What Our Food Habits Get Wrong And The New Food Pyramid Gets Right With John Klar

The US Dept of Agriculture’s new dietary guidelines surprised the public when they revealed a completely flipped food pyramid. Meat, eggs, and butter appear to be back! But what difference will this make in our dietary habits? Can the guidelines weaken the appeal of ultra-processed foods? And what does the fine print in the guidelines reveal?

John Klar, the author of Small Farm Republic and MAHA advocate, goes over the implications of this historic announcement and the alliance between the USDA and Health and Human Services agencies. He discusses the pluses and the minuses of the new pyramid, whether raw milk will ever be legalized on a federal level, and why millennials and Gen Zers’ food choices are giving him hope for the future.

Visit John’s website: smallfarmrepublic.com

To find raw milk: realmilk.com

To identify local chapter leaders and real food near you, go to westonaprice.org

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Episode Transcript

Within the below transcript the bolded text is Hilda Labrada Gore and the regular text is John Klar.

The US Department of Agriculture recently released its new dietary guidelines, which revealed a completely flipped food pyramid. The emphasis on real foods like meat, butter, fruits, and vegetables appears to be in stark contrast to the former food pyramid. Is it all that we have hoped for? What are the chances that this pyramid will improve public health?

This is episode 565 and our guest is John Klar. John is the Author of Small Farm Republic, and he is a MAHA movement activist. He offers unique insider insights on how this new pyramid came about. He explains the fine print and weighs in on whether it is as helpful and real food-centered as we had hoped.

He also shares his own health story and dietary choices that have taken him from chronically sick to vibrantly healthy. John is unabashedly associated with MAHA and the foundation is not a political organization. That said, we wanted to have him on because he does have important information that we wanted him to communicate to you. He is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to food and farming, politics aside. Enjoy this conversation.

Before we get into it, I want to invite you to join hands with us. The Weston A. Price Foundation is a member-supported organization. It is a nonprofit in every sense of the word. Please become a member. Join by going to The Weston A. Price Foundation and click on the Join Now button. Become a member. It is only $30 for the year when you use the code POD10. That is a discount code for the audience only of the show. You will support our work of education, research, and activism. Thank you in advance.

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Welcome to Wise Traditions, John.

Thanks for having me.

I most recently saw you at a celebration of the new USDA guidelines, the new flipped food pyramid. Is it worth celebrating? That is the pertinent question now.

I think so. As a person who has been involved in this whole movement for a while, I think we turned a corner. There have been so many attacks on Bobby Kennedy over what he has done at HHS, and the voices were quelled here. It was even the detractors. There were a few out there, but it seemed that the majority of people recognized that this was sensible and that the government’s food pyramid was tripe, if I might say with a food reference there. I am excited. I feel we have turned a corner and there will be more such things focused on food, which unites people. Rather than vaccines, which divide people and if the wind is in our MAHA sails. That is my take on it.

Many Flaws Of The Big Pharma Pyramid

Why was the former pyramid so bad? I remember you wrote an article and you said something like, “Is it a food pyramid or is it a big pharma pyramid?” Why would you say such things?

It should be the happy meal pyramid. People would look at it and go, “It’s a drive-through whole food menu.” What I wrote about which is interesting to me, and I’m not sure why. Through administrative regulations, the food pyramid or MyPlate or whatever they call it, is supposed to be periodically reviewed. It had been under a previous administration. I wrote about it because, at the time, many of the people on the panel had industry connections with the food industry and the World Health Organization. They are all about plants, plant-based substitutes, and GMO crops.

It was polluted. The original 1992 pyramid had six food groups. What is the foundation of the food pyramid? Bread, rice, pasta and cereal. We have learned that these high carbohydrate intakes are causing chronic disease. There was a lot of room for improvement and people saw that. The reason I criticized it is that it was not a meaningful maturation of what we know in nutrition science. We know that there has been industry capture. Everything from Kellogg’s to the whole idea that heart disease is caused by bad fats and red meat, and all the things that are wholesome throughout eons of life.

