The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #242 - Michael Kummer

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

Melanie Avalon:
Friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation that I am about to have. So the backstory on today's conversation, I have aired a episode with a fabulous guest, Forrest Smith. He's the founder of a company called Kenyon that makes a red light laser device, which is so, so cool. Definitely check out that episode. But in any case, he introduced me quite a while ago now. We were just talking about how long it's been to the incredible Michael Coomer, who is the founder of MK supplements. And Michael actually lives in Atlanta, like I do, which is so cool. He's also the founder of the healthy living blog, MichaelCoomer .com, which talks about all things health and wellness, which is also really incredible and amazing. And so we did a call, I mean, it was a while ago now. I was so excited because his MK supplements line makes grass fed 100% pasture raised cattle organ supplements. And I historically have taken organ supplements for, I mean, on and off for years. And I've been dying to do an episode on it. And I really wanted to, you know, dive deep into all the questions that I have and do it with somebody who's making really high quality versions of that, that I can 100% endorse. And when I did a call with Michael, it was just so incredible because he just had all the answers to all the things and just knew all about this. And I also actually asked listeners for questions as well. So we have so much that we can dive into in today's episode. I mean, it's super cool because Michael also lives in Atlanta, like me, and he actually operates a suburban homestead with animals like beehives and chickens. And do you still, is that where you still live, Michael?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, that's exactly right. We actually purchased some property earlier this year, so we'll move probably maybe next year or so to expand our homestead. But yes, we still have rabbits, geese, chickens, bees, and are having a blast with it.

Melanie Avalon:
Did you have to train how to handle the beehive? Do you guys handle that yourself?

Michael Kummer:
I mean it is obviously trial and error and you know a lot of learning in the beginning but it's not really it's it's not rocket science I mean you know you watch a couple of youtube videos and you think you know what you're doing and then you do it and then you figure out you actually don't you know you learn and and get the hang of it so it's been fun.

Melanie Avalon:
Wow. And all of those different animals, do you raise them for food as well? Like geese, for example, like do you have like a Christmas goose?

Michael Kummer:
Yes, but not the geese. The geese are actually guard geese, so they are meant to alert and protect predominantly against aerial predators, but against really anything that comes on the property unannounced. But yes, we do eat chickens. We actually are about to start raising turkeys this year for Thanksgiving, so that'll be for food. The rabbits are for food, and the honey from the bees obviously is. But the chickens have been for the most part for eggs, but in exactly a month we are going to get our first batch of what's called meat birds. So those are the ones that will end up in our freezer.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh wow. This is just so interesting. And so rabbit meat, that's like very, very lean, right?

Michael Kummer:
Yes, there is not a whole lot of fat on a rabbit. That is correct. So you need to fry it or whatever you do with a lot of butter or teller or whatever you like, but yes.

Melanie Avalon:
Is it a red meat or a white meat?

Michael Kummer:
It is a red meat, so they are, I mean, they are not ruminants, they are, it's red meat much like, you know, it's actually taste -wise, it's fairly comparable to chicken meat, but it's red.

Melanie Avalon:
Have you been to the restaurant Canoe here in Atlanta?

Michael Kummer:
I like to think so because the name is very familiar. I think we went there a couple of years ago.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I really like it because they have rabbit. They have all this different game meat. Like they have kangaroo on the menu, but I've actually never tried. I always want to try the rabbit, but I haven't because they can't make it without whatever like pre -seasoning sauce thing that they have. And I like to go, you know, au naturale. So, and now I'm inspired. I want, I want to live on with all of this stuff. One last question about this, I swear. So the chickens, do they lay eggs every single day?

Michael Kummer:
I mean, on average, you know, we have now 35 hens that egg -laying hens, and we get, on average, I want to say somewhere between 25 to 30 eggs a day. In summer, it's a little bit more. In winter, it's usually a little bit less because there's less light, and that seems to influence their egg -laying potential, but on average, you can say one egg per chicken per day.

Melanie Avalon:
actually do have more questions and the turkeys that you're going to raise, do you raise a lot of them or a few? Cause aren't they don't think it very large and like intense.

Michael Kummer:
They do get very large. I mean, they are, you know, obviously much like with the chickens, the chickens or the turkeys that you buy in the store, those are the, you know, the breeds that I don't necessarily recommend like in the, in the chicken world would be the Cornish cross, you know, they are, you know, from, from birth to butcher, it's, you know, 45 days or so. So they're basically, you know, you're eating a fat baby, an overweight baby that can't walk anymore at the end of, you know, it's lifespan. And so those are not the type of chickens that we raise here. And with the turkeys, it's the same. I mean, we, you know, we raise heritage breeds that are not the ones that double breasted, you know, big babies that are, you know, very, that grow very fast and are usually very unhealthy and can't even reproduce themselves anymore. So we grow, you know, slower growing birds, but they still obviously are significantly bigger than, than chickens. And so we, we will get 10 for our first trial run to see how it goes. And if it's successful, because a lot of people have already asked us, Hey, can we buy, you know, then whatever you don't use, you know, can we buy from you for Thanksgiving? And so we're considering doing that.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh my goodness, I want to buy one.

Michael Kummer:
I'll put it on the list.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, how do I yeah, I want to be on this list. Oh, wow. And the land is this all just like free flowing? Like are they all just out there doing their thing?

Michael Kummer:
I mean, pretty much obviously pasteurized, but they are, you know, fenced in. I mean, they have about half of the animals that I have between, depending in winter, they have a little bit less because there's nothing growing anyway. But in summer, they have about half an acre for those, you know, 30, 40 birds or so where they can roam around and do their thing. But the thing is with chickens, I mean, in the beginning, we had them like just, you know, running all over. There was no limitation whatsoever. But as you know, then they come up the stairs, you know, on the porch, the poop everywhere, and it gets old really quick. And then you realize you really want to, you know, fence them in somewhere where, you know, they can do their thing. They can destroy whatever they, you know, they can poop, they can, you know, fertilize, but in the area where we are, you know, I don't want to walk barefoot and then step on, you know, chicken poop every, every second step. And so we changed a little bit, but they are, you know, obviously very much, you know, pasteurized and, and, and truly free ranging.

Melanie Avalon:
Is this something people could do if they don't have a lot of land? Like could they have like a chicken or do you really have to commit to having a bigger space?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, I mean, one chicken, I would not recommend because they're a flock animal. So they get sad, you know, if they're by themselves. But if you have like, you know, maybe two or three or four, you can definitely do that. And in fact, I would even recommend for various reasons. I mean, you know, it's the most idyllic, you know, way of looking at if the chickens are just, you know, on on pasture and roaming around wherever they want to. But the truth is, I think you've got you and the chicken is probably going to be healthy and live longer if they're, you know, somewhat enclosed, like in a chicken tractor, maybe where you can still be on pasture and you would move to tractor every single day. So they're always a free access, you know, to pasture and to the grubs and worms, whatever they want to forage. And they fertilize the lawn without destroying it completely. Because if you leave them in one spot for too long, you know, they mess everything up and they oversaturate the soil with the manure, you know, you don't want that. So by having them in a tractor, they're protected from predators, especially hawks, we had plenty of, you know, hawk kills because they are free roaming. And so especially if you only have four chickens, you know, and two get killed, you know, that's a severe loss. You know, if we have 40 and two get killed, it's okay, you know. And so I would, you know, really, if you have not a lot of space, I would consider either doing something with deep littering, where the manure is not going to become a problem, or just some mobile solution where you can move them around, you know, in a small patch of lawn and you just, you know, keep rotating them around.

