Dirty Secrets of Chain Restaurants | Chef Andrew Gruel

Summary

Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - Episode Summary

Title: Dirty Secrets of Chain Restaurants | Chef Andrew Gruel
Release Date: March 14, 2025
Guest: Chef Andrew Gruel, Food Network Star and Founder of Slapfish

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1. Tipping Culture and Restaurant Economics

The episode begins with Alex Clark addressing the overwhelming tipping culture in the U.S. restaurant industry. He questions the necessity of tipping high percentages for even minimal services, such as a coffee.

Notable Quote:

Chef Andrew Gruel [00:03]: "Government gets highly involved in the way in which somebody does business and then you end up having these unintended consequences I.e. tip screens every single place you go."

Chef Gruel explains that mandatory labor laws and increased minimum wages, especially after the pandemic, have pressured restaurants to shift more costs to customers through tipping. This reliance on tips as a wage subsidy has become pervasive, leading to tip screens appearing everywhere.

2. Chef Gruel’s Background and Food Philosophy

Alex delves into Chef Gruel's journey, exploring how his education in environmental literature and philosophical studies influenced his approach to food and sustainability.

Notable Quote:

Chef Andrew Gruel [03:59]: "Who knows, what is food about now? In the early or late '90s, early 2000s, there was this big movement called the slow food movement in Italy."

Chef Gruel recounts his involvement with the slow food movement, emphasizing the importance of heirloom practices and sustainable agriculture. His apprenticeship and global culinary experiences deepened his understanding of the food system's flaws, leading him to focus on sustainability and local sourcing.

3. Sustainable Seafood and Health Concerns

The conversation shifts to the seafood industry's sustainability issues. Chef Gruel highlights the dangers of imported seafood, citing low FDA inspection rates and the prevalence of harmful chemicals.

Notable Quote:

Chef Andrew Gruel [08:37]: "80% of the seafood in the United States is imported. It's probably coming from China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand."

He warns against the quality and safety of imported seafood, advocating for consumers to seek locally sourced options or those from reputable regions like Canada and Mexico, where sustainable practices are more enforced.

4. Challenges in Chain Restaurants: The Red Lobster Example

Chef Gruel critiques the operational practices of chain restaurants like Red Lobster, shedding light on their reliance on imported seafood and lack of genuine sustainability efforts.

Notable Quote:

Chef Andrew Gruel [11:19]: "They invested millions of dollars into trying to farm lobster in East Asia and it didn't work."

He suggests that for chains like Red Lobster to thrive, they need to prioritize sustainable sourcing, such as exclusively serving Maine lobster and revising their cooking practices to use healthier fats like beef tallow.

5. Food Policy and Government Regulations

The discussion turns to the impact of government policies on the food industry. Chef Gruel criticizes regulations like PAGA in California, which he believes disadvantage small businesses and promote corporate monopolies.

Notable Quote:

Chef Andrew Gruel [27:37]: "PAGA has ripped businesses off left and right."

He advocates for deregulation to empower small and medium-sized farmers, arguing that reducing governmental control would foster a more diverse and sustainable food system.

6. Seed Oils and Cooking Practices

Chef Gruel expresses strong opinions against seed oils, arguing that they contribute to chronic diseases due to their high Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio.

Notable Quote:

Chef Andrew Gruel [35:33]: "The only salt we shouldn't be eating is the salt that's baked into processed foods. Because it's all this chemically laden salt and it's hidden."

He promotes the use of natural fats like beef tallow and emphasizes the importance of quality ingredients and cooking techniques to enhance flavor without relying on harmful additives.

7. Culinary Tips and Family Cooking

The episode offers practical cooking advice, blending professional techniques with family-friendly practices. Chef Gruel shares tips on preparing scrambled eggs, grilled cheese, and other everyday meals, highlighting the importance of using fresh ingredients and proper techniques to elevate simple dishes.

Notable Quote:

Chef Andrew Gruel [63:14]: "The cold pan means that the proteins slowly coagulate. They don't come together really hard. And that's what gives your eggs that silky smooth finish that you get at, like, a French brasserie."

Additionally, he discusses the significance of involving children in cooking to develop their appreciation for quality food and sustainable practices.

