Louie Psihoyos and Joe Rogan: How Will We Feed the World?

Has anybody come up with any sort of comprehensive plan or anything that makes sense where they can viability repopulate the ocean? I mean the idea of stopping and slowing down fishing would be wonderful but it really gets to a point where we've got to somehow or another independently grow these fish and reintroduce them to the wild. I mean is there any talk of doing things like that or is it even impossible? I think it's impossible the scale of what's going on right now. You know when I was in Japan they were saying that we used to go out all, you know, we could fill up a boat in a day. Now it's, you know, eight days. Now we have to, then we have to go out 30 and we're competing with the, you know, the Koreans, the Chinese, the Taiwanese, you know, it's... And everybody's just going gangbusters. And we have, we're using military gear to, you know, sonar to catch things at this unprecedented rate. It's not sustainable. I personally don't believe that fishing, to feeding this planet currently, you can do it with fish. I don't think you can do it with, you know, and we know what's, you know, that the unethical side of raising, you know, farm animals for this is, it's just, I think we have to transition to another form. I think it's going to be, you know, 10 or 12 years, but I think we're headed that direction. And people, I think what you're seeing now is that there's a direction towards trying, you know, people want to eat healthier, they want to eat sustainable. And I know, I know you're a hunter. I mean, I was a hunter too. I hunted fish and, you know, I understand like when you come back with the goods, you come back with an animal and you're feeding your family, you're feeding your friends. You feel like the man. You feel like, you know, there's something you tap in that's really primitive in a really genuine way that makes us feel good about who we are, that you're providing. And I know that that happened when I was a fisherman, you know, you go hunt a fish with your friends and there's a group thing going on and everybody's there. They're enjoying themselves and it feels wonderful, but we can't do it with wild fish. You know, with 4% of the biomass being wild animals now and the rest of it being, it's not sustainable. And I wish it was because that there's something we lost with that, but we have to transition. We're at that period right now where we have to figure out how do you feed a planet? That's the real problem, right? And not just how do you feed a planet? How do you feed a planet that may double its population in the next 50 years? Yeah, well, there's talking 10 billion by 2050 and we're already at a point where, you know, we're at the... Yeah, so 20 years passed out, it might really be double. It might be 15 million or excuse me, billion people. That's crazy. So, you know, you can't have 18 and a half million people in the greater Los Angeles area going out and hunting for their food or fishing for, you know. So what are we going to eat? You know, and I think the way to do it is, you know, drifting more towards plants, getting, you know... Last week I was in Loma Linda, California. You know where that's at. You've heard about one of the blue zones. Yeah. And, you know, so it's for the people out there that might not know about it, Dan Butner, a geographic fellow, popularized the idea that there's these five geographic regions of the planet where people live longer and without chronic disease than any other place on the planet. So I was out there last week at the Brain Health and Alzheimer Clinic. And there's two researchers that started one. There was one for miles around. And they opened it up, one out of three people in America in the next 10 years are going to be affected by Alzheimer's. Either they're going to have it, their mate's going to have it, they're going to be taking care of somebody that has it, their parents. So it's going to overtake heart diseases, our number one disease that we have. They opened up the Brain Health Clinic there with an Alzheimer Clinic and nobody came. Now, about half the population of Seventh-day Adventists are vegetarians by religion. And you go to the grocery store, they don't sell meat. They have milk, they have cow's milk, but it's on the bottom shelf. They just have a few things of it. And to find people, initially, they had to go to San Bernardino across the highway. There's nothing different, geologically different between San Bernardino and Loma Linda. They're drinking the same water, breathing the same air, but they have a different diet. But they're living about 10 years longer than everybody else. San Bernardino is one of the unhealthiest populations in America. And on the other side of Highway 10, you have one of the healthiest populations in the entire world. And they're living about 10 years on average longer. They're doing other things too. It's not just diet. Well, it's a big factor, sleep. I mean, Dr. Matthew Walker has been on this podcast, who's a well-renowned sleep scientist, was discussing that it's one of the biggest corollary, one of the biggest factors where they've determined that the less sleep you have, the higher likelihood you have of Alzheimer's disease. And