Ep. 2 Sustainable Farming, Raw Milk, + Food As Medicine with Farmer Drew of SYNERGOS Farms

Part 1 of a great conversation about starting a regenerative farm, healing eczema naturally, wheat berries for parasites, raw milk and more!

Carli sits down with Farmer Drew of SYNERGOS Farm in Alvin Texas to talk all things sustainable farming.  If you live in Texas and want to understand why sourcing from specific farms makes such a difference in your health, this is a must listen!

Part 1 of a great conversation about starting a regenerative farm, healing eczema naturally, wheat berries for parasites, raw milk and more!

Carli's Website: wellnessbycarli.com
IG: @wellnessbycarli

Drew IG: @synergosfarms
Farm: https://linktr.ee/synergosfarms

Joel Salatan: https://polyfacefarms.com/

Weston A. Price: https://www.westonaprice.org/#gsc.tab=0

Raw Milk (Weston A. Price)

Azure Co-op for wheat berries

Find your local markets: https://www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/

Dairy Farms in Texas:
Healthy Way

Five Oaks Dairy: https://fiveoaksdairy.com/

Carli's Info:

Website: www.wellnessbycarli.com

IG: @wellnessbycarli

Transcript

Carli (00:01.382)
Welcome. Hey, Drew. I have Drew here from Sinner Goss. I've asked him five times how to say that. Sinner Goss from... We're gonna start over. Okay. See, I told you. Here come the blah, blahs. Okay. Hello, everyone, and welcome. Today, I have Drew from Sinner Goss Farm in Alvin, Texas. I've asked him five times how to pronounce that. You said it's Greek. Is that right, Drew?

Synergos Farms (00:10.186)
It's okay.

Synergos Farms (00:29.434)
Correct. Yeah.

Carli (00:30.73)
Okay, welcome. Thank you so much for taking time out of your work to be here today.

Synergos Farms (00:35.154)
Absolutely, grateful to be here.

Carli (00:38.498)
I'm super excited. This is my first episode I'm recording with someone. And I thought a lot about who I wanted to be and what I wanted to talk about because I do functional wellness, functional nutrition, and I think we can get very carried away with all of the things. And really, I will die on this hill. It comes down to foundational wellness, and there's not much more important than food. And

connecting with you. You are so well spoken and well educated on the food system and how to grow responsibly nutrient dense food. So I have so many questions for you. But I want to first hear how in the world you got into farming because you just told me before we hopped on and started recording that you spent 20 years doing sales.

Synergos Farms (01:24.466)
Yeah, in some form or fashion. Yeah. So, yeah, so our journey into farming really started with having a child. Our oldest is Nora and she, yeah, she was born and we walked through traditional steps of having a child. I would say outside of having a child at the hospital. That's the only thing we didn't do.

Carli (01:28.63)
So how did this journey start?

Synergos Farms (01:53.938)
And when she entered this world, our lives changed a lot. And at the age of around four months, a lot of things happened. Our house flooded during Harvey, and our daughter started showing signs of severe eczema. And we were homeless, and we had an issue on our hands with our daughter. So she would scratch like...

excessively at night and we, yeah, my wife was walking into the holistic health journey there. I was not there yet. And she kept coming home and telling me, oh, this was $1,500. And I was like, what? And the next thing it was, you know, oh, this was $800. Oh, what'd they do? Will they brand blood work on her?

This is expensive And we got to about the $7,500 mark in about an eight-week period and I was done I was done because as the provider for our family, I Was tired of spending money and there was no solution. There was topical ointments. There were Proposed shots there were all of these things and yet there was no Hey, this is why your daughter was having this issue

Or is having this issue or here's some possibilities. It was let's treat the symptom and And then we'll go from there. Well I'm very black and white individual. So I was like, well, I call BS There is a symptom to this. I don't know what it is. I don't know why it is but God made me your dad and your mom your mom and If that is the case, then I believe

He gave us the tools and gives us the tools to steward your life the best we possibly can So let's figure this out. Let's stop going to these people respect their journey respect their Knowledge and all of that, but it just wasn't working for our family and I felt like they were a bunch of Hypothesis, I don't I hate that word but because I can't say it well But there were a bunch of guesses and there weren't any solutions and I was tired of spending money on guesses

Carli (04:13.387)
Ha ha

Synergos Farms (04:20.298)
Again, respect the field and all of that, but we just haven't returned to a doctor's office since. Except for a few things here and there with our children, and nutritionists, and that is our journey so far. But that started a journey of, okay, she's allergic to wheat and soy and dairy, and that's everything on the shelf has that. So we began

by, we began our journey by looking at all these foods. Well, they say that innovation starts where need and what is it? I always say this, cause this is what ours are, is innovation comes where need and budget find constraints. So our need was we need healthy nutrient dense food, but we didn't have the budget to go out and spend.

absorb an amount of money on stuff. And I was a student pastor at the time at a local church. I just didn't have that budget. My wife was stay at home mom and cutting hair a little bit on the side because she is a fantastic hairstylist. She's very gifted at that. But she was doing that very minimally and staying home with our children. And so we started in the place where we ate the most food and that was breakfast.

So we went and got 10 chickens and started raising them and did all the things that you could probably find on Google and YouTube about what you're supposed to do with chickens. Spent a crazy amount of money. And in my journey, I found a guy who wrote and has written quite a few books about regenerative farming. And his name is Joel Salatin. And he has a farm in Swoop, Virginia.

Carli (06:11.406)
Mmm.

Synergos Farms (06:14.642)
called Polyface Farms, the farm with many faces. And his story and his journey is, it's a, it is a heart grabbing journey for sure, but it is a radical one. Radical meaning it just, it goes back to the, back to the original hardcore plan. And he has a book about that journey. And,

Yeah, I would encourage you to go read it. It's called You Can Farm Too. And if you end up being a farmer, you can blame Joel, not me. But bottom line is that encouraged me to keep growing food for my family. And shortly after that, we built a garden out of a bunch of reclaimed supplies. Because again, budget and need is where we got innovative. So we started doing things that...

