (30:48.020)
we pay a lot of attention to fat content in muscles.
Anya Fernald (30:50.540)
You can make a steak tender
Lex Fridman (30:51.780)
if it doesn't have a ton of fat in it.
Anya Fernald (30:53.140)
It actually has more to do if there's collagenous
Lex Fridman (30:55.660)
and connective tissue in it.
Anya Fernald (30:58.020)
That's fascinating.
Lex Fridman (30:58.860)
I never even thought about that.
Anya Fernald (30:59.900)
I just, I thought it kind of universal.
Lex Fridman (31:04.180)
I mean, it adds to the texture of the meat,
Anya Fernald (31:06.900)
the chewiness of the meat.
Lex Fridman (31:08.620)
But you're saying it's also adds to how the meat is cooked.
Lex Fridman (31:12.620)
How heat, how it reacts to heat,
Lex Fridman (31:15.060)
how the entirety of the meat reacts to heat.
Lex Fridman (31:17.540)
And the fat is not as important to that as the collagen.
Lex Fridman (31:20.900)
The fat will make the flavor more delicious, right?
Anya Fernald (31:23.180)
Like it'll add unctuousness and mouthfeel
Lex Fridman (31:25.420)
and things like that.
Lex Fridman (31:26.220)
But all the connective tissue in meat
Lex Fridman (31:28.940)
and in some of the cuts,
Anya Fernald (31:29.940)
like that we ate at a skirt steak last night,
Lex Fridman (31:31.540)
you could see a web of that collagen sheath on the outside.
Anya Fernald (31:35.220)
On a ribeye, that same collagen sheath is this big.
Lex Fridman (31:37.580)
There's only one.
Lex Fridman (31:38.420)
It goes around the outside, okay?
Lex Fridman (31:39.260)
Cause it's just that muscle, there's one large muscle fiber.
Lex Fridman (31:42.900)
So that specific, it's a myelin sheath, right?
Lex Fridman (31:46.900)
That material needs moisture
Lex Fridman (31:48.900)
and low and slow heat to become tender.
Lex Fridman (31:51.540)
The other side of that is that when it becomes tender,
Anya Fernald (31:54.020)
it liquefies and it adds all this beautiful
Lex Fridman (31:56.820)
gelatinous consistency.
Anya Fernald (31:58.540)
That's what bone broth is.
Lex Fridman (31:59.660)
That's why like a slow cooked pork shoulder is so delicious.
Anya Fernald (32:03.980)
It's not that it's full of all that fat.
Lex Fridman (32:05.780)
That fat's also great.
Lex Fridman (32:06.620)
But a lot of that mouthfeel comes from that really
Lex Fridman (32:09.540)
beautiful dissolved collagen.
Lex Fridman (32:12.540)
So when you're looking at like,
Lex Fridman (32:13.380)
how do I understand how I'm gonna cook a piece of meat?
Anya Fernald (32:15.620)
That first fork in the road is,
Lex Fridman (32:17.540)
how is this gonna respond to heat?
Lex Fridman (32:20.140)
And what's the appropriate cooking technique?
Lex Fridman (32:23.220)
Then the second piece is that surface area to volume ratio.
Lex Fridman (32:27.300)
And that's important because the heat is gonna impact
Lex Fridman (32:30.500)
the meat through the surfaces of the meat
Anya Fernald (32:32.900)
that are in contact with the heat.
Lex Fridman (32:34.620)
So if I have a steak that's three inches thick,
Anya Fernald (32:39.620)
I'm gonna cook it extremely differently from a steak
Lex Fridman (32:42.700)
that's a half inch thick or three quarters of an inch thick.
Lex Fridman (32:46.300)
And that's the major, and that's the truth.
Lex Fridman (32:48.180)
If I have a piece of pork shoulder that's cut into cubes
Anya Fernald (32:51.780)
versus having a whole pork shoulder,
Lex Fridman (32:53.860)
that surface area to volume ratio,
Anya Fernald (32:55.420)
that's gonna totally change how I cook it.
Lex Fridman (32:58.060)
And same things like pot roast and a beef stew
Lex Fridman (33:01.620)
would be the same cut of meat, right?
Lex Fridman (33:03.620)
But how I cook them is gonna change
Anya Fernald (33:05.500)
based on the surface area to volume.
Lex Fridman (33:06.820)
Because you've gotta let moisture and heat
Anya Fernald (33:08.940)
work its way into the center of the meat.
Lex Fridman (33:11.140)
And that's gonna be determined by the amount of surface
Anya Fernald (33:13.620)
of the meat that's in contact with whatever cooking liquid
Lex Fridman (33:16.020)
or heat you've got.
Lex Fridman (33:17.100)
Is there different sources of heat to play with?
Lex Fridman (33:19.740)
Like a big flame versus a small,
Anya Fernald (33:23.060)
or maybe even like almost no flame,
Lex Fridman (33:25.860)
like over coals, all that kind of stuff.
Anya Fernald (33:27.420)
Is there some science to the source of heat
Lex Fridman (33:30.900)
in how it plays with the meat?
Anya Fernald (33:32.740)
Well, there's indirect heat and direct heat.
Lex Fridman (33:35.340)
And that really is mostly about temperature
Anya Fernald (33:39.420)
in more than actual, I mean, smoke is important as well
Lex Fridman (33:43.060)
that can permeate, but really the smoke
Anya Fernald (33:44.580)
doesn't go into the center of most cuts that you barbecue.
Lex Fridman (33:46.740)
It'll come in like the smoke ring.
Anya Fernald (33:48.180)
It's a maximum like half an inch on the outside,
Lex Fridman (33:52.220)
maybe a little bit deeper on a really long, slow cook.
Lex Fridman (33:54.620)
So they, but the smoke, that does create a ton of flavor
Lex Fridman (33:58.300)
on the surface of the meat.
Lex Fridman (33:59.820)
But that's, so the indirect allows you to have
Lex Fridman (34:02.300)
smoke contacting it and then a very,
Anya Fernald (34:04.660)
very low and slow heat.
Lex Fridman (34:06.260)
And what that does is indirect heat will be low
Lex Fridman (34:11.820)
and slow enough that the center of the meat will get warm
Lex Fridman (34:15.460)
at the same time as the exterior of the meat.