When I was growing up, we were told butter was bad. You were supposed to eat margarine, which is an industrial waste product that they turned into something palatable. We’re not supposed to eat eggs. I kept eating eggs. Here I am in my 60s with low cholesterol. It was drivel. For some reason, they were able to revisit it promptly in this administration and give Bobby Kennedy the latitude to do so. Now they have the new almost Weston A. Price food pyramid.

It is music to my ears, honestly, because it is surprising to me how revolutionary it is. Promoting real food would surprise the public. In what ways was the former pyramid not doing that? You already talked about the base of the grains. What else was wrong with that earlier version?

I need to say as well you cannot please all the people all the time. I have been joking that it should have been 30% fat under the new pyramid. We have some more hurdles to get over. For instance, notwithstanding the pyramid. It is created by a joint cooperative between USDA and HHS, as you and your audience might know. Some things need to be changed at the congressional level.

For instance, you can get pre-packaged chicken nuggets for our public schools, but not a whole chicken. The food pyramid is not going to change that. We have to make some statutory changes. It is revolutionary because we are revolting against a captured food system controlled by captured regulatory agencies, as Bobby Kennedy told us, and many of us have known for decades. We raised our children on Nourishing Traditions.

We raised our children on healthy foods. It is common sense. There is a common theme, I am sure you have heard it within the MAHA movement. Many of us were very sick, and a huge part of our turnaround in our recovery was healthy food. Sometimes, you do not know that Twinkies are bad for you until you eat nothing but Twinkies. You go, “What could be wrong?” It is common sense.

Were you sick too? You said many of us. Are you including yourself in that number?

Wise Traditions | John Klar | Pyramid — Small Farm Republic: Why Conservatives Must Embrace Local Agriculture, Reject Climate Alarmism, and Lead an Environmental Revival –

Absolutely. I talk about it in my book, Small Farm Republic. Which, by the way, advocated for conservatives to lead on the environment by supporting regenerative and organic agriculture. You could do it without arguing over carbon dioxide. You could get rid of the chemicals in our food supplying our soil. For me, I’m in my mid-30s very quickly, but I had not even been to a doctor in twelve years. I was bench pressing 400 pounds and regularly climbing Mount Washington in January. It is cold up there.

All of a sudden, I had a thriving law practice in Connecticut. Very quickly, I deteriorated to a point where I was in agonizing pain, and I could not walk. I had Lyme disease, which also led to fibromyalgia, which persists to this day. I took antibiotics for twelve years. All the King’s horses, all the King’s men and doctors could not fix me. When I gave up on antibiotics and hydroxychloroquine and started focusing on more sleep, balanced exercise rather than overdoing it and eating healthy foods.

Ultimately, the keto diet has been the healthiest transition for me. I need fewer carbs. We are not looking at a keto diet pyramid yet. It may not be for everyone, but carbs and food toxins cause inflammation. It is like a trigger for me. I can tell if I have eaten something that is processed because I will literally experience pain.

Not everybody should have whole milk, but I drink whole raw milk. My wife and I compete to see who can get the cream off the top, because we do not homogenize and pasteurize. We feed our microbiome. That is the other big breakthrough. People are starting to realize that you feed plants not by spraying chemicals on them in the NPK tradition. You feed plants by nurturing the microbes that feed the plants. They will do the work for you if you feed them. We’re now learning that in more real science. That is true with our gut microbiome.

Studies show there is a direct connection between soil health and gut health. If you live in the Amazon, you have the most thriving human microbiome on the planet. You eat bugs, grubs and raw monkey brains, it is good for you. We eat highly processed food. If you live in the city or concrete jungle, as we call it, you have the sickest microbiome in the world. Joel Salatin says he drinks out of the cow tub.

I have seen it.

