I owe Big Food/Pharma/Ag an apology

A few days ago, my dad texted Jesse and me a Wall Street Journal article....

"Cattle Gallstones, Worth Twice as Much as Gold, Drive a Global Smuggling Frenzy"

The gist of it is this - Cattle gallstones are a (pretty rare) prized ingredient in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and demand is soaring (more on that in a moment), which is causing some pretty crazy smuggling/heists/etc around the wrold.

I've got a couple thoughts on this.

1) TWICE THE PRICE OF GOLD! See ya later! I'm out of the beef game and into the international gallstone trade. I'm calling our butcher RIGHT NOW!!!

Author's Note - I've just been informed that Cattle Gallstones are apparently exceedingly rare, and we're unlikely to find any. So ignore everything I just said... I'M BACK IN THE BEEF GAME!

2) The reason for the skyrocketing demand is that the gallstones are used in the treatment of strokes, which are a major problem in China after 50+ years of rapid development and a shift towards industrial food systems.

So basically American style industrial agricultural/food systems are making people in China so sick that they are turning to a Traditional Chinese Medicine remedy, which requires a rare ingredient that's causing a "spate of gallstone heists" in rural Brazil.

Welp. Sounds totally normal to me.

I mean, if there were a "most insane unintended butterfly-effect style consequence of globalization" competition, you'd be mighty hard pressed to top that one.

Seriously, I dare you to try. I'll wait.

But let's look on the bright side.

Here us Americans were, worrying that China was gaining an upper hand with manufacturing dominance, a huge trade imbalance, and trillions of dollars in our debt.

But in reality, we're just playing the long game!

We're quietly exporting our (literally) sickening ways of producing and eating food. Undermining our geopolitical foes by making them.... just as unhealthy as us.

Take that suckers! We win again.

But now I feel kinda bad.

If Big Ag/Food/Pharma had just told me this was a national security thing, I might've chilled with some of the emails 😉

Sorry guys, my bad.....

Update from 2026: the Supreme Court has now formally protected Bayer-Monsanto from state-level cancer lawsuits. So my apology is now legally enforceable. The system works.

All kidding aside, the wackiness of this situation kind of speaks for itself.

So, if you'd prefer feeding your family quality food that doesn't moonlight as a military strategy to undermine enemy nation-states.....

CLICK HERE to see what we have in stock

or

Order a Half or Whole Beef Share and get a FREE Chest Freezer

Your farmer,
Josh