8. Tackling Food Industry Corruption and Policy Change

Chef Gruel advocates for reducing governmental interference to dismantle monopolistic control over the food industry. He believes that decentralizing the food system and supporting local producers will combat corruption and enhance food quality.

Notable Quote:

Chef Andrew Gruel [41:30]: "Get rid of the government? I mean, I know that sounds crazy because."

He proposes that deregulating food contracts and supporting local farmers can lead to a more transparent and equitable food distribution system.

9. Final Thoughts and Remedies for Healing Culture

Concluding the episode, Chef Gruel emphasizes the power of community and shared experiences through cooking as a remedy for a "sick culture." He suggests that cooking together fosters understanding and unity, serving as a foundation for societal healing.

Notable Quote:

Chef Andrew Gruel [70:25]: "To cook more together with everybody, whether you agree with them or disagree with them. So starting with your family, going out to other circles, I think bringing people together through food."

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Conclusion

In this insightful episode, Chef Andrew Gruel provides a candid examination of the challenges facing the restaurant industry, particularly concerning tipping culture, sustainability, and governmental regulations. His advocacy for local sourcing, sustainable practices, and community-driven solutions offers a roadmap for transforming the food landscape. Listeners gain valuable perspectives on how individual choices and systemic changes can collectively heal and improve America's dining culture.

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Follow-Up and Additional Content

For those interested in exploring more of Chef Gruel's insights and culinary expertise, he regularly shares content on his X accounts:

• Chef Gruel on X
• Lauren Gruel on X

Listeners can also engage with his upcoming cooking shows, including the latest episodes of "American Gravy," featuring collaborations with other experts and influencers in the food and wellness sectors.

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This summary provides a comprehensive overview of the episode's key discussions, highlighting Chef Gruel's expertise and perspectives on the intricate dynamics of the restaurant industry and food policy.

Transcript

[Alex Clark]

You agree that tipping culture is completely out of control.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

They started making sure that you would tip in every single area so you could subsidize their wages. Government gets highly involved in the way in which somebody does business and then you end up having these unintended consequences I.e. tIP screens every single place you go.

[Alex Clark]

What's the real deal when it comes to eating seafood in America? Are Michelin stars all they're cracked up to be? Or is it all just hype? And why has tipping culture become so out of control? If these are the burning questions on your mind, you're in for a treat. Today we're sitting down with the one and only Chef Andrew Gruel. A Food Network star and the founder of Slapfish, the wildly popular seafood chain with over 15 locations. Chef Gruel is here to spill the secret behind the seafood industry, restaurant culture and a whole lot more. Trust me, you're not going to want to miss this. From politics to Maha, he has an answer for everything. He's teamed up with Brave Books to create a brand new family, Christian and conservative based cookbook that's all about creating nourishing meals kids will love to cook and eat. Get ready for an eye opening conversation about food, family and the future of dining in America. Watch this episode on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or culture Apothecary on Spotify. And don't forget, leave a five star review to support the show for free. Or if you are an OG fan and you wanna support in a really big way, we are completely donor funded. If you donate to the show in the link through the description, it will be tax deductible. It is tax season. So something to consider. Please welcome celebrity chef Andrew Gruel to Culture Apothecary. You own your own restaurant, you are a professional chef and yet you agree that tipping culture is completely out of control. How did we get here? How do we stop it? For God's sakes, why do I have to tip single person 20, 25% now every time I go out for even a coffee?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well, it actually stems from a lot of the mandatory labor laws and everything that's happening within kind of the labor framework in the restaurant industry, especially through the pandemic. Because if you remember, during the pandemic, it was all about like, we need to pay more and we need a living wage. There was a massive control in the media with like this kind of quasi socialist Bolshevik workers movement. And it took place in the restaurant industry because we were one of the only industries that was open. I recall this because I Remember going on Tucker, and saying that part of the reason people weren't working was because they were getting so much in unemployment benefits and the government was subsidizing people not to work. And that was when we started getting like death threats and emails. It was like, screw you, we're going to come after you. We're going to. They showed up at our businesses, I mean, true story, right? Just from speaking out about in that regard. And it was all about the big bad business owner. So then the states came in, especially places like California, New York, Michigan, and they started increasing all of these mandatory minimums, not just with wages, but also like time off requests and then like paid time off, which is a certain calculation, especially in California. And the costs got so high on these businesses that they could no longer pay above this new mandatory minimum wage. And so they started pushing it off to the guests. They started making sure that you would tip in every single area so you could subsidize their wages. So in a way the businesses are subsidizing, but by virtue of all of this government control within the food and restaurant industry. So sorry, long winded answer for your your come in question. But that's technically how it happens. So in conclusion, government gets highly involved in the way in which somebody does business and then you end up having these unintended consequences, I. E. Tip screens every single place you go.