Carli (06:51.062)
Hahaha!

Synergos Farms (07:12.45)
uh, didn't cost money, um, that we could afford. And one thing led to another, had families over at our table for food, because that's one of our greatest joys is having people at our table, cooking good food. Um, we don't own a TV for that reason. Cause we rather would enjoy conversation rather than like, Hey, that was a good movie, right? Like, yeah, it's a great movie. And that's the end of your conversation versus who are you? Um, and so we love bringing people to the table and

building community that way. And people would ask us like, hey, if you ever have any eggs left, I would buy them from you. Or hey, if you ever have any extra tomatoes, we'll buy them from you. Or if we ever have, and I was like, man, okay. And I've owned a DJ business before. I actually sold all of my DJ equipment to expand our homestead. It was DJing was my get out of debt.

journey Which is a big actually a quite a large part of how we and why we started farming And if you read book Joel's book Hill, that's the first thing he tells you. Hey you want to farm? Get out of debt because debt will restrain a lot of things and Yeah, we paid off 60 $68,000 in debt in 14 months and Yeah, that's the only reason

One of the few reasons why we're able to do what we're doing today is because we are debt free outside of our mortgage, which we're about to pay off. So we won't have that either. So.

Carli (08:50.158)
That's incredible. And I had to say when you were talking and as soon as you said you were a DJ, I'm laughing because I was scrolling through your Instagram before we hopped on here and one thing I noticed, I was like, he always just has the best music. I'm not kidding. I had this thought because you have really sweet videos, but it's the music. You're like, yes, you get so into it emotionally. And now I understand why. I love that. Music will catch you for sure.

Synergos Farms (09:15.57)
Thank you.

Carli (09:18.122)
But so it was chickens that was your gateway. That's what you're saying. It all started with the chickens. And did you have enough land at that time to be doing this? Or did you start smaller and then expand and move?

Synergos Farms (09:28.99)
Yeah, that's a great question. So chickens are the gateway drug to farming, just FYI. Or gateway animal, that's a better word. But yeah, once you get chickens, if you can walk through and you enjoy having chickens, just wait, the rest will show up later. I feel like you make sourdough after that and then you garden a little bit and then next thing you know, you're in the

Carli (09:36.93)
noted.

Synergos Farms (09:58.378)
Yeah, so we lived on an acre, like 0.98 acres in Pearland. And that is where we started our journey. And I didn't mow my lawn on purpose. I let it grow to allow the chickens to eat more forage. And I even rotated my chickens in my front yard and my rabbits that we had at one point.

and fertilized all of that with rabbit manure and chicken manure and all the things. And we had people that were like, man, your yard always looks so great. I'm like, it's poop. That's that, that'll do it. So yeah, we lived on an acre. Yeah, it's the best stuff. But yeah, we lived on an acre in Pearland for from 2017 to 2021. And then we moved to six acres, 2021.

Carli (10:38.894)
Good stuff.

Synergos Farms (10:53.782)
and we are currently under contract with that home, and we are now on 68 acres with over 100 other acres available to us to farm here in the near future.

Carli (11:07.63)
That is so exciting. And when you said the Joel Salatan's name, you know, I have not read his book. I have written it down here because, and I will link that in the notes, because he is, I don't know his whole story, but I know that he was the first farmer that really moved me in terms of education about soil and crop rotation and all those things. So I know enough to know he is so powerful. And you have a quote on your website, I was peeping around that says, to be truly regenerative,

A farmer needs to understand that they are a part of the ecosystem, not apart from it. That speaks so deeply to me because I believe the whole body is that way. You can't just go to an ophthalmologist and say, why is my eye inflamed? Well, your body's inflamed and your eye is expressing that inflammation. The same thing happens with the synergy of the farm. I guess that was one of my questions is synergos. Does that mean synergy in Greek?

Synergos Farms (12:06.766)
Yes, it does. Yeah, it does.

Carli (12:08.698)
Oh, okay. That's magic. That's just magic. So did you learn these original farming techniques from his books?

Synergos Farms (12:17.19)
A lot of them. Yes, I did A lot of them another inspiring person in our journey was Justin Rhodes mainly on the family side of things is just a Man who got to spend a ton of time with his children and I always watched his videos like on the weekend I'm like man. I Want to do that? and so in this opportunity presented itself, I was like I didn't really start farming because

I wanted to produce food for people. I started farming because of my family. And that's genuinely what got me started. And for some reason, I have a lot of like happy emotion in me right now and it's making me tear up. But it's mainly because I just shared like four years of our journey with you. And I'm thinking of like, we went from one to six, and then six to over 100.

Carli (13:03.394)
Hmm.

Synergos Farms (13:16.754)
in three years. And it is just, I mean, it is a, it's a testament to really, I don't know where everybody stands or really anybody stands in their journey in this life spiritually. But for me, it's a, it's a testament to really understanding that like my journey with God,

has, I just said yes to moving forward and the growth has been uncontrollable, genuinely. And then sometimes I'm like, hey, I need this to slow down. I'm gonna, you know, I've said multiple times, I'm like, I'm killing myself trying to catch up. But I just decided not to continue to speak those words over my life. I just accept the fact that like, no, this is my life.

And I'm going to rest in the sweet moments with my kids Picking eggs. Those are restful moments for me I'm gonna Good grief. I'm gonna enjoy it and it's not gonna be this really awful thing to To grow food because man, it's freaking hard. I mean

Carli (14:43.06)
Mm.

Synergos Farms (14:43.154)
I've done sales, I've done ministry on staff at a church. I grew up with divorced parents and all the crazy societal things that were just difficult. This is easily one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I've trained at MMA, I've fought MMA for a little bit. That was hard. I played football, that was hard. There were a lot of things in life that were very difficult, but this equally.

