Government Corruption on your Fork

Take a listen to this podcast, it will change the way you think about the food you put in your body and your government.

Have you ever listened to or read something that had such a profound impact on you that it changed how you thought or lived your life almost immediately? A couple months back there were some fairly significant changes happening in my life, my wife was pregnant, she was recently diagnosed with gestational diabetes and most unimportantly of all, I was getting fat and sluggish. My clothes were noticeably tighter, my energy levels were way down, and just plain felt like shit. For someone who prides themselves on extreme work ethic, self-reliance and no excuses, I was not happy with myself.  Managing an engineering team, starting multiple businesses, and trying to spend as much time with my family and friends was taking a toll on me. Inevitably, the gym fell off my calendar and all the work travel had me eating and drinking my way to the unhealthiest I’d ever been.

A couple things before you continue reading:

1. If you don’t read another sentence of this blog post, Go listen to this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUH4Co2wE-I or better yet, go read this book: https://www.caseymeans.com/goodenergy. Both present some of the most critical information on the health of your family, your neighbors and your country that you’ve ever heard.
2. This is not meant to be political, but yes, this podcast is hosted by a what many would consider a right-wing pundit. It’s still very much worth the listen.

 Anyways, at seemingly just the right time in my life, a Podcast titled “Calley & Casey Means: The Truth about Ozempic, the Pill and  How Big Pharma Keeps You Sick’’ was released, and I decided to take a listen. As it turns out, the podcast provided a fascinating take on the ominous inner workings of the government-industrial complex that guides the farming, nutritional and health policies of the United States.

My Story:

Growing up, almost every meal I ate either came out of a box or off a fast-food menu. That included free school lunches of spicy chicken patties, fries, chocolate milk and Flaming Hot Cheetos. It wasn’t uncommon for me and my little brother to eat McDonalds, Domino’s Pizza or Chinese from the local takeout spot at least a few times a week. A “healthy” meal at our house was one of those frozen “Chicken Cordon Bleu” frozen things and some boxed rice. The only real homemade meals I ate were occasionally at a family friend’s or at my Grandma’s house (thanks Grandma!)

My buddies envied me when they came over to my house when we were kids.  At my house, we always had a fridge stocked with every kind of soda you’d ever want and a stand-up freezer in the garage with every frozen treat you could imagine. From Toaster Strudels to Hot Pockets to Salisbury Steak, we had it all. When we all get together, we often talk about how awesome we thought it was back then. Interestingly enough, all of it was bought with US Government Food Stamps.

2004-2006

In college I started to get a little healthier. I found the gym – mostly because I wanted to look better, not necessarily for health. I would make time at the end of the day with a buddy or two to hit the weights or play racquet ball (real attractive I know, burned some serious calories too). My buddies and I also started to eat a bit better, cooking at the house when we could. I'm sure this was partly because we’d drown ourselves in booze 5+ nights a week. The gym 4 days a week and few home-cooked meals gave us the false sense of security that we might be canceling out the negative effects of all the good times we were having.

Growing up I don’t remember anyone explaining to me how incredibly vital what we put in our mouth’s is to overall health.  It seems to me that the deck is stacked against all of us. Perhaps the folks in our government are more concerned with lining their pockets instead of making whole unprocessed foods easily accessible to low income and middle class Americans. Maybe the powers that be want an unhealthy population hooked on cheap, industrialized foods that cause chronic disease so they can capitalize on the “cure” in the form of a lifetime of pills, shots or procedures.

Luckly for me, at 32 years old, I feel as though I have seen behind the curtain a bit. Over the past 4 weeks, my wife and I have decided to buy our meat and produce locally, from organic local farms. Yes, it’s a little more expensive, although my guestimate is only 5-10% more expensive depending on what you buy. And yes, it’s a pain in the ass. We have to drive to the local farmers market and walk around stand-to-stand filling my wife’s purple flower bags with our weekly haul. But after just 4 short weeks I am down 15 pounds, have seen a noticeable uptick in energy, and my wife’s gestational diabetes is more controlled. Progress is happiness, my friends.

2024

So why am I telling you all this? Mostly to give myself whatever the opposite of credibility is when it comes to health. But also, to give you a little insight into my journey, why this is important to me, and why it should be important to you too. My hope is that reading this might make you a bit more conscious about what you put in your mouth. You are, in fact, what you eat.