Melanie Avalon:
Do you have issues with coyotes?

Michael Kummer:
No, not where we live. I mean, everything is fenced in, so we have a fairly strong perimeter fence that prevents or at least deters larger land -based predators from coming in. We deal mostly with aerial predators here.

Melanie Avalon:
Have you ever considered or would you ever get like cattle?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, that was the reason why we purchased 45 acres in the northwestern part of the state. So we can do the whole nine yards, including dairy cows, beef, obviously, pigs, and anything in between really. So we really want to take it to the next level and make sure we raise at least 80% of the food we consume and pretty much all the protein we consume by ourselves, knowing where the stuff is coming from and how the animals were treated and raised and everything and butchered. So that's the plan.

Melanie Avalon:
So like one cow, how many stakes does it make or like how long will it last?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah. That's the thing with a cow. There are only so many ribeyes and so many briskets in one cow. It also depends on how thick you cut them, etc. But on average, if you have a good, well -raised cow, you probably get somewhere around 400, 450 pounds of meat or types of different cuts. But if you eat steak every day, as a family in particular, you run out of steak really quick. So you need to learn and appreciate all the other less exciting cuts in all the roasts and the ground meat, etc. But yeah, I mean, we go through one and a half cows every year here among the four of us.

Melanie Avalon:
But still, so one and a half cows lasts your whole family the entire year. See, it's so interesting because they bring on people of all different perspectives on this show. And so I bring on a lot of people in the vegan camp and I just find it really interesting, the, uh, arguments and that ideologies surrounding harming life. When just listening to you right now, it's like, you know, holistically raising one cow can feed your entire family for, you know, a year and a half compared to all of the deforestation and all of the, you know, killing of like rodents and insects and everything that happens with clearing land for, you know, plant -based agriculture. It's just really eye -opening to me.

Michael Kummer:
I tell you what I mean we are we eat a lot of meat we are animal based predominantly but we do eat plants as well you know veggies fruits etc and we have our veggie garden and I can tell you you know there is no way around killing living things and you know animals insects what have you if you want to be successful growing plants and I would argue that it's it's not only more complex and more time consuming growing you know the amount of protein and fat in particular that we consume than you know doing it with animals and you know I don't know how often especially just to give you one simple example you know tomatoes you know if you have a nice tomato plant it's not going to take very long until you have caterpillars you know the tomato plant and so what are you going to do you know you either let the caterpillar you know eat the plant and you have no harvest or you you know you relocate the caterpillar but you know that's not really sustainable because they're going to come back or what we do is we feed you know the caterpillars to the chickens and so we are you know by by by being able to or by if we want to eat tomatoes we have to kill insects to make that happen and the insects that we are not eating you know at least when I you know harvest a chicken you know I eat the chicken I eat the animal that I kill you know instead of just having you know collateral damage as part of my you know growing food and so that's something that I think is forgotten a lot and that's only on a small scale I mean we have the you know the the ability to pick individual caterpillars from our you know a couple of tomato plants and you know we spent a couple of minutes every morning to do that but if in a big operation you know where they just plow through I mean it's not only caterpillars that are killed by you know by seeding by spraying by harvesting and even you know if it's organic and everything organic doesn't mean not no spraying is is involved it just means you know that with what they spray is organically certified but if that's you know a pesticide it kills pests you know including again insects and probably rodents as well and so there is just no way around killing animals and you know I think it's human nature that you know we are meant to kill and consume animals and we can also do the same with plants but doing that exclusively I don't think is good for your health and b it's not gonna you know it's not gonna avoid killing animals you know so the whole argument I think falls apart very quickly if you ever try to survive you know on plants that you grow even if you are the most skillful you know garden or whatever you're gonna realize very quickly what it involves and that the ideology behind you know pure plant -based diets doesn't really make any sense

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I'm just so, so fascinated by this whole conversation. And I mean, I haven't done any of this. So I'm speaking from behind, you know, not really having the experience. Like you just said, it just seems like the argument falls apart really fast. Like it just seems so simple to me. The wow. Okay. This is inspiring. I think listeners can see why you're so, so cool. And I had to have you on the show. So your supplement line, actually, so before that, when you have the cattle, the organ meats from the cattle, will you be eating all of those with your family? Does your, do your kids like organs?

Michael Kummer:
Our kids like the freeze dried version, even though I would say my, my younger one, he's now eight, but when he was five, we did like a blind tasting, you know, just, you know, cover your eyes. And then we would consume different organ meats, including, you know, testicles and heart and liver and spleen. And he would eat all of them. And, you know, he was fine. I mean, it's not that it was his favorite food, but it wasn't like, you know, I'm disgusted by whatever I just ate. You know, now, of course, that he's older, and he kind of, you know, knows what that is and where it comes from, et cetera. He's a little bit more skirmish. Actually, right now, he's in a very picky phase of, of, of eating. But the kids generally prefer the freeze dried version, you know, it doesn't taste like anything. And, you know, no, no taste, no texture. But yes, we, well, I do, my wife is the same. She goes with the kids and just pops a couple of pills and be done with it. But I prefer fresh organs when I have access to them. And yes, we will then between the dog and I, we have a German Shepherd and he's on a, on a raw food diet. So he only eats meat, organs, bones, egg yolks, and occasionally, you know, some, some plant matter that he either finds outside or that, you know, we gave him, I don't know, add some, some, some, some raspberries from the garden or whatever into his meatball. But between him and I, you know, we do eat and we will eat the organs.

Melanie Avalon:
That's so interesting that your son, so even though in the beginning he was being raised without an apparent aversion to it, that he still, that still seeped in, I guess, from culture. Like, I just wonder where it comes from, the aversion.