This takes the cake by far. But yeah, I started farming because of my, because it was, I had opportunities to go make six figures and be home a little bit. But the reality was I was still gonna grow my own food. And so it was, ultimately it came down to what would honor God, what would honor my family the most? And so.

I chose to take a small nest egg that my wife and I had and started growing food on a greater scale for commercial consumption. And to be completely honest, we gave away the first, I don't know, 150 chickens because I just wanted people to learn that this was good quality. It wasn't me just raising food for a much more expensive cost.

to say that I was doing it. And I think that is a reality that we run into as local farmers that are not doing these large warehouse operations and competing with other trade hourly rates of 20 to $25 an hour for good quality leadership driven labor on the farm.

We're competing with electricians and plumbers and all these other things for those labor rates. So it is an expensive thing to do and I've learned that more and more on our journey.

Carli (16:50.626)
That's what I think a lot of people don't realize that. And I really, I wanna make sure before this ends, we talk about that, the business part of that, because it's a huge, huge aspect. But I quickly just want to acknowledge how beautiful your story is, and thank you for sharing openly, because there is just so much heaviness in this world, and I am such a believer in following the spark, right? Whether that is...

For you, God, universe, you know, I understand that everyone is coming from a different place, but for you, God, and it's following the highest excitement and you made sacrifices, but you have a very clear goal in mind of family life, of family health, support, enjoying your days. Obviously, you're working hard and I know, you know, you follow you on Instagram. This is not an easy...

Synergos Farms (17:20.493)
you

Carli (17:43.874)
kick up your feet job. And so my hat is off to you so much for that, but more so for just your blind faith in God and in your path. And it's just so much easier to say than do. And that's just what I wanted to say. So you are so inspiring and I'm so grateful for you sharing this. And I wanted to loop back to your daughter's story. You said Nora, right?

Synergos Farms (18:09.254)
That's correct.

Carli (18:14.53)
you know, raising these birds because you got to decide that they're not going to eat soy, right? They're not going to eat grain. How did her health shift and how long did that take and kind of what did that look like for her?

Synergos Farms (18:18.829)
Mm-hmm.

Synergos Farms (18:27.858)
Those are great questions. So I'm gonna try to stay on track here So I believe it was about a two-year journey where we went from Skin scratching bleeding throughout the night eczema to not seeing it at all It was about a two-year journey now. I will say that was you know, that was four to six months of her body Showing us because you talked about organs

the skin is the largest organ in the body. So if you have an issue internally, or even externally, like a scrape on your skin, your skin is gonna be the first thing to tell you what is going on. And so we learned that, oh my gosh, there is something going on inside of her body. And as her parents, we were like, it is our job. It is not a doctor's job to steward this well.

At the end of the day, it's my choices as her parent that are going to help dictate whether she is healthy or not. So we started that journey. It took about two years, but we as her parents decided that we were going to give it another year and a half to two years before we really opened her body up to consuming anything that she was allergic to. So corn, soy, wheat, she did not consume for the first four and a half years of her life.

Um, and so, uh, and processed sugars, that's still something we just don't do. So we go to birthday parties, you know, and everybody's having a cupcake and my daughter, I would break my heart. My daughter would be like, dad, I can't have a cupcake. Can I? I'm like, no, you can't. She's like, but she was so good. She would just say, okay. And I would say, but if they have an apple or a banana or something like that, you're more than welcome to have.

Carli (20:12.91)
Thanks for watching!

Carli (20:18.72)
Mm.

Synergos Farms (20:24.938)
as many of those as you would like. And so she'd walk up to her friend at the party or even the people knew where we were at on our journey. They would say, hey, or some of them would even say, hey, we got a gluten-free option for Nora that doesn't have any sugar in it. And that would, you know, that was few far in between. That was mostly family or sometimes friends. And that was awesome, but we didn't expect that from anybody. And I would just encourage anybody on a journey like that.

Don't expect other people to understand it and don't hold it against them. Like choose not to be offended by the fact that people don't know where you're at. We get to choose what stresses us out. We also get to choose what offends us. I've had many people tell me that I just wanna get rich. I'm like, if I wanted to get rich, I would do something else other than farm, that's for sure. But.

Carli (21:01.23)
Fair.

Synergos Farms (21:20.674)
Anyway, so you can laugh at the things that would normally offend other people. But on that journey, yeah, we... It took us about two years, and we consumed a lot of the following. Just raw foods. And we began to drink raw milk, and we got our milk from a local dairy called Healthy Way Dairy. And we met the farmer there, and he was so nice. You know, he...

invite our kids and to look at where they do what they do. And they would have bull calves from the cows. And our kids would get to feed them or pet them on the nose, whatever it might be. And just hang around the farm. And it was so cool. And my kids loved it. And I said to myself, I was like, man, I would love the opportunity to create a space. This was really early on in our journey where people could do this. And so...

That was highly inspiring. So I don't know if that guy will ever hear me say that, but I've told him that I appreciate him much because he's also been very helpful in the understanding dairy cows and their cycles and age and what's best for them. Anyway, so.

Carli (22:26.077)
Mm.

Carli (22:36.286)
And raw milk, I want to sidebar on that real quick because this is a controversial topic in the way that vaccines are. And there's awesome research on raw milk. And I will say even from someone who's read the research, you know, Weston A. Price is a huge, huge supporter of, you know, you drink raw milk and you have less food allergies, less IgE reactions. It helps heal your skin. Kids.

Synergos Farms (22:40.879)
Yeah.

Synergos Farms (22:53.33)
Thanks for watching!

Carli (23:03.138)
who drink raw milk are less susceptible to viruses. They have better digestion, better respiratory health. There's great, great information and research behind this. And there's actually, I think in the last 50 years, zero deaths from raw milk, although everyone acts like it's poison. So I, you, and that's kind of how this all started. I sought you out because you are at a farmer's market. My friend Casey, that is our connection person.

Synergos Farms (23:31.855)
Wonderful woman.

