[00:00:00] Carl Lanore: [00:00:00] Hey, Hey, welcome back to another episode of superhuman radio. Today's January 21st, 2021, looking at one, two one two zero two one. I'm going to play the lottery later. Um, we have a really good one, uh, planned for today. We're going to be talking about, about some serious stuff. Uh, we're going to be joined in just a moment by Jerry and a grotto of the nothing hidden organizations.

[00:00:22] Talk about, uh, teenage mental illness. Do you know that. One out of five teenagers today of that age commit suicide. When I saw that statistic, I was shocked. I didn't know that in fact, suicide is the second leading cause of death in that age group. Wow. Like how did I not know that I'm shocked and parents really struggle.

[00:00:52] They want to do what's best for their child. Uh, depending on you know, who they first start talking to, they could be sent down the wrong road. Uh, [00:01:00] there nothing hidden organization has been doing a lot of work, uh, to try to give parents the tools, to understand how to proceed later in the show, we're going to talk about something called regenerative farming.

[00:01:10] Right? Remember there was organic, then there was sustainable and now there's regenerative regenerative farming, uh, promises to actually make the planet better. Through agriculture instead of taking away and making the planet worse. Uh, so that should be a fascinating discussion as well. Um, before we get started, of course we have to thank our title sponsor, legendary foods, uh, eat legendary.com is their website.

[00:01:36] If you go to SHR network.biz/legendary and use the code SHR 10, you can save 10% off everything they have there. If you don't like sugar in your diet, then legendary foods is where you want to go. They have a new tasty pastry, which is called birthday cake flavor with zero sugar and 20 grams of high quality, high leucine protein.

[00:01:57] And it tastes amazing. [00:02:00] And if you listen for the secret word, which happens during a commercial break and then email me at, on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., the secret word that you heard, you were in the running. For a free box of birthday cake, tasty, pastry. Uh, this is really easy. We give away one box a day.

[00:02:20] Your odds are very good. Just listen. During the commercial break, email, the secret word to me at on-air at superhuman radio.net and you're entered easy stuff, folks. Very easy stuff. Also, I just wanna remind everybody the last Friday of this month, we're bringing back casual Friday with TLA T Elisa.

[00:02:40] Profumo a lot of you have been upset that we took casual Friday off the air. It's coming back. If you have topics that you want us to cover on casual Friday, For those of you who've never heard casual Friday before. It's more of a news magazine type of a episode where we just talk about stuff in the news.

[00:02:58] I try to be as funny as [00:03:00] possible. Uh, I don't always succeed. Uh, Alisa brings the, uh, the softer side of the show, uh, but also a lot of good science to talk about. If you have a topic you want us to cover, email it to on air at Oh no. Email it to casual Friday. Casual This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. And don't miss, uh, the re-emergence of this very, very popular show.

[00:03:22] Okay. Now, without further delay, I bring my guest on, welcome to the show, Jerry and grotto. How are you?

[00:03:30] Jerry Negrotto: [00:03:30] Good. Thank you, Carl. I'm glad to be here, man. This is, this is a hot topic right now. Pandemic has. Uh, increased, uh, mental health issues with teams by they're saying 30% now we've got enough time and data.

[00:03:44] Um, it was, it was bad before now. Just think of a 30 per cent increase in mental health conditions and struggles with teens right now. It's um, it's a difficult situation for parents. Now,

[00:03:56] Carl Lanore: [00:03:56] this show is going to focus on solutions. But [00:04:00] we really can't talk about this unless people understand where you're coming from and why you have even take it.

[00:04:06] You and your wife, Tracy have made this a life mission now. And there's a reason for that. Can you tell us kind of the reader's digest version of it?

[00:04:14] Jerry Negrotto: [00:04:14] Yeah. Our daughter, um, took her life about a year and a half ago after struggling with mental health for probably five, six years. Um, And we didn't know it, we, we were focused on her behavioral issues, um, sent her to the different programs and treatment centers and, and really missed that.

[00:04:37] It was from a mental health standpoint that she was struggling and, and medicating herself with alcohol and drugs, um, because she wasn't diagnosed. And, um, she came back from a program, um, that she had asked us. Actually mom send me to this program. I want to get better. I'm done with this. I want to get my life [00:05:00] together.

[00:05:01] And, um, when she came back, they, uh, they said that she was treatment resistant. That's what we kept hearing. You know, all these programs, I think it was five, five of them. And, uh, less than two years. She's treatment resistant. Um, but at this particular program she was at, um, they did a brain mapping, uh, for neurofeedback.

[00:05:24] And when she came home, she said, something's wrong with my brain? Can we try to figure that out? Um, but unfortunately by the time we got her home, um, her eating disorder had looped for the second time. Uh, and she was at such a, in such a bad condition with her eating disorder. It just took her down. Um, she lost hope, um, or brain shutdown or body shutdown, and she decided that she couldn't wait any longer to try to get better with that losing her life.

[00:05:57] Our, our thought was. [00:06:00] Man. If the death of our daughter, um, can save other kids' lives, we will not be silent. Uh, that's our mantra. And that's our mission on now?

[00:06:09] Carl Lanore: [00:06:09] What is that? What is her name? What's her name?

[00:06:12] Jerry Negrotto: [00:06:12] Her name was a fellow Rose.

[00:06:13] Carl Lanore: [00:06:13] Okay. Um, so, um, I want it so many different tangents I want to go off on and it's very, very important ones.

[00:06:24] So, um, a lot of parents don't realize. That mental illness can show itself in very, um, innocuous ways. Now, uh, Bella's suffered from anxiety, right?

[00:06:39] Jerry Negrotto: [00:06:39] She had a high anxiety odor disorder, which morphed itself into an eating disorder. Um, but statistically speaking, and I'm just going to read this right here from the CDC, is that they say that, um, kids with one, uh, disorder, uh, mental health.

[00:06:57] That, um, one in three [00:07:00] teenagers will have a dual diagnosis. They'll have two mental illnesses running in tandem with one another. So she had high anxiety disorder and depression that would run in tandem with one another, which just complicates it even more. But that's very common in teenagers.

[00:07:21] Carl Lanore: [00:07:21] Now when these, um, when these conditions, um, show themselves it's usually around puberty.

[00:07:29] Was it that way for Bella as well? Um, or did she have signs and symptoms even before puberty? It

[00:07:37] Will Harris: [00:07:37] was

[00:07:37] Jerry Negrotto: [00:07:37] probably, yeah, it was 14. Yeah. 14 years old. Um, I mean, NAMI national Alliance of mental health, um, they will tell, they tell you I'm I read the statistic right here that onset of mental illness is 13 to 14 years old, and

[00:07:55] Carl Lanore: [00:07:55] this is puberty.

[00:07:56] And then I want, I want the parents listening to this show [00:08:00] to keep, keep note of a couple things here, because. At puberty is when your sex hormones start to rise and your body actually is prepared for the sex hormones to start to rise. So just, just keep that little piece of information separate for a little second.

[00:08:19] Um, so what, what, what were the first manifestations? Was it just the anxiety or did the eating disorder show up early on as well?

[00:08:30] Jerry Negrotto: [00:08:30] We found a lot of this information out from Bella on the backend. Um, when she came home from that last program where she totally opened up to us because she wanted help. Um, but she told her, her eating disorder really manifested itself.

[00:08:45] Um, about three years prior to us, um, Even finding out that she had an eating disorder. Um, that's very easy to hide. Uh, my wife was very skinny girl when she was younger, so we just thought [00:09:00] that because she was skinny. Um, and she had so much energy that, um, you know, in the morning she just didn't want to eat because, uh, you know, she wanted to get to school or she wanted to get to wherever she was doing for the, for the day.

[00:09:11] So it's easy to overlook. Um, Yeah. So we,

[00:09:17] Carl Lanore: [00:09:17] uh, I mean, I was just thinking when you said it easy to overlook, I want to stop there for a second. Right? Because as parents, when something like this happens, we look at ourselves with like, what did I do wrong? What did I miss? What, you know, how did I not catch this?

[00:09:29] So, you know, we, we expect ourselves to be super parents and we, we should know these things, but the reality is eating disorders and anxiety sounds like just about every teenager out there today. I mean, think about it. Every teenage girl wants to. Look a certain way and probably modifies her diet as such.

[00:09:49] And I mean, I know so many young kids that have anxiety, it's just, it's just flabbergasting and you don't, most parents just think, well, you know, the stress of school, the stress [00:10:00] of afterschool events and sports, uh, they're staying up late because they have all this work to homework to do. They're getting up early and run into school.