[Alex Clark]

So as a professional chef, I mean, tell me a little bit about your story. Like did you always have your eyes open to big food or did that come later on in your career?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Always, always. So actually like the movement and my interest in food and food systems started first. I went to a small liberal arts college. I studied environmental literature and piano performance philosophy. Like I was like that guy, you.

[Alex Clark]

Got that piano player look. I'm not shocked to hear you say that. You literally could play a piano player in a movie or something.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

It's the weird fingers. But I've cut most of them off now in the kitchen. But it was, it's funny because it was up in Maine, right? Like New England, small private school. And like I always make the joke that I was basically being indoctrinated to protest capitalism, but my eyes had opened up because I was involved in politics in high school, model un, youth and government, all of that. And came from like a very kind of faith based family. I had my eyes open to it. And when I got into like the environment and the environmental element of it and understanding where our food comes from, I realized that, whoa, something's wrong. And that's When I started looking at it more from that big, massive corporate consolidation perspective and what's really happening then, totally independently, I got into food and food systems. I was lobstering when I was up in Maine. I was spending more time in the kitchen than I was in class. I loved the kind of pirate ship nature of, like, the back of the house, like Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. All that stuff was real. When I got into kitchen, fell in love with it. That was the art element. And went right into culinary arts. Dropped out of college. But all while I was then in food, going through, doing my apprenticeship, traveling around the world, cooking, I was thinking about, where does this come from? Right. Like, what is food about now? In the early or late 90s, early 2000s, there was this big movement called the slow food movement in Italy.

[Alex Clark]

Yes. And I vaguely remember hearing this.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

It was like the Little snail was their logo. And basically what they did was it was this organization of just heirloom restaurants and chefs and food producers that came together and were like, we're going to certify restaurants and food production places with this little snail. And it means that it has to be like an heirloom seed and everything has to be done according to tradition. Very European, right? Like Tuscan, French. And I got obsessed with that because they started producing publications, literature, not books, but like magazines and publications. And then me and my friends would trade them and be like, oh, did you get the new slow movement, like publication? And you read about what they're doing in all these areas in Europe, and I got obsessed with it. And I'm like, why aren't we doing that here in the United States? And this was back in like 2001. 2002.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah. It was really early in GMOs had just came on the scene.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Mid 90s was when they started introducing all that. That engineering, and it hadn't even been talked about. And you're right. So that. That was. And then Alice Water started speaking out about it. Who. Who's a prolific leftist in the. In the. The political space. But from a food perspective, what she was doing. Wolfgang Puck, some of the kind of California culture and cuisine in the. In the late 1980s, early 90s, 1990, 19 my 1800s, 19s. Yeah, there we go. What they were doing was at the forefront of that. And that's the era in which I was studying from those types of chefs. So it was always inherent in what I did. It was just about quality, sustainability, serving the right types of food and thinking about the regeneration of Agriculture.

[Alex Clark]

Did you have an aha moment as a chef? Like, what the hell am I feeding people?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah, that was probably in 2008, 2009. So the economy took a turn and I was running a couple restaurants in New Jersey and I lost my job. I was like, I'm either going to go restaurant, open a restaurant in New York City, or I'm going to follow through on a passion project of mine. Always knew it was food, but I also love the ocean, where food connects with the ocean, marine stewardship, and the way in which our food actually in many cases always stitches back to the ocean. So I started a non profit at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, fourth largest aquarium in the United States. And our focus was on getting chefs to serve more sustainable seafood. Right. The right types of seafood, and educating chefs and consumers on the food system by way of seafood. And it was in that role that I started working with a lot of the major NGOs and nonprofit organizations to understand the flow of communication from government down through the NGOs to the consumer. And it was at that point where I had my aha moment. I realized there's only three or four people controlling all of this.