Carli (23:32.278)
has farmers markets, amazing. Casey has rice farmers market. She has her Heights mercantile. These are in Houston. And she runs what's called the feel good group, which is more just fun vendors that are not food related. But so she told me, she's like, I've got a raw milk guy. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is the Mecca because you cannot buy it here. I have to pre-order it from you, right?

Synergos Farms (23:57.367)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Carli (23:58.67)
Um, so really I just wanted to hear from your opinion, right? Do you, were you scared of getting involved with raw milk? I mean, you hear all these things and now you're the producer. Has anyone ever gotten sick? I want to, I want to kind of clear the air with us a little bit.

Synergos Farms (24:13.554)
Yeah, so I... Sorry, I was writing down two words that came to my brain when you started asking about raw milk. But yeah, so I would just say raw milk in general. There is a lot of negative connotation around it. But I would also say this, that if you really think, so this is where I'll start with raw milk. Yes, there's negative connotation. Yes, there are some pretty significant...

rules around selling it. We do something called a herd share, which is the way that you can, it's not technically selling raw milk. It is a group of people that are supporting you as the farmer and the cow, and you get access to what she produces. So you get access to her manure if you want it. You get access to the milk. And then if, at some point, if she, if we were to...

process her and you are still a part of that community of people that were supporting the cow as the herd share Then you would get a discounted rate of what she Produces because that's what you're paying for you're paying to take care of the cow. You're not paying for raw milk so it is it is the way that we are able to provide that resource to people in our community without being

this big licensed dairy, which you can be a micro dairy and it's still a very profitable thing. However, we would have to take most if not all of our time, energy, resources to be that. And we currently are not in a space where we want to do that. Not saying it'll never happen, not saying it won't happen in the near future, just saying we are not in that space right now. And so, but as far as raw milk goes, I'll just break it down really simple because I'm, I'm a

Carli (25:54.062)
Got it.

Synergos Farms (26:05.254)
Farming for dummies advocate. Like I just wanna make it as simple as possible, not because it's easy, not because anyone can do it, because you can farm, but not everyone's cut out to be a farmer. Just like you can talk, but not everyone's cut out to listen to someone talk for an hour. There are very few people I can listen to on an audio book for an hour straight, or a podcast for an hour straight. So anyway, so you think about the calf.

Who's drinking the raw milk in nature? The calf is and the calf drinks that raw milk in nature For however, their body seems sees fit We have a dairy cow on this property and her calf nursed on her for a year and nine months and Three months later. She got pregnant Right. So I mean the amount of time that she got on the cow was

Insane and I've never heard of that happening anywhere else and it's just because we kept them together and Now that calf not a calf anymore. She's a pregnant heifer. She we will We will be allowing her to produce calves in the future But she will also be a dairy cow for us and she is she is actually an Angus Jersey mix and which is a high cream producing Animal from what I've known

I from what I read from what I've heard from what's been told to me and what I've read I've never milked an Angus cow. So if you're an Angus cow producer and you're hearing this podcast and you're like you're wrong Well, guess what? I haven't done it yet. So there's definitely a space for me to be wrong in this But that calf is so healthy she is Very very healthy. I can't even explain. She's like a beautiful specimen of an animal but she's also just

great temperament, all the things around. Her name is Maple. She's the first calf we ever got. And anyway, all of our calves are named after sweet things. And we have maple and honey and anyway. So, but you think about that, the reason that God created their bodies to receive this milk, this raw milk, it comes out of their body at like a hundred degrees and they drink this raw milk. And the first...

Carli (28:06.178)
Hmm

Carli (28:12.609)
I love that.

Synergos Farms (28:28.794)
portion of that raw milk that comes out of that udder, out of those quarters on the cow is skim milk. It's what I like to call white water. It's hydrating for that calf. But then the more they nurse, they get cream, which is the fat. It's the healthy fat. And it goes into their stomach, but it also has these enzymes in their body, which are removed through the pasteurization process and also through the low pasteurization process.

not as much in the low pasteurization. All that means is they don't get to the highest temperature that they normally do. But in the pasteurization process, most of those enzymes are removed. So our home, the people in our home cannot, like if we were drinking store-bought dairy, we would eventually start, our skin would start showing, our bowels would start showing.

our body would start showing that we are not able to break down that dairy. If you fed a, a calf raw, a pasteurized store bought milk, they would not survive. Their body would not have what it needs in order to break that thing down. I've never done it before, but this is what I've been told by the dairy farmers that I've spoken to. I'm taking their word for it. I'm not, I'm not experimenting, but

I take their word for it. And the reason why is because there is something in their stomach called rumen. That's what makes them a rumenate animal. It means that there's rumen in their stomach and it is this bacteria that is constantly at work. It's all these wonderful little bacteria and enzymes and microbiological things in their stomach that helps once they start taking in grass, it allows their body to ferment that grass.

and then it allows their body to spit that back up and chew on it more, and then swallow it again and continue to firm it so that their body can absorb what it needs to out of that forage and out of that grass. So, if you think about it, they need everything that comes in that raw milk form, and if you only gave them part of it, they would be allergic to it too. They would not do well with it. It's the same thing with a human. I'm not calling anyone.

Synergos Farms (30:50.03)
a heifer or a cow. I'm just saying what you need is, or what the calf needs to be able to break down that raw milk is also what we need. And so there hasn't been dairy allergies for very long, when you think about it, and in time. Dairy allergies really started showing up not that long after the pasteurization process began. And we went to big ag and large

Synergos Farms (31:20.242)
tiny spaces and that is why we need pasteurization is because these cattle, if you if you've never been to a dairy farm, go to one. It'll make you not want to drink milk. It'll also just make you sad because the way they treat the calves 90 percent of the time and I will say there are there are micro dairies that I think do a fantastic job healthy way dairy is one of them. Five Oaks Dairy and Conroe is one of them. They're on the north side of Houston.