[00:10:09] Um, you have more and more teenagers using caffeine today. To, to, to, you know, to make ends meet so to speak. And so what kid doesn't have anxiety today? Yeah.

[00:10:21] Jerry Negrotto: [00:10:21] And that's true, Carl, and this is something that we, we teach parents at our, um, our live and mental health workshops and then our coaching when we meet with parents.

[00:10:31] Um, and this is huge, huge thing is that there's what we're going to consider. Um, situational circumstantial. Uh, anxiety and then there was clinically diagnosed anxiety. Um, and then the third thing is it's, it's almost a cool thing for a teenager to say that they have anxiety and depression it's in there, it's in their language all the time.

[00:10:55] But, but from the standpoint of a parent, understanding that situational [00:11:00] and circumstantial anxiety, that's something that's going to go away in four to six weeks. That's something they can walk along side their teenager with and coach them, uh, and, and use it as teaching moments. Uh, on life and the difficulties of life example, let's say your kid is, uh, he's 17 years old.

[00:11:21] He's got this girlfriend and you know, it's the one he's going to marry. Right? It's the Hottie. Um, he's convinced he's going to marry her. She breaks up with him, you know? So he goes out and he decides, man, I'm going to, I'm going to catch her on tonight, comes home three hours late. You see him when he comes home, he's drunk.

[00:11:42] He's late. You're wondering the first thing you're going to do is probably be punitive, right? Let's grounding for a month. We're going to take the car keys away. He just lost his girlfriend who thought he was going to marry. Okay. There's a reason for him to be depressed. [00:12:00] Right? Okay. That's situational, circumstantial depression.

[00:12:04] You're going to walk with your kid along side them, walk them through these three, four, five weeks. And they're going to be fine on the other side. But what happens is, is that, um, if you're too quick as a parent, right, my kid depressed, uh, it's two and two weeks, I'm running right to the psychiatrist. I'm going to have him evaluated.

[00:12:25] A psychiatrist is trained to do their job. And there's job is to ask you about 25 to 30 questions. You're going to score them are going to get a total at the bottom. It's going to see where you are with your anxiety, depression, and you're going to leave with a prescription for medications. And these medications could either help you or harm you because the side effects to most anxiety or depression, medicines is anxiety or depression and possible suicide.

[00:12:53] Carl Lanore: [00:12:53] Yeah. Ideations, right suicide. And in fact that the idea that you would take. A [00:13:00] drug is powerful as an SSRI and give it to a still forming brain. Cause let's be honest, you know, your brain is still forming in your teenage years, uh, and, and then alter brain chemistry so dramatically. Uh, that's a horrible and, and let's be clear about SSRI is don't work for the majority of people who take them.

[00:13:19] However, however, what they do is they distract you. If you had a pain in your shoulder and I stomped on your foot. The pain in your shoulder wouldn't bother you anymore because the immediate reaction would be, Oh my God, my foot hurts so much worse. Well, when you take SSRI, they numb you. So you don't feel sad.

[00:13:40] But you don't feel happy and you don't feel glad and you don't feel motivated and you don't feel like doing anything. And they, and so if the answer is to turn your child into a zombie, let's be honest. SSRI is just the chemical frontal lobotomy that can be removed. So I think that doctors [00:14:00] who, who prescribe SSRI to their teenage students, uh, teenage patients, recklessly, Willy nilly, like that should all lose their licenses.

[00:14:09] They all should.

[00:14:11] Jerry Negrotto: [00:14:11] And think about a car, a regular MD can prescribe SS, you know, uh, I don't know all the fancy language you use. Um, just an MD does you don't have to go to a, to a psychiatrist. They have higher level, more potent, um, drugs that they can give you. And I'll be just real honest and open and raw and real with your, with your audience.

[00:14:35] Um, now after losing my daughter traumatically like that, um, I was struggling with mental health issues. Um, I found her, so I have PTSD now, which comes with anxiety and depression. And, um, I had to go get evaluated because of long-term disability, short-term disability. And I walked out of there with, um, four medications.

[00:15:00] [00:15:00] Um, and, and some of the medications that I have are the same ones they gave to Bella. And, um, it put me into a zombie loop. I mean, seriously, the first day I took them, uh, and they told me, you know, um, it's gonna take 10 days. So you might feel weirdly strange. Uh, my best friend called me and I don't remember the conversation.

[00:15:20] He thought I was actually drunk or high. Um, because of these medications, just put my mind into just loop. Um, and I thought they had my daughter on these medications. I wonder the why she was doing, thinking, uh, an acting out the way she was. It was unbelievable. What I experienced personally. Um, and she was just 17 years old and they're like you said, their brain is forming until you're 24, 25 years old.

[00:15:50] Carl Lanore: [00:15:50] Let's talk about nothing, hidden, nothing hidden is an organization that you and your wife Tracy started in effort to try to reach out to parents and give them. Uh, some tools. [00:16:00] So one of the things that you've learned and that you talk about is brain mapping and biofeedback, right? You also talk about getting blood work done on these children lab work.

[00:16:10] Talk about those two components and how they work together.

[00:16:13] Jerry Negrotto: [00:16:13] Yeah. What we call it is the maze of mental health treatment options, and parents get stuck in them or give up. Because there's so much. Um, so one is, I mean, the fact is, and you, you can speak into this. So if you're, if your kid's depressed, okay, don't go run out and put them on depression.

[00:16:33] Medicine, go to a good doctor. Who's going to do a good blood panel and you might need to be the one who actually tells the doctor what to do. You need to advocate for your kid. Right? One is vitamin D. If you're having a diet, vitamin D deficiency that equals depression. We lived in South Florida for, uh, 25 years before moving to Tennessee.

[00:16:54] Our first winter, I went into a deep depression. First thing that I did is went to the doctor and said, [00:17:00] when you do my blood workup, I want vitamin teach act. I was at like 20%. It needs to be 30 to 40. Okay. Mega dose of vitamin C in two weeks, I was out of my depression. He

[00:17:10] Carl Lanore: [00:17:10] gave you a mega dose of vitamin D,

[00:17:12] Jerry Negrotto: [00:17:12] right?

[00:17:12] Vitamin D. You got to do the right blood panels, but you need to advocate for your kid what you want those blood panels to be. You need the tech check thyroid. You need to check your vitamin D folic acid as essential for brain health. Um, you need to be the one who tells them exactly what to do. Um, and, and you start, you start there because if it's just something biologically that's going on, that some supplements can take care of.

[00:17:39] That's a huge win because the last thing you want to do is get them on medications.

[00:17:44] Carl Lanore: [00:17:44] All right. So let's talk about the blood work for a second. So one of the things that parents need to pay attention to is this three earlier in the show, I mentioned how most children who have schizophrenia, it doesn't show up until that, that puberty age.

[00:17:57] Uh, most children who develop [00:18:00] anxiety and depression, it doesn't happen until that age of puberty. And there's a reason for this too, especially because we're going to dip dip into in a second, the role of traumatic brain injury that goes undiagnosed in these children. But when, when sex hormones are expected to be present in the body, this is during puberty and they don't show up.

[00:18:25] Or one shows up too high and one doesn't show up high enough. This almost always leads to mental illness. Always, almost always. So anxiety, anxiety can, one of the biggest things that causes anxiety is a combination of what I call S uh, In situ insulin resistance and, and, and, and blood sugar management trouble.

[00:18:51] And what I mean by that is, uh, when women go through through menopause, many of them suffer hot flashes of hot flushes, whatever you want to call it. [00:19:00] These are exclusively created by blood sugar swings. When you have a hypoglycemic episode of you look up on Google hypoglycemic. Symptoms. The first one is anxiety.

[00:19:15] The second one is sweating. The third one is tremor. The fourth one is passing out. Okay. So those first three. Anxiety sweating tremor. So what does a woman go through when they go through menopause? They say, I have a hot flash. What's a hot flash. I feel like I'm on fire. I start to sweat. I can't stop. What else?

[00:19:38] Oh, I can't sleep anymore. Why? Because I wake up in the middle of night with terrible anxiety. This is because of blood sugar, wild swings. Why? Because progesterone and estrogen create a push pull on managing blood sugar. Don't believe it. What do you think PMs is? PMs is when progesterone goes through the roof, [00:20:00] as you near your period, and all of a sudden you feel angry and agitated all the time.

[00:20:05] It's because all of a sudden your blood sugar is all over the place. You don't know it because. You're not checking your blood sugar and going, Oh my God, I didn't eat anything for six hours. Why is my, my blood sugar 140, or I just ate 10 minutes ago. My blood sugar is 63. What's going on along with me. So to piece, I'm going to string this together slowly for parents listening puberty.