[Alex Clark]

Yes.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And you can look at it on a micro level with each industry or on a grand level with just our food system. But like it's this, that way with seafood, food manufacturing, food policy, everything. It's just like a little bit of money that just keeps. Well, it's a lot of money, but a little bit of people and it recirculates and then that information. And my role was to educate consumers, in addition to chefs, on everything food policy related with a focus on seafood. And it was at that time I realized how consumers are completely brainwashed about where our food comes from or they don't know.

[Alex Clark]

What do you mean by consumers are brainwashed about where food comes from?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

So they don't even understand where our food. Like most consumers think that when they're eating at a restaurant in California, the fish is coming from that water right there.

[Alex Clark]

Where's it coming from?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

80% of the seafood in the United States is imported. It's probably coming from China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand.

[Alex Clark]

And why does that matter? Like, does it impact the quality of the food?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well, it's the quality. Right? So number one, we can look at just the fact that only 2% of all imports, seafood imports are inspected by the FDA. So if you did a random subsample of like any of these imports, you're going to find tons of antibiotic residue, malachite green, which is like a fertilizer. I mean, all of these horrible chemicals have shown up drugs. Like, you'll actually find like cocaine residue in some of this stuff, especially some of the, the Latin American imports, because the FDA can only inspect like 2%. So that's number one. Number two, we have the best fishermen and food producers here in the United States, but yet we're exporting all of our seafood.

[Alex Clark]

Would you say then that the majority of seafood you're buying and consuming the United States, you wouldn't even touch it? Like, you've got to be strategic about where it's coming from or seafood would maybe be bad for your health.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah. And the problem with that message, why I don't go too bold on that message, is that it's all about externalities, right? And change and trading consequences and negatives. So if I start telling everybody, don't eat any seafood at all, then what are they going to eat? They're going to eat chicken, beef, pork, which is much higher in omega sixes, which is only going to perpetuate that whole, like Omega 6 to Omega 3 issue, which is what happens with the seed oils, right? That imbalance of sixes to threes that leads to inflammation. I don't want people to be afraid of seafood, but yes, you are 100% correct.

[Alex Clark]

So if somebody is eating at a regular, conventional, like, chain restaurant in the United States, what is going to be the best option for me on the menu and the worst?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

First of all, I would ask right off the bat, like, is anything here us wild, right? Like, is it caught in the U.S. and if they say yes, which there's always going to be an option that's like a US Seafood species, then I would go with that. If not, I would get something from Canada or Mexico. And I know we're in this, like, kind of debate about imports and exports and tariffs, but like Canada and Mexico and Canada, you have the Department of Fish and Oceans. And in, in Mexico, they abide by most of our sustainable seafood standards that we mandate that they do that, so we take their imports in. So I would say that generally, like in the continent, like nafta, right? We're doing the right thing with a lot of these fish stocks in this region. So those. That would be secondary or I would just go for. I would ask about the meat, right? Like, I would. I would order. I'm always going to go with beef over chicken. And then knowing where, what farm it comes from, like, where does it come from? What was it fed? Because even though like you can eat a ton of beef and chicken, which is fine, but a lot of them are grain fed now.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

So you're going to have that higher omega 6 profile, but I'll still take that any day over, like the Chinese tilapia or sway or what have you.

[Alex Clark]

What is the real story about the lobsters at Red Lobster?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

They invested millions of dollars into trying to farm lobster in East Asia and it didn't work. And then what they did was they actually bought into the supply chain. So they actually started buying a lot of the seafood distributors so that they could vertically integrate. They've got operations overseas, Thai union that they're importing a lot of their seafood. So a lot of the lobster is the main or New England lobster. But then a lot of the lobster is also like slipper lobster or rock lobster, warm water lobster that's brought in from overseas. If you want to eat real lobster, you gotta eat Maine lobster. Oh, and that's lobster with the claws on.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

It's easy to differentiate.