But those are two that I know of personally, that I know the people that run them and they do a great job. I know that there's others, but I don't know fully what their practices are so I cannot endorse them. However, those two do a fantastic job. Anyway, and so I would just encourage people to think about that. You know, if the calf needs it and they need it to be able to break down what's also in the milk.

because it's not the milk that their body, it's not the milk that their body is having a hard time with. Or it's the milk that their body would have a hard time with without the enzyme. And so I actually.

Carli (32:32.186)
Yes, this goes back to...

I was just going to say this goes back to the name of your farm, synergos, because in isolation things are a problem. But if it's the synergy of how it was created, right, if you heat it so much that the lipase is destroyed, you can't digest the fat. If you can't, you know, if the lactase is destroyed, you can't digest the lactose. So all of these things that are made so beautifully by nature, that's why I say nature always

And there was even a study with vitamin A. People are so supplement happy, and I love supplements, but I try to really work with synergistic formulas because in isolation, vitamin A is shown to proliferate cancer. And it's one of the most cancer-fighting nutrients in the synergy of a carrot. So it's like when it's all these different forms of the vitamin A grown from a food,

There's a magic in there. We can't always isolate in a lab. And so that's the perfect example of this raw milk. And I love the example you gave of, look at that healthy, healthy baby cow, calf, right? I got to get my names right. And it's getting what it needs. It's thriving. It's fertile. Oh my gosh. But you take that milk and you heat it and you change the molecular composition and you kill certain things. You kill the microbes.

Synergos Farms (33:39.759)
Right.

Synergos Farms (33:48.762)
Yeah.

Carli (34:03.798)
that help you digest it, you kill the enzymes, it's not the same product, right? And wouldn't we rather have the OG from nature than a processed dairy? And so yeah, I love that you painted it that way because I think that explains it perfectly.

Synergos Farms (34:15.153)
Yeah.

Synergos Farms (34:20.59)
Yeah, and the reason why we need pasteurization is because of the practice. So you break down any sort of intervention, I would say human intervention into food and you, and you trace it back to why it was created. It's because we tried to get so big before we could learn how to steward things. Well,

They tried to get so big before we could try to steward things well. And so they had to create a process to allow them to get big without being good stewards. And so you'll never, you will never synthetically steward something well, ever. You'll never synthetically steward something well. You can vitamin fill your body with little capsules all day long, but at the end of the day,

you don't have a good diet, it doesn't matter. Your body's not gonna know what to do with all the supplements, because it's trying to constantly fight the garbage you're putting in your body, and it's able to use little bits and pieces, but you need a healthy gut to actually absorb all those things. And a healthy gut is established by good microbiology, which comes from raw milk, fermented veggies, things like apple cider vinegar. But the reason why we need it is because most dairies have

Carli (35:27.552)
in a simulac.

Synergos Farms (35:40.934)
enough space for the cow to stand and eat and then enough space for them to stand and be milked and That's it if you go to a dairy they have the Good

Carli (35:51.219)
You'll never forget the first time you see a conventional farm. The first time you see it, you'll never forget it because it is so sad, like you said.

Synergos Farms (36:00.822)
It, yeah, it is. And they have these big squeegee systems. I actually get Instagram ads about them all the time. I'm like, obviously Instagram doesn't know what I do. But I get these ads for these big squeegee systems to like push through and push all the manure out. I'm like, where does they put that manure? Can I have it? You know, like I'll take it. But there's two things that happen there. One, they're standing in first knuckle manure.

So when they go to get treated, yeah, they spray their teats off with this chemical that kills all the good and bad bacteria. So if there was any chance of anything making its way into or onto the teeth that was bad, it has full carte blanche opportunity because there's no good bacteria on there anymore either. But then they put them on a plastic system, a cup system, which we use the same thing, but we clean it every day.

after every use, you know? But they're doing this to, I don't know what their practices are, but they're doing this to hundreds of cattle and it's all going in the same vat and it's all being cooled down at the same time in the spaces. I actually don't have a problem with them, you know, with the practice of milking all of them at the same time if they were cleaning it. And if the cows didn't walk in with manure, soaked legs and udders each and every time they get milked. That's the part.

where things get scary and the point where I would say, well, if that's the only milk we have available, please pasteurize it. I just won't drink it. I could live a life without drinking milk or, you know, I could, there are other things where you can get some of those nutrients like wheat and other things, where you can get vitamins that are very highly beneficial to you. But yeah, and they're, yeah, in a space where

Carli (37:27.434)
Mm.

Carli (37:38.798)
Totally.

Synergos Farms (37:57.466)
Maybe I should or shouldn't say this. I'm gonna say it anyway. But they're in a space where you need to vaccinate things because you're afraid of them getting sick. First think about why is the space causing them to get sick? Same thing with you and I. Yeah, the same thing with you and me. Like, okay, if I'm consistently getting sick, what is causing me to consistently get sick? If you can answer that question, I think.

Carli (38:12.47)
terrain theory, right?

Synergos Farms (38:26.146)
it will rule out a lot of the things that were traditionally taught. I just say that.

Carli (38:30.446)
Mm-hmm. It's all about the environment and terrain. It's like the fish bowl, right? If a fish is getting sick and it's in cloudy water, you know to clean the water first, right? And you mentioned wheat. This is something I wanted to talk to you about because when I came to visit your farm, which was totally a spiritual experience, I genuinely encourage people to go to the farm. It is so special. There's an energy there and to be able to touch the cow that you've got the milk from and see the kid. Anyway, it just...

Synergos Farms (38:40.91)
Yes. Yeah.

Carli (39:00.374)
will touch your heart. But one of my favorite conversations we had is, well, you know, parasites are all the rage right now. And you told me a story about your son and the parasite, and I want you to tell that story and then how the wheat connection came in because you taught me something and I was like, we need to talk about this. This is fantastic. And this again, once again, goes back to the synergy idea of how the world is beautifully protecting itself.

Synergos Farms (39:27.395)
Yes.