I probably do arguably worse, but anyway. I have learned as a farmer. The end of the story of where we began, we moved to Vermont. I quit lawyering. I could barely walk, as I said. We bought an old farm and started raising animals. I was trying to keep on with life. It was a secondary unexpected blessing to learn as we raised our own food, made our own butter, and had our own chickens. Everything was better and tasted better. I am a little slow, but at least I have got there.

You figured it out.

My story is similar to many people’s stories who found that food is medicine. It is not going to cure everything, but it is going to prevent a lot. I would much rather have a healthy diet with exercise than go on Ozempic or insulin, or Wegovy for the rest of my life. More Americans are waking up to that.

Food will not cure everything. Focus instead on maintaining a healthy diet and exercising regularly.

I hope so. Many Americans, as you said, do not know that the food on their grocery store shelves is doing them harm. That is why this pyramid matters. Some people say, “It doesn’t matter. No one pays attention to it.” They do. The companies that are producing food are beholden. They want to be able to stick a label on it that says, “This goes in line with the pyramid.” They are going to do their best to make products that are more real food-based. Do you think that is true or not?

I hope so, because they will move where the money is. They will move where the market is. I know it is true because I am working in that area as part of the MAHA movement. There are large corporations that are trying to meet the demand for organic food. We cannot meet the domestic or the foreign demand for US organic foods. We import a lot of so-called organic foods that we do not oversee, so we cannot trust them.

We have doubled our imports of Chinese processed foods in the last few years. This is a crisis. Bobby Kennedy is correct that this is a chronic disease crisis. In my article that I wrote, it’s one of the most glaring demonstrations of its insufficiency. It was that in the report in 2024 for that food pyramid, they said they wanted to reduce the focus on chronic disease risk and focus more on improving the lifespan. What does that mean?

Those things are contradictory. You improve your lifespan by improving prevention. Everything about the Rural Health Transformation Program, food pyramid, and other things that are about to come out. Prevention is better than cure. I work in recovery. We know that it is a lot easier to prevent addiction to fentanyl and heroin than to treat it. It is a lot less costly. It is a lot less costly monetarily, but also in life suffering.

This is the message of Bobby Kennedy, Sally Fallon, and MAHA. In response to your question, I hope I am not going too long, but SNAP beneficiaries are something I have worked on. We want to get healthier food for SNAP beneficiaries. Thirteen percent to 17% of the $100 billion we’re spending a year in SNAP benefits are going to sugary drinks and candy. That is not helping people. If you want to buy it, go ahead. Nobody is talking about cutting that 14%. We’re talking about allocating it to healthy foods.

One thing I have learned is that a lot of people in that demographic do not know what healthy food is. They will look at the food pyramid. When you tell them that baby formula is more convenient and better for their baby than human breast milk, because you are a corporation. One of the three providers of most of our formula, that is not true. I learned that in farming.

I had been raised on formula because my mom was told this was convenient. You have got everything you need there, plus added iron. When you raise calves, and they do not get colostrum in their mother’s milk. My vet told me they have a 30% chance of dying. It might be six months or a year later, but they’re not getting the microbes. The formula does not have the microbes. We have a segment of the population that needs more education about healthier foods, and they will make the right choices.

Hilda, you mentioned hope. We have a younger generation of Gen Z and Millennials who want to know how the animals were treated. They want to know they do not have antibiotics and they do not have hormones in them, artificial growth hormones. They want to eat meat. One of the big reasons the price of meat keeps going up is we have a live generation of people who are rejecting the lies of industrial food. They know and they will raise their children properly. That is where we change it with the young people.

How Corporations Are Bending The Narrative

I am taking notes. John, what you are sharing is also nutrient-dense. We are in a crisis, a chronic health crisis. Happily, there has been this shift. I want to go back to something you said earlier. You said that a lot of the agencies are captured, and what they are doing is they are lining their pockets more than showing concern for the health of the American populace. Can you tell us what that means exactly that they are captured?