[Alex Clark]

Now, there's a great place that I love anytime. Every single time I'm in New York City, I have to go to Chelsea Market. And there is a. There's a lobster place in there.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Do you know what?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

It's like the lobster pot or it.

[Alex Clark]

Might be like the lobster palace or the lobster. It might be the lobster market or something like that. And you get, you know, a little like paper boat and they give you the lobster with the claws on. And I will sit there and I will eat one. And I look forward to it every trip. Every time I'm. I'm there, I have to go there. It's my place.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah. And that's great because that's the main lobster fishery, is the most iconic fishery in the United States. And it is the prime example of how fishermen can manage their own resources as opposed to like a shadow government. Right. So when the government comes in and says, here's all the standards, here's your catch quota, and like, you know, you're fine if you do X, Y and Z. The fishermen are thinking, we're the guys out on the ocean. We're the ones taking care of the environment. We don't need this random guy sitting in an office in Washington D.C. to tell us what to do based on some number he put into a spreadsheet. We need, it is inherent in our job to make sure that the stock that we're fishing is sustainable for our future generations so that our kids have jobs and they can take the fishing boat out so why would we overfish our own stocks? And what's cool about the Maine lobster fishery is, like, the fishermen have all these little mechanisms by which, like, for example, they'll pull a lobster out that maybe has eggs or that's too small, they'll put a notch in the tail so that other fishermen know if they pull that same lobster and they see a notch in the tail, throw it back. That's not a government tool, a government control piece. Those are the fishermen themselves. So it's kind of this public versus private property approach where if we as citizens can manage our resources better than an a priori or. Or kind of a shadowy government.

[Alex Clark]

Would you eat crawfish?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah, the crawfish out of Louisiana. I mean, US Crawfish, not Chinese crawfish.

[Alex Clark]

Red Lobster is struggling. Like, they're closing restaurants left and right. So if you were to all of a sudden overnight inherit Red Lobster and take it over and say, okay, I've got one shot to revive this chain, what would you do?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

That is a one I think about a lot, actually. Mainly because the first thing I would do is I would hire Jesse Kelly on as the CEO of Red Lobster.

[Alex Clark]

Jesse Kelly from Texas? The commentator?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Jesse Kelly from the first.

[Alex Clark]

Why?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Because all he does is talk about Red Lobster. He's. He says it's the.

[Alex Clark]

Like, I didn't know.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, like, if you right now went online and typed Red Lobster, what. What's the first thought that came to mind? I guarantee you your comment section would be Jesse Kelly.

[Alex Clark]

Hilarious.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah.

[Jesse Kelly]

People do not appreciate Red Lobster. It's thought of as some kind of.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I don't know why.

[Jesse Kelly]

I don't know why it's not thought of where it should be as the pinnacle of American cuisine. Look, it's hard. Try not to get choked up. Red Lobster, you know, the premier seafood restaurant in the United States of America, they're filing for bankruptcy. Chapter 11 bankruptcy. So it hurts to see this happen to an American institution like this. I don't know how I personally will go on, but I will try. Red Lobster has been the peak of American seafood forever, and I am legit upset about it. Red Lobster, they're not only out of bankruptcy, they're out of bankruptcy with a brand new CEO. If you're one of the people who very rudely emailed me.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Ha ha ha.

[Jesse Kelly]

Jesse, your favorite restaurant's going down. Well, eat your words now.

[Alex Clark]

And you know what?

[Jesse Kelly]

I have something else to say. If you're one of the people who mocked Red Lobster to me, you don't get to eat there ever again. You are banned from Red Lobster.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Me?

[Jesse Kelly]

Well, that's where you'll find me this.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Friday, like, all the time. And it's hilarious, too, because he'll be like, I took my wife out to the finest restaurant in the United States. And it's like a picture of the two of them at Red Lobster.

[Alex Clark]

Yes. Okay. So you're putting him as the spokes guy in the commercials, and he's very funny and dynamic. So he would pop off the screen.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Literally pop off, because he's like. He's like 7 foot 11.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Then the next thing that I would do is, is that I would connect with five or 10 local fisheries or docks around the United States, and I would say we are exclusively serving these five or six US Species for the next six months. Right. I'd call it the summer of sustainability. And I would tell the story about those fish, and that's. That's the fish on the menu. Then I would say, we are only serving Maine lobster. I would make sure that we had, like, Maine lobsterman in pictures of the Maine lobster.