Lex Fridman (34:17.580)
And it'll all cook equally and all get equally tender.
Lex Fridman (34:22.180)
If you go very hot and fast,
Anya Fernald (34:23.460)
you risk the interior of the meat not getting right.
Lex Fridman (34:26.580)
You kind of create a shell on the, on it.
Lex Fridman (34:28.860)
And you slow down the interior of the meat,
Lex Fridman (34:30.660)
which you actually want to do with something
Anya Fernald (34:32.020)
like a steak where you want to keep it rare on the inside.
Lex Fridman (34:35.340)
So it's really indirect versus direct.
Anya Fernald (34:37.380)
Then once you get into direct heat, right,
Lex Fridman (34:39.380)
look at in that category, there's wood, charcoal, gas,
Anya Fernald (34:43.780)
right, that's about it.
Lex Fridman (34:44.900)
And those are meaningfully different.
Anya Fernald (34:47.420)
They're meaningfully different.
Lex Fridman (34:48.700)
Charcoal and wood, that's more of,
Anya Fernald (34:50.740)
there's more poetry and wood.
Lex Fridman (34:52.340)
There's a little bit more flavor,
Anya Fernald (34:54.300)
not functionally very different,
Lex Fridman (34:56.100)
but gas versus charcoal wood is very different.
Lex Fridman (34:59.220)
And that's because of the actual scent of the,
Lex Fridman (35:02.260)
of the cook, right, the scent of the flavor.
Lex Fridman (35:04.540)
And then there's a,
Lex Fridman (35:06.900)
I think an evenness of heat distribution
Anya Fernald (35:09.300)
that comes off of charcoal that's different from gas,
Lex Fridman (35:11.980)
because no matter how awesome your gas grill is,
Anya Fernald (35:13.780)
you do have hotter and cooler spots.
Lex Fridman (35:16.380)
So gas grills are typically,
Anya Fernald (35:18.020)
you can kind of control for that
Lex Fridman (35:19.460)
if you just are going really hot and fast,
Anya Fernald (35:21.620)
which is why gas grills are fine
Lex Fridman (35:22.980)
if you're just like throwing that steak on,
Anya Fernald (35:24.500)
get a hard sear on it, those burgers put a crust on it.
Lex Fridman (35:26.660)
Gas is fabulous for that.
Anya Fernald (35:27.780)
It's perfect.
Lex Fridman (35:28.780)
When you're doing things that do better
Anya Fernald (35:30.740)
with a low and slow cook,
Lex Fridman (35:33.220)
like let's say a whole tenderloin or chicken thigh,
Anya Fernald (35:36.540)
that's going to be a little bit less elegant on gas
Lex Fridman (35:39.980)
than on charcoal versus wood.
Lex Fridman (35:41.540)
So when you have more,
Lex Fridman (35:42.380)
more kind of nuance in the low, slow cook
Anya Fernald (35:44.980)
over the natural fuels.
Lex Fridman (35:46.580)
Talking about like smoke and flame and charcoal versus gas,
Anya Fernald (35:52.100)
it also adds to the experience and the smell
Lex Fridman (35:54.740)
and the whole thing of the cooking,
Anya Fernald (35:57.660)
like versus just like the taste it creates.
Lex Fridman (36:00.020)
There's a certain experience too,
Anya Fernald (36:01.420)
like when there's a bit of smoke,
Lex Fridman (36:03.140)
maybe I don't know what the chemistry of it is,
Lex Fridman (36:04.660)
but I feel like with smoke,
Lex Fridman (36:05.940)
the smell is distributed more effectively.
Anya Fernald (36:07.980)
I don't know if that's true,
Lex Fridman (36:08.820)
but there's a smell and a visual aspect to the experience
Anya Fernald (36:13.820)
that's almost enriched with a bit of smoke
Lex Fridman (36:15.900)
or like an open flame.
Anya Fernald (36:18.980)
Like if you can see the flame, there's magic to that.
Lex Fridman (36:21.540)
And it goes to the experience piece
Anya Fernald (36:23.300)
that we were talking about before.
Lex Fridman (36:24.140)
We were talking exactly about that,
Anya Fernald (36:25.940)
like the nuance and the beauty of like that long, slow cook
Lex Fridman (36:29.500)
and your house smelling like something.
Lex Fridman (36:31.220)
Why do people freak out about barbecue?
Lex Fridman (36:33.220)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (36:34.180)
Why?
Lex Fridman (36:35.020)
Because you go in and it smells bomb.
Anya Fernald (36:36.460)
It smells so good.
Lex Fridman (36:38.140)
It smells like heaven, right?
Anya Fernald (36:39.660)
It smells fatty and delicious and the smells everywhere
Lex Fridman (36:42.900)
and everyone's smelling the same smell.
Lex Fridman (36:44.540)
So there's like this collective experience.
Lex Fridman (36:46.860)
It's incredible.
Anya Fernald (36:47.980)
That's, I mean, I think that's why barbecue
Lex Fridman (36:49.980)
is so sticky for people.
Anya Fernald (36:52.300)
It's like so yummy
Lex Fridman (36:53.700)
and you get this huge like anticipatory thing about it.
Anya Fernald (36:56.620)
It's like, cause it smells incredible.
Lex Fridman (36:58.700)
What was that incredible grill that we used yesterday?
Lex Fridman (37:00.780)
What is that about?
Lex Fridman (37:01.620)
That's called a Sea Island Forge.
Anya Fernald (37:03.220)
It's a wood fire grill that's inspired
Lex Fridman (37:05.660)
by like a South American style of cooking.
Lex Fridman (37:07.700)
So it's like, it's big.
Lex Fridman (37:08.780)
It has also the things with the crank.
Anya Fernald (37:11.500)
It allows you to control the distance from the flame.
Lex Fridman (37:13.940)
It's awesome.
Anya Fernald (37:14.780)
It's really key with the wood fire.
Lex Fridman (37:15.860)
So when we evolved from cooking over wood to charcoal,
Anya Fernald (37:20.380)
right, when that became more popular,
Lex Fridman (37:22.940)
the reason that we did that is that allowed us
Lex Fridman (37:25.300)
to skip the whole part of making our own charcoal, right?