[00:20:29] There should be hormones coming up when they don't come up. Anxiety sets in. Why? Because now the blood sugar is all over the place and children have anxiety for no reason at all. They can't figure it out. So let's stay with those two steps there. So as you advocate blood, uh, brain mapping, but especially brain mapping, because you're now telling people to suspect the TBI.

[00:20:55] Jerry Negrotto: [00:20:55] Yeah. Um, And the way we've really [00:21:00] learned, it was again on the back end here. So, um, neurofeedback is a solution to that. But what, what we learned was that our daughter had three, um, probiotic, brain injuries, and one was from being pulled out of the wound with forceps spec. It was when she was three years old and fell back in a chair and busted open the backside of her head on the corner of a table.

[00:21:26] And then about three years later, she fell out of a tree about probably six feet and landed on the backside of that head again. And so. Who, who really would think that that's, what's leading to, uh, yeah,

[00:21:44] Carl Lanore: [00:21:44] she got up and walked away from all those events,

[00:21:46] Jerry Negrotto: [00:21:46] mental illness. Right. Um, and so again, on the back end, we learned that and we finally brought her to, um, have a brain mapping done.

[00:21:56] They saw what they call swirls or hurricanes or [00:22:00] where those injuries. Were, and, um, with their own feedback they're able to pinpoint, um, I mean it's a very specific, detailed science and mapping of the brain. Um, and tell you in the first session, um, with the graphs and everything that they have, what they're dealing with and it matched up, you know, a hundred percent literally

[00:22:23] Carl Lanore: [00:22:23] where those, for where those injuries were.

[00:22:24] Right? Yeah. But, but let's let, let let's, let's, let's talk about, I've done shows about traumatic brain injury over the years. And one of the most brilliant guys that I've ever worked with about TBI is a doctor named Dr. Mark Gordon who shifted his, uh, his, uh, focus away from anti-aging medicine. He has, uh, a place in, uh, in Beverly Hills, California called millennium health care.

[00:22:48] And he used to be the go-to anti-aging doctor for all the stars and wealthy people in California. And. What he discovered was he was treating people [00:23:00] with anti-aging medicine who also had PBI and they were getting better. Their TBI symptoms would go away. And now all he does is TBI. He works with NFL football players.

[00:23:10] He works with the military. He actually has a relationship directly with the DOJ there. They're looking at a brain scans going in and coming out of the military and to identify guys who are at risk of traumatic brain injury. So. Let's talk about what TBI is. When we think about TBI, we think, Oh, you got a bang in your head, your brain heals.

[00:23:33] You're okay. No, that's how it happens. Anytime you have TBI. Let me tell you something that Mark said on my show probably eight, 10 years ago, you know, those dental, Mr. Re, um, um, x-ray machines that go around your head. To take the whole round. Do you know that they can actually shut your pituitary down in and develop TBI?

[00:23:53] What TBI is, is the cessation of the production of [00:24:00] critical hormones because of trauma to the brain. Now think about this let's piece, the two pieces together. So he said puberty hormones are expected. Those hormones don't show up. And then the child ends up manifesting these behaviors. And all we do is treat the behaviors.

[00:24:17] The reason that TBI plays into this is because TBI is the reason that the hormones don't show up. When they go through puberty. We know this now from Dr. Mark Gordon's work. If you disrupt the pituitary and the hypothalamus, you can forget about producing growth hormone. You can forget about producing testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, all of those hormones that are signaled.

[00:24:38] By the brain to the gonads, to the ovaries, to the thyroid, they don't get the signal so they don't produce anything. So these children manifest behaviors that are almost exclusively and primarily caused by hormone imbalances. And no one would think about it. They would think, well, why, why should I give a 17 year old girl, uh, uh, sex, [00:25:00] hormone analysis?

[00:25:01] Well, if she suffered a TBI, there's a good reason because she's probably not producing the hormones that she needs.

[00:25:08] Jerry Negrotto: [00:25:08] You know, in Carla, uh, what I realized too, talking to a lot of parents. When you think TBI or you tell them traumatic brain injury, they're thinking something, that's like, you know, a car accident, um, you know, their, the kid's skull got ripped open, but concussions.

[00:25:22] Also to fall into that category because a concussion can be from mild to medium, to a high level. Um, and that's the thing that gets overlooked by parents, specially sports concussions, um, with kids, uh, when they're, um, you know, just playing football, um, is, is a whole nother conversation.

[00:25:43] Carl Lanore: [00:25:43] Well, we're going to, we're going to take a break when we come back, I want to talk about some of the problems that parents face.

[00:25:47] Some, some of the problems parents face, they create themselves because. I can talk about this firsthand because my oldest daughter, uh, someone wanted, it said to us that she needed a medication and I was, [00:26:00] uh, I didn't want to stigmatize her with a diagnosis that would have stuck with her for the rest of the life, her life.

[00:26:05] And I think a lot of parents are afraid to talk about this in the first place, because they feel like. Like back in the old days, like, like, Oh, your kid is possessed by demons. You don't want anybody to know that. And that really is what nothing hidden is about. Right. It's getting parents to openly discuss search for answers and not be stigmatized by this.

[00:26:26] Am I, am I correct on that?

[00:26:28] Jerry Negrotto: [00:26:28] Absolutely. We're not afraid or ashamed to talk about mental illness. And we want to cause, uh, parents and people, uh, everyone to, to rethink mental illness, um, you know, we treat cancer. We, we treat, uh, heart conditions. We treat my BDS, but we don't look at a mental illness as something that needs to be treated

[00:26:51] Carl Lanore: [00:26:51] and that can be treated by looking at the body and not necessarily the brain itself.

[00:26:55] That's really the magic there. I will going to take a quick commercial break before we go that [00:27:00] we've set up a link. If you are a parent or know someone who wants to connect with the nothing hidden organization, we have a special link it's called SHR network.biz/nothing hidden, or you can go to nothing hidden.org, reach out to them.

[00:27:15] Uh, communicate with them. If you have a child that you think is at risk, do something about it. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.

[00:27:27] sorry I'm using my, or when my nose gets stuffed, I put it on the low setting. You can hear it. And I just hold it on the, like the, between my eyes and the bridge of my nose and my nose opens right up. It's amazing. This thing is amazing. I carry it around with me. It's a vibration ball. They're a sponsor of ours.

[00:27:47] I put it in the crook of my back when I'm sitting here too long, I roll it in the back of my neck. But the biggest thing is when my nose starts getting stuffed, I just hold it on my forehead and my bridge of my nose and my nostrils open right up. [00:28:00] It's an amazing device. SHR network.biz/media, or, uh, fantastic.

[00:28:06] I carry it everywhere with me anyway. So we're talking about the parents' side. Of this dilemma. A lot of parents don't want to talk about it because they don't want to stigmatize. It's almost like back in the old days where if you talked about it, somebody going to think your child is possessed or a demon.

[00:28:24] So everybody kind of keeps this to themselves. You know, it's almost like we used to joke when we were kids. Oh, you know, so-and-so has a crazy aunt that they keep up in the attic, you know, but I mean, but really it's sad that that mental illness has become stigmatized like that. And parents. Uh, sadly don't really want to take action a lot of times, and maybe they don't even want to acknowledge it.

[00:28:44] What do you think?

[00:28:46] Jerry Negrotto: [00:28:46] Yeah. And that's where our name birth from was nothing hidden. And it's, if you're a, if you're a teenager or if you're just a person and you're struggling and your thoughts are dark and, um, you got to talk to somebody don't keep those thoughts hidden. [00:29:00] Then second was a concept to nothing hidden was parents.

[00:29:04] When you find out. Or you've observed, or your kid has come to you and share that they're struggling with mental health conditions, parent, you can't keep that hidden. You need to take action. You need to talk to somebody, you got to find professional help. But, but I think, I mean, the parents there that could be embarrassed, um, it could be pride that holds them back.

[00:29:28] Oh, my goodness. I, you know, I don't, I don't want my clients, if you're a financial advisor or somebody in a high net wealth, um, category, you know, you what's, what are people gonna think if they find out that my kid has got clinical depression and is on medications? Um, so I think it could be that, um, and then.

[00:29:52] They a lot of times, I just don't know what to do. Right. Um, and then often you go into denial call. I mean, um, it's just [00:30:00] denial seems probably the, be the easiest route for a parent. And that's probably why the statistic is 10 to 11 years from onset to treatment, uh, that a statistic. That's a fact. And so, um, there's parents you'll go through shame and might do something to cause this.

