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Pay the Farmer or Pay the Doctor | Client Interview /w Jon Roberts
146 Plays7 days ago
Are you following health trends that actually harm your health? In my eye-opening masterclass "The 7 Popular But Deadly Health Fads," I reveal how common health practices promoted by influencers and gurus might be ravaging your gut, accelerating disease, and shaving years off your life.
Discover which popular diets, supplements, and health rituals are secretly sabotaging your health and learn what to do instead. I explain why these seemingly healthy habits are damaging your body and provide actionable alternatives for true longevity.
Register for free access to this essential health information at
https://www.livelongerformula.com
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The Live Longer Formula is your go-to podcast for cutting through the noise and discovering practical, science-backed strategies to not just add years to your life, but to add life to your years. Hosted by longevity author and functional health practitioner Christian Yordanov, this podcast dives deep into the truths (and myths) behind longevity, health optimization, and addressing chronic health problems.
Each episode offers actionable insights drawn from the host's own research, clinical practice, and personal journey, helping you make informed decisions to restore and enhance your health. Whether you're interested in reducing stress, boosting your energy and mental performance, improving your gut health, or simply looking to optimize your diet and lifestyle, this podcast delivers the tools you need to live a healthier, longer life.
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Transcript
Introduction to John Roberts and His Journey
00:00:01
Christian Yordanov
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today I have a special guest. His name is John Roberts. He's actually a client of mine and he has a huge interest in food. He was a chef.
00:00:11
Christian Yordanov
He now runs his own business, a B&B, and he works in biodynamic farming and a ton of different jobs and and and vocations around food.
00:00:13
Gooder Longer
you
00:00:22
Christian Yordanov
And so he's quite the expert when it comes to preparing food and so on. So the way we kind of started this process was he basically,
00:00:33
Christian Yordanov
um like all of my clients, I give them diet guidelines and he basically saw that there was lot that can be done with my diet guidelines where it doesn't have to be just the basics, right? So you can actually have a very varied diet if you just put a little bit of thought around prepping your food and kind of sourcing ingredients. So that's kind of one of the topics we want to discuss today.
00:00:58
Christian Yordanov
John, welcome to the show, man.
00:01:00
Gooder Longer
Hey, Christian. Yeah. the Good. Good to have you. good Good to have you. Good to have me. Good to be good to be here.
00:01:05
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:01:06
Gooder Longer
um
00:01:07
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, man.
00:01:07
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:01:08
Christian Yordanov
Good to have you, brother.
00:01:08
Gooder Longer
And I've got vacation brain right now, so hopefully hopefully I'm not a waste.
00:01:11
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:01:15
Christian Yordanov
I'm kind of the same im because I'm going to be traveling to to Mexico for an Acapulco in like three days. So I'm like kind of checked out.
00:01:20
Gooder Longer
Oh, yeah. Sweet.
00:01:23
Christian Yordanov
you
00:01:23
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:01:25
Christian Yordanov
But yeah, pretty excited and giddy. But um so just to kind just kind of set the context. So. The way we kind of, what we started with is obviously, you know, you you joined my program some months ago and, you know, with all new clients, we do this, you know, initial assessment, clinical assessment, symptoms, science, health goals. And then that's where I kind of give you the diet guidelines. And then there's a whole portal with videos that explain how to do my diet that I recommend to clients. And of course, with the caveat that if we do food sensitivity testing,
00:01:57
Christian Yordanov
some things I recommend maybe off the menu and we have to kind of switch gears and and kind of pivot as needed. So I do have some videos on like, you know, here's what to eat. Here's some example, simple meals for you know lunch and kind of your main meals, dinner, breakfast, whatever else.
00:02:11
Gooder Longer
Right.
00:02:15
Christian Yordanov
um And just kind of, I'm a very sort of, i treat people like adults guy. So I give you the guidelines and I let you figure it out. I give you some ideas as well. But you kind of came in because you were on some of the the calls with folks sort of, oh, I don't know what to eat.
00:02:30
Christian Yordanov
I can't, let's say I can't eat beef or I can't eat eggs or I can't eat this and that. That's kind of in the diet.
00:02:35
Gooder Longer
yeah
00:02:35
Christian Yordanov
um So I'd be like giving them ideas based on my limited sort of experience. You know, I'm not a chef or anything. And that's where you kind of stepped in. You're like, you know what, I actually have some ideas here.
00:02:46
Gooder Longer
Yeah, yeah.
00:02:46
Christian Yordanov
So that's kind of what started the conversation. And now you're just for the listeners and because I know some clients are listening. You're also going to create some resources around food, food preparation and sourcing for the program.
00:02:55
Gooder Longer
Right.
00:02:58
Christian Yordanov
So it's really going up to that side of the the program. So pretty excited to discuss some of these topics today, man.
00:03:04
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, i i think when we when we initially had the conversation, I came to you and I said, hey, Christian, I love that. You know, I love the passion. I love everything that you've done and put into this. um But we ended up having the conversation about um you know, having having been in a lot of kitchens and having been exposed to a lot of different ideas around food, my my palette is like like an artist, you know.
00:03:33
Gooder Longer
If you're painting with, you know, red and green, ah at some point you gotta like add a yellow or a blue or whatever. And the more you're exposed to a palette of options, the more you can create, you know. And so I think that when I approached you, your it seemed like sometimes your your approach to eating is very, it's a little more Spartan than like a gourmand or, you know, somebody that's like used to eating fancy food or, you know, whatever they want.
00:03:57
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:03:59
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:04:05
Gooder Longer
And I think in some respects, like being utilitarian about what you're putting in your body is like, I know what I'm getting. I'm getting the fuel I need. I'm doing it in a way that's not going to mess me up.
00:04:17
Gooder Longer
And so
Career Transition and Influence of Corporations
00:04:18
Gooder Longer
there's some value to that. And at the same time, it's like if you know how to use herbs, if you know how to use different spices, if you know a different, you know, a different set of ingredients, if you have access to different things or you've built access for yourself to different things,
00:04:39
Gooder Longer
um the the world that you can explore with your food is very different and a lot more like for me, it's a lot more exciting.
00:04:48
Christian Yordanov
oh Yeah.
00:04:48
Gooder Longer
and And I think, you know, initially um we had kind of talked about my background and, um you know, you said a lot of vocations and and things like that and not to get too far away from from the point of the Live Longer formula.
00:05:04
Gooder Longer
But really, it was like, I started studying, went to school and like up high, like went to university and I thought I was going to be a doctor. And so I was taking some pre-med ah classes and I took, you know, biology and chemistry and things like that. And the, to be honest, you know, the,
00:05:30
Gooder Longer
the teachers that i had and the the people that were around me had already been exposed to a lot of this stuff um and like i wasn't a science major in in in high school or anything like that i you know i studied art and uh i did commercial arts and drafting i thought i wanted to be an architect and so i was exploring that Um, and so when I came into these science classes and everybody was talking about Avogadro's number and like dropping their knowledge that they're so smart, uh, I was just like, have no idea what you're talking about. the Avocado numbers. Okay. that i can count of I can count avocados and make some good guacamole. So let's do that. And, uh,
00:06:13
Gooder Longer
And so it it was ah i mean it was a little intimidating, but it was also, you know, I was taking other classes and I took a class in Latin American politics. And that took me down a path of being really interested in um these different power dynamics. And I had some great professors at school.
00:06:31
Gooder Longer
So I ended up being in an international relations and economic development major, whatever that means. But I
00:06:39
Christian Yordanov
You dodged a lot of bullets, man. So you dodged being a doctor. You dodged, you know, with this international relations, becoming a politician, slime ball.
00:06:43
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:06:47
Christian Yordanov
So you dodged a lot of bad karma along the way.
00:06:49
Gooder Longer
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:50
Christian Yordanov
It's good.
00:06:51
Gooder Longer
Well, and it's interesting because, you know, I think that really it's you start to track like if you can really be true to your values. And I think that a lot of what I was, you know, when I was kind of prepping you with a bio, um a lot of what I kept seeing come up was being really intentional about trying to live my values and you know, not compromise just for making a dollar, um, and not, you know, sticking with something that feels like a bad situation or something that's like, you know, the commute is ridiculous or whatever. It's like, I feel like at some point you have to so decide that you're going to stand for something and live those values.
00:07:35
Gooder Longer
And, um, the more that I tracked ah sort of international relations politics. And, you know, I ultimately you know read a book by this guy named David Corton called Corporations Rule the World.
00:07:50
Gooder Longer
And it just, you know, it kind of it changes the way you think.
00:07:51
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:07:54
Gooder Longer
And, and you know, at this point, we've got all this convenience and we've got all this um consistency in these international brands, but at the same time, like there's this profit drive that
00:08:10
Gooder Longer
you know I don't want to necessarily place blame because there's you know we can get into these big economic concepts that are around that. But you know you've got this idea of being a fiduciary and as an international corporation, you have to return investment for your investors.
00:08:25
Gooder Longer
And so they're kind of like over the barrel because if they don't do that, they can be sued. And then you've got CEOs and they're having to do that.
00:08:32
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:08:35
Gooder Longer
And their board says, you're not returning enough profit. And
Food Choices as Value Expressions
00:08:38
Gooder Longer
it's not just enough. It's like maximizing profit. And and so it's like the quality and and value conversation that lives there is just one that's really.