Michael Kummer:
I think it's, you know, he talks to, you know, I mean, they're homeschooled now, but, you know, at the time, you know, in school, he says, Hey, you know, I ate liver and everything. Then why would you eat that, you know, so I think it's very much influenced. But also, you know, I mean, it's, it's the thing here is, I mean, if I personally, if I have to pick between a, you know, a ribeye and liver, you know, I prefer the ribeye. I mean, you know, there is no, no, no question about that. I just, you know, see it, see food and, you know, slightly different than maybe I did 10 years ago. But if I look at, you know, junk food for me, I see, you know, I see poison. So I don't crave those things anymore, even stuff that I would have craved in the past. But now if you put a, you know, happy meal in front of me, you know, I would, you know, I would not touch it, you know, period. But that's because I've changed my, you know, how I, how I see that. And I think with him, it's the same, and especially when he grew up, I mean, there are so many foods that I didn't like when I was a kid, and then I liked them, or vice versa. I mean, I remember our daughter, she used to eat, you know, olives when she was two and, you know, spoonfuls of minced garlic and weird stuff that I'm like, you know, how on earth would a two year old, you know, eat that? Now she doesn't like it anymore back then she did. So you know, taste and preferences obviously change over time. And I'm sure, you know, whatever they're going through now is not going to be the last thing. And so it's, it's ever evolving. But I think our environment has a lot of, has a lot to do with the foods that we gravitate towards and the ones that we think are, you know, not good.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I've been fascinated by this question for so long, primarily because after I cleaned up my diet and was eating all whole foods and everything like that, and I even had a point in time where I was really anemic, and at that point in time, I was like, okay. I was like, I'm only eating whole foods, I'm anemic. I'm gonna try, because I had never tried liver by itself. I'd actually eaten it a lot growing up. My grandmother was German, kind of similar to her kids. She would feed us liver, and I loved it until I realized what it was, and then I got a little bit grossed out. That wasn't like whole liver. It was like the liver worst, which is not the same thing. But in any case, I remember, so when I was in that period of time where I was anemic and had been eating whole foods, I was like, I'm gonna try some liver, and in theory, it's gonna taste amazing because I only eat whole foods now, and I'm anemic. I should love this stuff, and I tried it, and I was like, this is disgusting. And I just remember thinking, it seemed like I should have gone beyond any cultural influence in my mind, but I still, my body didn't like it, and I've always had different theories about that. I wonder if maybe the over -nutrition in the organs, maybe the body doesn't want to be oversaturated in fat -soluble vitamins, or I don't know. I have a lot of theories about that. I don't know if you have theories about, can we eat too many organs, I guess, is a question. I'll just read Jessica's question, because it's kind of similar. She said, if the idea of nose -to -tail eating is to mimic ancestral eating patterns, there's a relatively small amount of liver relative to meat on an animal. So how often should we consume organs? Are there concerns of toxicity if taken too often?

Michael Kummer:
It's a very valid question and argument for those who say that we shouldn't or we shouldn't be consuming it too much. I think if you were truly following a nose -to -tail diet, then the size of the animal and its organs and muscle meat, et cetera, would determine how much you're eating and maybe the size of your tribe. Yes, there is certainly a limit. I would not recommend consuming two pounds of liver every single day just because a little bit is good, more is better. I have not seen any real -life cases of vitamin toxicity stemming from real food. I've seen and heard about them from synthetic vitamins. It's definitely a thing, but I've yet to meet anyone who has consumed significant amounts of organs and then had any issues because of that. Maybe unless you consume the liver of a polar bear, which is significantly more, let's say, I don't think there is a concern with consuming an ounce of liver a day, let's say, or the equivalent of three grams of freeze -dried beef organ capsules, which would contain roughly the same amount of micronutrients as an ounce of fresh liver. Within that realm, I don't think there is any issue. Even if you eat twice as much or three times as much, I don't think there is any issue whatsoever. Then on the other side, I was fortunate enough recently to be part of a cow butchering to learn the ropes once we get to that point. I can tell you, the liver of a grown cow is humongous. Even a large family would eat a long time from that one liver. The heart is humongous. Then obviously, it gets smaller and smaller. The point is that it's not just an ounce of liver in the cow and 400 pounds of muscle meat. It's not quite like... The liver of a cow weighs like 11 pounds or so. Then you get maybe, with bones, 400 pounds of meat and bones. If you remove the bones, it might be, I don't know, maybe 400, 350 pounds. There is a difference, but it's not like 1 to 100 or so ratio. That's my take on it. For the average American or even for the health -conscious American, I would argue we are still deficient in many of the micronutrients found in organs or in meat or in animals in general that worrying about eating too much if you're deficient is not the right thing. You're not focusing on the right thing. Get your deficiency fixed up and then worry about, okay, can I dial it back? Can I maybe go on a maintenance dosage or whatever? Can I do it only twice a week or whatever the case might be? Having that as your first concern, I think, is misguided.

Melanie Avalon:
That's, yeah, so fascinating. So not in supplement form, but I've heard that heart, like heart steak tastes similar to other steak cuts. Have you had a heart steak?

Michael Kummer:
Yes, yes. I mean, heart is a muscle, you know, so it tastes very much like muscle meat. And I would even argue that, you know, because it's a muscle, you can't really overeat heart. You know, the liver obviously is, and even though, you know, the heart has also, you know, a ton of specific micronutrients, some of which are specific to the heart muscle. But I think the overconsumption is more concerned maybe with liver and some of those organs and not so much with heart. But yeah, heart tastes. I mean, you can tell it's not ribeye, because it's probably or ideally less fatty. But if you close your eyes and you eat heart muscle, you know, most people I would argue could not tell what type of meat it is. They think it's some sort of meat.

Melanie Avalon:
I really want to try one. I keep hoping that I'll be at a restaurant and I'll have one on the menu, but I don't know where to get that. Do hormones build up in the organs at all? Andrea wanted to know about that. She also wanted to know specifically in supplements, which we can talk more about, but she was wondering about are there concerns about hormones and also things like the thyroid. Oh, wait. Oh, she wanted to know could the animal hormones harm ours, like our thyroid?

Michael Kummer:
Right. Yeah. Good question. So, you know, maybe let's take the first question first in term, because there is this misconception that, you know, liver and the kidneys, you know, they are like the filters kind of, you know, that filter the blood and remove toxins, but they don't work like a sieve where, you know, all the toxins that accumulate in the liver, it's, it works differently. In reality, those toxins get deactivated and then just move on and get flushed out, you know, at an excretive, you know, your feces, your urine, your sweat, what have you, but they don't stay in the organ. So eating liver, you're going to get the same amount of toxins as from muscle meat. And, you know, obviously, depending on how the cow lived, you know, if it's consumed, I don't know, grass that was contaminated with, you know, certain toxins or even heavy metals from the soil or what have you, you know, it's unavoidable that you're going to get some even in the most well -raised cattle. That's, you know, and the same with plants, by the way, there's no difference. I mean, any food that we grow in our environment is contaminated to varying degrees. And usually, if it's in a well -raised cattle, those, you know, it's minimally and nothing to be concerned about, but there is no higher concentration in organs than it is in muscle meat. And in retrospect, or then going into the other, the second question, related question, what about hormones? Well, you know, if the animal was injected with hormones, there is the argument to be made that some of those hormones then can or its metabolites can end up and remain in the meat and then get into your body. And the easiest way to fix that is, you know, to consume meat from animals that were not raised with, you know, or treated with antibiotics, at least not, I mean, there are some medical emergencies, obviously, when the animal has to be treated. But, you know, the proactive treatment, because of poor diet, you know, feeding them grain and then counteracting with with antibiotics to prevent, you know, bacteria growing, you know, obviously, that part, you know, I would I would avoid the meat from those animals. But beyond that, I don't think there is a concern. In fact, I would argue that, you know, there is this this thought that like supports like so, meaning that, you know, if you consume liver, then all the nutrients that your own liver requires, including hormones and peptides and vitamins and minerals, you know, you get from that organ that you consume. And so you indirectly support your own liver or organ. You know, so I think there is an argument to be made for that. But I have not seen any evidence that any type of hormone in the animal's organ has a negative impact on your own hormone levels. In contrary, actually, there are a lot of reports that consuming, for example, you know, beef testicles, which have testosterone and some of the other sex hormones can actually help boost your own levels. So I've seen the positive impact, but not yet the negative impact.

Melanie Avalon:
You don't have like thyroid or adrenal or testicle supplements that you sell right now, right?

