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What did your childhood diet look like? Does it seem impossible to overcome? Take heart! Phoenix Be of Simply Grassfed had a shaky start too, filled with Lucky Charms and TV dinners. Today, he is a farmer, health and relationship coach, and an advocate for optimal health through a natural lifestyle and organic foods.
In this episode, Phoenix shares his journey and emphasizes the importance of viewing food as our medicine. He discusses deceptive “greenwashing” labels that mislead the public into believing certain products are healthy and natural. Phoenix also reveals surprising processes that some organic meats undergo and explains why vaccines for both humans and cattle are, in his view, problematic.
Visit Phoenix’s websites: Simply Grassfed and Blossom and Be.
Register for the Wise Traditions conference in Orlando, October 25-27, 2024.
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Listen to the episode here
Life (And Health) After Lucky Charms And TV Dinners
Welcome to the show, Phoenix.
Good to be with you, Hilda.
This is so fun that we’re at Polyface and seeing you reminds me of the importance of real food. I’ll never forget when we last got together you told me that even chicken that has all the right labels that you buy from the grocery store can sometimes be bleached, dipped in bleach and different chemicals to ostensibly get rid of bacteria. What’s the deal with that?
It’s an atrocity how much the organic label has been greenwashed. You go to whole foods. Even a lot of the popular brands that you would think are raised humanely and are eating quality and chemicalized forage. When it comes to butchering, you go to a USDA butcher anywhere in the US. They’ve got standards that they have to comply by. They have a butchering plan that they agree to before they open up their doors.
Many ‘organic’ labels are just greenwashing. Ask your farmers the tough questions about their practices!
There’s certain criteria that they have to follow through when they process your foods. One of the big things that you can almost guarantee if you go to a USDA butcher is your meat is going to be cleaned, either with bleach or lactic acid or with citric acid or some type of antimicrobial that’s going to make your food no longer organic.
Some people might say, “That’s good because not that it’s no longer organic, but maybe I want pathogens taken off of my meat.”
This country is full of sick people. I don’t know what the numbers are these days, but the thing that’s making people sick is not the bacteria. The thing that’s making people sick is these chemicals that are in the food when the cows eat it and on the meat when it’s been processed. When somebody says I’ve got food poisoning or something like that. What they’re having a reaction to is not the bacteria that’s in the food. Hilda, your bacteria. Your 99% bacteria.
I’ve heard this.
There’s tons of research about kids who grew up on farm. They muck the stalls out and they don’t get sick. The people that get sick are the ones that are exposed to the chemicals that are in the food that we eat. It’s a shame that the poor bacteria are getting the blame for all this. What it is, is the commercial food industry that’s tainting us.
It reminds me of that verse in the Bible where Jesus was calling out the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He’s like, “You whitewashed tombs.” In other words, were superficially addressing something but not getting to the root cause. These Pharisees and Sadducees seemed super religious but it was an external thing. We’re addressing these bacteria but that’s not the root cause of the problem in our sickness.
Exactly. If the FDA or the AMA was to be forthright and take responsibility for why we’re so sick. It would crumble the whole system. Take cancer for instance. The popular notion is that cancer comes from within. There’s an autoimmune response. Our body is attacking itself. These cells are dividing and we’re the innocent victims that these cancer creatures are devouring us. What the cancer is, it’s a human body’s response to and American Cancer Association will never admit that it’s radioactive waste, EMFs, pesticides, herbicides, all the chemicals in the cosmetics, soaps, and hair dyes that infiltrate our body. The portal cancer cells are doing their best to try to keep us alive.
Your body, in other words, is on your side. Your body is not betraying you by developing a tumor. The tumor is its protective response to the toxins you’ve been exposed to.
It’s your lifeguard. That tumor cell is your last resort an effort for your body to try to survive in a toxic environment.
Is this one reason why, Phoenix, you are so committed to connecting food and health, regenerating the soil, and giving us food that is real food and not full of the toxins you were just describing a moment ago?
If we avoid environmental toxins and food toxins and eat plain nutritious foods. We’re not going to get sick. That’s what the pandemic is in this country. It’s people that are being infiltrated with so many toxins in this modern culture.
Avoiding environmental and food toxins and eating nutritious foods can keep us healthy. Real food is medicine!
Tell me when you got into regenerative farming.
I’ve been doing this on a hobby level for many years and taken into this level in a few years.
The Hallmark Of Simply Grass-Fed
What is the hallmark of Simply Grass Fed?
Connecting food with health. Recognizing that there’s this direct link between what we put in our body and how our cells take those nutrients, the oxygen, and those macronutrients and turn them into healthy cells. Every day, you’re dying, growing new skin cells, new blood cells, and new liver cells. It takes seven years and you have a whole new liver than what you had seven years ago.
Connecting food with health is vital. What we eat directly impacts our cells and overall well-being. Choose wisely!