Carli (39:28.183)
Tell me about your little guy and his parasite.

Synergos Farms (39:30.75)
Yeah, so our second child, he's a boy, and he, oh my gosh, and the trying to keep shoes on that kid is like trying to keep healthy politicians in the White House. And it's just impossible. And we, probably shouldn't have said that, but we, yeah, we started this journey of grinding our own wheat. So, I don't know, it was probably two years ago. It wasn't that long ago.

My wife came to me, by the way, y'all, I haven't, I talked about Joel Salatin, I've talked about the Lord. I haven't talked about my wife, but ultimately, I actually did briefly in the very beginning. My wife is why we started where, in the journey that we're on, is because of what my wife learned, and then she shared it with me, and then educated me. And I love to read things that mean something.

It's why I read the Bible. It's why I read a lot of the books that I read, but it, they mean something. And so I, uh, I also like listening to things that make sense. Um, I, I've shut off so many audio books that people recommended to me cause I'm like, this is stupid. Um, I'm not listening to this. I have, my time is so valuable, but my wife is a big, big player in this. And, um, she, yeah, Weston A. Price is, is massive.

in our home and that's how we cook, that's how we eat, it's how we, yeah. If you don't know what Weston A. Price is, you should definitely do your research. They have a whole organization that supports local farmers, it supports food sovereignty, the whole thing. They're awesome. And, but yeah, so wheat, we began to get our whole wheat berries from a place called Azure.

They have co-ops all over the nation. They're based out of Washington. They have some very deep convictions They don't use like the appeal stuff. They're big on organic and Sustainable practices and all of that and it really that whole thing started they have a cool story. Just go read it I'm not gonna tangent there, but as your azure Find a co-op near you and if not, there's one near us here in Pearland, but they

Synergos Farms (41:53.154)
Yeah, they have these hard red wheat, soft white wheat, soft or hard white wheat, all these things available. And so we began getting from them because this is a very quick fact that speaks volumes to me. It might not speak volumes to you, but if you buy ground flour, it will last, I think, like 90 days or whatever it is. It's a very short term. It's like 90 to 120 days. If you buy whole wheat berries, which are the

the things that come off of the stems of wheat that are ground and putt into that flour, or that are the flour, they can be stored for, I'm gonna say a year at minimum. I know it's at least a year, because I was like blown away at how staunch the difference was in between the two, but they store for a long time. And so we started doing whole wheat stuff, but then we began to learn the benefits

wheat and grinding your wheat right before you use it and so there are many benefits, but the one that Carly specifically is speaking to is We began to eat cream of wheat Which if you grew up in the 90s like I did then you remember the cream of wheat boxes They had little packets in them just like Quakers oatmeal did and you would pour them into hot water and they tasted kind of they tasted interesting

They're like similar to grits, which I'm also a big grits fan, but You stirred them up and it made this like creamy Wheat, um, and you could put all kinds of things in it I remember eating it with brown sugar as a kid, but my wife began to make this so we do raw milk and Fresh ground wheat she literally grinds it that morning, which I know not everybody has that ability or the time But it's all about what you want to spend your time doing not about what your time makes you do. So

Carli (43:21.621)
Mm.

Synergos Farms (43:50.886)
figure that out. But she spends her time grinding that wheat by hand because I'm the guy that said well let's not get an electric one because what if we lose power? Well guess what? We haven't lost power in over a year and a half or something but we still use the hand crank. And it's quite a workout. But it makes you appreciate it for sure. But we do ground wheat and we do raw milk and ground wheat and we literally just

Carli (44:08.782)
Thanks for watching!

Synergos Farms (44:19.654)
put that on the pan in the saucepan on the stove and eat that. And we began eating that, we've been eating that for quite a while now, or even fresh ground wheat bread, sourdough, that my wife makes or pizza or whatever. And my son, oh man, it was a little bit of time ago. He was going to the bathroom and he told my wife that there was something that was like,

clinging to his rear end when he was going to the bathroom. And if you have a weak stomach, just fast forward. But he had a parasite that was coming out of his body and he had to reach behind him and pull it the rest of the way out because it didn't want to come out. And so he reached in and he pulled it out and it was, I don't know.

probably 12 to 18 inches long, this long white parasite. And what we had learned before that was that the ground wheat, and I've learned even more now, but the ground wheat actually creates a extremely uncomfortable environment in your digestive system for these parasites, and they can't help but detach and get out. And so,

It is naturally making these parasites come out of our bodies that if you think you don't have parasites, then you're probably the same person that thinks the government has our best interests. But if you don't think you have parasites, then understand you have them. If you've eaten sushi at all ever, you have them. If you've touched a dirty surface with your body, your bare skin, then you have them.

if you've worn rubber gloves and stuff. Yeah, if none of those things apply to you, you're probably not listening to this podcast. But that is what happened. And yeah, it's continuously an incredible experience. It also tastes way better. There is a crazy amount of vitamin B, which is really good for your heart in ground, fresh ground wheat.

Carli (46:15.526)
If you have a pulse, you have a parasite.

Synergos Farms (46:44.174)
And if you don't want to do the physical cranking system, you can get an electric one that'll grind like a cup of flour in like 10 seconds for you. They exist. But anyway, that is it.

Carli (46:57.386)
I love this. This story is just another... I love that because first of all, it's hilarious. People think that parasites don't exist. You're right. I don't know if you heard me, but there's a doctor that says if you have a pulse, you have a parasite. You mentioned your son walking around on a farm barefoot. Boom. But you could just not have a farm. You could have a dog and walk in your backyard barefoot and you will have a parasite. If you've ever eaten a salad, you have a parasite. It's only when they become overgrown that it can be problematic, but everywhere else in the world will...

deworm quarterly and nobody does it here. And so it's become a part of every client I work with. I do a parasite cleanse. But this goes back to food as medicine. You want to skip the supplements, let's get the food right. And most people say, oh, wheat, you know, wheat makes me sick. Well, that is another gateway and it is a first place to start avoiding is wheat. But this is not the same product, right? I'm sure this and I will link the co-op. But when you source ancient…

grain or ancient heirlooms that are not hybridized, when they are not sprayed and soaked with glyphosate, you don't have the same reaction. When your microbiome is healthy, you can tolerate these things. So we're not talking about celiac. That is genetic. That's different. But the high quality wheat is not the same food. That's why you can go to Italy and eat a pizza and

Synergos Farms (48:01.816)
Mm-hmm.