Lex Fridman (37:28.620)
So when you're cooking over wood,
Anya Fernald (37:29.940)
all you're doing is making your own charcoal.
Lex Fridman (37:32.100)
You don't ever cook over wood with the red fire.
Anya Fernald (37:34.860)
Like we don't like throw a steak on
Lex Fridman (37:36.740)
when the flames are orange and leaping up
Anya Fernald (37:38.540)
because you're just gonna get, you know,
Lex Fridman (37:40.180)
carbons like char all over your meat.
Lex Fridman (37:42.500)
So you're, when you're cooking over wood,
Lex Fridman (37:44.020)
you first cook down the wood,
Anya Fernald (37:45.500)
you create the coal base, the natural coal base,
Lex Fridman (37:48.220)
and then you cook over that.
Lex Fridman (37:49.420)
So you saw yesterday, I built my fire,
Lex Fridman (37:50.980)
I let it burn down, added some fresh wood
Lex Fridman (37:52.660)
so I could reinforce my coals with new coals coming in.
Lex Fridman (37:56.180)
But then I was actually cooking over the embers.
Anya Fernald (38:00.060)
You shorten that cycle with charcoal, it's more efficient.
Lex Fridman (38:04.340)
But what you lose is that whole cycle of, you know,
Anya Fernald (38:07.380)
that really beautiful experience of smelling.
Lex Fridman (38:10.500)
Now, if you're cooking on a Traeger,
Anya Fernald (38:12.100)
you're gonna get awesome smoke smell.
Lex Fridman (38:13.500)
You know, like there's plenty of ways to do this.
Anya Fernald (38:15.820)
It doesn't always have to be wood fire.
Lex Fridman (38:17.020)
And I love all the different ways, right?
Lex Fridman (38:19.820)
But I really like the experience of the campfire.
Lex Fridman (38:23.460)
And I love that kind of just like sitting by it,
Anya Fernald (38:25.300)
building it, having to take the time.
Lex Fridman (38:26.740)
I like building the fire, going inside,
Anya Fernald (38:28.620)
preparing all my meats, bringing them out, cooking them.
Lex Fridman (38:31.140)
That whole experience start to finish
Anya Fernald (38:33.060)
is really just like something that it's my favorite.
Lex Fridman (38:36.180)
It's my favorite way to spend time, you know?
Lex Fridman (38:38.620)
So I think, and why is that?
Lex Fridman (38:40.060)
Is the food that different than cooking it
Lex Fridman (38:41.700)
in a more conventional grill?
Lex Fridman (38:43.500)
Probably not, you know, like in a pure experience.
Lex Fridman (38:45.980)
But I think the actual experience is super memorable
Lex Fridman (38:48.860)
because you are outside, you are still in your role.
Anya Fernald (38:51.340)
You're enjoying this, you know, you're just taking in,
Lex Fridman (38:54.660)
you're watching, you're anticipating.
Anya Fernald (38:56.700)
I love that whole experience.
Lex Fridman (38:58.740)
Does the origin of the meat itself make a difference?
Lex Fridman (39:03.580)
So we're here at Belcampo Farms
Lex Fridman (39:05.580)
and we'll, maybe you could talk about what your vision,
Anya Fernald (39:10.220)
your dream is in terms of like food,
Lex Fridman (39:14.580)
in terms of where food comes from,
Anya Fernald (39:16.820)
where meat comes from, but food broadly,
Lex Fridman (39:19.140)
and how that affects the entirety of the culinary journey.
Anya Fernald (39:25.180)
On the question of where does it come from
Lex Fridman (39:27.380)
and does that matter, I'd say the way that meat is raised
Anya Fernald (39:31.780)
is massively important for flavor and for how it cooks.
Lex Fridman (39:36.420)
I think most cooks who try cooking grass fed
Anya Fernald (39:41.940)
versus corn fed, that's the first moment
Lex Fridman (39:44.460)
where they realize that, right?
Anya Fernald (39:45.860)
Where corn fed meat cooks much more slowly,
Lex Fridman (39:48.900)
it's got bigger veins of fat that slow the heat transfer
Anya Fernald (39:53.020)
throughout the muscle of the animal,
Lex Fridman (39:54.980)
compared to grass fed, which is leaner,
Anya Fernald (39:56.580)
heat moves through it more quickly,
Lex Fridman (39:58.300)
those steaks will cook much, much faster.
Lex Fridman (40:00.220)
So there's very kind of technical reasons why,
Lex Fridman (40:03.660)
how meat is raised that we're aware of.
Lex Fridman (40:07.220)
And there's other things that I've noticed,
Lex Fridman (40:09.620)
like that slower growing poultry
Anya Fernald (40:13.620)
has a very, very different musculature and fiber to it
Lex Fridman (40:16.740)
than fast growing poultry, that's confinement animals.
Anya Fernald (40:19.940)
It's just, it has to do with the way
Lex Fridman (40:21.820)
that the muscles are built.
Anya Fernald (40:22.780)
They tend to be finer and thinner and more tender
Lex Fridman (40:26.060)
and a little bit more susceptible to heat.
Lex Fridman (40:28.020)
So the character of the meat's radically different.
Lex Fridman (40:32.300)
It's also much more flavorful
Anya Fernald (40:34.020)
when it's grown more naturally.
Lex Fridman (40:35.700)
And I think some of the reliance in the US
Anya Fernald (40:39.260)
on like sugary sauces and lots of salts
Lex Fridman (40:42.220)
and flavors and things like that's actually based
Anya Fernald (40:45.860)
on having the broadly available meat out there
Lex Fridman (40:50.020)
is pretty low on flavor.
Lex Fridman (40:51.660)
And so we're adding in a lot to compensate for that.
Lex Fridman (40:54.420)
So to your point of like enjoying things very simply
Lex Fridman (40:57.900)
and with like salt and nothing else,
Lex Fridman (41:01.620)
like the more flavorful that product is,
Anya Fernald (41:03.620)
I think the more people will find that enjoyable.
Lex Fridman (41:06.540)
Let's paint a vision.
Anya Fernald (41:08.260)
I mean, you're a visionary.