[Alex Clark]

Like, you're getting rid of the biscuits or. Or what?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

No, no, I would keep the biscuits. I would keep the bis. I would use beef tallow. I wouldn't use the. I'm pretty sure that they use palm oil, palm oil, or soybean oil. So I'd redo that recipe. I would switch all the fryers to tallow only.

[Alex Clark]

This is a dream.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And I would do, like, fried clams, New England clam bellies. I would do fried clam rolls, lobster rolls. I would create a menu that was, like, $5 to $15, where you can go in and get a fried clam roll and a basket of, like, tallow fries. Right. So now we can bring in more people so they can eat good food that's approachable and make it all American. Like, feature the fishermen. Because right now, I know for a fact probably shouldn't say too much, but a significant amount of red lobster seafood is imported.

[Alex Clark]

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[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Okay.

[Alex Clark]

And like so it was like a big deal Christmas Eve. I mean you were fine dining if you were going to like Longhorn or Red Lobster. That's how I grew up. And then anytime I go back and visit my mom or my family, that's, it's like the same type of thing. And now I'm like trying to introduce them. I'm like, let's go to sweet green. Have you heard of this? Like I'm trying to like introduce my family to other things. It's, it's been very interesting.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

So we know Indiana very well. We opened three restaurants there. Oh, where tell we were, we were, we were in Indianapolis proper and then we were up in Carmel.

[Alex Clark]

Is it still there?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Is north? Yes. Slot fish. So our original concept was called Slapfish.

[Alex Clark]

Yes. Okay.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And it was our best market in the United States.

[Alex Clark]

Why do you think that is? Because we're just, we're starved there for real food, Let me tell you.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah. But also there's. The learning curve isn't as sharp. We tried opening and gosh, we were in dc, Maryland, Virginia, west coast, like lake. We, we at one point we started as a food truck. We grew to like 35, 40 locations over a six or seven year period. Lauren and I. And then, and we were franchising so we were in all these different states. Best market, Indiana. Because when you taught them about good food and I told these stories of sustainability, they wanted that because they're also, this is.

[Alex Clark]

You're talking about largely blue collar families who understand small farms, you know, and like all that kind of stuff and like what makes America run, you know. And so I think they probably are really bought into that story.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

They were. And that's the thing is they were willing to try something new.

[Alex Clark]

Let's make Indiana healthy again. This will be my new mission. I love this. Are you concerned about bird flu in raw milk and is raw milk being unfairly targeted about bird flu?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Oh, it's, of course it's being unfairly targeted. There is absolutely nothing to be worried about when it comes to raw milk and bird flu, transferring human to human or whatever, however you want to kind of fear monger it. Also, what we're seeing in regards to bird flu in general, we gotta remember they killed millions and millions and millions of birds, healthy birds, in order to avoid any theoretical spread of bird flu. Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Which was weird to me.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Very weird.

[Alex Clark]

My theory here is like they're trying to spread this bird flu stuff. I don't even think it's necessarily to get us to not drink raw milk. I think they're trying to be able to come out with some new vaccine for the poultry.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah, of course.

[Alex Clark]

I think that's what this is about. I don't think it's about like they hate that we like raw milk, which they do, but I don't think they care that much about it.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And I agree with you, the vaccine could be a potential takeaway. Right. But I don't even look at the government as being that well organized to be able to have a specific goal. I think they have many goals and they, they throw spaghetti at the wall. So it's like, okay, we're gonna fearmonger, we're gonna create this, this horrible situation all in the name of safety. Sounds familiar, right? So there's this bird flu that's spreading and some of the people that are within the organization that are like, look out for this. They might be well intended, good scientists and people who are doing the research and there might be a theoretical small, small, small percentage chance risk. But doesn't matter. Those people, their job is to find any risk. Right. So instead of looking at it as a whole and saying, ok, well look, no reason to panic, we've seen this before, all we need to do is X, Y and Z. Let's do that. Then they're like, okay, well we kill all the birds, right? Egg prices go up. Okay, not a bad thing. Trump's coming in, we can blame that on him and we can blame Ron.