[00:30:20] Um, so you got to deal with that and wrestle with that shame within you. Um, the, the wrestle within, uh, again, you know, um, I w I'm a bad, was I a bad parent? And then you start to leave in, you are a bad parent. Then you, you go into this whole looping of thoughts yourself that that will keep you from making a move, are picking up the phone and calling somebody are going to a counselor.

[00:30:46] Um, so it's all of those, those things.

[00:30:50] Carl Lanore: [00:30:50] You know, w what about, what, what role do, uh, the children have? So do you think children are all openly come to their parents and say, I think there's something wrong with me. I don't think they [00:31:00] do. Do you th th th do you think that they do that?

[00:31:03] Jerry Negrotto: [00:31:03] That's a great question.

[00:31:04] Um, no, they tell them, um, let me use this as an example with Pella. So, so we know now that bellows mental health really probably started more around that six to eight. You're all from the three traumatic brain injuries we talked about. So Bella never knew what it was like to feel right. To have the right type of emotional balance, to process emotions and information, hardships of life that come her way.

[00:31:37] So how was she going to come and tell us something was wrong with her when she never knew what it was to be? Right. Right. You know what I mean? I had a friend who had a nervous breakdown at 30. And they're doing great now because they knew what it was to feel. Right. The doctors were able to work with her and get her on the right medications.

[00:31:55] Um, so that she knew what that I feel. I feel like myself again. [00:32:00] So I think there's a category of kids that, that never come to their parents. Um, specially if, uh, it's, it's, it's occurred on an early age, but then we have the kids too are struggling and, um, look, let's be Frank man. Maybe they just got a bad relationship with their parents.

[00:32:17] So why in the heck are they going to go talk with their parents? They don't even like their parents.

[00:32:20] Carl Lanore: [00:32:20] Right. And that was the next thing. Right? So a lot of parents, uh, at least when I was a kid, you know, my father was fairly heavy handed. Um, I didn't think I could come to him and talk to him about certain things.

[00:32:34] A lot of parents who are feel that, Hey, you gotta be, you know, you can't be your child's friend. You gotta be, they gotta respect you. Aren't they creating a larger chasm for that child to even cross over, just even open up.

[00:32:48] Will Harris: [00:32:48] Yeah.

[00:32:49] Jerry Negrotto: [00:32:49] And that's, uh, I grew up. Same same as you, what that same philosophy of parenting.

[00:32:55] Um, we call it, it nothing hidden. You need to be a connected parent. You, [00:33:00] you need to have a connection with your kid so that they will come to you, um, and be willing to share what's going on with them. Um, if that relationships beat up, um, and they're not going to come to you that you're observing things as a parent, Then it's your, it's your responsibility now, I believe as a parent, too, to try and have a conversation with your kid, um, and nothing hidden, uh, dot org on our website, we actually have a guide to parents next steps, and there's four steps that parents can take.

[00:33:31] And one is the conversation and we kind of coach parents through how to have that conversation. But if you have a relationship and your kid's not going to come to you and you know that you're trying to talk to them, it's just going to blow up. Then you need to find a counselor, um, a youth worker, any define somebody who is going to be able to guide a conversation or step in for you and have that conversation with them, but a conversation needs to take place.

[00:33:58] Um, but I think most [00:34:00] kids, um, may, they may just be afraid to come to mom and dad. You know, even if you do have a good conversation, um, because how are you going to respond? Are you going to think like a broken that they're crazy that something's wrong with them? Um, uh, and then they're scared. They're scared because this isn't working properly.

[00:34:21] I can't process emotions. Um, I'm struggling with my friend group. Um, so there are so much in that, um,

[00:34:31] Carl Lanore: [00:34:31] Well, and then you offer, you offer parents, uh, uh, opportunities to you, coach parents to help them, right. To kind of take better steps. If you talk about the coaching that you offer at nothing. Yeah.

[00:34:45] Jerry Negrotto: [00:34:45] Coaching. Um, the first thing we do is, is, um, we, we want to talk really about, um, have you. Got the right blood work and the blood panels done for your child. [00:35:00] Don't just go run to the medication. So we want to find out about the background. Um, we're gonna, we're going to talk more about, um, natural, um, ways to deal with mental illness, opposed to just running to the doctor and getting on medicines.

[00:35:18] Um, and again, we're not a doctor, so we, we, we're not doctors. So we, we have to be careful with that. But our what our next step guide is, is number one, if you're observing a mood swings, if you're observing behaviors from your child and it's concerning you, then are step two on those next step guide, is that conversation, which we kind of just talked about and how to, how to have that conversation.

[00:35:45] It's gotta be the right time. You don't go wake up your kid at eight o'clock in the morning and tell him that you want to, you want to have a conversation about some things you've observed in, and you're concerned about them to get up at eight o'clock in the Lawrence. It's gotta be the right timing, the right place.

[00:35:59] You have to have the [00:36:00] questions in, uh, already thought out. Um, and you don't just go after him. Like, you know, what's wrong with you? It's it's asking them questions and getting them to open up. So I guess what I'm saying is an art to the conversation and the questions. Um, then our third step in our next step guide is the considerations, which I think is our most important.

[00:36:21] And we've already talked about a lot of that vitamin D testing, hormone levels, thyroid having the right blood panel, thinking back in their life, had they had concussions. Was there possible brain, uh, traumatic brain injuries that you need to consider? Uh, we didn't even talk about bullying. Wow, that that is huge right now and how that can actually affect the of trauma.

[00:36:44] Trauma has, is huge right now, especially with bullying, not just in school or flush on fleshed bullying, but cyber bullying. We could, we could spend a half an hour on that. Um, so we walk you through things you need to consider that are [00:37:00] outside of the box, or you're a traditional MD or psychiatrist is not gonna consider.

[00:37:05] Um, that's huge. And then number four is how do you take action? So we kind of want to get that, that parent out of this maze of, um, mental health treatment options and get them to get out of that maze, um, consider their child individually, um, and specifically, and take some steps. Take action. Don't just sit back and wait.

[00:37:28] Well, the bottom line is the longer you wait, then you're just. Allowing for a bad end result to occur. I don't mean to be harsh, but look, I'm being real. The more time you lose, you're just giving the end result that you don't want to see occur. Um, and there's nothing else I can say then. Um, you've got to, uh, parents got to take action.

[00:37:55] Gotcha.

[00:37:56] Carl Lanore: [00:37:56] So using the wrong doctor could [00:38:00] be a real bad thing for your child, because if you choose a doctor who's quick to diagnose and give pills, and this is it, how did, what, what, what should parents look for when they start to talk to a physician to help them with their child's depression and anxiety?

[00:38:18] Th that should be a red flag, like, Oh, we don't want to work with this guy or this gal.

[00:38:23] Jerry Negrotto: [00:38:23] Yeah. And that's, um, that's something, my wife, my wife is excellent at when they're on our step four for parents guide on our action steps. She talks about that about, uh, doctors. I mean, she interviewed doctors, she would call, um, um, we went to doctors and left those doctors after one appointment.

[00:38:44] Um, It's as finding the right doctor is critical work. It takes time and you gotta be willing to, um, go to four different doctors to find the right one. You have to do your own research. [00:39:00] Um, you need to connect with organizations and other people who have been through, um, No mental health issues with their kids.

[00:39:08] One thing we did, Carlos, I just thought of it pops into my mind was that, you know, we were early on, focused on Dave Mellow's behavioral issues because we didn't know it was a mental illness until, you know, three years into it. Um, but at one point when we just were like, we gotta figure this thing out. We hired a life coach, came to our house weekly with another couple that had two kids that had behavioral issues.

[00:39:34] And, um, that life coach, um, just helped us get grounded, helped us take a deep breath to look at what was most important that was going on with, uh, with Bella and to take steps. Um, so we took that concept and that training or that, that season of our life that we had this life coach. And then developed nothing hidden [00:40:00] out of that, but focused on mental health, opposed to behavioral things.

[00:40:06] Now with mental health comes behavioral, right? And the statistics are pretty, uh, pretty crazy out there. Um, and I just saw this this morning, listen to this, Carl. It says that, um, that three out of four children aged three to 17 year old years old. With depression also have anxiety. That's 73% of kids with depression also have anxiety, right.

[00:40:34] And Alma and out of that group, one out of two will have behavioral issues. And obviously those issues intensify as they get older as a teenager. Um, and they get into a car and then they turn 18 and they can just flip you off and say, I'm out of here. Right. Um, and so that's why we are passionate about helping parents early on.