Lex Fridman (41:09.420)
You have a vision to have basically meat in every store
Anya Fernald (41:14.940)
that comes from a farm like Belcampo
Lex Fridman (41:19.180)
that's basically doing regenerative farming.
Lex Fridman (41:22.340)
How do we get there?
Lex Fridman (41:24.140)
It's about a network of smaller producers
Anya Fernald (41:27.380)
working together with shared values.
Lex Fridman (41:31.180)
And it's true that there's a limit on regenerative farming
Anya Fernald (41:36.180)
in that it requires more human knowledge.
Lex Fridman (41:39.980)
So regenerative farming is more difficult to scale
Anya Fernald (41:44.620)
in a single operation.
Lex Fridman (41:46.140)
It'd be really challenging to have a regenerative farm
Anya Fernald (41:48.140)
that was like 200,000 acres
Lex Fridman (41:50.140)
because of the amount of manpower needed to pay attention.
Lex Fridman (41:53.460)
Can you first, and I apologize to interrupt,
Lex Fridman (41:55.540)
but can you say what is regenerative farming?
Anya Fernald (41:58.740)
Sure.
Lex Fridman (41:59.740)
So if you're looking at scaling regenerative farming,
Anya Fernald (42:04.740)
it's a traditional system of agriculture.
Lex Fridman (42:07.180)
Regenerative farming is how we used to farm.
Anya Fernald (42:10.780)
We used to farm with an eye towards the longterm.
Lex Fridman (42:15.300)
You might be on the Friedman farm thinking about your heirs
Anya Fernald (42:19.060)
five generations from now farming that same land.
Lex Fridman (42:22.900)
Are you gonna leave that land nutritionally empty?
Anya Fernald (42:26.300)
No, it's a longterm thinking.
Lex Fridman (42:28.980)
Also in traditional ag, you don't have inputs.
Anya Fernald (42:32.500)
That are very convenient. You can put some chicken manure on,
Lex Fridman (42:35.740)
but you can't spray or dump something that massively
Anya Fernald (42:40.100)
increases the growing potential of the land.
Lex Fridman (42:45.300)
That was not available until the past 60 years.
Lex Fridman (42:49.580)
So regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming
Lex Fridman (42:54.980)
where you're increasing soil fertility through your farming.
Anya Fernald (42:58.620)
You increase soil fertility by feeding the soil.
Lex Fridman (43:02.460)
You feed the soil through carbon.
Anya Fernald (43:06.380)
That's why regenerative farming is better
Lex Fridman (43:08.100)
for the environment.
Anya Fernald (43:08.940)
It sequesters carbon and puts carbon into the soil.
Lex Fridman (43:12.980)
Now it's interesting.
Anya Fernald (43:14.620)
Plants need carbon and put it into the soil
Lex Fridman (43:18.620)
when they're going through growth.
Lex Fridman (43:21.460)
So if you have a beautiful field of grass
Lex Fridman (43:23.620)
that's just waving in the wind,
Anya Fernald (43:25.220)
that's where you're gonna get the most
Lex Fridman (43:26.620)
of the carbon that's going into the soil.
Anya Fernald (43:28.820)
That's not sequestering as much carbon
Lex Fridman (43:30.740)
as plants that have been damaged and are regrowing.
Anya Fernald (43:34.620)
Plants that have been damaged and are regrowing
Lex Fridman (43:36.420)
are repairing and they're doing that
Anya Fernald (43:38.580)
by drawing down carbon as one of the nutrients
Lex Fridman (43:41.340)
that feeds them.
Anya Fernald (43:43.140)
To damage the plants effectively,
Lex Fridman (43:45.300)
that's what we're doing with regenerative grazing.
Lex Fridman (43:49.300)
So the cows or, you know, lambs or whatever out there,
Lex Fridman (43:53.700)
they're eating and taking the grass down
Lex Fridman (43:57.540)
and that then cause a regrowth cycle
Lex Fridman (43:59.700)
that sequesters carbon.
Anya Fernald (44:01.180)
Wow.
Lex Fridman (44:02.020)
There's a limit to it.
Anya Fernald (44:02.860)
There's an edge,
Lex Fridman (44:03.700)
because if those plants are so damaged
Anya Fernald (44:05.780)
that they can't regrow,
Lex Fridman (44:07.180)
then it turns into a dirt patch
Lex Fridman (44:08.620)
and that doesn't sequester any carbon.
Lex Fridman (44:10.220)
So it's a balance.
Lex Fridman (44:11.220)
How do you find that balance?
Lex Fridman (44:13.300)
That has to do with like the frequency
Lex Fridman (44:15.860)
and the scale of the grazing essentially?
Lex Fridman (44:18.020)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (44:19.460)
And so you have to find the right balance
Lex Fridman (44:20.860)
and that connects to both the grass.
Anya Fernald (44:24.340)
I mean, is the ultimately the focus here
Lex Fridman (44:27.100)
is on the life cycle of whatever is grazing,
Lex Fridman (44:30.100)
whether it's cows or lambs or so on?
Lex Fridman (44:32.740)
That's why the scalability question.
Lex Fridman (44:34.540)
So all that stuff that I just talked about,
Lex Fridman (44:37.220)
like think about all the actions that that requires.
Anya Fernald (44:39.740)
Somebody's out there looking and paying attention
Lex Fridman (44:42.500)
and understanding how far the grass is,
Anya Fernald (44:45.540)
remembering what happened in that field last year.
Lex Fridman (44:47.980)
There's a huge human intelligence need
Lex Fridman (44:50.380)
and human kind of availability of attention.
Lex Fridman (44:55.820)
Now, industrial farming has done a great job
Anya Fernald (44:58.820)
at de skilling agriculture.
Lex Fridman (45:03.180)
Industrial farming has taken agriculture
Anya Fernald (45:05.020)
from being art science to being entry level employment.
Lex Fridman (45:10.980)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (45:11.820)
So that's the limiting factor on regen
Lex Fridman (45:13.740)
and that's why I think...
Anya Fernald (45:14.580)
It's a human intelligence piece.
Lex Fridman (45:15.900)
Exactly.