If you’re taking in herbicides and pesticides, your liver is going to be intoxicated. If you’re drinking whole raw milk that is grass-fed, no hormones, and no antibiotics. They’ve been grazing on grass that hasn’t been sprayed. Those liver cells are going to get the most nutritious packed ingredients that it needs to build you a new liver a few years from now that’s going to be optimal.
This might be news for some of us because some of us might be thinking, “Cancer is inevitable. It’s the luck of the draw. You never know when you’re going to get sick and be diagnosed with some strange autoimmune condition.” That doesn’t need to be the case.
It’s the wool being pulled over our eyes. I don’t want to go too deep into the why or the motivations why that’s being marketed and propagandized to us in this country, but these diseases are modern. We didn’t have cancer, autoimmune disease and Lyme’s disease a hundred years ago. Food back then, there wasn’t organic food because everything was organic. The GMOs, the hormones, and antibiotics is all part of modern industrial farming.
Ensuring Healthy Farming Practices
If food is our best defense, Phoenix, how can we make sure the farmers that we’re going to and the farms were associated with are doing it right? What are some things we should look for?
You got to ask them and you got to ask them two or three times. Don’t talk to the front desk person. Go to the farmer themselves. When they say, “It’s raised naturally.” That’s a smoke screen. Ask them directly, do you feed them soy? What soy is it? If you feed them organic grains, what grains are they? it might be organic soy. You want to be very specific with your question asking and diligent. Don’t take the first answer they give to you and walk away.
Why might some of the farmers be taking shortcuts and not using the best feed for their animals?
It’s because farming is not a lucrative business. Farms are going out of business by the droves and the only way for them to stay in business is to have some margin. For example, we raise beef cattle. If you want to raise a beef cattle without soy and growth hormones. It takes an extra year to get that cow to the size that it needs to be in order to get the return on it when you take it to the butcher.
You can shorten your growth cycle, especially with chickens and poultry and smaller animals because the traditional heritage breeds take twice as long to grow as some of the more modern breeds that do well with hormones and small living spaces. If you’re a farmer and you’re trying to make ends meet, difference between two months and four months in turning your animal into profit is a big deal.
I bet some farmers might not even be aware that what they’re doing isn’t best for the animal or for the consumer. They might just be doing it, as you said, to improve their margin but they might think, “This is what all the farmers do.”
They do and there’s no bad guy here in this at all. Most of the farmers that I know that haven’t caught on to the organic movement yet, they lived through the whole polio scene. They think they’re doing the best by vaccinating their animals and they believe that. It also comes down to economics because if you have, say, 50 beef cattle and 20 of them are sick. Blackleg is one of the vaccinations that they often give young calves. You could potentially save that calf. The vaccine will help.
It’ll cause that cow to have a reaction that will increase their immune system so that they fight whatever disease it is that they’re experiencing. What they don’t look at is what’s causing that virus or that disease. It’s usually the cows that are the most unhealthy. The ones that are deficient and malnourished. Instead of culling those from the herd, which would be the organic thing to do, that would be suicide for a farmer. Wherein you can give them a small antibiotic or a vaccine. They thrive then you can sell it for a few thousand dollars instead of taking it to the auction house and selling it for $50.
In the olden days, in other words, they might have done something, let nature take its course, for example. Now, we have these modern things that can extend the life artificially of the animal but it’s causing side effects for lack of a better word. When we ingest that meat, it’s also affecting our health.
The same as humans. We’ve extended the life of human beings. My grandmother lived 101 years old and she had a whole arsenal of medications that kept her going. It does extend the life, which can be a financial savior for a farmer but it’s causing the collapse of our health in this country.
When I’m going to a farm, I can ask about vaccinations. I can also ask about pesticide practices. Should I also ask about processing practices?
Again, depending on the butcher. They have to set up a butchering plan before they go into business that gets approved by the USDA. You have the option to clean your meats with apple cider vinegar. It’s an organic product and doesn’t have any chemicals in it. Most butchers, 99% of them don’t opt for that as a cleaner. They go for the one that they know is going to sterilize and their customers that are from a culture that is frightened by the germ theory, they want that.
They recognize that seal of approval from the USDA. They know that beef has been cleaned with bleach and there’s no microbes in it. As that culture starts to age out and this younger generation like my son, Asa, start to see the real enemy which is the chemicals. They’re going to start opting for a butcher that goes with apple cider vinegar.
Can you operate without getting this USDA seal of approval at all? Is this one reason people are turning to the private membership associations and so forth?
That’s the main reason why people buy from Amos Miller. It’s because he recognizes that involving the government certification organizations. It is a detriment to the health of the products that he sells. He’s committed to butchering on his farm. He’s committed to cleaning with apple cider vinegar and his customers know that they’re going to get unadulterated and unchemicalized meats if they purchase from him.
Is that how you do it, too?
We have a butcher shop that cleans with apple cider vinegar and that’s what we use.
How many cattle do you have? Tell me a little bit more about Simply Grass Fed.