[Alex Clark]

And they already are. And he's been in the office for a couple weeks at the time we're filming this.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And then it's like, oh, and we can, we can blame it on raw milk. Theoretically, not a bad thing. We've been trying to do that anyway. Oh, and a new vaccine, not a bad thing because look where we're getting all of our money. Oh, and people eat less eggs, which is something we've been pushing for anyway. So now they have to move to plant based meat. Not a bad thing, you see. So they're like, oh, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. It's almost like they don't even know exactly what they're looking for. But by virtue of the fear, it's casting a wide net, they're going to have some takeaways.

[Alex Clark]

Are food deserts a myth? Myth created by big grocery.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

So they're actually not a myth, they're a real thing. And food deserts do exist, but most of the times the food deserts are actually created by virtue of local zoning ordinances. And I know this. My mother's an urban planner and she's the redeveloper for cities all throughout New Jersey and in the general New York region. When I spoke to her about food deserts, she said most of the time they will not zone for any grocers, either small, medium or large. In the event they do it for a large grocer, it's a payoff, right? So you might get a Walmart or Target or a larger grocer, an Aldi or a Trader Joe's even. So what happens is, is that then they don't zone for them. But that's good because then the big food manufacturers, the grocers, most of whom have merged, mind you, it's a, it's a monopoly right now because like Kroger is merged with Albertsons, who's merged with Vons, right. Like they're all one big company now. Then they control the market more. So they actually create the food deserts by virtue of that consolidation. And it's the local governments that almost perpetuate the desert like environment.

[Alex Clark]

What is your opinion on Trump's diet as a Maha supporter and do you trust that he's actually going to do these things when it comes to fixing our food and chemicals in the water, in the air, like he's saying, there's.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Nothing I hate more than a liar. And the one thing we know about Trump is that he's not a liar.

[Alex Clark]

He does exactly what he says.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And when it comes to food, he's not saying, look, I'm out there doing 300 push ups a day and eating seed oil free food. He's saying, I love my Diet Coke, I'm going to have a milkshake after dinner, I'm going to eat my burger, that's me. But I'm also going to fix the system so that we can help small and medium sized farmers and good food producers. And therefore I brought in RFK Jr. And I'm going to let him do it. It. That's honesty, that's transparency. So do I hate what he Eats? No, because I'm kind of a libertarian to let people do what they want. The key, and I think Trump recognizes this, is that I don't care what you eat, you eat, you eat, as long as the information is clear and honest for you to make an educated decision. So labeling, making sure vaccine information isn't bought off and there's not special interest in there. And then number three, make more products accessible to the consumers so we're not stuck with like six bags of potato chips all from the same producer.

[Alex Clark]

Doesn't it fascinate you that President Trump is the age that he is? We know he doesn't sleep and he eats the way he does, and yet nobody has more energy than him. He's just out there days on days and days. I mean, those couple days leading up to the election, he was non stop and I was like, I don't understand. I mean, it goes against everything that I talk about, everything that I talk about on the show, about how we should eat and live or whatever. You're gonna fall apart. And yet somehow he's still going. How?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I think, think what we saw coming into the election, like, especially towards the end, I mean, I think that there was, there was some faith there, right? Like, I think that was, there was a larger, more divine energy behind him. He even said that when he narrowly got assassinated, like, you know, he really thought that he was saved by God. Like the hand of God came down. I think there's some faith based motivation there, but I think just generally he's an anomaly. He is. I mean, there's always like, I'm just.

[Alex Clark]

Saying that, it's just interesting doing all this. Obviously voted for Trump three times. Huge conservative, lifelong conservative, you know, all of that. But I do think it's funny. I'm like, man, everything that I tell everybody, it's like then we have this guy who's like our leader and he's able to kind of get around all of it somehow. I don't know, it's a mystery. He should be studied, honestly.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

But also look at how much he moves, right? Like he moves. He's how. He probably has 20,000 steps a day. I mean, the guy's moving all the time. He golfs like every 20 minutes.