Michael Kummer:
Not yet. So the testicles, that's actually one of the products that I'd like to launch relatively soon. Ideally, this year, because there's a lot of demand. And I think, obviously, in particular with men, but the same applies to a different or to a different degree to women as well. Lotus Ostrone levels across the board that have been declining for decades now. So that's something that I'm really interested in. Thyroid is a little bit of a sticky topic. I'd like to have a thyroid product, but it's incredibly difficult to market. On Amazon, you can't sell anything with thyroid. Google and Meta, so if you want to do ads and stuff, they prevent you from doing that. I don't know what it is about the thyroid in particular that nobody likes, but it's difficult to market, especially for a small company. I mean, some of the larger brands can do it because they already have the reach. But for us, who rely on organic search and on being found if people search for stuff like that, it's a challenge. At some point, I'd like to have a thyroid and adrenal product as well.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, it's so interesting, I never thought about this, but thyroid is the one where it's called thyroid and it creates thyroid hormones. Like I bet if the testicles were called testosterone and they created testosterone, you would probably have the same issues.

Michael Kummer:
It would be the same story probably, I agree.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, going into your company more, so how long have you had MK supplements?

Michael Kummer:
Ah, years go by so quickly, but if I'm not mistaken, we launched 2021, July of 2021.

Melanie Avalon:
Wow. So I mean, it's such a big endeavor and I know for me having my own supplement line, everything that goes into that, but I feel like there's just so much more with all of, I have so many questions here. I feel like there's a lot of, I don't want to say controversy surrounding animal supplements, but I feel like there probably is a lot to deal with with that. So how did you determine your sourcing originally?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, that was really the reason why we launched significantly later than I wanted to, because I had issues finding sources that would meet all of my quality criteria. It's very easy, and if you just Google for hay and I want to do beef liver supplements, beef liver powder, you find plenty of stuff, but it's usually heat dried instead of freeze dried. It's defatted instead of undefatted, and defatting usually requires hexane, a harsh chemical, to remove the fat, which I don't know why you would want to remove the fat, probably because fat is bad, it's still a thing, even though it's 2024, and then sourced from either domestic cattle, which is not a bad thing per se, but up until now, I have not found a good source of domestic cattle, and then the other, the flip side to that also is that here in the United States, most cattle, or really anywhere in the country, they have to eat hay in winter, whereas in New Zealand, where we source from, and many of the other premium brands source from as well, the cattle can graze 24 -7, 365 days a year because of the climate and the temperatures. Finding someone who can actually source, or first of all, manufacture the products the way we want without fillers, without flowations, which is another big headache, we figured out then accommodate glass bottles and metal lids instead of plastic. That was another thing that I didn't think was an issue, and then just the source, finding the right sources from New Zealand. In all of that, because I was completely new to the supplement industry, maybe someone who has been doing business in this area for a decade could have told me immediately, but I didn't know anyone, and I couldn't call Ancestry and say, hey, where do you guys source your supplements from? I want to do that too. That was the limiting factor, and so that took me a while to connect all the dots and find us a play chain that works for us.

Melanie Avalon:
Have you been to where you get yours from?

Michael Kummer:
No, I've not been to New Zealand. No, that's on the bucket list. But I'm actually in discussions with the first serious ranching outfit and freeze drying outfit here in the United States to potentially also source locally. And so we don't have to fly the ingredients halfway around the world. And especially then, you know, with bison, you know, one could argue, you know, bison buffalo, you know, those are like the native, those are like the, you know, the stuff that our ancestors would have eaten and not, you know, domestic cattle. And so that's something I'm looking forward to incorporating into our portfolio.

Melanie Avalon:
That's exciting. I actually have an interview upcoming with a bison farm here in the US and I was just briefly talking to her. I was fascinated by it. There was so much I didn't know about bison. So I'm like looking forward to that conversation. So how did you decide, you know, which different supplements to feature? And I think when we talked on the phone, you were talking a little bit about the uniqueness of your blend specifically. So how did you make those decisions?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, I mean, the first one was really a no brainer. I think, you know, liver is if you only consume one organ, make it liver. You know, it's I think has the most nutrient dense single foods there is. And so that made a lot of sense in particular, because there was no competitor that offered the product in glass with only liver at a reasonable price. And so that for us was like, you know, an itch that we wanted to go after and just offer something that's, you know, as budget friendly as it can be, you know, where you get the most bang for your buck, basically. So that was the first supplement. And then with this starting with the second one, you know, I came up with this huge matrix of all the organs and their micronutrient composition. And I tried to figure out, okay, what is complementary to liver that makes sense putting together. And then, you know, I also asked, you know, our customers at the time and asked what they wanted to get. And of course, you know, a the beef organ complexes on the market. And I realized, well, you know, they have, you know, if any brand really, they have the same amount of liver and, you know, heart and spleen and kidney and pancreas. And going back to that question from one of your from your audience, you know, but if you look at an animal, you know, you know, there are different ratios of those organ weights. So I'm like, well, having one organ complex that has the same amount of every single organ, even though they have a different size in the animal doesn't really make sense. And then looking at the micronutrient composition of all those different organs, I figured, well, you know, heart and spleen, those two together, really give you the second biggest bang for your buck, because they cover a lot of the things that liver has in lesser amounts, maybe, in particular, heme iron, you mentioned before, you know, anemia. So spleen is the best, you know, supplement for that. And so by putting heart and spleen together, you know, you get 48% of your daily iron. And a lot of the other things that are in lesser that are in liver, but to a lesser extent, and so hard and spleen was the second product. And then I'm like, well, you know, what else is missing that most people, especially those who don't consume dairy, or bone in fish, like if you know, sardines and stuff, or that, you know, people who don't like to chew on bones, what are they potentially deficient in and you know, calcium and some of those trace minerals was a big thing. And so coming up with bone and mirror was the next obvious choice to have a to have the bone component, you know, if you eat nose to tail, I mean, you can find the muscle meat, not a problem, you know, you eat whatever you want to, then you get the organs, you know, the beef and heart and liver and the heart and spleen. And then you add the bone and marrow and then that completes, of course, there are many organs missing, but the biggest components you have covered with that, you know, from the animal. And so that was the third product. And then the last one was finally well in an organ mix actually does make a lot of sense. If you only want to take one and you don't have any specific issues, like, you know, if you're not anemic, if you don't need extra iron, if you don't need extra vitamin A, if you don't need extra, you know, this and that, then an organ mix makes a lot of sense. But instead of doing the same thing that many of the other brands did, you know, with just the same amount of for each of the individual organs, we actually did it so that it reflects the natural ratios of those organs in the animal. So it's a lot of liver, it's a little bit less heart, a little bit less kidneys, you know, two kidneys combined, because they weigh more than the spleen. And then the last one is the pancreas, which, you know, from those five is the smallest organ. And so we put the ratios in our product that mimics the animal. And so if you want to truly do nose to tail, you know, and you have your muscle meat covered, and you have your bone and marrow covered, you know, you pop the beef organs and you have, you know, your nose to tail eating approach.

Melanie Avalon:
That's so cool. And it's something, because like I said, I've been taking organ supplements on and off for years and years, and that is something I never saw with any of the other brands, them talking about the, the natural ratios. So that's so cool. And so, yeah. So for people like, cause Laura was asking, saying that she needed a clean source of iron and you just touched on it right now, but for people who are struggling with iron, so the spleen is more the route to go compared to the liver.