00:08:49
Gooder Longer
fraught with potholes and and you know land the mines landmines and challenges and and so you know i think getting back to that um idea of just trying to live your values and for me the the kind of through line has always been you know touching soil and you know having my hands close to the earth and being connected to nature and and i mean i through that process, some of it was like really out of monetary need because I'm paying for school and I'm getting what they're feeding us in the cafeteria and it's expensive. You know, if you have a ah meal plan at school, it's it's expensive.
00:09:36
Gooder Longer
And so ultimately i i couldn't afford to do that. So I ended up in a job where took a took a leave of absence from school and worked at this upscale grocery store in the Seattle area where I was going to school.
00:09:54
Gooder Longer
And yeah, I just got exposed to a lot of different kinds of foods and ways of making things and got to taste a bunch of stuff.
00:10:04
Gooder Longer
And, you know, if if you're going to share that with people,
00:10:05
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:09
Gooder Longer
being able to know what it tastes like and describe it, um it really helps to sell, I guess. And so i had I had a really fortunate opportunity to be intentional about tasting, and that's kind of followed through um this tangential food-based path that I've been on.
00:10:32
Gooder Longer
Ultimately, I worked in the wine industry, doing wine production for a number of years. planted some vineyards, did some vineyard management stuff. So, and that's taken me all over the place.
00:10:44
Gooder Longer
I went to Argentina and Italy and France and, um and you know, like I've taught sort of wine tasting, like sensory development classes, not to sell wine, but to like develop people's tastes and like way that they think about wine and like and experience kind of tasting intentionally.
00:10:47
Christian Yordanov
cool yeah
00:11:07
Gooder Longer
Um, and so, and so I think that that's like been a throughput of like, I'm, I'm really interested in things that taste really good. And a lot of the times when I go to restaurants, it's just kind of race to the bottom.
00:11:20
Gooder Longer
What are the cheapest ingredients that I can get to like, get to that value, uh, cogs limit, you know, cost of goods sold, um,
00:11:30
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:11:31
Gooder Longer
and And, you know, so you you end up like you got to be profitable and, you know, restaurants and that industry is so hard, especially when you've got competition coming in from everywhere.
00:11:44
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:11:45
Gooder Longer
So anyway, I mean, it's just I just feel like across the board, food touches on everything. And through my experience with politics, through my experience with sort of international relations and being exposed to that and traveling um and then my experience in kitchens, it's it's.
00:11:52
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:12:07
Gooder Longer
um it's really become apparent to me that the decisions we make with our food choices are one of the most powerful things that we can do um at a grassroots level to express what we care about.
00:12:21
Gooder Longer
And, and,
00:12:21
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:12:24
Gooder Longer
There's all all these old adages of like, you are what you eat and you get what you pay for. And, you know, like pick pick any of these these ah food-based adages that exist out there.
00:12:37
Gooder Longer
And we're really seeing that across the food system internationally and locally. And, you
Farming, Wine, and Agricultural Values
00:12:42
Gooder Longer
know, you end up with these food deserts where all of the things that we have access to are flown in or shipped in or trucked in from California or wherever and then you've got this
00:12:55
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:12:58
Gooder Longer
you know, consortium of international businesses that, you know, again, like I don't want to throw shade on somebody that's trying to do the best they can because they they've done a thing that's pretty incredible. Like you drive through the Central Valley in California and there there's it's an operation and it's insane.
00:13:16
Gooder Longer
Like it's so big. And it's amazing that more people aren't starving. You know, you know it's it's it's really an incredible feat of human ingenuity and hard work and all of these things.
00:13:34
Gooder Longer
But really, i think that little by little, you start looking at our food system and our health system. and And I think that that's kind of where the overlap between our conversations exists is You know, we when there's a race to the bottom and a profit motive in the food system and you've got um international businesses that are doing agri agri I don't want to call it agriculture because I feel like the culture is gone you know it's agribusiness you know it's it's massive agribusiness and they're they're working to make money and so they are following the patterns that were set in place by the the US Department of Agriculture and and I mean I talk about the US because that's where I am and that's that's been my experience and in a lot of respects
00:14:12
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Agribusiness, yeah.
00:14:35
Gooder Longer
given the size of the U S agriculturally, it's it like drive is a lot of the conversation. And so the fact that, um, the agricultural,
00:14:53
Gooder Longer
the agribusiness system in the United States is so huge. it it can It can really throw its power around. um
00:15:01
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Hmm.
00:15:02
Gooder Longer
And it's back, you know, back in um like the post the post-war era, there was a secretary of of the U.S. s Department of Agriculture who said to all the farmers, he said, get big or get out.
00:15:17
Gooder Longer
And um there's ah there's a writer that I really like if people are interested in sort of kind of a narrative ah reflection on US food and farming. There's a ah writer named Wendell Berry, who has been really influential in my learning. And he's a Kansas farmer. he's he's a He's an older gentleman at this point. I think he's still with us, but he's really been like a a voice in the US saying, you know, this has been the history of our agricultural
00:15:51
Gooder Longer
decline and the rise of industrialized agribusiness. um And yeah, I mean, that that monetary drive changes what we eat.
00:16:03
Gooder Longer
And I think that's a kind of a rambling way to get to the the heart of the issue is that
00:16:04
Christian Yordanov
Oh
00:16:10
Gooder Longer
the the health system is a reflection of the agricultural system. We are what we eat.
00:16:17
Christian Yordanov
oh yeah, exactly.
00:16:18
Gooder Longer
And one of the other adages that I come back to is you pay the farmer or you pay the doctor.
00:16:26
Christian Yordanov
Hmm.
00:16:26
Gooder Longer
And I think we're seeing that we're obviously not really paying the farmer. We're extracting value and extracting you know healthy soil and all this. And we're getting to paying the doctor.
00:16:39
Gooder Longer
an exorbitant amount and there's a lot of sick people. and And
Sourcing Organic and Local Foods
00:16:45
Gooder Longer
unfortunately, it feels like that's another one of those profit drives where you're seeing sick people as a resource for maximizing income.
00:16:55
Gooder Longer
And ultimately, we just have to look at our economy and say, is this the economy we want? know, and all things equal, you look out and you say, well, growth is good for economy, right? So all growth, any growth is good. And so you've got cancer and that's good. And you've got pollution and that's good. And you've got, you know, conflict and war and and all this stuff that's just we have to look in the mirror and say, is this the economy we want?
00:17:26
Gooder Longer
Is this the way we want to order our house, which is kind of the root of the economy, is the ordering of the house.
00:17:26
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:17:33
Gooder Longer
And so, you know It's like we can't differentiate between what is quality growth that we want and growth that's less preferable that we want to see kind of go away. you know You look at your field and you see weeds that you don't want to grow and you see food crops that you want to grow and you have to be intentional about what you want to grow.
00:17:55
Gooder Longer
And so I think that that's like for me, that's been the intersection of this conversation is, you know, how we express our food dollar is going to drive a lot of stuff.
00:17:56
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:18:08
Gooder Longer
You know, and if we're buying the cheapest crap, we're going to get paying the doctor. You know, if we drive, if we. go to the farmer's market or we build relationships with producers that are close to us and we learn how to use whole animals or like primal cuts of of bigger animals or, um, build relationships with neighbors around, you know, going in on a cow, if you're going to do that and and learning how to use a whole animal, you know, using those more collagenous cuts, like we talk about collagen and, and, um,
00:18:36
Christian Yordanov
Yeah,
00:18:43
Gooder Longer
eating more cuts that have high collagen in them. um Those aren't like the prime cuts that you get in the grocery store.
00:18:45
Christian Yordanov
yeah.
00:18:50
Gooder Longer
You know, you're getting different stuff.
00:18:51
Christian Yordanov
But they're cheaper.
00:18:51
Gooder Longer
so
00:18:52
Christian Yordanov
and That's the thing.
00:18:52
Gooder Longer
but they're, they're cheaper, but they take, they take time and they take some knowledge.
00:18:53
Christian Yordanov
They're cheaper. Oh, yeah. Yeah,
00:18:58
Gooder Longer
so yeah, I mean, we, I could go on and on. And so I don't want to just like ramble, but too late too late.
00:19:01
Christian Yordanov
yeah. yeah So no, no, no, it's good. do No, but it's like exactly so the the the beef I buy is basically three times more expensive.
00:19:16
Christian Yordanov
It's, ah you know, organic and the it's not just um high output organic. It's actually, I think that that farm is um is like a protected site, like by UNESCO or something. It's like a really... really clean area, you know, and that's, that's the thing because people don't ah realize that due to all of the, um you know, industrial activity, there's actually like areas that are more polluted, less polluted. So where your
00:19:47
Christian Yordanov
ah food grows is very, very important in today's world, especially in more industrial areas.
00:19:52
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:19:53
Christian Yordanov
Now, the USA is huge, so there's a lot more areas that are, you know, pristine, clean and stuff. But um I think, you know, me paying three times the the the the normal price in the kind of the grocery store. It could be up to four times depending on which grocery store you go to. it's I'm not doing that because I'm pretentious and whatever. It's just I know, and like you do, we know what goes on in the sort of more mainstream ah beef and feedlot and just any sort of, it doesn't matter if it's if it's animal products or you know produce like vegetables and and and and and fruits. we know that it's like sometimes like most, of most clients coming into the program are already aware about organic food. They're eating organic, but every once in a while I have someone coming in and,
00:20:43
Christian Yordanov
We're like, um well, how do you know it's organic, though? How do you know it's actually organic? i'm like, you don't. That's the thing, you don't. You can't guarantee your certified organic food is free of poison, but you can absolutely guarantee that your non-organic stuff from your conventional, you know, produce in the in the grocery store is containing poison.