Anya Fernald (45:16.820)
I gotta ask,
Lex Fridman (45:18.100)
I don't know if you think about this kind of stuff.
Anya Fernald (45:19.540)
I mentioned to you offline
Lex Fridman (45:20.540)
that I spent a bit of time with some robots
Lex Fridman (45:23.020)
and Boston Dynamics.
Lex Fridman (45:24.100)
Do you think there's a way
Lex Fridman (45:25.180)
to use artificial intelligence to help?
Lex Fridman (45:27.620)
So data collection,
Lex Fridman (45:29.100)
so automating some of the things that makes humans special,
Lex Fridman (45:33.820)
make some of that decision,
Anya Fernald (45:34.940)
some of that memory that's then utilized,
Lex Fridman (45:36.600)
converges to knowledge to make decisions
Anya Fernald (45:38.380)
about the crops and so on.
Lex Fridman (45:39.980)
Is there a way AI can help?
Lex Fridman (45:41.940)
Do you think?
Lex Fridman (45:42.760)
Totally.
Anya Fernald (45:43.600)
I mean, that would be incredible.
Lex Fridman (45:45.780)
That's one of the ingredients
Anya Fernald (45:47.180)
that could help with the regenerative farming.
Lex Fridman (45:48.620)
A number of discrete decision points
Anya Fernald (45:50.940)
that could completely be automated as well
Lex Fridman (45:54.740)
in order to supplement and work with somebody,
Anya Fernald (45:56.700)
like a farmer in managing it,
Lex Fridman (45:58.660)
about the performance on land.
Lex Fridman (46:01.300)
And a bit of that's being done right now
Lex Fridman (46:02.660)
with some aerial mapping,
Lex Fridman (46:04.820)
but that type of AI would be huge in this.
Lex Fridman (46:07.900)
I mean, there's estimates that if the damage
Lex Fridman (46:11.780)
and underutilized rangeland in the world
Lex Fridman (46:14.100)
was converted to regenerative agriculture
Anya Fernald (46:15.900)
somewhere between like 20 and 40% of the world's carbon
Lex Fridman (46:19.300)
could be sequestered.
Lex Fridman (46:20.620)
So there's a huge potential.
Lex Fridman (46:22.480)
The problem is cultural.
Anya Fernald (46:26.660)
We've like lost the generational thread of knowledge
Lex Fridman (46:29.660)
about how to do this.
Anya Fernald (46:30.740)
It's kind of been two generations
Lex Fridman (46:31.900)
that haven't farmed this way.
Anya Fernald (46:34.140)
Also the science around it is limited
Lex Fridman (46:38.020)
by the scale and longevity.
Lex Fridman (46:40.460)
So the data collection around regenerative farming
Lex Fridman (46:43.060)
is also limited by the fact it's kind of piecemeal.
Anya Fernald (46:45.980)
There's small operations that are doing it.
Lex Fridman (46:48.040)
They're learning and developing as they go,
Lex Fridman (46:50.160)
and they haven't been documenting it
Lex Fridman (46:51.620)
and doing it for too long.
Anya Fernald (46:53.460)
Is the ethical treatment of animals
Lex Fridman (46:55.780)
a part of regenerative farming?
Lex Fridman (46:58.760)
So in the way you do things at Belcampo,
Lex Fridman (47:01.620)
that's a huge part.
Lex Fridman (47:03.820)
Is that necessarily part of the life cycle?
Lex Fridman (47:05.700)
So like the things that you're trying to measure
Anya Fernald (47:08.100)
is like the way, like not damaging the land too much,
Lex Fridman (47:13.980)
make sure that the sort of the land
Anya Fernald (47:16.420)
is constantly healthy and is producing,
Lex Fridman (47:17.980)
and then the grazing process,
Lex Fridman (47:20.340)
and also the carbon piece,
Lex Fridman (47:22.300)
the fact that it's a carbon neutral or something like that.
Anya Fernald (47:25.760)
I mean, are all of those pieces of the regenerative farming
Lex Fridman (47:28.780)
or is this an extra part to your vision
Lex Fridman (47:31.500)
that you're thinking about?
Lex Fridman (47:32.340)
It's all implicit and regenerative.
Anya Fernald (47:34.140)
I call it out separately because we are certified humane,
Lex Fridman (47:37.380)
which is another layer of welfare
Anya Fernald (47:38.860)
that has to do with density and a couple other things.
Lex Fridman (47:41.600)
But regenerative, I mean, think about it.
Anya Fernald (47:44.060)
If you're a cow and you're in a regenerative operation
Lex Fridman (47:46.020)
where the whole life cycle of the pasture
Anya Fernald (47:49.140)
means that you only eat the top six inches of the grass,
Lex Fridman (47:52.540)
and then when there's whatever, a couple inches left,
Anya Fernald (47:54.460)
then that field is left dormant.
Lex Fridman (47:56.360)
That's a better experience, right?
Lex Fridman (47:58.060)
So just think about it kind of functionally that way.
Lex Fridman (48:00.100)
Well, grazing period is a better experience, right?
Lex Fridman (48:02.820)
And that's not what's done in,
Lex Fridman (48:05.560)
I mean, that's the grass fed piece, right?
Anya Fernald (48:06.980)
That's the other piece with certified organics, amazing.
Lex Fridman (48:12.300)
There's plenty of certifications
Anya Fernald (48:14.620)
that grass fed and finished is also great,
Lex Fridman (48:17.500)
but there are workarounds for those.
Anya Fernald (48:19.140)
You can have certified organic feedlots.
Lex Fridman (48:21.300)
You can have grass fed and finished,
Anya Fernald (48:22.760)
which is an animal fed a grass seed pellet.
Lex Fridman (48:26.860)
Those aren't things that we do here, right?
Lex Fridman (48:29.020)
And regenerative captures that.
Lex Fridman (48:30.800)
Because if you're, it's like anything,
Anya Fernald (48:32.660)
you're isolating these very specific certifications,
Lex Fridman (48:35.540)
it doesn't have a holistic approach.
Anya Fernald (48:37.580)
Regenerative though, unfortunately, isn't certified yet.
Lex Fridman (48:40.220)
We've gotten USDA approval to use that word
Anya Fernald (48:42.760)
based on our carbon sequestration data,
Lex Fridman (48:45.140)
but it's not a regulated term.