Michael Kummer:
Yes, I mean a lot of people have had success with with liver. You know, I mean, there is, you know, an ounce of liver, you get eight to 10 in a percent of your daily iron needs. But if you're really severely anemic, or have, you know, higher requirements for whatever reason, spleen is definitely the my recommendation over liver.

Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. And then I'm really interested in the bone and marrow supplement, especially because there's so much debate and controversy surrounding calcium absorption and how to get it in its most absorbable form. So have you found that in that whole foods form, it's absorbable for people?

Michael Kummer:
I mean, I would argue, so I mean, if our human history and evolution, if that's what you believe in, is any indication, then we would have gotten our calcium likely from ripping the meat off bones and eating some bone fragments, maybe by consuming whole fish, including the fish bone and everything in it. Maybe also the water was better. If you look at high quality European spring water, for example, and compare it, the mineral composition with tap water in the United States, excluding all of the toxins that are in tap water, but just the mineral content is nowhere near what you would get from natural spring water. I think our modern lives are just not very conducive to getting all of those minerals in trace amounts or in higher amounts. I think with any micronutrient, really, I would argue that coming from animal is the most bioavailable and readily absorbable form. Most of the nutrients and all of them, in reality, are equally or better absorbed from animals than from plants.

Melanie Avalon:
What water do you guys drink at your house?

Michael Kummer:
So we have a multi -stage filtration system in our homes. What we drink on a daily basis gets first filtered by a whole house filtration system that takes out most everything. And that's water I think is really perfectly fine to drink. And then we have several reverse osmosis with remineralization cartridges systems under various things that first strip the water of everything and then add some of the minerals back. But I would say that if you have access to clean spring water, and it doesn't come in plastic bottles, that's probably even better. And not probably it is better than having the cleanest filtered water and then having to put some of those trace minerals back in because you're not gonna be able to put everything back in that's part of natural water.

Melanie Avalon:
I live in an apartment right now, but one reason I would love to be somewhere more permanent is so that I could outfit my house with, you know, all that filtration. I actually get, if people don't notice, Whole Foods has a Whole Foods line of glass, bottle, mineral water, and it's pretty affordable. So I pretty much drink that as my daily go -to. It's funny, when I travel, the first thing I do is I go to Whole Foods and I get like so much water and it's so heavy. I'll have like my massive suitcase and then like, you know, just pounds and pounds of water or liters.

Michael Kummer:
It's unfortunate that in this country, having access to truly clean and healthy drinking water is a main challenge.

Melanie Avalon:
I know. I know. It's really, really unfortunate. We have a good question from Andrea as well. And you kind of touched on this as well, but she was wanting to know, is there a gold standard for supplementing or does it really depend on the particular nutrient you need? Are there any, quote, rules when it comes to supplementing? And I know you mentioned that, you know, people have specific issues or, you know, specific nutrient deficiencies that they can favor one or the other and then they can go the Oregon blend route, if not, but are there any other, are there any rules when it comes to supplementing with grass -fed supplements, organ supplements?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, I would say the rule is to supplement as little as possible and get most of your nutrients from whole foods. Supplements are meant to bridge any gaps that are either difficult or sometimes impossible to mitigate just because we want to live a certain way of life, a certain lifestyle. Most of us don't want to run around in the wild in a loincloth and hunt animals and find food in the wild. You have to kind of see how far you're willing to go and what you can bridge with supplements. As far as organs are concerned, I mean, again, you can find fresh organs in a lot of places. Whole Foods now even sells grass -fed liver, a little freezer compartment, funny enough, right next to the Beyond Burger finger. You can get that. They sell marrow bones. There's a lot of things you can get fresh. If you go to an Indian grocery store, you likely find goat organs. But if that's not your thing or convenience is more important than preparing and dealing with taste and texture, then there is nothing significantly wrong with you that you're aware of. I would go with a mix that has a couple of different organs to mimic what you would find in the animal and then see how you respond, see how you feel. Ultimately, everyone is a little bit different. Everyone has different deficiencies, different lifestyle, different diet, different micronutritional needs based on stress levels and exercise regimen and all of the things that make up our modern life. It's a little bit of a trial and error, but I would say if you buy one or use one supplement, beef organ supplement that is, then do an organ complex or liver. If budget is a concern and you want to get the least expensive route, make it liver and see how you feel.

Melanie Avalon:
Does your wife ever cook, like, hide organ meats in with, like, hamburger meat or anything like that? I know that's a route people go.

Michael Kummer:
Yes. We've done this a couple of times with meatballs, and you just have to figure out what ratio works for the adults versus for kids. Kids seem to be a little bit more suspicious when it comes to all flavors, so you probably have to play with it. I would start with very little and then increase the ratio. That's something we've been doing as well. There is also liverwurst. You mentioned it before. If that's a good product, a minimally processed product, that's better than no liver. There is pate. If you like it, I love it with cheese, so you can make it at home. It's fairly easy, or you can buy it. Just make sure it has decent ingredients and no added sugars and all kinds of stuff that you don't want to have. There are different ways of sneaking it in if neither the supplement nor the fresh or raw route is calling your name.

Melanie Avalon:
This is a tangent random question. I'm just getting hit with so talking to you about these foods. I'm getting hit with so many because like I said, my grandmother was German and I have so much family in Germany. And so these are the type of food conversations we would have in my family growing up, especially when we would go to Germany. I forgot which part of Germany are you from.

Michael Kummer:
I'm actually Austrian, so I'm just across the border from Salzburg, which is bordering to Bavaria.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, okay, gotcha. Similar vibe for everything. Are your kids bilingual?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, actually, trilingual, because my wife is Costa Rican, so she speaks Spanish with them and I German, and then the English is just based on where we live.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, my goodness, that's so cool. I feel like that's a skill I always wish that I that I had.

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, same here. I mean, you know, I had English, I had four years of French, you know, and I did absolutely not pay any attention whatsoever, couldn't care less. And now when I, you know, land in Paris, I'm like, you know, I can pick up like individual words or whatever. And I wish it would have paid attention, but

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, same. I took French. I think I could, like, if I were to go to France, I could read enough to get by, but beyond that, it's, yeah, it's not good. Do you travel with your family overseas?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, yeah. We travel, I mean, the last three years, four years, what has it been? Less, obviously. Generally speaking, we do travel quite a bit, typically once a year to Costa Rica and then once a year to Austria. Sometimes the kids and the wife go more often to Costa Rica and my family and her family come here. Every so often, so we do get around quite a bit, fortunately.

Melanie Avalon:
Do you find when you go to Austria, for example, because I know growing up for me, we would go to Germany all the time, the food, I didn't really like it over there. It felt really foreign to me and intense and I didn't like the flavors. Have you found that your kids, since you raised them differently here, do they like the food over there or do they also find barriers to it?

Michael Kummer:
No, they actually love it. I mean, everywhere we go, be it Costa Rica or Austria, I mean, really anywhere we go, they always like the food. You know, of course there are, there might be certain, you know, if you take them to Asia and you know, you feed them, you know, I don't know, snake or whatever, they might not like that. But beyond that, just a, you know, regular type of foods, westernized kind of foods, they do like very much, especially, you know, my both my moms and my wife's mom, you know, they're cooking, they absolutely love and always rave about how good the food at, you know, grandma or oma is.