00:21:04
Christian Yordanov
So choose choose wisely there, you know?
00:21:05
Gooder Longer
Right.
00:21:07
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Choose your own adventure, right?
00:21:08
Christian Yordanov
So... exactly Exactly, exactly. So sometimes like it's, man, like and just kind of quick anecdote. We were in... We were in ah Cairo in Egypt, I guess, two weeks ago now. And oh man, the food, because we went into like a car for it's like a fairly French train, I think. we went in there and bro, like I got some yogurts and some dates and some orange juice that was like 10%, mostly water and sugar and just 10% juice and like the food, there's no good food to buy, you know.
00:21:42
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:21:43
Christian Yordanov
So I'm like, man, like these people, that this is all they have um to choose from. Whereas in the Western world, Europe and and you know North America, especially the USA, like we have the choice.
00:21:54
Christian Yordanov
And we've discussed this with you. like there is Especially in the USA, there's so many companies at the click of a few buttons, you have some of the best food that Kings didn't have access to maybe you know hundreds of years ago.
00:22:08
Gooder Longer
yeah
00:22:10
Christian Yordanov
So we are in like we're in a rough spot where there's a lot of challenges, but also at least in the Western world, there's still a lot of options for those of us that want to be more conscious because ah the the other option is just get the slop in the conventional supermarket and suffer the consequences and pay the doctor, like you say.
00:22:22
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:22:30
Gooder Longer
Right. Yeah. Well, and I think, too, like all the more reason that, you know, I I don't want to get into electoral politics of the U.S. right now, um because that's a totally different conversation. And And the thing that I keep coming back to is like, what are the unifying things? And for me, everybody's got to eat.
00:22:55
Gooder Longer
And when you come to the table and you share a meal, you're sharing something that's like deep into the human experience. And I think that regardless of what your electoral political proclivities look like, um you can't debate the fact that everybody's got to eat.
00:23:16
Gooder Longer
And I think everybody wants to have and needs to have clean food, clean water, access to sanitation and cleanliness, um and then, you know, a safe place of shelter. And I think that those are the great unifiers that, you know we're not even checking those boxes right now.
00:23:35
Gooder Longer
And I think that the more that we can get to those things and and.
00:23:35
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:23:40
Gooder Longer
work at those things that we have a shared interest in maintaining, you know, that that kind of helps with some of the political stuff. But um that that aside, the more that the U.S. s like the more U.S. consumers like can drive that conversation because there's so much power that that happens and is expressed here.
00:24:07
Gooder Longer
I mean, California is like the fifth largest economy in the world or something like that. And and that's just like inside this behemoth United States.
00:24:18
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:18
Gooder Longer
and
00:24:20
Gooder Longer
And um so I think there there needs to be that responsibility of you know not just buying the most expensive car and commuting longer distances, but just maybe like simplifying a little bit, you know, what did it, there's another, all these, all these old timey adages, like live simply that others may simply live.
00:24:43
Gooder Longer
Um, Hey, that sounds like not too bad of an idea.
00:24:44
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:24:47
Gooder Longer
Like, um, Yeah, I don't know. I think that it takes me to so many different places when I have these conversations. But ultimately, i think the through the through line that that i want to make sure I keep coming back to is that.
00:25:05
Gooder Longer
We have more power as food buyers than I think we give ourselves credit for. And I think. The idea that You know I'll tell you a little anecdote as well. So when I before I went to school after I graduated from secondary or high school, I took a gap year and I lived abroad and lived in this rural town in Sweden.
00:25:32
Gooder Longer
And it was amazing. And I had like this great adventure for a year. And one of the things that kind of stuck with me is that we were driving, like taking the train somewhere and there's a big sign for Kraft Foods, K-R-A-F-T, Kraft, right?
00:25:52
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:25:52
Gooder Longer
So, you Kraft Bock, Bock's Macaroni and Cheese or Velveeta or whatever. And in Swedish, and this isn't to say that this was intentional by Kraft or it might be a name or whatever, but Kraft, K-R-A-F-T in Swedish means power.
00:26:09
Gooder Longer
And for me, in my political process, remembering that craft in Swedish means power and seeing food as power all the time.
00:26:21
Gooder Longer
And you see this big, massive, you know, I think that I don't know if k craft was acquired by Mondelez or some other big international brand.
00:26:21
Christian Yordanov
who
00:26:33
Gooder Longer
But you start thinking about that and you start thinking you don't bite the hand that feeds you. Right. And so if somebody else is feeding you, there's a power dynamic that you are inherently in that situation.
00:26:45
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:26:49
Gooder Longer
You're disempowered. And that, I think, for me has been. okay, well, how do I feed myself? And how do I put those skills in place where if, you know, if there's a run on eggs in the grocery store and eggs are $18 for a dozen, you know, you're a price
Self-Sufficiency in Food Production
00:27:11
Gooder Longer
taker if you don't have the means of feeding yourself.
00:27:15
Gooder Longer
And so for me, like it's been a process over years and years and years of how do I,
00:27:15
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:27:24
Gooder Longer
I mean, it started in college with, I would eat a lot of like kale, rice, beans, sweet potato, and we don't have to have a conversation about those ingredients right now, but, um,
00:27:38
Gooder Longer
but that that was a lot of what i ate you know and it it was simple food it was you know uh less expensive you know i could buy a bag of organic dry black beans and cook them up and have them for you know three or four days a bunch of rice same thing and then i started growing kale because i was like you know you're buying organic kale and a bunch from the farmer's market and it's like eight dollars or something And you buy a pack of seeds and it's organic heirloom, non-GMO, best seeds you can get.
00:28:06
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:28:12
Gooder Longer
And a packet of seeds is like five bucks, six bucks. Let's say it's eight bucks, right? It's eight dollars for a package of seeds. But then in between that, I learn how to grow this thing and I have a connection to that thing.
00:28:25
Gooder Longer
And it grows exponentially more than that eight dollars. And so at at some point, like, yes, you've made a monetary decision, but you've also made a decision that's like empowering you to do a thing and grow a thing.
00:28:30
Christian Yordanov
Sure, sure, yeah.
00:28:40
Gooder Longer
And that ability to grow kale for me, I started doing the math and the amount of kale I was eating. And was like, sure, I'm putting in time and I'm putting in my energy and care. But shit, man, like I'm out with the birds and like ho in a row. I'm happy. I'm in the sun. I'm getting my vitamin d And it's like, that's not a bad price to pay.
00:29:03
Gooder Longer
And the the one price that I paid was that $8 seed packet.
00:29:08
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:08
Gooder Longer
But plants They'll give it away for free, man. You let them go to seed, you save that seed and you can share it out. You never have to pay for kale seeds again.
00:29:19
Gooder Longer
And they get better year after year after year.
00:29:20
Christian Yordanov
That's it.
00:29:21
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:21
Gooder Longer
And so.
00:29:22
Gooder Longer
so
00:29:22
Christian Yordanov
They adapt to the surroundings.
00:29:24
Gooder Longer
Yeah, exactly. And so so for me, it's become this kind of economic experiment of, you know,
00:29:25
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:34
Gooder Longer
what can I grow for myself to empower myself? And, you know, it started with one chicken that was laying egg. And then now we have 18 chickens and we're running a bed and breakfast and we're trying to use the ingredients from the the little farm that we're we're trying to build behind where the B&B is.
00:29:55
Gooder Longer
And just find a steady state where we can sustain the number of guests that we have with the resources that come in um and not have to have so much like packaging waste, you know, like the egg cartons that we have to get.
00:30:05
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:30:11
Christian Yordanov
Of
00:30:13
Gooder Longer
And like when you're buying a carton of strawberries and they're wrapped in plastic or, you know, youre um I don't know.
00:30:14
Christian Yordanov
course.
00:30:18
Christian Yordanov
Mm.
00:30:21
Gooder Longer
So it just it feels like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:22
Christian Yordanov
This is, sorry, sorry to sorry to interrupt. This is actually exactly my next question was going to be just kind of asking you. So tell us more. but You kind of, you basically asked the question, but tell us. So some some of the strategies now you're, you're okay, so you're,
00:30:38
Christian Yordanov
running at B&B, obviously you have you're cooking for for the people, in the so you do like meals for these these folks coming to to stay there.
00:30:45
Gooder Longer
Yep.
00:30:46
Christian Yordanov
But obviously you have to cook for yourself, your partner and so on. so just And you have to source source food, not just for yourself, but also, of course, for the for the business.
00:30:49
Gooder Longer
Right.
00:30:54
Christian Yordanov
So to tell us some of the... so someone Obviously, you know can touch more on the garden, than the chickens, but like regarding other stuff, what's your what are your strategies for sourcing good food?
00:31:04
Gooder Longer
Yeah. I mean, i think it really starts with um relationships and, you know, we've, you Excuse me, we're we're in a more agricultural community and in some ways it feels like if you live in an urban environment, it's a little more challenging.
00:31:26
Gooder Longer
But at the same time, I think that at least, I mean, I would say it's a a growing trend in the United States. more more so than a in other places, it's been a historical trip.