[00:41:00] [00:40:59] We like to say that we're pre pre suicidal. Um, if your kid is suicidal and they're talking and they're talking about taking their life, that's not what nothing hidden does. You have to take immediate action and you need to get to a professional, but we want to be pre, pre. Suicidal. I can't, I that's not my term.

[00:41:18] I made that up myself. Right. Um, that is our mission. We want to help parents catch it in that 13, 14, 15 year old stage so that their child's life doesn't spin out of control. And that just starts to self-medicate. Um, I mean, you think about the amount of teams that are using drugs and alcohol right now.

[00:41:38] There's no statistical data out there yet of. Percentage of kids using drugs and alcohol, because they're self-medicating because they have not been properly diagnosed with mental illness are gone through treatment. But my guess is it's at least 50%, if not more.

[00:41:57] Carl Lanore: [00:41:57] Yeah, absolutely. I we're going to take our last [00:42:00] commercial break at the top of the hour.

[00:42:01] We're going to be joined by will Harris. We're going to talk about. A new way of farming and producing beef that actually makes the planet better. You know, I have all these people, they want to bash beef production. Oh, it's destroying the planet. Well, what if there's a way to produce beef that actually saves the planet, then they got nothing to complain about.

[00:42:21] Stay tuned. We're going to talk about that later. You're listening to superhuman radio. We'll be right back.

[00:42:29] I'll come back. If I want to take this conversation in an interesting direction, it just happens to be something I posted on Facebook today, actually. So I want to circle back to vitamin D for a second. A lot of vitamin D research is driven by epidemiological population studies. They look at populations that live near the equator.

[00:42:52] They have lower cases of heart disease. They have lower cases of arteriosclerotic plaque buildup. They have [00:43:00] lower cases of depression. They have, um, healthier immune systems. They tend not to gain weight as easily. And so we look at that and we go vitamin D and many of the studies that have been carried out in science to examine the effectiveness.

[00:43:25] Uh, vitamin D replacement. I use that term specifically, right? If we're not out in the sun, we live in the East, um, it's or you're scared of the sun because you've been told it causes skin cancer and the sun. Isn't what causes skin cancer any more than a book of matches house fires. There's more at play in skin cancer.

[00:43:43] It's not about the sun. The sun is an unwilling participant in the development of your skin cancer. I tell you that I've done shows about it, but with that being the case, Science goes, it's gotta be vitamin D that's conveying all these benefits. So then they do studies. They, I remember [00:44:00] one study we talked about on this show took post-menopausal women that suffered from seasonal affective disorder and, uh, they gave them a high doses of vitamin D both an injection and orally and their depression scores didn't change.

[00:44:14] Uh, there shows that supported that. High doses of vitamin D would lead to a better weight loss and fat loss. And th they didn't play out. The problem is to use an analogy. If somebody is telling you the magic is in the peanut butter and jelly, but you're also eating the bread. You really don't know where the magic is, right.

[00:44:38] It could be in the bread. When you lay in the sun, your body does something else besides produce vitamin D. It stimulates a hormone called Malana and stimulating hormone. MSH for short MSH is what makes you tan. That's what makes your skin get darker MSH? [00:45:00] There are four melanocortin receptors on every cell.

[00:45:05] MSH can shut off. Inflammation immediately. Now think about this for a second. What is traumatic brain injury? You bang your head, your brain becomes inflamed. We now know we're actually getting ready to do a show that shows that early head trauma may lead to brain tumors later on. Why? Because you have unrestricted collateral damage and inflammation and inflammation destroy disrupts the APAP tonic landscape that tells old cells to die.

[00:45:30] And that turns on cancer. Okay. Melanocortin stimulating hormone may be more important. It reduces depression, it increases libido. It stimulates changes in the gut microbiome that lead to leanness. It can actually clear authorial, sclerotic plaque out of the blue, out of the blind, the veins and arteries clear it over you.

[00:45:53] You know, if you have arthrosclerosis and your doctor says, wow, you got 80%, 80% of this artery is clogged. [00:46:00] Moved to Florida moved to Hawaii, moved to Mexico.  lay in the sun every day for a year, go back and they'll go away. Where'd that plaque go, go, uh, melanocortin, stimulating hormone stimulation, the production of Mo uh Myleene, which is the covering on nerves.

[00:46:17] We have a lot of people have neurodegenerative diseases today. The answer for them may be moved to the sun and lay in the sun. Um, dermatologists have done a horrible job at scaring people. The sun has shaped us over millions of years. It actually contributed to the humans that we are today. And now all of a sudden we're afraid of it.

[00:46:35] Oh no, don't go. Don't go in the sun. It's no good for you. Um, the reason I'm telling you this is because you can get Milano, tend to mulatto, tend to is a peptide. It was created by Arizona state university. Excuse me. For fair skin people to protect them from getting skin cancer. When they went to the beach, [00:47:00] you pretreated with Milan tan, too.

[00:47:02] You took injections and Balano ten two for two weeks. Before you went to the beach, you got tan at home, real tan, legitimate tan nut spray tan. Then you went to the beach and you didn't burn well. Malaria tend to is 1000 times stronger than the court stimulating hormone. The MSH we produce endogenously, small little tiny bits of it.

[00:47:24] 25 50 micrograms a day will not only give you a really nice tan and make you look good all year long, but we'll remove depression, remove inflammation. Keep in mind that major depressive disorder is now being thought of as a disease of brain inflammation. When the brain becomes inflamed, you become depressed.

[00:47:47] We just talked about it. A couple of them, we talked about it over the years, but we just talked about it again last month. So one of the things you need to do, Jerry is start reading about mulatto, tend [00:48:00] to, and melanocortin stimulating hormone, because you may have yet another tool to offer your parents.

[00:48:06] And there's doctors out there who prescribe peptides. Most of them listened to my show and they, and they, and they can actually prescribe a NA an intra-nasal mulatto 10 to, for your child. And you use it for two or three weeks and see what happens. If all of a sudden you notice that the child seems lighter and happier and less dare your there's your answer.

[00:48:30] Jerry Negrotto: [00:48:30] Yeah, that's awesome. And the more, the more natural and, uh, holistic options we can give parents, um, Obviously the better, because we know that. Medicine is not, uh, is not the answer. Now,

[00:48:45] Carl Lanore: [00:48:45] a drug, a drug that turns you into zombie. Isn't solving your problems. If you have anxiety and depression, they just, it's just shifting your disorder from this tonight.

[00:48:53] That's all it's doing. I look, I want to plug the website one more time. Uh, there's two ways to get [00:49:00] there. You can either go to SHR network.biz/nothing hidden or go to nothing hidden.org. Reach out to them. Uh, if you have a child at risk, Um, if you have a way to contribute to their efforts, reach out to them.

[00:49:15] Let Jerry know you heard about him here on superhuman radio. Thank you for coming on the air today, being so honest about a very, very difficult subject for you to talk about. I really, really?

[00:49:27] Jerry Negrotto: [00:49:27] Yep, absolutely. Thank you.

[00:49:28] Carl Lanore: [00:49:28] Carl. Take, take care of Jerry. Wow.

[00:49:34] Quick commercial break. But yeah, I mean, I just did a rant on Facebook today about mulatto and melanocortin stimulating hormone because there's people out there telling you that vitamin D will cure everything. And it does it, a lot of the heavy lifting that is attributed to vitamin D is actually being done by melanocortin, stimulating hormone.

[00:49:54] So. Anybody could use it. I use it every morning. I take, uh, two [00:50:00] puffs in each nostril is probably 51 50, 200 micrograms of, uh, of Atlanta 10 to each morning. I do, and I feel it when I do it, I feel wide awake. I feel happier. I feel more alert, great stuff. I'm going to take a quick commercial break. And when we come back, We'll get to talk about regenerative farming with will Harris.

[00:50:20] Don't forget. Listen to the secret word and you can win a box of tasty pastries. We'll be right back.

[00:50:30] Welcome back to superhuman radio. We're talking now with will Harris from white Oak pastures. They're a sponsor of ours. How are you doing well? Oh, can you hear me? Well, I can't hear you. I think you might have your microphone muted. I think, uh, there you go.

[00:50:50] Will Harris: [00:50:50] No, thank you for having

[00:50:52] Carl Lanore: [00:50:52] me on today. Yeah. So now you're in Georgia, right?

[00:50:55] I am

[00:50:57] Will Harris: [00:50:57] in South Georgia, almost all of them. [00:51:00] Almost Florida.

[00:51:01] Carl Lanore: [00:51:01] Okay. And, um, so, so for a long time, um, the beef industry. It has been taking a beating, especially from some of the people on Capitol Hill about how, uh, raising beef is hurting the planet, destroying the planet. And the reality is that of all the things that you could farm beef actually has the ability to make the planet better.