Melanie Avalon:
It's like with your supplements. Do you take them with food or do you take them apart from food?

Michael Kummer:
Honestly, I mean, I usually take them with food. I don't really think it makes a huge difference. I mean, if you're fasting and you're very anal about it, you know, you could argue that the two grams of protein and the four capsules break your fast and, you know, kick you out of a topology and all of those things. Practically, I don't think it makes a difference, but since I don't see the needs taking them before, you know, I have my first meal, so I usually take them with my first meal and if I forget and then, you know, I take them with dinner or right before going to bed because I forgot for the second meal too, then, you know, I do that, so I don't really have any rhyme or reason on my supplement timing.

Melanie Avalon:
Do you take them if you were to have a meal out? Would you bring them with you or would you just have them at home?

Michael Kummer:
No, I have them at home and sometimes when I travel for shorter periods like if I'm gone for three days or whatever, I might not bring them at all because the thing is, routines are nice. Having access to all the good things all the time is nice, but not having it, I consider a hormetic stressor. We didn't have food. Our ancestors didn't walk up to the fridge and had a grass -fed ribeye and then organs and everything at their disposal all the time. Sometimes there was no food, sometimes there was crappy food, sometimes they had to eat nuts and seeds or some fibrous tuber or whatever to get by. I like to mimic that and keep it interesting, so to say, and not fall into a routine that would not be realistic from an ancestor perspective.

Melanie Avalon:
Do you think we could make the argument that having the occasional junk food meal is a hormetic stress?

Michael Kummer:
It definitely is a stress. I'm not convinced that it's a, I think it's a benign stress if you have it occasionally. I don't think it's a necessary stress though either. But there's a very, I mean, you could absolutely say that. I mean, if you say, you know, cold plunging exposure to, you know, freezing cold temperatures is a good stressor, then why not, you know, smoking a cigarette once a month, you know, or inhaling, you know, fume from an open fire, you know, or whatever, you know, it might be. There is an argument to be made. Here is my thing though. In our modern lives, we're exposed to so many stressors that we cannot mitigate or remove. So adding additional stressors on top unless they are very, you know, curated and particularly or, you know, chosen for a very good reason, I don't think is a smart idea. And that really also goes back to, you know, some of the good stressors like exercise, you know, I actually I used to work out every single day. Now I work out to a maximum three times a week. I haven't, you know, lost any strength. My physique doesn't look any different. You know, I'm not from a cardiovascular perspective, not in any worse condition than I ever was. I'm actually stronger and fitter than I ever was. Same goes with cold plunging, you know, if you're already stressed out and on the edge, and then jumping into a cold plunge and telling your body, you know, you're about to die in freezing cold water, might not be a super smart idea, you know, not saying that cold plunging is not cannot have benefits. But you have to use those things strategically. And you have to really figure out and assess how is my stress level? And does it make sense to do this right now? Or is it better that I stay home, I don't go work out, and I sleep two hours longer instead of, you know, exposing myself to all those good stressors that just put me farther over the edge.

Melanie Avalon:
100% I cannot agree more about the sleep thing in particular. Is it CrossFit that you're still doing the few times a week?

Michael Kummer:
I mean, that's my gym type of exercise, but here at home, I walk the dog usually twice a day. That's one and a half hours of just walking at a fairly decent pace. I lift feedbacks, I construct buildings for the animals and stuff. So I'm physically active really throughout the day, every single day, but redlining or pushing myself to my limit is typically two max, three times a week.

Melanie Avalon:
Speaking of sleep, are any of the organ supplements, do they contain melatonin?

Michael Kummer:
No, they do not.

Melanie Avalon:
Like, would there be an organ supplement that would contain melatonin?

Michael Kummer:
if you were you know maybe a brain supplement or isn't it pineal gland that the melatonin is

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was thinking like I've never seen a pineal gland organ supplement before.

Michael Kummer:
Yeah. I mean, I suppose if you have maybe in a whole brain or, you know, something like this and you, you know, whatever hormones are produced in that particular gland or organ, then you would get some of that for sure. I mean, it's the same way as you get testosterone by consuming testicles, you know, or, you know, or, you know, thyroid hormones by consuming thyroid tissue. So yes, I think that might actually make a lot of sense in the context also that, you know, the body produces only so much melatonin. And if I remember correctly, I just had a podcast interview with Dr. Kirk Parsley. And I think he mentioned that the human body at least produces six micrograms of melatonin as part of, you know, the circadian rhythm and winding down in the evening. The supplements that, you know, you would find over the counter is one milligram to 10 or, you know, there are even, you know, 50 milligrams of melatonin. Now, given not all of that is absorbed, but even if half of the one milligram is absorbed, that's still 500 times more than what your body would make. You know, so I'd argue that a, an organ supplement that naturally contains melatonin in the appropriate amount. Now, maybe that a cow produces more, or I don't even know if a cow produces melatonin, I suspect, but who knows? But let's assume the animal produces melatonin, you know, and it's somewhat in the same amount as humans. Then I think it would be the preferred way of, of delivering melatonin. If, you know, you need that to, I don't know, because you're traveling across time zones and you need to, you know, adjust your circadian rhythm or whatever, your, your sleep cycle, I should say, you cannot adjust your circadian rhythm. So yeah, I think there is an argument for that, but ours, as far as I know, don't have any melatonin.

Melanie Avalon:
It's so interesting because I've never seen a pineal gland organ supplement. I'm going to have to think about this some more.

Michael Kummer:
I'm not sure if that is being harvested separately and freeze -dried.

Melanie Avalon:
I don't even know how big the pineal gland is.

Michael Kummer:
I wouldn't even know exactly where to look for it in terms of if you see it in front of me. I probably wouldn't recognize it. But you know what? First time we'll butcher a cow, I'll go look for it.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, yeah, please do. Let me know. Oh, my goodness. So funny. Wait, so do you have a podcast or does Kirk have a podcast now?

Michael Kummer:
Well, no, he does not have one, and he said he will probably never will. But yes, I have the Primer Shift podcast I've started last year. So we are now in, what is it, episode 30 something, still fairly new, very much focused on, you know, bridging the gap between our ancestral kind of, you know, how we should be living versus what our modern lives allows us to and kind of, you know, mesh that together into something that is actually doable, especially in the context of a family. And that's, you know, what, what my podcast is focused on.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, that's super cool. I have to check it out. That's amazing. And yeah, I've had Kirk on the show. I don't know. I know him really well. So like four or five times. And I was like, I don't think he has a podcast. So that's super, super awesome. Would you ever make a brain supplement? Speaking of

Michael Kummer:
Yes, I mean, really, I'd like to have every single organ, you know, that's the thing is, you know, with bootstrapping everything, you know, and doing everything from scratch and growing organically without any, you know, external funding, I can only, you know, launch maybe two products a year or so. And so we are in the planning phase of the next product, I'm actually still awaiting feedback from our existing customer base, which is now, you know, a couple of thousand, fortunately. So we've been growing really well. And so I'm waiting what they have to say, what they'd like to see, and then see how that meshes with what I'd like to see. And how I think we can, you know, keep the brand growing. So we can then do the next thing. But there is one coming out, hopefully in the next three months, and then probably another one by the end of the year. And brain is is on the list. I love brain, obviously, you know, there again, I think brain is right up in the category as thyroid, you know, all the concerns about BSE and Matt, how to use these and all of those things. It's always a little iffy, especially if you want to ship internationally. But nevertheless, I do absolutely think brain supplements, you know, consuming brain is should be a no brainer. Pun intended.