00:31:43
Gooder Longer
In the United States, we got away from small scale localized agriculture because of this get bigger, get out philosophy. in a lot of other places, ah you know, like traveling in middle of nowhere, in Italy or Europe, or I mean, Italy or Europe, Italy or France, or ah any of those other European places, right?
00:32:04
Christian Yordanov
though I love those countries.
00:32:07
Gooder Longer
um
00:32:08
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:32:10
Gooder Longer
or like south america you know like um be like being in in ecuador you know you're in a tropical region that has crazy amounts of food and so like there's these places that still have that connected local agriculture but i feel like that's something that you know the united states is is such a young country and it feels like the hipster country where it's like Hey, we discovered a small scale localized agriculture that's only here in this neighborhood.
00:32:12
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:32:41
Gooder Longer
And and like, it's like a new thing. But every other country that's older is like, yeah, we've been doing that and are still doing that. We've been doing it for hundreds of years and you're just getting to the party. So welcome.
00:32:53
Gooder Longer
Welcome to what we've all known. And so i for me, it's been in a lot of these urban areas. Finding when your farmers market date is and just starting a conversation like don't just mindlessly cruise through with your shopping cart with your headphones in and like throw shit in your cart.
00:33:14
Gooder Longer
You know, go to the farmers market as an event, you know, take a a ah cup of coffee and walk around, listen to the music, like have a conversation with somebody.
00:33:14
Christian Yordanov
Hmm.
00:33:25
Gooder Longer
and talk to a talk to a vendor, you know, talk to ah a farmer or a a fish, a fish grower or you know fish monger. i don't know what that you have. Somebody that's a fisherman or like a rancher, you know, because all of these people are coming in and um for So for me, that's been a starting point of building relationships around food.
00:33:50
Gooder Longer
And it's a slow process. It's it's having conversations and helping. Like when we first moved to New Mexico, one of the things that that we did is we we volunteered for, it wasn't even a whole day, it was maybe like three hours. We volunteered in this small organic farm and you know We were just helping them weed rows or whatever. And and by doing that, there was a we got we like we didn't even know going in that was going to happen. But we got our free farmers like a CSA share. So community supported agriculture is what CSA means. So so we got a share. So like Rick, the farmer, he's like, oh, make sure you take a take your CSA share. and we're Like, what do you mean? he goes, oh, yeah, we've already got it packed up in the fridge for you guys.
00:34:43
Gooder Longer
And it was, you know, all sorts of stuff.
00:34:44
Christian Yordanov
Wow.
00:34:46
Gooder Longer
And so we brought our labor and helped him at a time where he needed that help.
00:34:46
Christian Yordanov
Cool.
00:34:52
Gooder Longer
And we got food out of it. And so all of those sorts of things exist.
00:34:55
Christian Yordanov
Hmm.
00:34:56
Gooder Longer
And and I think one of the one ah amazing resource if people want to do that, there's a there's a site called Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms.
00:35:07
Gooder Longer
And it's W.W.O.O.F. And it's called Wolfing. You'll hear maybe hear it referred to as that. But then there's another one called Workaway and it's Workaway dot info.
00:35:19
Gooder Longer
And I've done both. I find that WorkAway, and I hope this doesn't get back to them, but WorkAway has one fee and it covers the entire world. ah Woofing, you have to pay based on the country that you wanna do.
00:35:34
Gooder Longer
So if you wanna just woof in the United States, great.
00:35:34
Christian Yordanov
Cool.
00:35:38
Gooder Longer
But for me, I was trying to go to France and Italy to do woofing and I had to pay two fees. And I found that a lot of the farmers on Wolfing were listed cross listed on Workaway. And so i was like, just pay for Workaway, not to take anything away from from Wolfing at all. But so that for me, that was a starting point is I was able to travel and work on these farms. And it was it was a rip reciprocal relationship.
00:36:05
Gooder Longer
And, you know, I was able to work on a vineyard in Italy. And the guy provided us breakfast and some type, like most of the times we were fed lunch.
00:36:16
Gooder Longer
Um, sometimes dinner was on our own, just depending on what we wanted to do. Um, But for me, that that it was like a starting point of this reciprocal relationship where there's not a monetary exchange, there's just value.
00:36:22
Christian Yordanov
That's so cool, man.
00:36:30
Gooder Longer
And
Global Impact of Food Choices
00:36:30
Gooder Longer
you take big banks out of the the conversation and you just like, I share my work, I learn something, they teach something, they get work, I get fed, I have a place to stay.
00:36:40
Gooder Longer
i'm good you know it's most of the things that you would want and so you know i've done that in a number of different places um and learned all sorts of things but it's really back to that that station of you're you're building a relationship and you're acquiring resources aside from just having to monetize your food relationships and so so that that's been my like long-term
00:37:00
Christian Yordanov
That's
00:37:12
Gooder Longer
the the way that I've approached the conversation. But I think that if you're just going from purchasing and you have a job and you're just trying to buy clean stuff, pick a day in a month and just one day go to the farmer's market, have a conversation with somebody.
00:37:30
Gooder Longer
And you know like if if you want to get beef, talk to a rancher and and maybe instead of buying beef once a week, like what I did with some friends and and this took, you know, it took me a long time to get to this place, but, um, I found like-minded friends and, you know, there's three different couples and we went in on an entire cow.
00:37:51
Gooder Longer
And so we bought the whole cow. Uh, we talked to the rancher. We were able to have it broken down by a butcher, paid the butcher. Um, and he wrapped and labeled everything by weight.
00:38:05
Gooder Longer
And so you had like a hung weight, a finished weight. And so say the, say the cow weighed a thousand pounds, right?
00:38:15
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:38:16
Gooder Longer
Based on that, you know, this is the top price for the cow. And so when it was all broken down, it was $8 pound. eight dollars a pound And if you're looking at just ground beef, $8 a pound, you're like, you know, but if it's, you know, it's grass fed, grass finished, non GMO.
00:38:36
Gooder Longer
I know the guy who raised it. I know the butcher who processed it.
00:38:38
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:38:41
Gooder Longer
And so you're already starting to see this like set of resources that if you're just buying at the grocery store, that's totally out, you know, um, And so that, that process, you know, you start doing the math on, uh, ground beef and you're like, maybe that's cost prohibitive, but then you start looking at like, we had a seven pound brisket and it was $8 a pound, you know, and you, you go to buy a prime, like a rib or a prime rib.
00:39:09
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:39:13
Gooder Longer
Like we had a prime rib for, for Christmas that we cooked off and it was a six pound prime rib, $8 pound. You know, and so you're getting the the low cost at ah maybe higher cost, but you're getting the high like prime cuts at a lower cost.
00:39:32
Gooder Longer
And so over the time, like, and you're eating the same cow over the year. And that's crazy, man. Like, you know, I'm i'm eating, I'm eating fluffy, the cow, you know, all year long.
00:39:38
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:39:42
Gooder Longer
It's the same cow. and And so I think that there's just something about that.
00:39:44
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. And that that put puts into context the whole thing around meat being wasteful as a as a food source.
00:39:55
Christian Yordanov
Because like if one cow can feed you know a family for a year, ah and sure, yes, the cow will eat a lot of grass and drink a lot of water.
00:40:00
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:40:04
Christian Yordanov
But like think about almond tree. almond tree
00:40:08
Gooder Longer
Yep.
00:40:08
Christian Yordanov
How many almonds are you going to grab off of that tree?
00:40:09
Gooder Longer
Dude.
00:40:10
Christian Yordanov
How much water do those roots consume like that tree just to get you a few almonds?
00:40:11
Gooder Longer
Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah.
00:40:15
Christian Yordanov
It's insane. You know?
00:40:17
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, I was just driving through the central Valley of California, like Europe, north of, um, north of San Francisco and we were driving through um and just all the almond trees lining the highway and across the board, you keep seeing all these signs that say, is growing food a waste of water?
00:40:42
Gooder Longer
And well, and and I, and think it's like, it's, I don't know.
00:40:43
Christian Yordanov
Is that supposed to be ironic?
00:40:50
Gooder Longer
It, it's so hard because like, I know that there are, probably
00:40:58
Gooder Longer
i don't know like i don't want to i don't want to talk bad about anybody working in agriculture because it's already so hard and like you think that margins and restaurants are hard like fuck man agricultural margins holy smokes because like you're you're competing against the entire world and it's again it's like if it's a monetized thing it's always going to be a hard
00:41:03
Christian Yordanov
and
00:41:10
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Oh, am.
00:41:14
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:24
Gooder Longer
Like <unk>re you're always going to be like, oh where's the I'm looking at the cheaper almonds. This is the amount of time it takes for me to make a choice. Organic, not organic. Oh, man, that's six bucks.
00:41:34
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:41:36
Gooder Longer
That's four. OK.
00:41:37
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, exactly.
00:41:38
Gooder Longer
You know, and that $2 difference drives the world economy. And so I think more and more, if we can think about our food choices as powerful voting choices, like you don't vote once every four years, you vote three times a day, you vote for your food policy three times a day, or, you know, however often you shop, if you're buying your food.
00:41:43
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:41:56
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:03
Gooder Longer
But also like if you're growing your food, if you're building relationships with with proprietors and if you're building relationships with growers and ranchers and farmers and fishermen and fisherwomen, you know, whatever. It's like we've we've started kind of traveling.