Carli (48:23.358)
in bed for a week. It's the glyphosate typically, mostly. So I really encourage you. I just love this. So as soon as I talked to him on the farm, I was like, Drew, okay, I'm going to need this wheat and y'all are going to need to sell sourdough now because I will create that time and that space. But for now, I would like to purchase this from you. So we will source that for everyone, but that is amazing. And to be able to give our kids, you know, I've been on a hunt for a high quality sourdough. I want to give my kid a sandwich.

Synergos Farms (48:39.266)
Yeah.

Synergos Farms (48:43.867)
Yeah.

Carli (48:53.322)
something that a kid should be able to have, but what we are provided, when it can stay on the shelf for like you said, 90 days and the bread's not molding, it's like, what is going on here? Why are there 25 ingredients in bread that's supposed to be what, three? Salt, flour? Okay, I mean, it goes back to simplicity. So I just, I had to have you share that story because I think it's a hoot and your little dude is so brave.

Synergos Farms (49:07.986)
Three, four, if you use yeast, yeah. And water.

Carli (49:21.666)
But look at that. It's just pushed out by wheat berries. Let's just all start having raw milk and cream of wheat and see what transpires. It's real simple. We are starting to run out of time. I could talk to you for 500 days, but what I wanted to do is what I have learned from you and from connecting to all farmers is that when you have such a high quality product like you do, there are, you know...

Synergos Farms (49:21.932)
Yeah.

Synergos Farms (49:29.449)
Yeah.

Carli (49:47.966)
There are so many things that we don't know as consumers, that we don't understand. I would love for you to share maybe just a little bit of what a difference it makes if someone purchases from you versus a grocery store, how far that can go, what the resources go into. I mean, one piece of farm equipment is probably my mortgage for a year. I mean, these are things that are, and it's so important if we want our food to be our medicine and you want our food to be preventative.

than the care and the time that goes into it. I would just love for you to take a moment and just share how people can support you, where they can find you, what you're passionate about, and just have some transparency here for your job.

Synergos Farms (50:26.006)
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I don't often think, I actually had a chef out here this past week, Justin Yu from Theodore Rex, he's such a nice guy, and he asked me the same question. He's like, hey, what can I do to support you? I don't think of that often. And so I knew that question might come up in this podcast. So I actually sat down and journaled out some things the other day, because that is an important question.

Carli (50:38.615)
Mmm.

Synergos Farms (50:55.602)
Because I don't think of that often. I just think often about how can I serve the community and the people around me. And I don't often think about how that always suits us best. So, because my actual selfish nature is to just be greedy. But I wanna share something real briefly before I finish that is, I think it's super interesting, super.

crazy cool again I don't know where you're at on your journey but Genesis 129 it says this I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of this whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it they will be your food yours for food and so one of the things that we don't consume most of is seed but a wheat berry is a seed and seeds you can look it up have a vitamin and a

that fight cancerous cells. They teach your body to kill the cells and a cancer cell is pretty much an immortal cell, but they encourage your body to kill the old cells and generate new ones. That's all I wanted to say about that because I think that's super empowering. Eat seeds, right? One of the best ways you can deworm yourself is eat pumpkin seeds. Eat seeds of things that you're eating. Eat the whole darn apple, you know? Eat the whole freaking apple. Anyway.

Carli (52:16.462)
pumpkin seeds. Yes.

Synergos Farms (52:22.49)
But as far as how you can support us, let me just tell you this. I love this quote, I don't know who said it, but when you purchase from a large organization, they see the order and they fulfill it. When you support a local business, they might shed a tear, they might celebrate, but it put food on their table that week. And so I just wanna share that not as a bleeding heart, I don't need your sympathy.

I chose this and I love it. But I will tell you what it does is every time someone purchases a subscription from us, you can ask my wife. I message her or call out to her or whatever. And I'm like, babe, somebody joined our subscription. It's super exciting. And y'all, we went from seven to 21 this year. And that was huge for us. Why? Because it tells us what we need to grow.

without guessing, that's one thing. But two, it allows us the dollars to be able to do our thing because it does take a lot of time, but it takes just as about as much money as it does time to do what we do. And so it allows us to project, but it also helps us pay ourselves and also our people if we have people on the farm helping us. So that's one big thing. Subscriptions are super helpful. And if you wanna create a custom box, we do that.

If you're like none of your subscriptions are helpful for us.

Carli (53:51.766)
So like CSA is what you're referring to, like right where you get a one of everything of what you've got that season. And I love this point because when I am trying to coach clients and I'm trying, just trying, there's so much information to instill, but I'm trying to share how important it is to eat seasonally. That is one thing you get to check off your to-do list is when you are signed up for something and you just get what's coming to you, you have to get creative.

Synergos Farms (53:56.378)
Yeah.

Carli (54:20.466)
And it forces you a little bit to eat seasonally, which is how we were built. And it will change your health. So I love that. I'm going to sign up for yours. And I can't believe I already don't. But that is such a great reminder. I'm so glad you said it because I love the challenge. Like, all right, we've got these, you knew what are these? Is it kohlrabi? Anyway, there was one very fibrous something that I was eating. I was like, I need to get creative. And you just learn. And you're getting different.

Synergos Farms (54:40.667)
Yeah.

Carli (54:49.618)
microbiome, you're getting different fibers that are feeding your bacteria, different bacteria to inoculate, and you're just ramping up your immune system. I mean, if you want to think about how this is coming back to you full circle, right? It's like support the farm, support your health. Support the farm, support your health. It's just so beautiful. So I'm glad you brought up the...