Now we have one that is captured by the MAHA. I love it. There is a revolving door at the SEC for stockbrokers. There is a revolving door at the CDC and the other agencies at HHS over hooked. Watch the vaccine manufacturers. The same people who come in from the industry, they go out for the industry. I will use an example, plant-based meats.

The World Health Organization, which is run by globalist corporations, is telling us that we need to get rid of animal meat because of animal rights reasons. The other reason is it is healthier for you to eat a plant-based diet. It is much more profitable for corporations. They took down the website, but some years ago, I wrote a piece where I found a Japanese company that had put forward a lot of this. What they showed the corporate world is they said, “We can get rid of the farmer. We can get rid of the cow and the animal protein. It would be so much more profitable for us if we could make meat out of corn and soy.” Look at our profit margins. The only problem is, thank God for all of us. They have not been able to do it technologically and they have not been able to do it economically.

By the way, the argument that this will save the planet, which is the third prong of the plant-based meat lie. One is animal welfare and the other is that you are healthier not eating red meat. I do not know how the Native Americans ever did it with a 92% animal diet with no cancer and beautiful teeth. The third prong is, “We have to do this to save the world.”

My upcoming book is about this. It is about food control and profits. If your goal was to save the planet and you say you are saving us from cows. This is Wendell Berry 101 for those who know him. Let us look at the externalized environmental costs of building a factory to produce an artificial chicken, either lab-grown or otherwise. Look at the inputs, the plastics, the tubes and the stainless steel. It is net zero on carbon dioxide. Is it net zero on PFAs? Is it net zero on phthalates? Is it net zero on endocrine disruptors? It is not.

When you get into the plant-based meat substitutes, which are not lab-grown meats, but things that look like meat like a chicken nugget made out of cotton. I do not know what those are made up. All of those crops and all of these corporate processes are made from GMO crops. You have pesticide residues, glyphosate, and practices that are used even if they are not harmful in their own right that are destructive to the soil and water supplies. Atrazine can confuse your gender if you are a bass. If you are a male bass and you get atrazine. You start laying eggs and you go, “I have gender problems.”

Not to be light about it, but this is what it is doing to the ecosystem. What do we think it is doing to our children? This is Rachel Carson in 1962. She wrote about it as a Chemist. It is all lies and what drives it is profit. If you want to impact your profits, you need to control the regulatory agencies. That meant also the food pyramid. “Cereal is so good for you,” says the Kellogg’s company, paying huge amounts of lobbying money.

If people think Big Pharma is big in power, they have not met Big Food yet, including Big Farm. They pay a lot of money in lobbying. Look what Bayer and Monsanto are spending to try to get pesticide liability immunity for the companies that pollute us with toxins, so that they do not have to pay for the health costs.

How HHS And USDA Flipped The Food Pyramid

How is it that HHS was able to partner with USDA to flip the food pyramid in a way that is positive? You said at the start of this conversation that we have turned a corner. How is that possible given the situation that you described?

It is another reason to kick our heels in joy because I was involved with the MAHA transition team before we even knew if Donald Trump was going to win the election in the hopes that Bobby Kennedy would have a foothold and that President Trump would deliver on his promises at HHS. The question was, would Bobby Kennedy also had a say or influence on the incoming administration if they won to nominate people at the USDA?

I was on that USDA committee. We wanted Joel Salatin and Thomas Massie and all kinds of radical food people to take over the USDA. The industrial agricultural world was panicked by that. That is transformative. We felt like we did not get the foothold in the USDA that we wanted. A lot of people have been critical of Secretary Brooke Rollins. I have been a believer and I have written about how we do not need to wage war on industrial agriculture. It is a huge political block to it. It would be the end of us.