00:42:19
Gooder Longer
based on our sourcing, um which is really a fun way to travel. So like my buddy who we were just visiting, ah his family has an olive orchard and they press small amount of olive olive oil every year. And so you know we come home with, you know,
00:42:36
Gooder Longer
ah some olive oil, like a case of olive oil that we use at the B&B. And we're able to tell that story.
00:42:40
Christian Yordanov
Nice. Sweet.
00:42:41
Gooder Longer
You know, we're going through Tucson now and and I'm really excited about trying to build some relationships down here with with citrus growers.
00:42:42
Christian Yordanov
three
00:42:51
Gooder Longer
um Because one, it's crazy that they're growing citrus in the desert. But Tucson is also doing some really amazing things with like, um It's called green, green stormwater infrastructure.
00:43:05
Gooder Longer
So like
Sustainable Practices in B&B Operations
00:43:06
Gooder Longer
rainwater catcher when the, when the monsoons come through. And so it's just, it's an interesting, it's an interesting way to, to navigate the world that we've started to do.
00:43:19
Gooder Longer
And um yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that answers the question, but I would say.
00:43:24
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah, no, that that's yeah that's really cool. But so do you use like a cache and carry as well? Because, I mean, you probably need it, right?
00:43:31
Gooder Longer
no
00:43:31
Christian Yordanov
The stuff this, no?
00:43:33
Gooder Longer
No, no. And I think that a lot of those decisions have been really intentional.
00:43:35
Christian Yordanov
You know, you...
00:43:40
Gooder Longer
um And, you know, like we've well, OK, I'll back I'll backpedal that statement. We do go to Costco on on a number of things. So we when we're at Costco, we still buy.
00:43:58
Gooder Longer
only organic stuff um when that's an option. And some, like we've gotten to the point now that if they don't have an organic option, we're not going to buy it.
00:44:04
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:44:12
Gooder Longer
And so I think that that Running the B&B has been an interesting part of that economic experiment because you're not just feeding yourself, but you're feeding other people.
00:44:26
Gooder Longer
And so for me, it's like, feed treat people the way you want to be treated, feed people the way you want to be fed.
00:44:31
Christian Yordanov
m
00:44:33
Gooder Longer
And so, you know, like we're we're fresh juicing from an orange. And so we're cutting oranges in half. And we're juicing those oranges for our guests. They're organic oranges.
00:44:47
Gooder Longer
Winter is amazing because that's that's citrus season. And then during the rest of the year, it's hard because the oranges don't juice as much because they're not like they're stored oranges or whatever.
00:45:03
Gooder Longer
so So yeah, I mean, it's it's been this... over the time that we've been doing the B&B kind of winnowing down in every sort of every season, we're kind of choosing a menu that's driven by, can we source one more thing that is local? you know So can we, instead of buying ah polenta for our huevos rancheros, can we get that from
00:45:37
Gooder Longer
New Mexico rather than from California or Oregon or wherever.
00:45:41
Christian Yordanov
Hmm.
00:45:41
Gooder Longer
And so it just being like, okay, little by little, you start to find a replacement for one thing. And you know, another great example is like guacamole.
00:45:53
Gooder Longer
Love it. I love eating out of cotton. It's like if, if people are allergic or that's part of their things, they can eat.
00:45:55
Christian Yordanov
Hmm.
00:46:00
Gooder Longer
That's, you know, I don't know if I would make it But we used to eat like we get those huge tubs of avocado or sorry huge tubs of guacamole.
00:46:05
Christian Yordanov
Hmm.
00:46:11
Gooder Longer
And they're in a plastic thing with a plastic cover, and a plastic top. And they've got a bunch of stuff in it that are like preservatives and whatnot. And I just looked at Amy at one point. and I said, if we're going have guacamole, we should just make it from avocados.
00:46:27
Gooder Longer
You know, because the avocados come in a package, they're protected, you know, and they're preserved. They've got a preservative with the pit in there. um And if you get them at the right time, like buy them a little hard, let them ripen and then make your guacamole and, and,
00:46:43
Gooder Longer
you're not wasting because we put all of the peel and the pit into a, into our compost. Um, and then that goes into the soil and then that helps grow more food. Right. Um, and so it's just making, it feels like starting to to make those changes and incorporate, it doesn't have to be like a whole everything all at once, but it's just like, pick one thing you eat a lot of and be like, okay,
00:47:10
Gooder Longer
maybe I can get rice that's from California rather than India and maybe, or Pakistan or or whatever.
00:47:18
Christian Yordanov
Pakistan or something, yeah.
00:47:20
Gooder Longer
Like maybe I can get potatoes that are from a farmer's market, at least part of the season, part of the year and use those or use the onions or garlic or,
00:47:34
Gooder Longer
You know, pick pick a thing that you really like having and just start to transition toward building in more relationship around that one thing.
00:47:44
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:47:45
Gooder Longer
And then the other thing that I love to do is I've just planted a bunch of perennials, like perennial herbs. So you know if you've got if you've got a patio or mean even a roof in a lot of instances, like you can you can grow more food than you think.
00:48:03
Gooder Longer
And starting to to grow a little bit more for yourself and having the ability to just go out in the backyard barefoot and be like, oh I need some rosemary.
00:48:15
Gooder Longer
And I just clicked like this much rosemary.
00:48:16
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:48:18
Gooder Longer
It's all that I need. And then the plant keeps it alive until I need more. Oh my God, it's like, I don't need refrigeration for that rosemary and it's not wrapped in plastic.
00:48:27
Christian Yordanov
yeah yeah i
00:48:30
Gooder Longer
And then the other thing was like, if you buy it, it goes bad before you can use the whole damn thing. And so you're wasting that work. You're wasting that life by buying something that you could be growing.
00:48:43
Gooder Longer
And so for, for like my experience has been just starting to add those pieces little by little, you know, and and I've been working at this for 30 years, you know, I like we had a garden when I was a kid and I learned how to grow tomatoes and like planting tomatoes with marigolds to keep pests away, you know, it's so like, it's been a process that I've learned over a long experience.
00:49:04
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:49:10
Gooder Longer
And I think that for people that are just coming to this sort of this kind of way of living, it's a lot to try to take it in all at once. And so just find find a one thing that you can focus on, you know, and and maybe you really like French fries.
00:49:28
Gooder Longer
So buy good organic potatoes. Learn how to
Challenges and Benefits of Raising Animals
00:49:32
Gooder Longer
make French fries in like beef tallow.
00:49:35
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:49:35
Gooder Longer
because then you're avoiding some seed oils and you're learning how to make a thing for yourself. And, you know, I think I read, i think I read once like you can eat anything you want.
00:49:49
Gooder Longer
You can eat cookies, you can eat candy, you can make anything that you want part of your life. But if it's something that's like a vice that you'd be buying preserved, learn how to cook it yourself.
00:50:03
Gooder Longer
and you can only eat the chocolate chip cookies that you make or you can only eat the you know the gummy bears that you make learn how to do it you know it's not hawk it's not like it's not brain surgery it's like it's it's a practical process that people do and you can make organic gummy bears at home that don't have a bunch of
00:50:14
Christian Yordanov
yeah exactly
00:50:26
Gooder Longer
you know, preservatives and dyes that are actually good, you know, and, you know, maybe work some collagen in there or work some gelatin in there, you know, and, and.
00:50:27
Christian Yordanov
they're actually that are actually good for you yeah
00:50:34
Christian Yordanov
Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, look the that that's actually how I get my my kiddo to eat more gelatin is just make jelly, know, jello.
00:50:44
Gooder Longer
Yep.
00:50:45
Christian Yordanov
And she loves it because it's it's so good for your health, you know, especially not not just if you're growing, but just to preserve your your body, your bones and your joints and your skin, all these things that have collagen.
00:50:47
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:51
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:50:58
Gooder Longer
Yep.
00:50:59
Christian Yordanov
And it's so it's ah and it's it's a taste, especially in the summer, it's so refreshing, you know.
00:51:04
Gooder Longer
Yeah, absolutely.
00:51:04
Christian Yordanov
But I was going to ask you, John, ah do you just have the chickens for eggs or do you do like process them for meat?
00:51:12
Gooder Longer
Yeah, so we we have processed chickens in the past. um It's really, it's really hard, you know, and, and we have some, we have some friends that are, they're doing broiler chickens this year.
00:51:21
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:51:28
Gooder Longer
Um, and we'll try to get some broilers from them. And, you know, when, when they process chickens a number of years back, like they've got the infrastructure, so they've got, um,
00:51:40
Gooder Longer
They've got kill cones where you know you put the chicken upside down, you cut its cut its neck and it bleeds out. And if this is too much information for people, it's like, hey, this is where your food comes from.
00:51:48
Christian Yordanov
No, and it's it's part of life.
00:51:50
Gooder Longer
This is where your food comes from.
00:51:51
Christian Yordanov
It's a part of life, yeah.
00:51:53
Gooder Longer
And I think that putting, putting relationship in that. And, you know, we could talk a lot about the meatpacking companies in the United States that are just like slaughterhouses.
00:52:06
Gooder Longer
And the thing they do is they kill shit and they cut it up and they hang it up.