it's really stark. Like, the numbers are, they're pretty undisputable. Yeah, well, I agree. They have four principles, you know, the sure zyes, you know, Dean and Aisha's sure zye. Sleep is one of them. Whole Foods plant-based diet, support, you know, community support, and exercise. Those are the big ones. Yeah. But out of the 3,000 people that they have in the Alzheimer's clinic now, only 19 of them, or sorry, only 13 of them are vegetarians and three vegans. So, I mean, you look at, you know, if you look at, if you break it down, the population, like how many of the 24,000 people there that are vegetarians, about 15%, you'd expect, you know, several hundred of them to be, you know, with Alzheimer's to be vegetarians. So many of them are following that Seventh Day Adventist diet, which is vegetarian. Yeah. But what you're talking about, San Bernardino is a very poor community, unfortunately. And I think, you know, as well as I do, a lot of people in poor communities eat terrible. It's true. You know, and you're eating junk food and sugar and all that crap. I mean, that's one of the primary factors when it comes to poor health and... Education is related definitely to brain health, unfortunately. And it's has nothing to do with that they're stupid. It's just that they're, you're right, they're not eating as well. They have to, you know, the first McDonald's was in San Bernardino, you know. Was it really? Yeah. It was, we went to the museum there, McDonald's Museum. They have a McDonald's museum? Yeah. Do they have all the Ronald McDonald's from the beginning to the end? Everything, yeah. Yeah, so they've been really good about keeping fast food out of Loma Linda for... Isn't there giant concerns even with large-scale agriculture? When you're talking about mono crops and growing things for 15 billion people, you're going to need gigantic swaths of land. It's going to displace a lot of wildlife. You're going to have a lot of different chemicals to get released into the ground unless you're doing regenerative farming, in which case you're going to have to use some animal products anyway, because you have compost and fertilizer. You need fish for fertilizer or something that creates nitrogen. There's a lot of issues even with large-scale agriculture. When you're growing crops, you're doing something that's wholly unnatural. If you have a thousand acres of corn or soybeans or anything that you're growing in large-scale, that's not how nature intends it. Nature intends everything to be combined together. Right, but if you look at the amount of crops that are out there, most land is being used to grow crops to feed animals. So, you know... Well, sort of. A lot of it's being used to feed animals. A lot of it's being used for corn syrup and a lot of different... And we can agree on that. ...and get rid of it. Yeah, I mean, you've seen King Corn, right? Yeah. That's pretty fucking crazy when they check your DNA and they find out how much of your DNA is corn-based. And you're like, what? Like, what is going on? Or how much of your cellular structure is corn-based? It's like, how much corn is in your diet? And then you go through the supermarket and go and pick up box after box and read how much corn is in there. Corn starch, corn syrup, different proteins that they've extracted from corn. Well, let me ask you, how do you think that, you know, if we have to feed 10, 15 billion people in the future, how do you think... You have a question. You know, we should be feeding the population. That's a good question. It's a very good question. I have hope for this fake meat shit. Not the plant-based stuff where they're using oils and... But the actual physical meat that they can figure out some way to create meat without animals dying. Like, I am not a fan of factory farming. It's the reason why I got into hunting in the first place. I saw a lot of those PETA documentaries and I just didn't want to have any part of any of that shit. And I know there are ethical ranchers that raise their animals grass-fed and they let them roam. And, you know, there's a guy named Joel Salatin who has this thing called poly-faced farms where he teaches people regenerative farming methods and teaches people how to let animals be animals and the polar opposite of factory farming. When you see these... I'm sure you've seen some of these disgusting videos of these pig farms where they have lakes of sewage attached to these farms where these pigs are in these warehouses stacked in one on top of the other and then all their waste goes down through the floor and into these giant huge lakes of shit and piss. And then they spray it on the crops. Well, I don't know if they spray that on the crops, but it licks into the ground. They spray the pig and shit on the... On the crops. Oh, yeah. Well, look, all that stuff is wrong. I mean, all of it's wrong. I mean, whether chickens raising chickens like that or cows like that or pigs like that. And there's a reason why they have these ag gag laws. And those are another thing that are akin in my eyes to the same thing that the way we feel about dolphins in captivity in a place like SeaWorld. Those ag gag laws, agricultural gag laws, they keep people from divulging the horrors of these factory