Why the Government sucks and should not be providing nutrition recommendations

As a baseline, my general view is that the government and its recommendations should, at a minimum, be heavily scrutinized before adherence. There are too many examples to name, but it is clear to me that the US government in its current form does not provide the best guidance on anything. Instead of providing fact-based assessments, it seems that large corporations and government bureaucrats collude to recommend what is cheap, easy to produce and profitable.

In their book, Good Energy, and in their Podcast, Calley and Casey discuss the connection between metabolic health and overall health as well as the connections between Big Ag, Big Pharma and the US Government.

Some noteworthy items:

Credentials (For those who care)

1. Casey Means: Stanford Educated ENT
2. Calley Means: Stanford Undergraduate, Harvard Business School Graduate, Former Lobbyist

1. 74% of American adults are dealing with overweight or obesity.
2. Close to 40% of children are overweight or obese
3. 52% of American adults have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.
4. 30% of teens have prediabetes (this was 11% in 2002).
5. 1 in 36 children are on the autism spectrum (up from 1 in 150 in the year 2000). This number is 1 in 22 in California.
6. 34% of young adults have a mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder.
7. The incidence of early-onset cancers has increased by 79% in recent years.
8. Nearly one in two Americans is predicted to get cancer in their lifetimes (41.6% chance). This is the first year America is estimated to have over 2 million new cases of cancer.
9. Autoimmune diseases are rising rapidly, with some studies showing rates rising 3-12% annually.
10. 18% of teens have fatty liver disease.
11. 20-25% of women are on an anti-depressant medication.
12. Early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s disease have tripled since 2013.
13. American girls are starting puberty years earlier than they were in prior centuries and are starting earlier than any other continent in the world.
14. Infertility is rising rapidly and unsustainably, with sperm counts declining 1% per year and infertility rates rising 1% per year.
15. The US has the highest infant and maternal mortality rate of all high-income countries, despite spending the most.
16. Life expectancy is seeing a sustained decline in the United States driven by COVID, chronic liver disease, heart disease, and suicide.
17. 77% of young Americans are not able to quality for military service due to health problems or drug use.

Terrifying stuff, right? Equally terrifying is realizing the connection between the US government and the Corporations who push unhealthy, industrialized, chemically sprayed foods on vulnerable, uninformed people.

Some additional things to note on this front:

1. A large portion of the budgets of organizations like the NIH and top medical schools come from processed food companies and the pharmaceutical industry.
2. In Western Medicine, Doctors are trained to treat symptoms and not underlying causes.
3. Many of the most coveted medical schools do not teach even one Nutrition class.
4. Billions of pounds of industrial fertilizers are sprayed on US agriculture annually. They are produced by European companies and subsequently banned for use in Europe.
5. In the 1980s, tobacco companies like Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds acquired food companies like Kraft, General Foods, and Nabisco. These companies produced many popular brands of hyper-palatable foods, such as Oreo cookies, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, and Lunchables.

The drive towards cheap, abundant, addictive foods has created the largest health crisis in the USA in its history. The metabolic disfunction created by the traditional American diet leads to depression, anxiety, infertility, insomnia, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, dementia, and cancer, just to name a few.

Corruption within US government agencies including the USDA, FDA, NIH etc. are a direct assault on our Freedoms to choose how and what we eat. 77% of school lunches are entirely processed foods – we should be outraged that this type of corporatism and corruption is allowed to flourish in our country.

Alright, that’s all very depressing. How can we solve this?

The good news is this is an entirely reversible problem. The simple solution at home is to eat an organic, whole food diet high in fiber, protein and fats. Support local organic, pasture raised farming by buying your food from local farmers markets instead of multi-national grocers. Buying local sustainable foods is not only incredibly beneficial to you and your family’s health, but it also supports your local community and their vital small businesses.

The long term solution is to end government corruption, collusion and corporatism. Doesn’t sound too complicated does it?

What does all of this have to do with Free Man Apparel Co?

We started Free Man Apparel Co to support values we believe are critical to a strong, healthy, prosperous society. This all starts with what we put in our bodies. Vote with your wallets and support your local community, including local farmers who are there to support you. And buy a Free Man shirt or hat while you’re at it.

Cheers – Greg Z.