Lex Fridman (48:47.780)
So that's kind of the mix right now
Lex Fridman (48:49.540)
is to figure out how to document it.
Lex Fridman (48:51.540)
And it's not totally clear what it means
Lex Fridman (48:53.780)
like for pigs and chickens, which are omnivores.
Anya Fernald (48:56.700)
It's very clear for ruminants,
Lex Fridman (48:58.140)
which are animals that have a rumen that eat grass.
Anya Fernald (49:01.020)
For omnivores, which is like what we are,
Lex Fridman (49:03.500)
they eat primarily grain in farming operations,
Lex Fridman (49:05.980)
and that's a little bit more complex.
Lex Fridman (49:07.740)
So it's kind of a moving landscape,
Lex Fridman (49:09.380)
but regenerative as a word is the better definition
Lex Fridman (49:13.820)
of the whole life cycle approach
Anya Fernald (49:15.320)
of letting animals and nature work together.
Lex Fridman (49:18.060)
Is it true that it's possible to have a farm
Lex Fridman (49:20.880)
that doesn't produce, sort of is carbon neutral?
Lex Fridman (49:25.300)
We have been third party verified
Anya Fernald (49:28.540)
to be carbon impact negative.
Lex Fridman (49:31.060)
So Belcampo's 25,000 acres and the animals here,
Anya Fernald (49:36.300)
all of the carbon, including from our shipping
Lex Fridman (49:38.620)
on our mail order is all offset
Anya Fernald (49:40.860)
by the amount of grazing that's happening.
Lex Fridman (49:43.300)
Also that encompasses our partner farms.
Anya Fernald (49:45.100)
We buy a number of live animals in from other partner farms.
Lex Fridman (49:49.040)
That's their impacts also incorporated in that.
Anya Fernald (49:51.060)
I mean, first of all, that's incredible.
Lex Fridman (49:52.900)
And second of all, is that possible to scale?
Anya Fernald (49:55.100)
I don't see why it isn't.
Lex Fridman (49:57.460)
I mean, it's complex to scale,
Lex Fridman (50:00.580)
but I mean, we're putting people on the moon
Lex Fridman (50:02.540)
and you have a robotic dog.
Anya Fernald (50:04.780)
I mean.
Lex Fridman (50:05.620)
But that's less about scale, that's more about innovation.
Lex Fridman (50:09.940)
So like in many ways what Belcampo has done
Lex Fridman (50:12.660)
is innovative at a small scale.
Anya Fernald (50:14.460)
The question is whether that innovation can be scaled.
Lex Fridman (50:16.460)
That's where I feel like we in the industry need more help.
Anya Fernald (50:20.100)
You know, the AI piece, the intelligence,
Lex Fridman (50:23.140)
the thinking about ways to do things differently
Anya Fernald (50:27.500)
is where we need more support.
Lex Fridman (50:29.220)
And I think it's been a, you know,
Anya Fernald (50:31.460)
a kind of a swing in the past couple of years
Lex Fridman (50:37.100)
where it's like meat's a mess, it's terrible.
Lex Fridman (50:40.620)
So let's ditch meat and opt for these hyper process,
Lex Fridman (50:44.180)
you know, plant based solutions.
Lex Fridman (50:46.580)
And I am saying there's a way to make meat
Lex Fridman (50:50.540)
a part of the solution.
Lex Fridman (50:52.460)
And it's gonna mean eating less of it.
Lex Fridman (50:54.580)
It's gonna mean paying more for it.
Anya Fernald (50:56.100)
It's gonna mean that the farming systems
Lex Fridman (50:57.460)
are more complicated.
Anya Fernald (50:59.000)
It's not the easiest path,
Lex Fridman (51:00.580)
but I think in the long term it's the better path.
Lex Fridman (51:03.200)
And it's also better for human health.
Lex Fridman (51:05.340)
Can you comment on the certified humane piece?
Lex Fridman (51:07.860)
So how do you run a farm?
Lex Fridman (51:11.220)
Like what does it mean to raise an animal
Anya Fernald (51:13.980)
from the beginning of its life to the end of its life
Lex Fridman (51:17.020)
in a way that's ethical, that's humane?
Anya Fernald (51:18.980)
I think the first piece you need to just be comfortable with
Lex Fridman (51:22.740)
is that making an animal into meat, you know,
Anya Fernald (51:27.000)
is something that you're comfortable with.
Lex Fridman (51:28.620)
Cause I think that's the biggest question, right?
Lex Fridman (51:30.820)
And so certified humane actually goes all the way through
Lex Fridman (51:34.180)
the death of the animal,
Lex Fridman (51:35.360)
how it's killed and handled at processing.
Lex Fridman (51:37.540)
So I put that out there just to say,
Anya Fernald (51:39.580)
well, this is all about producing an animal to die for meat.
Lex Fridman (51:43.700)
And that's not necessarily,
Anya Fernald (51:45.300)
that's something people struggle with with the word humane.
Lex Fridman (51:47.340)
And I understand that.
Anya Fernald (51:48.180)
Like I have space and empathy for that.
Lex Fridman (51:49.780)
It's a complicated decision.
Lex Fridman (51:51.740)
And when you have to be comfortable with at the outset
Lex Fridman (51:53.700)
to say, this is an animal that's gonna die to feed me.
Anya Fernald (51:56.240)
Yeah, so we should pause on that
Lex Fridman (51:58.100)
cause I actually just the two days ago read a paper
Anya Fernald (52:01.940)
that argued that, you know,
Lex Fridman (52:03.980)
the killing of an animal period cannot be humane.
Lex Fridman (52:06.660)
So it's impossible.
Lex Fridman (52:07.740)
And so, and that's an argument just like you're saying
Anya Fernald (52:10.580)
we could make, but if we now on the table kind of
Lex Fridman (52:15.780)
take as a starting point, the idea that
Anya Fernald (52:20.380)
it's possible to kill an animal for food in an ethical way,
Lex Fridman (52:24.020)
if we take that as a starting point.
Lex Fridman (52:25.780)
So we won't argue about that.
Lex Fridman (52:27.360)
It is worth arguing about it elsewhere.