Melanie Avalon:
Was this your first product brand that you created?

Michael Kummer:
Yes, yes. Yeah, I mean, besides, you know, my, you know, Michael Coomer brand, if you will, that I haven't really, you know, I didn't really start the brand. It was just that everything was, you know, all my blogging stuff was in my name. And so it kind of naturally became the brand. But the real, you know, brand, especially with the physical product, yeah, MK supplements was the first one.

Melanie Avalon:
I did the same thing with having my name and the title. I'm just wondering if you have been experiencing, like for me, it was so exciting to launch my first supplement. And then I was just like, the world is my oyster. Like I want to make all the things. Like it's so, I just really enjoy the process. Do you enjoy the process?

Michael Kummer:
Absolutely, creating something. Back in the days, I was in IT and dabbled a little bit with writing software and stuff, and it's the same principle. You do something, you create something, and then it exists, and people want it, and people buy it, and they give you feedback, sometimes bad, but mostly good. You reiterate, you improve, and it's awesome. I think we are all creators by nature, and then finding an outlet and finding a way that allows you to make a living from that is absolutely priceless.

Melanie Avalon:
It's so exciting. I don't know if you remember the first moment of having your supplement crystallized in real life form, but I was like, wow, it's so crazy that it goes from an idea in your head to this physical thing. It was a moment for me with my first one.

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, I still have the screenshot of the first notification from Shopify when the first order came in. I mean, that was really, that was the thing. I'm like, Oh yeah, we in business. And then it took a while for the second order, but nevertheless, first one was exciting.

Melanie Avalon:
just got to keep on keeping on is the actual because I know the sourcing is New Zealand is the creation of the capsules and everything in New Zealand as well or is it over here in the U .S. you

Michael Kummer:
That's here in New York. So we get basically drums of the raw powder shipped in. I mean, they are, you know, realistically, they are, you know, there is the company that frees, they are the ranchers, you know, it's usually, you know, as part of the co -op where they, you know, they ranch together and then, you know, sell their products to a freestrier. They freestry everything according to specifications. And then they import it here in the US, you know, does all the custom stuff, you know, imports it here. And then they, we buy them from the importer, you know, and do the manufacturing here. Not complicated, but there are a couple of steps in between that you want to be aware of and then keep an eye on.

Melanie Avalon:
When you have your cattle, will you freeze dry yourself, any of those organs?

Michael Kummer:
Yes. I mean, it's not going to be enough to make supplements because there's only one liver in a cow. But we definitely will freeze dry just from a, not paranoia, but being prepared perspective. We had, I think it was last year or two years ago, maybe three days of power outage and suddenly then during the pandemic, toilet paper was gone for, I don't know why, because people apparently poop more when they can't go to the office. And so too, we want to keep some food in stock, our own food. So if there is an outage or whatever, we have some of, we have access to that stuff. And so freeze drying is going to be one of the things that we'll be doing with meat in general, but also with organs.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, that's something I really recommend to listeners because I have a chest freezer that I think I actually ordered it on Amazon, because I remember before I got one, I was like, well, that sounds like a big deal to get an entire separate chest freezer, but it fits so nicely in my apartment. It's like not too big, but I can fit so much meat in there. So I really recommend that to people.

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, just make sure you have some sort of, you know, backup in case the power goes out, because we had at the time, two chest freezers, and we had to move them to France when the power didn't come back after two and a half days and they were starting to thaw and so now we have fortunately, you know, solar panels with a battery backup so we can, you know, sustain any power outage. We won't even notice it, but at the time there was a concern and actually then funny enough, you know, we got the freezers back and I put everything back together, was happy that the meat survived and then accidentally forgot to turn one of the freezer chests on and later I had a puddle of blood underneath and we lost probably $1 ,000 worth of grass -fed meat and I'm like, okay, it was a mistake that we shall not repeat.

Melanie Avalon:
not make that one again. Oh my goodness. Wow. And was it difficult to outfit with the solar panels?

Michael Kummer:
No, we got them from Tesla. They did everything. It's not an easy process because there's a lot of red tape and bureaucracy. We're actually among the first few customers of Tesla because the whole can you connect solar power and can you then sell excess energy back to the grid and all of that, the Georgia power needs to improve, the municipality needs to improve, in our case, in the city of Milton. It was a whole project, spanned over, I think, a year or so. It took forever. Maybe now it's quicker. I hope it is, but it was quite involved. The actual installation process was fairly straightforward. They knocked that out in maybe two days, set everything up, and it's good to go.

Melanie Avalon:
Wow, is that something that they're looking to roll out more, assuming that it gets through with legalities and stuff?

Michael Kummer:
I think so. One thing to keep in mind is there are certain areas in this country that benefit more from solar than Georgia because your power is relatively inexpensive and sun is not as prevalent or at least not at the right angles than maybe in California. I want to say that from a return of investment perspective, I doubt that it's worth it here in Georgia. In particular, maybe on our roof because our roof is not facing the south. So we are east and west. And so we had to kind of take a hit on that. If your house is perfectly aligned in our roof line to the south and et cetera, it might be worth it. But for us, it was more like a backup kind of thing. In case there is an outage, we are not affected. That was what we were willing to pay for rather than making money with solar or not or having zero electricity bill.

Melanie Avalon:
So in the future, when this is more readily available, if people have the right roofs and everything, you can actually, you said you sell back the power.

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, I mean, again, it depends on the jurisdiction or how much they pay you for, because very often they don't pay you what you pay the electricity for. So they pay you less than what you pay it, what you pay to get it. But I mean, I know that in Austria, I mean, completely different jurisdiction, obviously, but there are a lot of people who started out making a lot of money putting on solar panels on their roof because electricity is so expensive and they produce so much that they actually made a lot of money every single month by just selling back to the grid. Now they're changing their laws and now all of those might get pissed off because they might not have an investment that doesn't make any money or not as much. But again, it depends on your in California, high energy costs, et cetera, might be worth it in Florida or here might not be worth it. So you really have to do the numbers, crunch the numbers and see if it makes sense. But yes, the possibility does exist.

Melanie Avalon:
That's super cool. I'm so inspired. Oh my goodness. Is there any other cool little techniques that you implement into your family's life that people can adopt into their own life to make it more, you know, combat the stressors of our modern lifestyles?