[00:51:28] Doesn't it?

[00:51:29] Will Harris: [00:51:29] Yeah, absolutely not just beef, but ruminants. That would be cattle, sheep, and goats. No be the earth of all with larger ruminants eating grasses, the cows causing grass to grow, and then causing roots to slough off, literally the way all that oil and gas and coal got sequestered in the ground was all the systems of nature working properly in [00:52:00] the day of the Dallas.

[00:52:01] Carl Lanore: [00:52:01] Interesting. Interesting. So for years we've been hearing about sustainable farming, right? For the first it was organic, then it was sustainable. What is regenerative? Farming will

[00:52:14] Will Harris: [00:52:14] regenerative farming is restarting the cycles of nature and the cycles of nature are Calista few. The, the carbon cycle, the energy cycle from the sun, the water cycle, the mineral sock, all the microbial cycle.

[00:52:30] Grazing cycle all the cycles. Are we probably over smart enough to recognize? And when all those cycles are operating properly, laying in yields on abundance, the abundance is what we live on. And again, it's how all that fossil fuel got sequestered. When we humans or technology became so powerful who were the first species to be able to break those cycles of nature.

[00:53:00] [00:52:59] When that happened, things went into a reversal instead of bringing carbon out of the greenhouse gases and putting it into the soil. We started burning the fossil fuels and putting it back into the atmosphere and probably even more. That's the most evidence when we call debated these soils and putting chemical fertilizers and pesticides on them, we further exacerbated that release of carbon.

[00:53:29] And we did what we have done. It was not the cattle that did it. You said it wasn't the cow, it's the house.

[00:53:36] Carl Lanore: [00:53:36] I like that. It's not the cow. It's the how so talk about, uh, how you raise cattle there. Um, you have some of the most amazing beef I've ever tasted. Um, it it's, um, it's interesting because you're doing it in a way that doesn't impair.

[00:53:55] The quality of the beef. I used to have a Mennonite farmer that I used to buy [00:54:00] grass fed beef from, and it smelled like wet dog. I don't know why. And it didn't, it was just, it was just tough and sinewy and it just wasn't enjoyable. So that's an example of trying to do the right thing, but the product doesn't really come out right.

[00:54:17] In your case, you're doing the right thing, but the product comes out. Right. So talk about how you, how you do things differently at white Oak pastures.

[00:54:26] Will Harris: [00:54:26] Well, the, the, the way we used to farm is a very linear model. We call the factory farming model. Factories are complicated, farms are complex. And when many of us left the linear complicated factory model, we changed a couple of things.

[00:54:52] And thought we'd get a very different result. Uh, that's not the way it works. You know, if I had, uh, [00:55:00] if I had, if I fall away, I used to and see meaning core to the cattle. That's not enough. You've got to change the entire system and make it cyclical as opposed to linear, which means the genetics of the cattle are different.

[00:55:15] The management of the land is very, very different. What we do here is, uh, the emulation of nature. We call it biomimicry. We move our livestock every single day, our calendar, every single day to a Melbourne location, any weighting,

[00:55:32] Carl Lanore: [00:55:32] the grays, the walking and grazing

[00:55:36] Will Harris: [00:55:36] planes  or even in the spring, Getty, you know, all of those things are that movement in nature.

[00:55:48] Is a very slow chase. There are protocols back there, be it wolves or lions, or pull the buyers, moving [00:56:00] those herds of ruminants across the landscape. And that's what we do here. We moved the capital every day. We take the role of the predator, pushing them to the next place we, uh, their impact on the land.

[00:56:14] Their own is great. Hard impact a lot of, lot of urination, a lot of dedication, all those cloven hooves fishing 

[00:56:25] Carl Lanore: [00:56:25] rating their air rating, the, the, the land too,

[00:56:28] Will Harris: [00:56:28] correct. That's right. Feeding those microbes in the soil. Uh, and then, but then it's, it's essential that there's a very long recovery time and some climates.

[00:56:39] It may be only once a year though. A partial was grazed. Um, I'm in a part of the world gets 52 inches of rain a year. So we're able to graze it multiple times. But the biomimicry in relation to nature is, is, is, is a fundamental that's the science.

[00:56:56] Carl Lanore: [00:56:56] What about the processing of, of the beef? [00:57:00] Is it the way you do it different than a factory farm?

[00:57:04] Will Harris: [00:57:04] Well, there's this very different where we close. We love closing loops. So we built. Uh, miss D VA inspected red meat slaughter plant, and the USDA inspected poultry slaughter plant here on the farm. So we, we raised animals here. We slaughter them here, process on there. We actually got our order fulfillment center here so that when a person orders our beef or pork or chicken or lamb or Turkey or honey or eggs or frozen vegetables, the line.

[00:57:38] We actually feel the, or here on the fall. Wow. It's a, it's, it's a really, uh, I feel blessed to have had this opportunity on my watch. You, my family has been on this farm for six generations and my father's my father's generation post-World war two, did the industrialization [00:58:00] commoditization centralization that produces 90 whatever percent of the food in this country.

[00:58:06] It was only on my watch and I was able to move the model back to the emulation of nature. And now I've got two daughters and their spouses here helping me do that. And they've got three babies with a sixth generation of my family on the song.

[00:58:23] Carl Lanore: [00:58:23] So your farm was established, correct me if I'm wrong in 1886.

[00:58:26] Is that right? Two 66. Oh my goodness. 20 years, even earlier, 1866. Was it always, was it always cattle? Did you, did you grow anything else? Did you,

[00:58:39] Will Harris: [00:58:39] was it just that's that's that's kinda my favorite part of this farm story. When my great-grandfather gave here 150 something years ago, he would have operated this farm as a more past BC far.

[00:58:55] He would have liked like, like us today. We have cows hogs. She [00:59:00] goes rabbits, chickens, turkeys, geese, guineas ducks, organic vegetable, passion, eggs, honey, taking advantage of the full abundance that the land provided you would have processed on the farm and distributed locally. My grandfather ran it the same way.

[00:59:19] My father took over the farm in 1946 post-World war II. And that's when things really changed the industrialization commoditization centralization. I mentioned on his watch, it became a monoculture of only cattle and he ran the farm that way. For years, I went to university of Georgia. I majored in animal science.

[00:59:43] I came home and further industrialized commoditized, centralized as a monoculture on the cattle. In the mid nineties, I started moving back to a model that resemble the, uh, what my great-grandfather did a whole lot more than it did with [01:00:00] my father and I have been doing, and it has really been rewarding for me.

[01:00:05] I don't believe my daughters would have come back. If I'd stayed in that industrial factory farm

[01:00:11] Carl Lanore: [01:00:11] model. How hard is it for a farmer to do what you did too? I mean, that seems like a really radical thing to do. Is it, is it easy? Is it one day you say, well, we're just going to change the way we do. I would imagine that it takes years to evolve into that older model.

[01:00:27] Will Harris: [01:00:27] Well, we're 25 years in and we're still evolving and we change every day. No, it's not easy, but it's very rewarding.

[01:00:37] Carl Lanore: [01:00:37] So the truth of the matter is what you do today is harder to do. And so the real, the benefits of wa to you, they're not monetary benefits. They're there. Why are you so in love with this style of farming?

[01:00:53] Well,

[01:00:53] Will Harris: [01:00:53] the, the first land, so use, is it harder to do? I questioned that I don't think it's harder to [01:01:00] do. It's mainly different and it's, uh it's. So in the industrial model, uh, we traded resilience for efficiency. Right. And it was a bad swamp. It was a really, really bad trade. And what we've done is really back into that more resilient model.

[01:01:21] And I, and we enjoy it a lot more and it's been rewarding. Uh, when I was an industrial California in the early nineties, I had three or four employees, so a little over a million dollars worth of cattle live cattle a year. And we made money. It's fine. It was profitable. We weren't rich people, but we were comfortable.

[01:01:44] I paid taxes every year. Fast forward to now we've got 176 employees, largest private employer in the County, and we sell those products. I've listed for you a [01:02:00] couple of times on one to consumers who are increasingly like members of my community. All over the country and that's just way more rewarding.

[01:02:11] The hard part for a hard part for farmers given this is the industrial model, uh, is low risk, low reward. It's it's, uh, there's really not much risk in farming, industrially due to the programs, the government set up, those kinds of things I can do. And we've talked about that a little, all day. It's real risk.