Lex Fridman (52:29.500)
And it probably will.
Lex Fridman (52:30.720)
I will probably talk to a few vegan folks
Lex Fridman (52:33.180)
and we'll talk about the vegan diet.
Lex Fridman (52:35.200)
I'm fascinated by it as well.
Lex Fridman (52:36.580)
So I'm torn in the whole thing.
Lex Fridman (52:37.980)
But if we just take that as a starting point,
Lex Fridman (52:41.060)
what then is an ethical humane way to treat an animal?
Lex Fridman (52:45.300)
I look at ethical humane animal treatment
Anya Fernald (52:48.240)
as the major phases of life.
Lex Fridman (52:51.340)
So conception, birth and mothering,
Anya Fernald (52:55.920)
diet, those are kind of the major touch points of life.
Lex Fridman (53:01.000)
So what we're looking at is evolutionary approach,
Anya Fernald (53:07.760)
which means is the animal eating
Lex Fridman (53:09.480)
what it evolved to eat primarily?
Anya Fernald (53:12.340)
Is the animal primarily outdoors,
Lex Fridman (53:15.480)
which is how all animals evolved,
Anya Fernald (53:18.140)
given when the climate's appropriate for it.
Lex Fridman (53:20.160)
There's certain times when you can't have animals
Anya Fernald (53:22.520)
fully outdoors, like here on our ranch,
Lex Fridman (53:24.360)
we have had issues with cold weather and things.
Lex Fridman (53:28.320)
But so if you have appropriate weather conditions,
Lex Fridman (53:31.840)
does the animal outdoors?
Lex Fridman (53:33.600)
Is the animal able to nurture and engage with its young?
Lex Fridman (53:37.080)
Those are the kind of key touch points,
Lex Fridman (53:38.680)
but it's really the birth of it.
Lex Fridman (53:40.560)
Let me start this one from the scratch.
Anya Fernald (53:43.560)
Okay, so when I'm looking at,
Lex Fridman (53:45.400)
or when I consider what's humane,
Anya Fernald (53:47.120)
setting aside the death part,
Lex Fridman (53:48.920)
I look at the evolutionary diet,
Anya Fernald (53:51.480)
access to the outdoors,
Lex Fridman (53:55.240)
and ideally spending the majority of its life outdoors,
Anya Fernald (53:59.500)
low density, so animals spread out,
Lex Fridman (54:03.160)
and engagement with young, social interactions,
Lex Fridman (54:07.320)
and that's all kind of simplistic.
Lex Fridman (54:08.160)
Social interaction is a cool one.
Anya Fernald (54:09.600)
I mean, I also read an article that like,
Lex Fridman (54:12.200)
cows, for example, have social, like they have friends.
Anya Fernald (54:16.560)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (54:17.960)
That's fascinating.
Anya Fernald (54:18.800)
I mean, that piece with the young,
Lex Fridman (54:20.640)
social interaction with young,
Anya Fernald (54:21.700)
social interaction with each other,
Lex Fridman (54:23.600)
that at a basic level,
Anya Fernald (54:25.400)
I'm sure that interaction is not as rich as humans,
Lex Fridman (54:28.080)
but that piece seems to be part of the humane picture.
Lex Fridman (54:31.680)
And you said also, just a quick comment,
Lex Fridman (54:34.280)
evolutionary diet, meaning the diet
Anya Fernald (54:37.520)
that they were evolved to have.
Lex Fridman (54:40.120)
And that's pretty simple.
Anya Fernald (54:41.700)
You can look at the physiology of the animal
Lex Fridman (54:43.960)
and figure that out.
Lex Fridman (54:45.180)
So ruminant species are lamb, goats, and beef,
Lex Fridman (54:48.680)
and they have five stomachs.
Anya Fernald (54:50.980)
They evolved eating really low calorie, high fiber foods.
Lex Fridman (54:55.200)
That's why they've got all the stomachs.
Anya Fernald (54:56.720)
They need a lot of processing.
Lex Fridman (54:58.000)
You or I were to eat grass, we die in a week, right?
Anya Fernald (55:00.920)
Our physiology can't handle it.
Lex Fridman (55:02.580)
Cows were built and evolved to eat this very low calorie,
Anya Fernald (55:05.920)
very high fiber, very low density food.
Lex Fridman (55:08.800)
And they walk around slowly,
Anya Fernald (55:10.760)
they're moving constantly and they're eating it.
Lex Fridman (55:13.500)
When we put them on a corn fed diet,
Anya Fernald (55:15.760)
that's the opposite of their evolutionary diet
Lex Fridman (55:17.840)
and their systems really struggle with it.
Anya Fernald (55:19.880)
Now, pigs and chickens are different.
Lex Fridman (55:22.260)
Pigs and chickens are omnivores
Lex Fridman (55:24.720)
and pigs will happily eat chickens, for example.
Lex Fridman (55:30.620)
Our pigs on the farm will hunt and kill rattlesnakes
Lex Fridman (55:33.520)
and eat them.
Lex Fridman (55:37.520)
They enjoy all of it.
Anya Fernald (55:39.360)
They're omnivores.
Lex Fridman (55:40.680)
So that you often see,
Lex Fridman (55:42.040)
and I've seen people try to raise like a grass fed chicken
Lex Fridman (55:45.240)
and that doesn't exist.
Anya Fernald (55:46.880)
I mean, they need a higher, omnivores eat everything.
Lex Fridman (55:50.000)
They're what's called monogastric.
Anya Fernald (55:51.400)
They got one stomach
Lex Fridman (55:53.080)
and that one stomach needs higher density nutrients.
Lex Fridman (55:56.320)
So in the case of chicken,
Lex Fridman (55:58.360)
if you're to do, look back in American history
Lex Fridman (56:02.200)
and in the 1950s, it took,
Lex Fridman (56:04.080)
commercial chickens took like 54 weeks
Anya Fernald (56:05.920)
to come to full weight.
Lex Fridman (56:07.680)
Now it's two and a half weeks in confinement farming
Anya Fernald (56:10.540)
on our systems, it's like eight to 10 weeks typically.