Michael Kummer:
I mean, the big thing is I believe is to get comfortable doing a lot of things differently than most everyone else. That's the most challenging part of all of that because healthy living or living healthily is not rocket science. It's super easy, but incredibly difficult to implement. And so if you learn to be uncomfortable by just being different, I think that's a major thing. And, you know, doing less, I mean, for us, you know, homeschooling the kids or we actually unschool them so we don't have a fixed curriculum, but taking them out of, you know, the grind. I mean, I took myself out of the grind when I, you know, quit my day job and pursued the supplements business, the blogging business, you know, all of that. My wife has always been a stay -home mom. So by removing yourself from the grind, it's a major de -stressor. And the less you are stressed, I believe that the more capable your body is to deal with all of the other things, you know, to handle maybe foods that might not be ideal for you or less than ideal and, you know, environmental toxins and everything. But the more you get out of the grind, the more you get your head clear and can make, you know, really decisions based on what you think is right versus what you, you know, everyone else starts and you kind of feel like you have to take along because otherwise you're going to be the odd man out or odd woman out. I think that's, that has been for us a real game changer and the more you get out, the more eye -opening it is looking, you know, at what's going on from the outside. Not, you know, we're not conspiracy theorists or anything, but just looking at what's happening and the state of health everyone is in and how we are doing now and what we are doing to maintain that health, it's day and night and it's not a struggle for us to do that. We thoroughly enjoy doing that. Of course, nothing is perfect. There are struggles everywhere, but in comparison, it's so much better, you know, just doing things a little bit differently and finding a group of people that are also doing things differently and so you don't feel like you're the only one.

Melanie Avalon:
This is so empowering. I just, I so enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much. You are so kind. So listeners, if you would like to get your own MK supplements, again, cannot recommend it enough, especially after hearing all of this conversation, you can see why these are really, really, could be an incredible tool in your dietary arsenal to fill in those nutritional gaps that we might have with today's diet. So you can use the coupon code Melanie Avalon that will get you 15% offsite wide. And that will also, if you get a subscription, which his subscriptions are 10% off, that will get you 15% off that first order as well. So that's definitely a route to go. I highly recommend that.

Michael Kummer:
One more thing to mention, because that's something we run off Minter, is we offer free shipping. Domestically, if the order value is $100 after discounts and before taxes, and we have a lot of customers that enter in the subscription and say, well, but I don't need three bottles, let's say, to get over the threshold. And of course, with this subscription, you can set your delivery schedule to whatever you want it to be. Initially, you have to pick, I think, 45, 90 or 135 days and our supplements last for 45 days. But after that, once you've signed up or purchased, you can go in, log in and change it to 300 days or whatever you want to, so that you can get more product, free shipping, including the discount, and then you don't end up with more product than you can actually end up using.

Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. So definitely, definitely go that subscription route. That is awesome. And again, the coupon code is Melanie Avalon. And the website is shop .MichaelKumer .com. So that's shop .Michael, M -I -C -H -A -E -L, Kumer, K -U -M -M -E -R .com. And we will put links to all of that in the show notes as well. Any other links that you like to put out there for people to follow your work?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, I mean, if you remove the shop dot, then you end up on my blog. You know, that's where I put out, you know, most of my content. I have also a YouTube channel in my name that you should be able to find. I'm on Instagram. If you're interested in interested in homesteading or those kind of things, we have a comer homestead YouTube channel as well as a comer homestead Instagram. So if that's your jam, you know, follow us there and check us out. So you can get a kind of an idea of what it takes to grow some of your own food. It's always fun, you know, and always a learning experience. So those are, I think the resources I would, I would like to share.

Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. Well, we'll put links to all of that in the show notes. And yeah, it's just so, so cool. Is there anything else you wanted to mention about your supplements or anything else that the listeners should know?

Michael Kummer:
No i mean if you any questions you know reach out to us there's a contact page on the shop as well as on my blog you know my kid michael comer dot com if you want to shoot me an email if you have any questions you know more than happy to help you know i'm not trying to sell you stuff you don't need you know fresh is always best so. But you know we got you covered if you don't like the texture organs.

Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. Well, the last question that I ask every single guest on this show, and it's just because I realize more and more each day how important mindset is. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Michael Kummer:
to be having the opportunity of doing what I'm doing. That's really, you know, I wake up every, not every morning, but a lot of mornings and I'm like, I get to choose what I do today. Most people don't. And I also, in that, you know, so that's what I'm grateful for, but at the same time, I think with the right mindset, because you brought it up, you can get there as well, you know? And it's, for me, it was all about visualizing where I wanna be, you know, and how, and visualizing more, I think that's maybe the most important part, visualizing how I will feel once I've accomplished whatever I wanted to accomplish. So feeling already how it will be, hopefully in the future, tricks your mind into thinking that event has already happened and it sets you up mentally from getting, from where you are to where you wanna be.

Melanie Avalon:
I love that so much. I'd heard something about that psychology -wise that, you know, feeling certain feelings, like the time part of your brain doesn't know if it's happening now or then. So, wow. Well, thank you so much, Michael. This has been so amazing. I'm so grateful for what you're doing. And I'm really excited to see, you know, the continued evolution of the supplements and everything that you are doing. And I can't wait to hear listeners' feedback from this episode because this was just so, so fun. So, again, for listeners, go to shop .michaelkumer .com. Use the coupon code MelanieAvalon to get 15% off site -wide, including 15% off that for a subscription order, free shipping over $100. Yeah. Well, thank you for your time. This has been so amazing. Hopefully, we can meet up some time since we're in similar locations. I know you're in Milton, so it's a bit ways out.

Michael Kummer:
We're going to be even farther out than in the future, but right now, yes, we're in Milton. Maybe one more thing before I forget, maybe in a Primer Shift podcast .com. That's maybe the other thing I would like to point people to, the Primer Shift podcast.

Melanie Avalon:
Primal Shift podcast. Okay, awesome. I'll have to check that out. Super cool. Where are you guys moving with the move?

Michael Kummer:
We're going to be up in the area of Manlo Somerville, which is north of Rome, not sure if you're familiar with, but it's literally one mile away from the state line to Alabama and about a couple of miles north of us would be Tennessee. So, it's all the way up there in the corner.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay. Wow. That's quite a move. Oh my goodness. Are you going to move all the animals with you?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, I mean, we'll see where they are in their life cycle, if it makes sense to put them in the freezer or bring them, I mean, the bees likely we're going to bring. The chickens, we'll see. If they're still laying, then we'll ship them up, but yeah, that's going to be a major project that we are very much looking forward to as the next segment of our lives.

Melanie Avalon:
Wait, so the bees, when you move them, are they okay with that or do they, like, I just know I was listening to a Joe Rogan episode and he was talking about how, I guess they were doing an episode of Fear Factor and they, like, brought in bees for some competition and the bees had to, like, they had to, like, not fight it out, but they had to, like, deal with a local bee colony and, like, converse and, like, establish themselves. I just don't know, like, moving bees, have you researched that yet?

Michael Kummer:
Yeah, so it's not that of a big deal. I mean, what bees do is they orient themselves by landmarks and, you know, how the sun is and how the sun looks, etc. So they are, they are very skilled navigators. And so when you move them a certain distance away from where they currently are, then they will have to reorient themselves. So what they do is, you know, they come out, let's say if you move them at night, which is the ideal, you know, or in winter when they are not active, when they're all in the hive, you know, you move them, you pack them up, you move them. When they first come out, they'll realize, whoops, I don't know where I am. And so they start doing like this orientation flights until everyone else know, you know, where there's food, where there's water, etc. And so that takes a little bit of adjustment. Obviously, if there are colonies nearby, I don't think they're gonna, I mean, there was something like robbing where they, you know, one would attack, one hive would attack the other. But usually when there are enough resources, that's not really an issue.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh my goodness. So many things you don't ever think about. So cool. Well, thank you so much. This has been so delightful and I wish you the best with everything that you're doing and hopefully we can talk again in the future.

Michael Kummer:
Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Melanie Avalon:
Thanks, Michael. Bye. Bye.