[01:02:36] It's low return, uh, and very tight margin. What we do today is a very high risk. Very high risk lot can go wrong in this model, but the award has been, uh, monetary has been that we were able to make it work and it's made quite a big benefit to the [01:03:00] local economy. Here. We can talk about that. And, and it was just so much more pleasant.

[01:03:06] And again, then when the middle fifth generation here and the statistics show that, I mean, how many farms are around, but there are six generations in now. Austria is not many.

[01:03:20] Carl Lanore: [01:03:20] No, no. So, uh, before we talk about ruralization, I want to talk about raising hogs for a second. Um, pork has gotten a really bad rap, um, It's a great meat, but part of the problem with pork as I see it as well, when I was a young man, I lived in Las Vegas, Nevada, and they had a really big hog farmer, uh, out, you know, out in the middle of nowhere.

[01:03:46] And, uh, and he went ahead and he bought these big industrial garbage trucks and he used this cart, the food waste. From the see casinos for nothing. [01:04:00] He cut a deal with the casinos. He says, I'll call all your food waste away, you know? And because he took all that food waste and he fed it to his hogs. Now a lot of that food waste was hot dogs and.

[01:04:13] You know, just real, real bad food and who knows what else? And when I saw that, I thought, man, I don't know that I'd ever want to eat pork if that's what they eat, but that's not what you do. I mean, I know a lot of pig farmers they'll pick up waste products to feed to their pigs. Hell, I live in Louisville, Kentucky, and there's an old Forester distillery, not far from me.

[01:04:37] And they sell that mash. Or they give that mash to a hog farmer that I know of. He helped me be that Mennonite guy that I used to buy beef from. He used to go and cart all that mash away and feed it to his hogs. Hogs are designed to graze aren't they just like cattle.

[01:04:53] Will Harris: [01:04:53] Well, not, not exactly. Just like now the crux of what you said is right.

[01:04:58] How's our mother [01:05:00] gastrics like you and a single chambered stomach that the just it's through, through. Uh, in acid and enzymes break in the food now, and similar with poultry, uh, cows hogs and sheep are ruminants, which is very different. They they're designed to sailors. Hogs are, uh, so cows are herbal hogs and those are omnichannels.

[01:05:31] So, uh, but that's, that's just a technicality is what you said is correct. And. Uh, animals have a natural bias. I know a little bit about what, what you do, what you advocate for and in the case of us humans, she does, or not the natural diet we humans evolve. Right? So maybe it was something wrong with living on that.

[01:06:00] [01:05:59] Maybe similar harms or evolved, eating certain things. Those certain things is not those hot dogs from the casino, hot hotdogs for the most part made from pork. So you should even pull back the pork and it was a hell of a

[01:06:19] Carl Lanore: [01:06:19] war. We see what happened with cows when they were feeding cows back the cows. And then we had, uh, that the Epstein-Barr syndrome in cows.

[01:06:28] What'd they call it again? I forget what it was. Mad cow disease.

[01:06:31] Will Harris: [01:06:31] Yeah. Yeah,

[01:06:35] right, right. For sure. Uh, like animals have natural diets. And when you move anyway, including people in that, and when you move away from those natural diets or you bring a lot of, uh, potential unintended consequences. Into the program and those unintended consequences almost certainly will be [01:07:00] unnoticed a long time and on wounded when you do the new book come out.

[01:07:07] So, you know, in terms of what are you talking about diet, but you see, it's easy to think easier for a lot of people that are animals centric to think of it in terms of the welfare. You know, when, uh, when I was in new versa, Georgia, Majoring in animal science. How was your viral culture? Good animal welfare meant you keep them well fed.

[01:07:29] You keep them water. You keep them in a reasonable temperature range. You don't intentionally inflict pain and suffering. You hit those full boxes. Now you're good. That's kind of around the world, right? And in fact, it's not. Cows were born to roam and graze houses were born to root and wallow. Chickens are born to scratch and Peck, and those are instinctive behaviors in the industrial confinement model does not [01:08:00] allow the animal health, those instinctive behaviors, even though hit the four boxes.

[01:08:04] Right. And when you deprive that animal, have the opportunity to express that moves instinctive behaviors. It is under. Stress low stress, 24 seven. It's like you'd been in solitary confinement. Right? So when you, when we hear most rethink the plannings to make it efficient, make it very linear. Uh, we S uh, put us in a position where we can scale it up, where there are unintended consequences and that's true.

[01:08:36] Changing the diet is true with, uh, confinement, uh,

[01:08:42] Carl Lanore: [01:08:42] So all of that animal protein that you sell at white Oak pastures, it all originates on your farm. You don't do you buy animals from other farmers?

[01:08:56] Will Harris: [01:08:56] We raise all our own animals with exception of [01:09:00] cattle. We have a producer group of my local friends and neighbors raised California under our

[01:09:05] Carl Lanore: [01:09:05] protocol protocol.

[01:09:07] Right?

[01:09:08] Will Harris: [01:09:08] Throw a new thing in our slaughterhouse, et cetera. I don't know, most of them are from our farm or our local producer group.

[01:09:15] Carl Lanore: [01:09:15] Talk about ruralization. Why is that so important to you? You, you said you have like 150 employees now you're the largest employer in the County. Why was that so important to you?

[01:09:25] Well,

[01:09:25] Will Harris: [01:09:25] it became important to me, you know, the, these three basic pillars are animal welfare, regenerative, land management, and we really enrichment to this local community. The first two. Now animal welfare in the way of management, we're very intentional decisions that we made. We won't move away from what we're doing.

[01:09:46] We'll move in that direction. And we steady, steady at it, learn implemented. So it worked some didn't. We rethought it very intentional and we made a lot of progress. I was very happy with it. [01:10:00] The. Revitalization of the little rural community was quite by accident. We never set out to do that. Very unintentional.

[01:10:08] We never said let's trust. Fix this little towns become a ghost town. I mean, we never did that. We weren't so presumptions as to think we would be able to write, but when we change the other, the animal welfare and the land management wound up attracting more wonderful people. Not, not people that worked on the farm cause they didn't couldn't do anything else.

[01:10:35] People that chose to come here from all over the country and actually internationally and like came in here, were energetic, passionate. They needed a place to eat and sleep and drink and play and shop. So we built those. And we looked up and said, wow, we've got a nice little town, but [01:11:00] we have a town that has a quality of wife that I would say it's as good as areas, planet, and where it's a destination people.

[01:11:08] We built a restaurant in lodge in cabins and stole one because it's a destination. People come here and I'm, I'm honored by that.

[01:11:18] Carl Lanore: [01:11:18] That's a fascinating story that really, really is.

[01:11:22] Will Harris: [01:11:22] And, and it's highly replicatable, it's highly replicatable, it's not scalable like a factory, right? Attainable. The admin admins should be one or two or three white Oak pastures in every agricultural County in this nation.

[01:11:41] Carl Lanore: [01:11:41] So, do you ever think about, do you ever travel and lecture about how this Phoenix phenomenon occurred to other farmers who maybe have the wherewithal to do what you did?

[01:11:55] Will Harris: [01:11:55] I would rather be whipped with the police of Baltimore.

[01:12:00] [01:11:59] We do a number of these kinds of floodings and. One at the governor. I'll be, I can be back in the past 15 minutes. Right? Right. Uh, we do have an internship program that is very, very popular. We probably get, uh, 25 or 30 applications for six slots. We do that four times a year. We're doing more. We have a lot of visitors.

[01:12:26] We have cabins, zoom, farm, you know, restaurant stolen. People come here and. Most of the people that come here are either foodies or farm use. They come here to learn where the food comes from. Learn, come here to learn how to produce it in this regenerative manner.

[01:12:45] Carl Lanore: [01:12:45] I want to plug the website real quick too.

[01:12:47] So, uh, we have a special link. If you go to SHR network.biz/white Oak and use code SHR 20, you save 20% off on orders up to $100. Um, [01:13:00] And now I didn't even realize that you have rabbit. I've wanted to make Haas and Pfeffer for the past 10 years, I have a recipe someplace for it. Um, I'm going to order some rabbit, uh, talk about, talk about, talk about some of the other, I mean, obviously beef is your, is, is your, is your flagship.

[01:13:19] Let's say you have fantastic beef, but talk about some of the other, uh, animal proteins that you think people are missing out on that maybe they don't eat anymore.

[01:13:29] Will Harris: [01:13:29] Well, the beef is the girl that brought us to the car. And if we shoot trick for 50 years or more, but, uh, the oldest species, uh, we, we raised the other to these for two reasons.