Lex Fridman (56:14.160)
So it's a very,
Anya Fernald (56:15.280)
you have to give them some amount of nutrient density,
Lex Fridman (56:17.680)
but there's the idea that no grain,
Anya Fernald (56:20.640)
because that's a misinformation
Lex Fridman (56:22.760)
for any type of commercial operation,
Anya Fernald (56:25.200)
free range, regenerative, pastured, everything,
Lex Fridman (56:27.500)
you're gonna have to have a grain feed to get any type of,
Anya Fernald (56:30.440)
it's actually, I think for the case of chickens,
Lex Fridman (56:32.320)
unless you're in a place with like tons of natural seeds
Lex Fridman (56:34.460)
and grubs and worms and stuff to eat,
Lex Fridman (56:36.640)
really challenging for the chicken.
Lex Fridman (56:38.420)
So you gotta give them some high density,
Lex Fridman (56:40.040)
high calorie food different from that.
Anya Fernald (56:41.680)
That's the evolutionary diet is a really key thing.
Lex Fridman (56:44.600)
That's the fundamental thing for health.
Lex Fridman (56:46.680)
And it's also interesting
Lex Fridman (56:47.640)
because the evolutionary diet ties to human health.
Anya Fernald (56:51.120)
I've looked at the nutritional analysis
Lex Fridman (56:52.720)
on all of our products and it's,
Anya Fernald (56:55.840)
the evolutionary diet is for the case of beef and lamb
Lex Fridman (57:01.440)
gets their omega three to six ratios,
Anya Fernald (57:03.880)
the same as wild game.
Lex Fridman (57:06.640)
So it's not like beef is really radically different
Lex Fridman (57:08.640)
from elk, a ruminant species, right?
Lex Fridman (57:11.500)
If you feed beef an evolutionary diet,
Anya Fernald (57:14.560)
their nutritional profile is the same as wild meat.
Lex Fridman (57:16.680)
There's a wild ruminant.
Anya Fernald (57:18.160)
I got a chance to witness Neuralink,
Lex Fridman (57:20.380)
I don't know if you're familiar with that company,
Anya Fernald (57:21.880)
the brain computer interfaces.
Lex Fridman (57:23.880)
And they have, I got a chance to see in person
Anya Fernald (57:27.320)
just a bunch of pigs who had Neuralink chips implanted
Lex Fridman (57:30.760)
and taken out.
Anya Fernald (57:31.800)
Those pigs are so happy with life.
Lex Fridman (57:34.040)
I don't know, I've never seen a happier animal.
Anya Fernald (57:36.240)
I mean, cause they get to eat,
Lex Fridman (57:39.360)
cause you were mentioning sort of diets and stuff.
Anya Fernald (57:42.520)
Pigs seem to love a lot of stuff.
Lex Fridman (57:45.080)
They're easily made to be happy.
Anya Fernald (57:47.400)
I don't know if you can comment on your thoughts
Lex Fridman (57:51.200)
of exploring the capacity of the pig mind
Anya Fernald (57:59.480)
through some of this testing with Neuralink,
Lex Fridman (58:01.520)
whether that's exciting to you,
Anya Fernald (58:02.840)
whether maybe on the humane side,
Lex Fridman (58:04.160)
it's a little bit concerning,
Anya Fernald (58:07.480)
if there's something to be said on sort of like,
Lex Fridman (58:10.180)
yeah, I don't know if it's even the ethical side,
Lex Fridman (58:14.380)
but just because of your connection to meat
Lex Fridman (58:16.860)
and to nature and understanding these living beings.
Anya Fernald (58:21.180)
Well, pigs are incredibly intelligent.
Lex Fridman (58:22.900)
So I'm not surprised that they're a subject matter
Anya Fernald (58:24.540)
for Neuralink.
Lex Fridman (58:25.980)
They're smarter than dogs
Lex Fridman (58:26.900)
and they're empathetic and emotional.
Lex Fridman (58:29.660)
And we'll go look at our pigs afterwards and see,
Lex Fridman (58:33.060)
but they're kind of like joyful and exuberant
Lex Fridman (58:36.260)
when they're in good health.
Lex Fridman (58:37.900)
And so that makes sense.
Lex Fridman (58:41.120)
I'm interested and open.
Anya Fernald (58:43.720)
I feel that the kind of bleeding edge agriculture movement
Lex Fridman (58:50.780)
that I'm on the edge of in some ways,
Anya Fernald (58:53.280)
we're a larger operator,
Lex Fridman (58:54.280)
but we as a movement have to get into the game.
Anya Fernald (58:59.260)
We have to move forward in a way that allows us to scale
Lex Fridman (59:01.940)
if we wanna be viable.
Lex Fridman (59:03.740)
So I think there has to be openness to how that can happen.
Lex Fridman (59:06.740)
And I also think there needs to be more thoughtful
Lex Fridman (59:09.500)
and noisy data about how regenerative ranching
Lex Fridman (59:13.820)
can sequester carbon.
Anya Fernald (59:15.460)
I mean, thousands of American ranches
Lex Fridman (59:18.700)
are selling carbon credits right now.
Anya Fernald (59:20.740)
The data is that valid.
Lex Fridman (59:21.860)
And they're not selling carbon credits from like grassland
Anya Fernald (59:24.620)
that just got a fence around it.
Lex Fridman (59:26.340)
They're selling carbon credits for verified data
Lex Fridman (59:28.140)
from animals assisting in carbon sequestration, right?
Lex Fridman (59:31.460)
So there's got to be a way to get the tech community involved
Anya Fernald (59:35.620)
in ways to help regenerative agriculture scale.
Lex Fridman (59:38.460)
In different creative ways.
Lex Fridman (59:39.780)
And actually, that'd be interesting
Lex Fridman (59:41.220)
if like Neuralink somehow has,
Lex Fridman (59:43.220)
and especially because Elon Musk is involved
Lex Fridman (59:45.180)
and Kimball Musk has his whole effort and appreciation
Anya Fernald (59:48.880)
of regenerative agriculture
Lex Fridman (59:51.080)
that I wonder if Neuralink has a role to play,
Anya Fernald (59:54.940)
like exploring the neurobiology of the animal,
Lex Fridman (59:59.720)
if that somehow will create innovations
🔗 相关节目