farms. And there's got to be a way to stop those laws, first of all. These places should be transparent. If there's something they're due that's abhorrent, something they do, you could see the lives of these animals and they're treated in these horrific ways. It's not necessary. It's just they're doing that for profit. And this is why you can get a chicken sandwich for $1.99 or whatever the fuck it is. Yeah. I mean, if like, you know, that saying of slaughterhouses at glass walls. Yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But going back to it, though, I mean, so how do you... So Lab Meat, you think would be the... I think Lab Meat has real potential. The same way cell phones used to cost, you know, $1,000. But more than that, like what was one of those big Motorola bricks? Remember those things that like Gordon Gekko had on Wall Street? They were really expensive. Like when he was walking down the beach with that thing, like, wow, that guy's a baller. He's got a phone. He's just walking with no cord. Now everyone has a phone. I mean, I was in Brazil and these people were walking around. They had very little money, but they all had phones. Cell phones have made their way throughout virtually all of the world. How much? $4,000. $4,000? $92,000. So $4,000 and $82,000 is probably what today? $20,000? Probably like $20,000, right? Sure. Yeah. It's a lot. A lot. Let's just say it's a lot. Even if it's $4,000. If you imagine if a fucking iPhone was $4,000, people would be going crazy. The new one's almost $2,000 and everybody's going crazy. I think that sort of technological innovation and improvement, I think we were going to see that in this sort of factory created meat because the original factory created burger that they made, I believe it was a quarter of a million dollars that it costs to create one and people ate it and they're like, this is beef. This is like real beef. I think with innovation, they could figure out a way to do that. So we don't ever have to have these factory farming situations. I mean, I think that's possible. Yeah. No, I think it is too. I've talked to some of the people that are working on that and we need to look at how fast cells can reproduce. It's just a matter of scale and getting the right texture and taste. Yes. Look, I'm under no illusion that what I do is available to everybody. I go hunting in the mountains. Most people don't want to do that. And I do it with a bow and arrow. Most people don't want to learn how to do that. They don't have it in them. They don't want it. It's not interesting to me. It is if I shoot one elk that is 400 pounds of meat. One life feeds me for a year and I feed my friends. I feed a lot of people. I give elk meat out to a bunch of people. I'm under no illusion that everyone can do that. But this everyone can't do most of the things that I do. I just do it because it makes me feel better than going and getting something that's factory farmed. If I saw what they did to chickens and I knew that my chicken had come from these horrific environments and I ate that, I'd feel sick. Yeah. And so that's why I became a hunter in the first place. Yeah. Well, that's what we concern ourselves is like, like, how can you, like, yeah, you and I can eat. You probably better than me, but I can eat how I want to eat. But doesn't that sound weird? You say I eat better than you? No, what you can afford more is what I'm saying. You're, you're wealthy. But I'm telling you, I'm getting my meat from the woods. Ah, well, I'm not, I'm not saying better. I'm saying that you can eat how you want. Oh, I see. You easier than me. I'm just saying I'm not. Financially. I've seen what you have around here. Nice little, nice little cozy man den you have down here. But boys, you should see what's out there. It's like the ultimate caveman. Yeah, not caveman, but man cave. The ultimate caveman would be a giant Neanderthal. But yeah, look, this, it's a, the conversation between, I mean, I kind of have a gang of friends that are vegan and vegetarian. One of my best friends is vegan, Ian Edwards. I love him to death. I, I don't, I don't dispute that we're in a conundrum and then we're in a, a, a terrible situation as a civilization. We've certainly overpopulated the planet in many ways and we've certainly allowed something to take root in our society that I think is disgusting. And that's factory farming of animals. There's, there's something vile about it, undeniably vile. And there's a reason why people are prosecuted for exposing what makes everybody sick. Look, if they exposed it and said, look, I'm going to take a picture. I'm going to show you a video of how these cows are living. And you take the video and the cows just wandered around eating grass. No one would give a shit. Right. Right. It's when you see these people kicking these cows and when you see them alive, when like kosher, the way they do that, where they, they, they have to slice their throat and they have to do it with one cut. And this is why people want kosher meat, like some ancient, ridiculous idea of how to dispose of a life. Whoo. I mean, all those things, sick in people, which is the reason why they have those laws, keeping people who work there from videotaping, exposing it in the first place.