I know people who deal with her. She has shown that she does have an ear for organic farming and organic local foods. She gets it. That is why I believe that she cooperated with Bobby Kennedy in an interagency alliance. There may have been some voices in one department to the other that did not get us as much as we want, but it is the right direction. That is why I think people are enthused and it is common sense.

People want to eat eggs and butter again. They want to eat meat again, and they want to eat the fat. I spent my whole life throwing away the chicken skin. That is the best way. It tasted best, but whatever tastes good must be bad for you. That is true for a twinkie but it is not true for chicken skin. For me, when my doctor told me, “You need to go on a keto.” I was like, “What is that?” He said, “It’s 60% fat and 40% protein.”

With my background, I am like, “What?” I was told carbs, carbs, and carbs and breakfast is the most important meal of the day and all these things that fed the industry. I said, “Doctor, what does that even look like? Am I supposed to get a bucket of Crisco and a spoon?” He said, “No, you can eat cheese, butter and eggs.” I said, “Also, nuts?” He said, “Nuts.” I said, “Avocados.” He said, “Avocados.” I said, “I can do that.” Though, I do miss potatoes and bread. Every time I cheat, it is like, “I’ll eat the whole loaf,” then I suffer.

To go back to your percentages, it is very interesting because I remember when I first aligned myself with the Weston A. Price Foundation. I thought, “They advocate high protein.” Most diets around the world that Dr. Price found were higher in fat than in protein. Keto aligns with us. We have Wise Traditional principles that we use and recommend for folks to guide themselves. It points back to real food. That is the crux of it. When people are eating the avocado, the meat and the chicken skin, they feel better and their inflammation is down. It is the opposite of what we have been told for so many years.

It is important for people to understand, especially if they are new to Weston Price. Eating those healthy fats is good. These are the good fats. Grass-fed meat has 2 or 3 times the quantity of good fats. We need to rethink a lot of what we have been told by the so-called science about fats causing heart disease. It depends on what kind they are. If it was made in a factory through an unnatural process, it is probably a bad fat.

If it is natural fat, especially animal fat. It is probably a good fat. If you eat those fats and you keep chowing on carbs, you’re going to get fat. I take MCT oil now every morning. If you fuel the keto process and you cut down on the carbs and it does not have to be full keto. If you do, you can come in and out of it. You will lose weight by eating fats.

What’s The Difference With The Flipped Food Pyramid

That is so amazing. It is the opposite. We thought fat makes you fat. Let us get down to brass tacks and the fine print that you have probably read since you’ve been a part of some of these meetings. What exactly does the fine print say in this new flipped food pyramid that we’re excited about? We can then talk about the things that we would like to see some more progress.

It says, “Go to the Weston A. Price Foundation and find out where to get raw milk near you.” If you look at the Weston Price food list, it is now much more aligned with this food pyramid. I am hearing there are so few detractors. If they do, they are like, “This was industry captured because the National Cattlemen’s Association and the Dairy Association supported it.” They did. They already know these are healthy foods. Their support does not make it suspect. They did not control the writing of the thing like the Kellogg’s Corporation and the other conflicted participants in previous panels did. Those detractors are few and far between.

The real emphasis is on whole fruits and vegetables, whole meats, whole milk, full dairy, and no more lean. I do not want skim milk. I have made cheese. I milk cows and goats. We work hard for that milk. I want a Jersey cow. No offense to Holstein owners, but I want the milk. I want the fats and the proteins. I want that stuff that is nutritious. The rest is water. When you’re making cheese, by the way, you heat it up, and you basically make curds. You dump out all the water in the form of whey. You want more solids. Why would I want in my coffee something that is skimmed off the good stuff?

Why would I want to pasteurize it when the world is not made up of bad bacteria? We all die without good bacteria. When you pasteurize milk, you’re killing good bacteria, you’re breaking down good enzymes. The New Food Pyramid does not recommend raw milk. The raw milk crazies. Those who have been drinking it for 30 years with no health problems. Do not listen to us. We’re going to get you all sick. We are going to spread bird flu through our cows. It is terrible.