[01:13:42] One is it broadens out product was so people can get more stuff from us, which is great. The other thing is every animal has a different impact on the life. Right? No, there's there's there that we Royal against Monaco shoes you wear [01:14:00] in nature. The amount of culture does not exist. Right? Nature of bowls, a monoculture I learned in physics nature of balls of vacuum makes you also have bulls a molecule.

[01:14:12] Okay. So having these oldest speak cities for the impact they have on the land is no official. And every coach, different cultures have different. Uh, preferences in terms of the proteins. And then we recognized that we just given us members of our community from all over the country of different ethnicities.

[01:14:33] And we were grateful for that. We appreciate it because we made those hours on the farm. We raised them. We need a way to mom's house, very grateful to have Mediterranean people that won't go in and Oriental people that can go some . Historically people eat your largest sheep producer in Georgia. I've never had lamb until I was a [01:15:00] 50 year old man and Bartlett sheet and tasted it.

[01:15:03] It was just outside of my culture. Right. Uh, what is interesting? You asked about different species. What's interesting though, is how the Oregon meat. Appetite has increased dramatically. My first move, my packing plant almost 15 years ago, we threw away a lot of organ meats, a lot of liberals and pancreas and hearts and just a LA just there's no market for it.

[01:15:35] And today, uh, you'll notice on our website. We, we stay out of a lot of those organs, testicles, you know, you just can't keep enough. And sadly, you'll see that rabbit and things probably out right now, which we struggled away. The lift from that.

[01:15:53] Carl Lanore: [01:15:53] See I'm Italian and, uh, my grandparents from Italy. So I was exposed to organ [01:16:00] meats at a very, very young age.

[01:16:01] And, uh, every year my grandfather malaria would slaughter a lamb and they made food out of every part of that lamb, including the blood they used to, uh, they used to put the blood in what looked like a, um, a bread tin. And my grandfather would add wine to it and they'd bake it in the oven. They called that song were notch and it slices like liver and it's very sweet and it's delicious.

[01:16:29] They baked the head. My grandmother would take the skin off the face and they'd they'd season it and put it in the oven and bake it. Um, I've eaten the brains from, from, from that delicacy that that's called a  in Italian, the Lamb's head. And my grandmother used to make tripe and peas all the time. And that's the stomach.

[01:16:51] And it's amazing. Cause there is, there's a, there's a, a rebirth in the interest. A couple of good books. Uh, Sally Fallon from Western price [01:17:00] foundation published a book several years ago. She came on the show, um, about using the organ meat and eating the whole animal. And I'll tell you what it is. Um, so if all you eat is muscle meat, you get a higher level of a thianine the amino acid methionine in your body.

[01:17:20] And Matthias, Nene is associated with. Uh, rapid aging in humans, but the thing that reduces the impact of  is another amino acid called glycine. And you get glycine from soft tissue. You know, the tougher cuts of meat, some of the organ meats. And so we've, we've missed the boat as a, as a species. When we started just eating the steak, you know, it was a big mistake, but the old timers, they knew the old timers were eating organ meat because you, you, you, you ate as much of that animal as you possibly could without wasting any of it.

[01:18:00] [01:18:00] Will Harris: [01:18:00] Even a little more out of his stick than that. I told you that we're big on emulation of nature. And when, uh, a pocket code is, takes down a calf in the video, the first light they have this red light, everything from, I understood the Gilead. Yes. I know if I don't move the carcass, I don't find it the next night they will come back and start chewing on the mussel leaf.

[01:18:25] Right. Nobody instinctively knew. Where are the nutrients are . They didn't know they were coming back so they didn't leave the

[01:18:34] best

[01:18:34] Carl Lanore: [01:18:34] one. I've I've talked about that phenomenon on the show for the past 14 years. Cause I'm an avid Hunter and anytime coy dogs or coyotes would run down a deer, they would eat, they would eat the awful, they'd eat all the belly and all the intestines and all that sort of stuff.

[01:18:49] And then, and you think yourself, wow, why wouldn't they eat? That, that big ham on the back. And they don't, they don't, they didn't want that they wanted what was inside that belly what's inside that cavity. It's amazing. [01:19:00] I

[01:19:00] Will Harris: [01:19:00] mean, I respect what you said about no waste. One thing we're very proud of is, um, we generate about nine times a day, five days a week of what's called packing plant waste is the.

[01:19:17] Well, it's not marketable USDA. Won't let us sell it. Part of that is visceral the, uh, uh, let feel heads the bones and aren't fit for soup mums. We, we, we sell a lot of booms and we make a lot of Roth, but whatever can't be marketed is composted and put back on the land. And it's incredible what it does for our lane.

[01:19:44] It's back on that birth growth death, the cave, right growth, a birth group for the cycles of nature that we talked about her, right. And being able to, uh, further, uh, boost our soil that had [01:20:00] become so depleted and degraded using chemical fertilizers pesticides for so many years. And she brings it back to that.

[01:20:09] Healthy organic medium. It's just teeming with life instead of that dead liberal medium. That is dirt.

[01:20:17] Carl Lanore: [01:20:17] Last question I want to ask you and then we'll plug the website again. I'm a huge proponent of feeding dogs, raw food. When I tell people this, they go, Oh, but raw chicken. And I say, who's pulling the bones out of a Wolf's throat.

[01:20:33] Nobody. Why because it's not cooked when you cook it, it splinters and that's it. But an animal can eat raw bones all day long. So do you offer some of that waste that you can't sell for human consumption? Could that be sold for, for dogs?

[01:20:49] Will Harris: [01:20:49] Everything we do sell raw food for dogs. Uh, we, the parts that we can.

[01:20:57] Uh, everybody that we sell to dolls [01:21:00] will suitable for human consumption. And there was some regular gold rules why we choose to do that. But, uh, to, to support your, your, what you said, uh, my dog use I'm office used to be at our processes plant. Okay. Where would we be today? And I didn't feed him. I said he lives on ground meat.

[01:21:21] That's the meat. He finds meet what he can find. And it was beautiful people. People complimented how, how then I moved my office to Bluffton limited the old courthouse when we're in courthouse here at now. And, uh, I was feeding him food. Store-bought kibble, dog food. If you looked off, he looked terrible. I mean, it's just incredible how quickly his health went down.

[01:21:51] He should young dog. Yes. I started back feeding him, uh, open from the plant, our pit pit grind we [01:22:00] make. And in a very short period of time, he was just beautiful. Again, it was incredible. I wish I'd been smart enough to do before and after.

[01:22:11] Carl Lanore: [01:22:11] Well, I gotta tell you, I mean, this comes back to talking about the appropriate diet for a species, you know, um, most of these kibble dog foods have corn in them.

[01:22:19] And I don't know, I don't know any farmer, whoever opened up his back door and said, those darn dogs ate all my corn again, you know, dogs don't eat corn. They don't eat wheat. You know, and it's just silly that, that we feed these pets. We love these animals. People love their animals like their children, but yet they're feeding them a diet.

[01:22:37] That's speeding them along to death. The number one killer of Labrador retrievers and, uh, Labrador retrievers and golden retrievers today is cancer. The number one killer, the number one disorder of most. Domesticated dogs today is diabetes. We feed them like we eat, they get the [01:23:00] diseases that we have.

[01:23:01] It's it's, it's so simple. They had a, they had a euthanize, a bear in the San Diego zoo about six years ago because he developed congestive heart failure. No bear in the wilderness develops congestive heart failure. Why? Because they feed him Purina chow. I mean, we feed these animals crap that they're not designed to eat.

[01:23:22] They get the same diseases we do because we eat stuff we're not designed to eat. It's a full circle, full circle.

[01:23:31] Yeah, there you go. I want to thank you for two things. I want to thank you for making time. I know you're busy for coming on the show today and talking about this also. I want to thank you for giving the show a try. I just want to put this back up for the audience to say, uh, go shopping today. Go to SHR network.biz/white Oak.

[01:23:49] Use the code SHR 20, save 20% off on orders up to $100. I mean, think about this. Rabbit. My mother used to make the best lamb chops. I'm going to [01:24:00] get some lamb. I love lamb chops. They're the best. Uh, thanks for being here today. Well,  yeah. And that's it for today. I'm off tomorrow, but we'll be back next week with lots of great shows.

[01:24:12] Don't forget. Did you hear the secret word? It ran twice in two different commercial breaks. If you heard the secret word, email it to me at, on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You'll win a box of. Cake flavored, tasty pastries, birthday cake flavor, tasty pastries. There's a winner every day. Don't delay do it now.

[01:24:32] And we'll see you too. We'll see you Monday with more super human radio. Thanks for being here tonight. [01:25:00] .