00:52:06
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:52:11
Gooder Longer
And it's just like, it's that I think is a really bleak kind of way of, of eating, you know, and, and I think that if we can move that demand and I think around meat is a big one that if, if more people could start expressing their food dollars toward meat, um, in a way that's more humane and human, um,
00:52:32
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:52:44
Gooder Longer
So that's a, that's a, you know philosophical answer around a practical question.
00:52:48
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:52:48
Gooder Longer
But so at this point, we're only raising chickens for eggs. And we're working on that as a, if we're going to eat chicken, sourcing it from people we know.
00:52:59
Gooder Longer
um And yeah, so.
00:52:59
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. It is hard, like I can imagine because I remember when I was very small, one of my actually earliest memories is my at my village, my grandma just kind of going in.
00:53:16
Christian Yordanov
id i was living in the in the city with my other grandparents and my parents and i'd visit i love I used to love visiting because, you know, farm on the farm and, you know, the animals and everything, you know, it was awesome.
00:53:24
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yeah.
00:53:27
Christian Yordanov
and but like i'd visit and she's like okay we're gonna cook chicken and you know what that means go goes into the coop picks the one she wants to you know today's the day and she just literally dude i was there like a little kid dude and she would just literally just grab the chicken put her sort of uh foot on its head and then like with a with a freaking kitchen knife and
00:53:35
Gooder Longer
Yep.
00:53:37
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:53:51
Christian Yordanov
Cut its head off. And I didn't do, I didn't cry. i
00:53:54
Christian Yordanov
i wasn't like, I don't think I was traumatized per se. i think it was just, it was just a part of life.
00:53:54
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:54:01
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:54:01
Christian Yordanov
You know, was just a part of life and nobody gave it a second thought. Now you couldn't do that every day.
00:54:07
Christian Yordanov
You couldn't have chicken every day because i they had like, I don't know, a dozen chickens. So you had to be strategic about it.
00:54:07
Gooder Longer
Right.
00:54:11
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:54:13
Christian Yordanov
And I think that's probably, I've always, I said to my wife, you know, like if we had our own chickens, probably I would, we would be eating a little bit less meat than, than, than, than now, you know, because I just couldn't go through that process like every week, every, you know, that you have to do yourself.
00:54:23
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:54:27
Gooder Longer
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:54:31
Gooder Longer
Yeah. And I.
00:54:31
Christian Yordanov
But yeah.
00:54:33
Gooder Longer
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's that it's putting that relationship back into our food. And it's not just like a relationship with humans. It's the relationship with the animals as well. And so, you know, on on our little farm place, our chickens,
00:54:42
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:54:48
Gooder Longer
they do work, you know, like they're, they're scratching bugs and they're, they're free ranging. And, um, you know, I've got a, a wood chip yard that they go and they dig out grubs to keep it from having a bunch of less preferable insects. And, you know, so they'll, they'll do work and we ah You know, we feed them and they feed us.
00:55:14
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:55:14
Gooder Longer
And so there's this give and take.
00:55:14
Christian Yordanov
Somebody else's. Yeah.
00:55:16
Gooder Longer
um And then and then they're also, you know, they're they're pooping and chicken poop is good manure.
00:55:17
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:22
Gooder Longer
So, you know, we're composting the chicken poop and helping to build the soil back.
00:55:23
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:55:29
Gooder Longer
So it's just it's an interconnected like ecosystem of relationships and interdependencies that rather than consumer being king and I get whatever I want whenever I want.
00:55:45
Gooder Longer
starting to be like, well, these are the values that I need to live, that I've chosen to live by and the standards that I'm trying to hold myself to and starting to like expand the the things that fit in the middle of that bell curve that I'm taking responsibility for.
00:56:03
Gooder Longer
So if I'm, if I'm eating beef and I'm asking for the life of a cow, to feed me, how can i take more responsibility for that?
00:56:16
Gooder Longer
And if it's not me like harvesting the cow myself and raising the cow from a calf myself, can I get a little bit closer to that relationship being part of my orbit rather than just like totally out of mind where I just put it in the in the cart at the grocery store?
00:56:29
Christian Yordanov
Oh
00:56:35
Gooder Longer
You know, and and so it's just like it's there's this big gap like it's like a huge gap between a lot of people and where their food comes from.
00:56:36
Christian Yordanov
yeah. Yeah.
00:56:45
Gooder Longer
And if we can if we can start like narrowing that distance, it's going to take time, obviously.
00:56:45
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:52
Gooder Longer
But some people will pick it up faster. And I and i think that. it's a it's a more rich and fulfilling way to live, in my opinion.
00:57:03
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:57:04
Gooder Longer
um And a lot of the friends that I have are people that that grow things and make things and they keep bees and they you know grow ginger or whatever. It's like they're seed savers or they're heritage grain growers. and And the more that you have that in your life, it's just like,
00:57:24
Gooder Longer
you don't need, you don't need the money as much because you're already rich. You already have so much. And, and I think that being able to not pay for monetarily the things that you need to feed yourself, it's like, that's so empowering.
00:57:43
Gooder Longer
And, and I think that that's
00:57:44
Christian Yordanov
Dude, of course, because, like, when I think about it, that is by a huge margin our biggest expense. like
00:57:52
Gooder Longer
your, your food costs.
00:57:52
Christian Yordanov
Like I said already, yeah, because, I mean, man, like, the it's and it gets, it like, I, yeah I,
00:57:55
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:00
Christian Yordanov
kind of live in an apartment at the moment so we can't really grow anything substantial. but I have messed around with growing stuff you know over the years.
00:58:08
Gooder Longer
yeah
00:58:08
Christian Yordanov
But ah my my kind of next best thing right now is there's ah a small organic store that they kind of they do the sourcing. So they're like a family business. So I kind of support them even though they've been getting busier and they moved locations so it's like now they use a delivery company to to get get our stuff here and that's like the service has been deteriorating as they get bigger which is great for them now that they're getting bigger and happy for them ah because COVID they took a huge sort of hit but at the same time and it's like the service is deteriorating the prices keep increasing every few weeks like everything seems to be going up ah just gradually But I i still enjoy kind of knowing them by first name and like like every like every a buck that goes goes to them.
00:58:28
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:58:54
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:58:59
Christian Yordanov
Okay, obviously they have the cost of the product and stuff, but like all the the profit that's going to like people that live you know, nearby. So I'm kind of happy to do that.
00:59:08
Gooder Longer
Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:59:09
Christian Yordanov
And then the next stage, of course, is, of course, you know, friends that have, ah you know, geese and and turkeys and and and chickens and stuff. And then, of course, the the goal as soon as we have a house, man, like that's like number one chicken coop up two, three chickens start small, start easy.
00:59:23
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:25
Christian Yordanov
But I just can't wait.
00:59:26
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
00:59:27
Christian Yordanov
I can't because it just it it to me to be just going going back to full circle the way my grandparents were living.
00:59:34
Gooder Longer
yeah
00:59:35
Christian Yordanov
And they had a lot of things dialed in, dude, before they were forced to start going to the stores and buying fucking salami and and and margarine and, you know, bread that that they used to be able to, all these things, they could source them, tomatoes and whatever else.
00:59:45
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:52
Christian Yordanov
So it's going to be very fulfilling to bring it full circle to the way my my grandparents lived, you know.
00:59:59
Gooder Longer
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's it's a there's a quote that I saw once and it it was some people are so poor. All they have is money.
01:00:10
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:00:11
Gooder Longer
And that just really, it really hit me because, you know, like we might not be, you know, driving Lambos and drinking Cristal some stuff, but we're we're very we're very rich. like We have a very rich life. We've got a community that we care about, people that we can depend on.
01:00:33
Gooder Longer
And you know like our neighbor is watching our chickens right now while we're on the road. And you know we yeah, we pay her some like monetarily, but we're also like, take take eggs, please take eggs.
01:00:45
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
01:00:46
Gooder Longer
um and And I think that having that that abundance of resources It it bound it balances out like the spectrum of value.
01:00:57
Gooder Longer
Like some people, it's like all they have in their value spectrum is dollars and their investment profile.
01:01:02
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:01:03
Gooder Longer
And, you know, I think I put in my bio and maybe this is for another conversation, but I I i have a very like I have a quasi Christian background upbringing and I've been involved with some some.
01:01:20
Gooder Longer
What's it called? Some ministry ministry work. And it's not exactly it's a bigger conversation, but I won't get too much into it. But there's this this sense that where your treasure is or where your where your treasure is there, your heart will be.
01:01:38
Gooder Longer
And I think a lot of us, we've put our treasure in the stock market and international trading. And so we care about that. And we have to care about that because that's where our treasure is and that's where our hearts are.
01:01:52
Gooder Longer
And so if we can move that treasure back into our communities and we can keep keep that value in our communities, then I think our hearts can be there more. But I think it's just, it's not like a You're going to get in trouble if you don't. It's more like this is actually how the world works.
01:02:08
Gooder Longer
Where your treasure is, that's where you're going to care. You know, so if you treasure food, you're going start caring about it more. You know, and I the the day that you start going hungry,
01:02:20
Gooder Longer
you're not going to give a shit about the stock market. You're going be like, I need to eat. I want some chickens. I want some eggs. I want to learn how to make so sourdough. I want to be able to, and we, and I think we saw a lot of that during all the COVID stuff, um, is people just kind of being like, well, I have this time and maybe I've got some money, but like, I've got this time.