Simply Grass Fed is our website business and within that, we have two farms. There are two brothers, John Fisher and Alvin Fisher. Alvin Fisher is in Paradise, Pennsylvania and that’s where he has the jersey herd where we produce all of our 100% grass fed jersey A2 raw cheeses. I’m with John Fisher down in Virginia. We’ve got several hundred acres there where we raise all the meats. We’re raising our 100% grass-fed beef, sheep, goat, pasture turkey, pasture pork, and pasture chicken.
Customer Stories Of Health Improvements
When you talk about connecting food and health, have you heard from customers any stories about health improvements?
I get emails from customers about weekly, especially moms that have had children with autism or children with down syndrome. I had one woman approached me at the rogue conference that had a child with some mental disorder that impacted her memory. When she switched over to organic meats and raw dairy, their children improved. It was a very obvious response to a change in their diet.
Do you see anything in your own family, Phoenix? I’m curious.
Asa, our son, he’s had nothing but this food his whole life. We compare him to some of the other kids that are in the homeschool program and the four school programs. He’s had maybe a runny nose twice in his life and all the ear infections, throat infections, tonsillitis and stuff. He’s never had that experience.
I’m looking at him now. His eyes are so bright. He’s so attentive. He’s quietly sitting in your arms. You don’t often see children behaving this way. I agree that it’s a product of the food in part for sure.
That’s the other thing with the chemicals. They incite your fight or flight. When you have some toxin in your body, it causes your body to go into a response that raises your anxiety level and your blood pressure. It basically put your body in shock where it’s trying to get that toxin out. That will make kids appear and act unstable and jittery. The calmness that he has is, I’m sure, a lot to do with his food. We’re not Buddhist.
Tell us about your own health journey.
I suffered from real extreme asthma and allergies when I was a kid. I was in and out of hospitals, the albuterol treatments and the doctors were saying, “You’ve got allergies.” Now looking back many years later, it was from the Chemlon that I played in as a kid, the chlorinated pools that I swam in, and all the food. My parents, blessed their hearts. They did everything they thought they were supposed to do with the childhood formulas, the lucky charms, Chef Boy RT and TV dinners.
There was no correlation or no suspicion of that might’ve been causing my allergies. Hilda, as an adult, I was about 25 years old when I switched over to eating organic food. I stopped swimming in chlorinated pools and was cautious about my exposure to different environmental toxins. My allergies and asthma are gone. I haven’t had a wheezing episode or lost night’s sleep for many years at this point.
Other people now are spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on all kinds of medications to try to address their sleeplessness, their fight or flight mode, and their stress levels and you have a simple solution in the food.
If you want a good night’s sleep, high energy level, and avoid all the symptoms. Disease is a red flag that your body’s telling you that you’re under assault. There’s something that has entered your body that is not human. That’s not alive. That is here to hurt you. If people were to take that heed and instead of taking a medication or to stop the sneezing or the gas or the fever or the rash and allow the body to eradicate those toxins through our sweat, our coughing, and our bowel movements, then take in wholesome and nutritious food that doesn’t have those chemicals. We wouldn’t have this epidemic.
The Natural Processes In Animals
I have a couple more questions for you before we wrap up. The first is this, have you heard that they are trying to come up with a vaccine to stop cows from burping and farting? I mentioned it because you were talking about there’s something for every symptom. They’re literally trying to come up with something like that.
Cows need to burp and fart. They’re a fermentation system. They have four stomachs and the way that they process sunlight through chlorophyll into the plant so that we can drink their milk and eat their food that supplies us with all this vitamin A, vitamin D, and antioxidants. It’s through that burping and farting. They take that grass and they can do it better than any other animal on the planet. Our human digestive system is acidic. It doesn’t do that but cow’s digestive system is a brewery. You have to put in all that wonderful grass and you let it percolate, burp, bubble and fart. That’s what makes those macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals available to us.
That’s part of the process. Maybe we shouldn’t try to stop it with a shot.
Usually not.
Final Health Advice
Now my final question that I love to pose is this, if the reader could do one thing to improve their health, Phoenix, one step in that right direction. What would you recommend that they do?
The four horsemen, if you cut out sugar, white flour, caffeine, and you reduce the salt that you take and pay attention and ask those questions to the farmer. Ask them what chemicals do they receive and be diligent about that. Those would be the takeaways.
To improve your health, cut out sugar, white flour, caffeine, and reduce salt. Simple steps make a big difference!
Thank you so much for this conversation. It’s been great, Phoenix.
Thank you, Hilda.
About Phoenix Be
Phoenix Be manages Simply Grassfed and works on the farm – connecting food and health, by growing clean grass fed beef, pork, lamb, goat, chicken, turkey and raw dairy products. He is a Health & Relationship Coach & Bodyworker supporting physical, emotional, and spiritual well being, advocating for a natural lifestyle, honoring creativity, and stepping fully into life’s work. He created and operates Blossom and Be Wellness Retreat with his wife, the Blue Ridge Health Freedom Network, and the Primal Diet Community. He’s an advocate for optimal health through a diet of raw animal meats, fats, and dairy aligning with the wisdom of Nature, following the life’s work of Aajonus Vonderplanitz.
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