It made major moves, and people should look at the fine print. It recommended less alcohol. I did not watch it, but Dr. Oz said, “Less and maybe not for breakfast.” I heard what he said. The big message. One thing the purists on our side would say is that it should have said more about the problems with highly processed foods and ultra-processed foods. A) It did. B) Sixty percent of our grocery stores are filled with highly processed foods.

We could not meet the demand if we tried to shift our entire food system to organic whole foods for our public schools, our hospitals, and our military. That is what we want to do in MAHA. We need to increase production. It is a business opportunity for our farmers. It will improve our soils and decrease erosion. The underlying message is do not eat highly processed foods. HHS is coming out with an actual definition of ultra-processed foods.

A lot of this is common sense, and not everybody is going to stop eating Doritos, and they’re going to need their Ozempic. You have a choice. You have agency. People are not proud of weighing 600 pounds. They have problems with that. I used to be a cigarette smoker. You smell terrible. You burn your clothes, and you burn a hole in your seat in your car. There is no good side to it other than “I like it.” I’ve quit for about many years now. I quit when I got sick. I did not have the luxury of smoking anymore.

If given the choice, a large number of the population will make the choices. The demand will lead to more production of healthier foods. It took us a long time to get here. I call it turning the Titanic away from the iceberg that we were crashing into. You are not going to turn the Titanic overnight on an entire nation’s food supply.

A large number of the population, if given the choice, will demand more production of healthier food.

The nation that is the largest exporter of agricultural goods in the world, but now imports more food than we export. That is heinous. As a Vermonter, where we used to have dairies everywhere. We are importing a lot of our food now. Every American needs to start looking at their farmers and where their food comes from. Rejoice in it and join the model.

I am so glad you said this about the small farm because this is what the foundation is all about. We have got a 50% pledge, we call it, where we invite people to use 50% of their food budget at least at a small local farm. We have got chapter leaders around the US and around the world whose only job is to give a list of food providers in the area so that people can literally shake the hand that feeds them. First of all, the small farmers are dying off. It is a dying art to have a regenerative farm.

I say dying, but it is coming back to life, especially if we shake their hand. We are going to help them financially. We are going to help our family’s health. It is going to help the local economy. There are so many boons to it. Going back to what you’re saying about ultra-processed food. I want to interject that I think this new pyramid also labels seed oils in that ultra-processed food category. They were confessing or admitting that these are oils that we need to stay away from, which I am thrilled about.

Many of us are thrilled. How dare you? You see the detractors saying, “There’s no clear science on that.” We know who pays you. When in doubt, leave it out, is an adage I have also. What people need to look at is that a lot of the problems with seed oils may not be innate in themselves, but they do not perform well in storage or under heat.

They break down into constituents that are carcinogens and toxins to your body. Be careful what you look at. A lot of the arguments against red meat is that red meat is going to kill you. If it is highly processed. If it is bacon, that is one thing. If it is organic locally raised pork that has not been treated with nitrates, it is probably good for you. There is a huge difference between my grass-fed, totally organic local animals that eat solar panels. It is called grass.

It is regenerative solar panels. Were not even made in China. Do not even need any coal or slave labor. It grows every year on its own. We can’t eat grass. The cows are the conduit for us to have healthy food. That is a very different meat product and life for the animal than CAFOs or grain-fed meats, which, once again, are based on grains that are made from those GMO crops that are highly profitable.

Legalizing Raw Milk At The Federal Level

Going back to the milk thing, do you see any hope that raw milk would ever be considered okay to drink again? Sally started the campaign for real milk and we’ve promoted it. Now, there is a lot of raw milk sales across the nation. There are only three states where it is not legal. Would we ever get the stamp of approval from the USDA and the HHS?