01:02:39
Gooder Longer
What am I going to do with it? And they start.
01:02:41
Christian Yordanov
started only fans oh no sorry the your thing your thing sorry your thing
01:02:42
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to have a ah chicken, chicken only fans. Um,
01:02:49
Christian Yordanov
for the for the big weirdos out there sorry i
01:02:51
Gooder Longer
Yeah, for the weirdos. Anyway, but yeah, so that, yeah, you really took that in a different direction, Christian. I was be i was being all wholesome.
01:03:00
Christian Yordanov
yeah Sorry, I am a grown human.
01:03:04
Gooder Longer
i was being wholesome.
01:03:04
Christian Yordanov
I am a grown human. i Yeah.
01:03:07
Gooder Longer
Yeah. That's debatable, right? Sometimes.
01:03:11
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah. Not if you ask my wife. But no, it's so true, man. It's so true because um the the world, we like a lot of younger, like we're, you know, not that young anymore, but a lot of like the younger people, you know, with they now that are like, you know, 10, 15, 20 years old even, they don't realize like what it what the world was like without internet, with...
01:03:38
Christian Yordanov
without a lot of this kind of constant connectivity and like they we used to like dude when you were kids man like you wouldn't be out all day and your your parents didn't know where you are all day and you're out with the kids on adventures and and sort of getting up to no good a little bit but like it's such it was such a different world now and uh the more we can sort of in uh connect back to things like the
01:03:38
Gooder Longer
Right.
Community-Focused Food Systems
01:04:03
Christian Yordanov
land being out in the sun and
01:04:06
Christian Yordanov
in nature, i think the better, the healthier we will will will be, not just physically, but psychologically as well. That's that's a huge part of health as well.
01:04:15
Gooder Longer
Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. So and I mean, a lot of these a lot of these small operators are always looking for help, um even if it's like simple stuff like pulling weeds.
01:04:29
Gooder Longer
And, you know, I probably for another conversation, but I worked with this veteran serving nonprofit U.S.
01:04:30
Christian Yordanov
Hmm.
01:04:37
Gooder Longer
U.S. war veterans. And it was an agricultural project of getting vets out into working on vineyards and orchards and and like meeting and being shoulder to shoulder with other vets and civilians and and just connecting and not just connecting with the thing they're doing, but connecting this way side to side with their buddy and building relationships around that.
01:05:04
Gooder Longer
um And we, I think the, the big thing we found was that as you start building those relationships and connections with the food, the, the healing and like the trauma starts to slide away and you can actually talk through some stuff or work through some stuff and find like that psychological healing.
01:05:24
Gooder Longer
Um, so yeah, it's, it's huge, man.
01:05:25
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:05:27
Gooder Longer
It's like,
01:05:28
Christian Yordanov
So true, bro.
01:05:28
Gooder Longer
that's the That's the culture part of agriculture that I really feel like is missing. and And I think the sooner we get back to more of that, we can start to to tilt the scales in our favor, in the favor of humanity and community and trust and reciprocity and care and intentionality.
01:05:34
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:05:49
Gooder Longer
Like pick pick your cool hippie word and and like that exists in agriculture, man. Like that's it.
01:05:55
Christian Yordanov
yeah love it brother and definitely like for folks listening uh it's work away.info is one of the websites then w w o o f dot net that's the other one but this this uh workaway.info like i just put portugal in uh earlier a bunch of like sustainable
01:06:01
Gooder Longer
Yep. Yeah.
01:06:20
Christian Yordanov
project even some nearby like in the same sort of uh state uh not state but um province county whatever so i think this would be awesome like even just take my daughter for a week there which is a bit older so she can see how food is created because i mean she she kind of we explained to her stuff but like it's it's a different story when you're out there and you see these things getting you know picked harvested watered
01:06:27
Gooder Longer
yeah
01:06:32
Gooder Longer
Absolutely.
01:06:46
Christian Yordanov
whatever you know it's such a so especially if there's animals and pigs and things like that it would be such an epic experience so um there's places with horses uh so yeah man like i i think i think this yeah this this is it's almost like ah a different type of vacation a little okay you're gonna do a bit of work but little bit of work never killed nobody you know ah unless you're like
01:06:46
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yep.
01:06:58
Gooder Longer
All sorts of stuff.
01:07:03
Gooder Longer
Absolutely.
01:07:08
Gooder Longer
Well, and it's ah it's a different kind of work that is, it's restorative and it's like connected. And I think of that that that's what a lot of people are looking for when they go on vacation is just to like have some like a down shift.
01:07:24
Gooder Longer
And, you know, to do some practical work for a change for people that might be working in like the intellectual or creative world, you know, just like, I want to dig a fucking hole.
01:07:30
Christian Yordanov
Yes. you
01:07:35
Gooder Longer
I want to put a tree in it and I'm going to step on that.
01:07:35
Christian Yordanov
ah Yeah.
01:07:38
Gooder Longer
And there's going to be a tree there. And then we're going to put some irrigation. It's like, it's practical and it's tangible.
01:07:45
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:07:45
Gooder Longer
And it's like, it's, it's, it's totally different for people that, you know, like if you're living in your head all the time or like you're doing service industry, it's like, man, it can be so draining working with people.
01:07:55
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:07:57
Gooder Longer
But like a lot of the times I find that I like plants and animals better than people because they don't, they're predictable. Like they don't lie to you. You know, if a plant needs water, it's going to show you those signs if, you know, so yeah, I just, I love it.
01:08:07
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, for sure.
01:08:11
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:08:12
Gooder Longer
And it's been ah an amazing part of my life. Um, and I think it's a great starting point for starting to move the needle and, and, uh, shift the power back to communities and relationships. And, um,
01:08:26
Gooder Longer
you know, you don't have to have your crazy political conversations. You can just talk about like, how do you grow an apple? This is amazing. You know, oh, you've got bees. What do how do you do that?
01:08:37
Gooder Longer
You know, and just like infuse the curiosity back into our lives and and the sense of wonder and and like the miraculous, like the, I think the growing food for me feels like the closest thing to magic that I can think of.
01:08:37
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah,
01:08:50
Christian Yordanov
yeah.
01:08:51
Gooder Longer
And it's just like, ah It comes from this tiny seed and then it just keeps getting better.
01:08:56
Christian Yordanov
yeah yeah
01:08:58
Gooder Longer
It's like, what the fuck is this? This is insane.
Empowerment through Personal Food Choices
01:09:01
Christian Yordanov
And also like the fact, it also to me, I was like, when I was a bit older, i was to me it was insane that like our grandparents and, like okay, let's say our great, great grandparents, like these people were like, all of them, like off the freaking grid, like everything, they were
01:09:18
Gooder Longer
Oh, yeah. There was no grid.
01:09:21
Christian Yordanov
yeah there was no they were like dude they were doing everything water food shelter my my uh even my my grandparents apparently um that house that they were living in which was too huge like it was a two-story house but like it was high seating so it was insanely huge um that they it was basically my granddad that built it and of course my grandma helped and and of course the the neighbors helped for like you know when you have to like you know but do stuff that you need multiple strong men for of course they would help out help each other out but like brick by brick dude like brick by freaking brick
01:09:55
Gooder Longer
Right.
01:09:59
Gooder Longer
Yep.
01:09:59
Christian Yordanov
Man, it it it boggles the mind, you know, it boggles the mind that people used to live like this. And now we're like, we basically kind of, how do you how do you call it? Like, we're like um mega domesticated.
01:10:12
Christian Yordanov
Like, we're so domesticated.
01:10:13
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
01:10:14
Christian Yordanov
It's it's it's so fragile seemingly. But I know i know that that they probably... we We are not, it just we think we are. But as soon as some kind of whatever we we're put into that situation or something happens, like we we kind of, rise I know we will rise to the challenge.
01:10:22
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
01:10:29
Christian Yordanov
And and it's it's in our it's in our sort of morphogenetic field, like to grow food and to be connected to the land.
01:10:30
Gooder Longer
Yeah. yeah
01:10:36
Christian Yordanov
So it probably, we we we could remember it in a heartbeat if we had to. I think many of us at least have that potential, you know.
01:10:47
Gooder Longer
Right. Well, and I think that um the the failure that you have to go through of things not working out is real.
01:10:48
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:10:57
Gooder Longer
You know, and and I think that people are like, oh, I don't have a green thumb. It's like, that's fine. Not everybody has a green thumb right away, but like plants are really resilient.
01:11:07
Gooder Longer
And i think that more it, you know, you don't start life knowing how to walk. You know, you make a lot of failures and fall and struggle and and ultimately you start getting some balance, but it takes years, right? Like you can't carry yourself for the first stretch of your life.
01:11:26
Gooder Longer
And we think that we're gonna learn how to do these like things that we're so separated. up Like we've been separated from our food system for probably a couple of generations. and And to get that back, it's going to take time and we're going to have to struggle and we're going have to stumble and we're going to be like, i don't have a green thumb. It's like, well, how do you get a green thumb?
01:11:47
Gooder Longer
You keep doing it and it starts getting greener and greener and greener and greener. greener
01:11:51
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, so true.
01:11:52
Gooder Longer
um and And so I think that us being able to see that at this point, we've got a safety net of the industrial agricultural food system and You know, it's not an ideal safety net, but I think that in a lot of respects, it's going to keep us from starving while we work to transition to re-empowering ourselves, getting our green thumbs and reconnecting with with this thing that's so powerful.