Synergos Farms (55:07.538)
Yeah, another. Yeah, another great quote. I'm sorry for interrupting you, Carly. I get super passionate about this thing, but it is you can either spend your money now on good food or you can spend all your money later on bad health care. I put the word bad in there, but, but you can spend because at the end of the day, if you spent your whole life just eating whatever you want.

Carli (55:14.71)
Yeah, you're fine. I love it.

Carli (55:26.208)
That's so true.

Synergos Farms (55:34.106)
Right? Yoloing your way through life when it comes to your food. There is not a whole lot that any doctor can do for you if you've treated your body like a playground your entire life. You have to steward your body well if you want to live well. Anyway, but that's one way that you can support us, but we aren't just seasonally with vegetables. We are also seasonal with proteins. So we grow proteins based on the environment that we're given.

Carli (55:52.898)
So true.

Synergos Farms (56:04.33)
We grow pork year round because Texas can support that. We grow beef year round because Texas can support that. We grow chickens for 10 months out of the year because there's two months out of the year that do not support that. We grow turkeys one time a year. Why? Because it takes nine months to grow turkeys. And I know it doesn't take nine months to grow the big fat brown turkeys that are commercial breeds. It takes nine months to grow a...

heritage breed turkey, which if you've never had heritage breed turkey, sign up for one this fall for Christmas or Thanksgiving or jump into our poultry box subscription. You get eggs and a selection of poultry and chicken bone broth, all of that made by a local chef that we support, Jane Wild. She's a wonderful. And you then you also get 10% off of a Christmas or Thanksgiving bird, your choice. We've even had people request them for New Year's.

and you get a choice between a goose or a turkey, either one, and you get 10% off of that bird for each month that you're a part of the poultry subscription. Anyway, that is a great opportunity. It's the first box that we ever did. And you get some premium cuts in there. You also get just some regular old cuts from poultry. So yeah, but we have local small large

Carli (57:15.603)
of this.

Synergos Farms (57:28.55)
Farm Box is a starter box if you just want to test out the waters and see what it's like. But yeah, you can do that. Also, if you'd like to know what we do, how we do it, learn more, because there's so much that we could talk about. But we have a farm tour on April 27th here at the farm. It is in the afternoon. We start with good conversation. We have good conversation on the hay wagon, which we drive around the farm. And then we end with it. It is a family.

friendly experience. I never want to host something that is not friendly to my own family. So it is a family experience. It is about 90 to 120 minutes long. So it's an hour and a half to two hours long. That 30 minute gap is for those questions that you might ask. So the quality of the two are all is based upon how good your questions are. And we talk about everything. So yeah.

Carli (58:26.062)
I learned so much when I came to visit the farm. That was so fun. As a parent, you're always looking for entertainment that you kind of enjoy and them. This is so perfect. Then I picked up all my food for the week when I was at your farm store. That's another thing. If you're local to Texas, you can come to the farmers markets. You're at both the Rice Village Farmers Market and the Heights Mercantile, but also you opened a farm store. What are the hours of the farm store where you can actually go to the farm to pick up if you can't make the weekend market in town?

Synergos Farms (58:45.234)
Mm-hmm. Height.

Synergos Farms (58:53.89)
Yeah. So we're actually we're only open for a short bit on Thursdays, but we're actually going to start being open all day on Thursdays. It'll be 9am to I believe 6pm or 7pm on Thursdays and the same hours on Saturdays and then you can find us at a market on Sunday. But we'll Yeah, yeah. So we're also looking to open the store more often in the near future.

Carli (59:15.958)
That's perfect.

Carli (59:21.246)
which is so nice to have access to this stuff. I encourage everyone to follow Drew at Cinergos. What is your handle? Can you share your Instagram handle?

Synergos Farms (59:30.126)
Yeah, it's just Synergos Farms. That's about as simple as it gets. And just put it, there's not another one like us on Instagram, so S-Y-N-E-R-G-O-S Farms, yeah.

Carli (59:41.277)
I keep mispronouncing it.

I will link it below. Luckily, my pronunciation will not stop people from finding you. Thank you so much for being here. I really could talk to you forever. I'm going to have to have you back on. We'll talk about how this evolves. Please, everyone, my biggest message today is just if you're not in Houston, wherever local you are, there are websites to help you connect to local farms. I would check that out. I will link those websites below.

Synergos Farms (59:45.958)
Ah, hey.

Carli (01:00:12.526)
talk to your farmer, there's nothing more calming than understanding where your food is coming from, who's taking care of it, because when you are disconnected from your food source, you are disconnected from your health. You have no idea what's going on. The most recent thing I found was I think it's lead they're finding in salt, and I use so much salt for so many things. It's a wonderful source of minerals. And it just...

it gets you thinking that there's so many access points to our bodies from all the different food choices we make. So the more that you can control the sourcing of where you're getting your food, the more you can control your prevention. Cancer, for example, is one of those things everyone is scared of. It is not a genetic disease. This is a disease of the mitochondria. And how do you feed your mitochondria? Micronutrients, micronutrients from food.

and also eliminating chemicals. And so that is everything your farm stands for. And I'm just so grateful I've gotten to talk to you and meet with you. And so yeah, I just want to send everyone wishes of wellness, as cheesy as that sounds, because that's kind of what our heart and soul is about. And Drew, you're going to have to come back. Thank you for blessing this podcast as my first guest.

Synergos Farms (01:01:24.858)
You bet. I would be honored to and I'm honored to be here today. And yeah, we'll definitely have to chat about more things because there's so much to talk about.

Carli (01:01:33.954)
There is so much to talk about. Okay, to be continued. Everyone, please take a moment, if you enjoyed this, subscribe, rate, and even share this so we can spread our message. That would be so wonderful. I will see you next time on The Wellness Frequency.