I can dream. I have a dream and it is about raw milk. I think several things in response to that. Tennessee is very favorable to expanding the allowance of raw milk. More and more states are doing it. We are trying to work on New York. When you start taking away profit margins from the companies that have made money in industrialism, that is why they have captured the agencies, including the USDA historically.

The worm is turning. Pete Kennedy, who I think you and I have had a chat about this. I’m like, “Can we, early in the administration, move for raw milk?” Bobby Kennedy supports it. By the way, lacto-fermented foods is something that could have been emphasized in this pyramid. People may need to go to Weston Price again to see the importance of why they are important. They have microbes in them. They replenish your stomach after the glyphosate residues and your Cheetos kill them. We need more studies of glyphosate at HHS.

I was like to Pete, “I do not know if we want to rile that boat.” They call me a raw milk crazy because I drink raw milk, and then, “We’re going to have to pay your medical bills when you get sick.” “If I were 600 pounds. I look wonderful at 600 pounds.” What about the elf cause of that? I’m not bashing on anybody. I want to help people be healthy. Pete said this, “I don’t know, John. Every time we ever get into a raw milk battle, more people start drinking it.” Let me plug Weston Price.

You have a website where you can go, and it has a geographical map with all of the farms that will sell you raw milk nationwide. Click to a place near you. Economics drives things. It was cheap food that drew the system that drove people. They wanted to pay for something cheap. Now they realize that, “Cheap now, pay later.” More people, especially young people, want to pay the money to get a locally sourced, family farmed trustworthy supply of food. Many years ago, when I was doing this, that was not the case.

To me, we are in what I call a magic MAHA moment. If we do not bite at this organic apple with blemishes now, we are not going to get another bite at the apple. We are fighting a globalist effort to enslave the entire food supply under an industrial GMO model. They are going after 450 million peasant farmers around the world in the name of saving the planet from climate change. It is about consolidating power and steady market growth for large corporations.

I believe there is a day coming when the political tail of raw milk will wag the dog, and enough people will say, “Enough already.” Oat milk takes a lot more water and destruction of the planet. Cows are good for the soil. Cows are not climate culprits. Putting them in CAFOs and enslaving them may not be good for the climate, but please do not blame the cows for that. They want to go back to the grass. Listen to the cows. I am the Lorax. I speak for the cows.

Realizing The Danger Of Consuming Highly Processed Food

I love this so much. That website you were talking about is Real Milk. People can click on any place or enter their zip code, and they will find real raw milk near them. You have talked a great deal about what we are excited about. Let us talk about a couple of things that they could have improved on. You already mentioned there is a saturated fat cap, which we wish would be higher. Is there anything else that you are like, “Here’s one more thing that we hope could happen next time around?”

Next steps. As we turn that Titanic, the biggest thing to turn it and where MAHA is so powerful is its grassroots. That is why I’m sitting here. When people understand the truth, they not only will change their behaviors in response to their patterns. They will tell their family members at Thanksgiving. They will have them over for a whole food dinner. They will demonstrate, “It must be terrible to be sick like that. I’m awfully healthy. Would you like some kombucha?” Eat sauerkraut. Whether you like how it tastes or not, it is good for you.

I like it. My wife makes it homemade. It is amazing and you feel better. The message was there, but could be amplified. The new ultra-processed food definition will help. The number one thing people need to understand is, the more processed it is, the less nutritional it is. If it is not nutrient-dense, if it is not fresh. If it is not local and it was harvested a month ago and put in a plastic package. Let us avoid microplastics in our food, then probably not only is it not very nutritional for you, it feeds your body’s natural processes. You do not need all these more corporate subsidies or supplements. You do not need the medicines to cure you of a disease you do not have.

The more processed your food is, the less nutritional it is.

As we start as part of the MAHA movement and HHS mission to gather the data to prove the health outcomes. Also, to prove that when you give hospital patients who are diabetics healthy food in the hospital and teach them how to prepare meals and send them home. They are less likely to come back to the hospital in two weeks. They are likely to live longer.