01:12:20
Gooder Longer
And if if we don't, i just, I'm more afraid of that, of people not getting the memo and figuring out that they've got this power.
01:12:32
Gooder Longer
Because I don't i don't want the the alternative, you know, and and sure, sure.
01:12:36
Christian Yordanov
Eating the bugs?
01:12:40
Christian Yordanov
I guess that's the alternative eventually, man like
01:12:42
Gooder Longer
I mean,
01:12:43
Christian Yordanov
that's That's what I want to avoid as well.
01:12:43
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
01:12:45
Christian Yordanov
If we can avoid eating the bugs, would be amazing.
01:12:46
Gooder Longer
yeah
01:12:49
Gooder Longer
Yeah. And I mean, I think with any centralized system, like if you centralize power and responsibility, it's like, well, then if it goes bad, what other options you have?
01:12:59
Gooder Longer
If you're just taking all the options away, well, they're going to do the best good for the most people that they perceive as in line with
01:13:02
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:13:11
Gooder Longer
Big global international values. And if you have an alternative idea about doing something for you and locally and your family and your community, like this is, you know, you gotta to work in your soil you got to work in your got your property.
01:13:29
Gooder Longer
got work on your patio. you got to work on your relationships. You got to talk to your neighbors. Because at this point, i think I think it was Plato, like the philosopher, not the Plato, that said the cost of apathy toward public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
01:13:34
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:13:50
Gooder Longer
And I feel like we've seen that pretty significantly. um and And it's not just, you know if I'm in the US, sure, but there's this is all over the place. you know and And I think that we've been made apathetic toward public affairs because we think that politics is just going to the election box on a day, once every couple years or every four years.
01:14:14
Gooder Longer
And we don't realize that we're voting every day with our food choices. So the I think the more we can do that, we can just realize that, live into that.
01:14:18
Christian Yordanov
That's it. That's it.
01:14:24
Gooder Longer
And every time you put a dollar, you're voting for a dollarized food system.
01:14:27
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:14:30
Gooder Longer
Every time you start building
01:14:30
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
Conclusion and Contact Information
01:14:31
Gooder Longer
a relationship with a neighbor and you're giving and you're reciprocal, you're de-dollarizing your relationships.
01:14:39
Gooder Longer
And
01:14:39
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:14:40
Gooder Longer
Yeah, it's like it's it's that's the power we have. um And that sort of thing can be rolled out at a grassroots level in a way that's not centralized and it's adaptive to our local situations, our water needs, what grows in our areas.
01:14:55
Gooder Longer
And, you know, as we start building those little pockets of resilience, you know, the alternative replaces and it makes obsolete that massive system. So like, let's use the system that's in place as a safety net for now, but like not live there.
01:15:12
Gooder Longer
Like, let's not have that be the final destination because i think I think we got a lot of runway on this life and we can make the world we can make the world better by these choices.
01:15:15
Christian Yordanov
Exactly. We can't.
01:15:19
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
01:15:22
Gooder Longer
So.
01:15:23
Christian Yordanov
Exactly, exactly. So it's it's important to not become complacent. You know, like even though I'm at the moment, I'm in a position where I can't do any serious farming agriculture because I'm in um an apartment.
01:15:33
Gooder Longer
Thank you.
01:15:36
Christian Yordanov
For years, since basically since since COVID, basically, I've been it's it's one of the things I've been kind of thinking, how can I eventually get there you know because even if things improve ah in terms of affairs in in a you know geopolitics and whatever and the government not trying to kill everybody which is unlikely but even if things improve it still bodes well for us to have more resilience at the at the local level because you just never know what can happen and and the more and this is the most important thing you know it's like it's like having you know having solar panels or or like a water source in your house like the security that comes with that
01:16:11
Gooder Longer
Right.
01:16:26
Christian Yordanov
you know not there's You can't outsource that security. You can't insure against things like this. So the the more insurance of this sort you have, as opposed to just paying money to like some kind of probably scam organization, i think the better peace of mind you have and probably the the better off your whole family will be for the longer term.
01:16:46
Gooder Longer
Yeah, I mean, couldn't agree more.
01:16:50
Christian Yordanov
Well, John, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. Really appreciate you. Looking forward to the work we'll do together inside the program with our clients. I've already told some folks about it. Some people have been asking. They're excited about you know what what kind of resource you're going to create for them. Before we wrap today, is there any place on the interwebs folks can connect with you if they want to?
01:17:15
Gooder Longer
Kind of. I mean, again, it's like where where your where your treasure is, there your heart will be. i try to not have too huge of an internet focus.
01:17:27
Gooder Longer
um But i we've got a website, but it's not like anything more than a contact form. It's gooderlonger.com.
01:17:34
Christian Yordanov
okay
01:17:35
Gooder Longer
G-O-O-D-E-R. Longer. dot com g o o d e r longer
01:17:39
Christian Yordanov
is that for the BNB?
01:17:41
Gooder Longer
No, that's that's um that's our that's the LLC that kind of holds holds all of our stuff.
01:17:49
Christian Yordanov
got it
01:17:50
Gooder Longer
Yeah. And so i'm i'm I don't know if I'm ready yet to push out the B&B, but if people are interested in in the B&B, they can reach out to me at john, J-O-N, at goodorlonger.com.
01:18:04
Christian Yordanov
Where is it?
01:18:06
Gooder Longer
ah So we're in New Mexico. Yeah. So we're we're just outside Albuquerque in New Mexico. And yeah, it's a if people haven't been to Albuquerque, it's it's an amazing little town. It's got a really cool growing food scene, a lot of indigenous pueblos around the area. So there's some amazing culture and then you know santa fe is just about an hour hour hour and a bit north of us um and it's like kind of a cultural center a lot of art and um like the the other day that we met this guy who's importing he's importing rugs from uh
01:18:38
Christian Yordanov
Hmm Hmm
01:18:47
Gooder Longer
Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, because they've still got that handmade rug culture. And we're just talking to this dude. He's got tons of rugs up in Santa Fe. And just like, this is incredible.
01:18:58
Gooder Longer
He's like, yeah, if you see something, if there's something that you want different, I can just talk to my guys and they'll make you this rug. And they're like $5,000 rugs, but they're like amazing handmade rugs that have a story, you know and they're not just like, anyway.
01:19:11
Christian Yordanov
Oh, yeah.
01:19:12
Gooder Longer
So, so yeah, I mean, al Albuquerque is an awesome spot.
01:19:13
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. We had a Persian rug like that in back in Bulgaria. That was a thing. Like, you get a kooter from Turkey or from whatever. So when we were in Cairo, dude, like, to see the pyramids, ah man, there was, like, some place I saw some rugs. I'm like, damn.
01:19:29
Christian Yordanov
No way in hell the wife is going to let me get a rug.
01:19:32
Gooder Longer
Yeah, yeah.
01:19:33
Christian Yordanov
But I did get some. I did get some i got a tunic made from camo wool, bro.
01:19:40
Gooder Longer
Whoa.
01:19:41
Christian Yordanov
Like a cool tunic.
01:19:41
Gooder Longer
That's sick.
01:19:42
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, really. I got another one like a cotton tunic. It's a bit more kind of like... with almost looks like a shirt if you if you look waist up only it looks like just kind of like a shirt but then if you look it down it's like bro i'm like i was like and i was wearing one of the tunics i bought um at this market my my wife was like mega distressed at this place so they're like hanging there with the guys so i put the tunic on they were out walking around you know going going around and like were like are you from?
01:19:49
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yeah.
01:20:10
Christian Yordanov
Where you from? Are you Turkish? So like full on chameleon mode. Like if I live there like for two months, you you know I'm going to like infiltrate and become like a local.
01:20:21
Gooder Longer
Yeah, dude.
01:20:21
Christian Yordanov
It's so so much fun. But it's nice to kind of get something from locally made and like the to the price.
01:20:23
Gooder Longer
That's awesome.
01:20:27
Christian Yordanov
I think that tunic was like the equivalent of 20 bucks, 20 bucks.
01:20:33
Christian Yordanov
But the material, that material, you probably, for that kind of cash, you couldn't even buy like, you know, ah square meter of that material in the waist.
01:20:33
Gooder Longer
Yeah.
01:20:33
Gooder Longer
Right,
01:20:43
Gooder Longer
right. right
01:20:44
Christian Yordanov
And the workmanship and everything is just really next level. So it's always nice to get a piece of that culture just to kind of remind you, you know, it's really really awesome.
01:20:50
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Yeah. and it's, it's, it's cutting out that middleman, you know, that, that, that drives it into a monetary relationship and they are extracting, you know, it's like, just connect, just connect the bridge, man.
01:20:55
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:21:02
Christian Yordanov
Exactly.
01:21:04
Gooder Longer
Just walk across the bridge between you and the producer.
01:21:05
Christian Yordanov
Exactly.
01:21:08
Gooder Longer
And yeah, anyway, we, we could go on and on and on, I'm sure.
01:21:09
Christian Yordanov
Decentralize it, yeah.
01:21:12
Gooder Longer
But to be, to be continued, man, to be continued.
01:21:12
Christian Yordanov
For sure, yeah. Till we continue. John, thanks again, brother.
01:21:17
Gooder Longer
Yeah. Good to see you, man. Yeah. We'll catch you soon.