We have not been compelled to prove the worth of pharmaceuticals, but we are with food. We can meet the challenge. The number one thing that people need to understand and we need to build on is that ultra-processed is bad. It might taste good. Something else I was going to mention about plant substitutes or meat mimicry or meat substitutes. Not only are they made with GMO crops, but they are also made with chemicals that are for preservatives and flavorings. You have to make wheat and soy to taste like meat. How do you do that?

There is a great book by Michael Moss called Hooked. They have factories or laboratories where they are trying to do things like stimulate you to keep eating when you are not hungry anymore. They can sell you Wegovy to shut off that same mechanism and turn you back. You can bypass both. We also see with young people that the high levels of sugar. That is another thing. This pyramid got rid of sugar. No more processed sugar. Have maple syrup from Vermont. If we shift these diets, the kids are bouncing off the walls. They are anxious and depressed because of food additives. Which are about making you eat more or want to keep eating something or have something taste good. Frankly, if they did not have those additives in there, a rat would not eat it. Your dog would not eat it.

I wrote an article about this. Rats, flies and microbes will not eat a Twinkie. Only humans will eat Twinkies. Learn from the rats. Do not eat something a rat would not eat. By the way, sometimes I indulge a little, even in ice cream. I like ice cream, but afterwards, I do not feel well. I feel like, “What did I eat that for?” I feel bloated. I do not eat ice cream anymore except on rare occasions like if it is free.

John’s One Valuable Tip To Improve Your Health

I love that you are speaking from your own experience. You had your own health a-ha moment, and now you are a mover and a shaker in this space. This has been a fabulous conversation. You have shed some light on the pyramid and given us some hope for the future. I want to ask you, John, as we wrap up, the question I love to post at the end of the show. If the audience could do one thing to improve their health, what would you recommend that they do?

One thing, exercise. I am going to give you two things. The other is to try to eat healthier. As Joel Salatin says we’re not purists. Do not get down on yourself if you stumble. It’s like quitting cigarettes. You go and have another one. That vicious cycle leads you to give up. Do not give up. You are in an adversarial system with your food supply. You cannot have perfect food.

There is too much ambient pollution. Move in the right direction and you will get addicted to healthy food. You will like feeling better. I want other people to have that experience. Earnestly, many of us want to help other people be healthier. We do not care what their politics are. It is very bipartisan. I am a conservative, but I used to be a liberal. I am walking away like so many other people like Bobby Kennedy.

There is not a liberal person, a far-left wing, nose-ringed, blue-haired, extremist liberal, that I do not want to get healthier food for. I hope I have not offended by saying that. Eat healthier, but exercise too. You cannot do it by diet alone. Part of our modern health crisis is that we are sedentary, and we spend too much time sitting in front of a computer when we should be shoveling manure for our cows.

I love that. I will let you shovel some manure. On behalf of the Weston A. Price Foundation, thank you for your time, John.

I am honored and humbled. I enjoyed it. Thank you.

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Our guest was John Klar. You can visit his website at Small Farm Republic, to learn more. Now for a review from Apple Podcasts. Sarah of the Prairie said this, “The show is the library of answers. I wish I had discovered this show years ago. We have had to research and work so hard for all the answers along the way. Many of them were right here and on the WAPF website. Thank you.”

It is our pleasure to bring this information via the journal, the website, the show, and everywhere we go. Thank you so much for reading, my friend. You too can leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Click on the show, ratings and reviews, give us a bunch of stars, and tell people why they should read. I am glad it is helpful. This is what we are here for. Thank you so much for tuning in, my friend. Stay well. Remember to keep your feet on the ground and your face to the sun.

About John Klar

John Klar is a former tax and litigation attorney who became a Vermont farmer after suffering from Lyme Disease. John is also a writer, pastor and food rights activist. He works for the MAHA movement to make Americans’ food supplies and family farms healthy again!