[Alex Clark]

That's true.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Right before I came in here, I saw, oh, he was golfing again. Then he's going to give like some keynote speech, right, to world leaders. So the guy's moving, he's going.

[Alex Clark]

You posted on X before that California's regulations are killing small businesses faster than a Grease fire. What is going on in California specifically that's making it nearly impossible to stay afloat as a restaurant owner?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well, I talked about the labor piece in the beginning, right? So obviously all the labor piece. They also have things like paga, which is the Public Attorneys General's act, which is where they gave employees the right to sue and create a class action lawsuit on behalf of the Labor Commissioner. So it was basically the government saying, we don't have enough resources in the Labor Department to go after all of these businesses, which they're always trying to do, because they hate businesses, they hate entrepreneurs. So we're gonna let employees file lawsuits on behalf of the labor Commissioner. It's the only state in the country that has paga. Every other state's constitution or supreme Court has knocked it out. So PAGA has ripped businesses off left and right. And then every single day it's something new. I mean, I could sit here for probably an hour and go through the regulations, things like not allowing plastic gift cards.

[Alex Clark]

Like, I didn't know that was a thing.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And you think like, oh, no big deal, then just issue it to via email. Anybody over the age of 55 wants a plastic gift card.

[Alex Clark]

You're right. You are so right about that.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And that's just one. Right. And then the junk fee laws, which are going to target small businesses, because if you now put on like a. A fee is a tip, a fee. Is this a fee? Is it not a fee? Liquor, liquor license laws. Now restaurants who have bars and have a liquor license have to provide roofie kits, Right? Which don't get me wrong, like, that's a big issue. But why are we putting agency on the government and not the person to protect themselves? Right? So it's just all of these little things. They sit there in Sacramento because they have a super majority. They think about new ways that they can hurt small businesses so that the government can take over and be the one in control of everything.

[Alex Clark]

As a conservative and a health conscious shit chef, should we ban gas stoves?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Never. I mean, gas stoves, first of all, are better for the environment. The only way in which we actually cut all of the carbon emissions as required by our, our, our, our Congress from 2000 to 2010 was by decreasing fossil fuels and introducing natural gas. Right? Number one. Number two, let's just hypothetically play the game and say that we do ban gas stoves. Well, where do you think the electricity is coming from? Fossil fuels. The lion's share of electricity is driven by fossil fuels. So we're going to get rid of natural gas to now have an inefficient energy source that still requires fossil. Will increase fossil fuel production.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah, you're right. That doesn't make any sense because that, that still puts them in the situation of like not. Well, you have to support this, that you also don't support.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

All electricity is driven by fossil fuels, but it's one step away from the source. Natural gas is direct. So to get that extra mile or 10 miles or 100 miles, you have to produce more of it. So you're actually going to produce more theoretical pollution if you do that.

[Alex Clark]

How can we realistically decentralize the food system?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

First and foremost is you get rid of all the government contracts. Right. So think about it. The USDA last year alone spent $18 billion on, on buying food. On literally buying food. So the USDA is the largest purchaser of food in the United States. And where do they buy it? From three major corporations. And where does that go? That goes to the national school lunch program. It goes to food deserts, actually. Right. And then the third is it goes international. So when we provide food to other countries all around the world through a lot of this USAID stuff, we're seeing, they're buying it from farmers or they're buying it from food producers. And of the 20 billion or whatever, 18 billion, I would suggest that maybe 9 billion goes to actually buying it. And the other 10 billion is for special interest, goes into people's pockets, contracts, three major producers. We have hundreds of thousands of farmers in the United States. So completely get the government out of the food system, Deregulate. Let small and medium sized farmers sell their and fishermen sell directly to restaurants, to consumers across state lines, which is Thomas Massey's prime act. Get all of those regulations and watch how quickly small and medium sized farmers flourish in the United States.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, question, because you brought up Massey. So Massey was my choice for usda. I was devastated.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Me too.

[Alex Clark]

What is your opinion on Trump's pick with Brooke Rollins for that role?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Trump's a loyalty guy, right. So he's obviously gonna. Gonna kind of. It's a quid pro quo with him. And I appreciate that people have been loyal to him. He's gonna give them a position, he's gonna put them in a role. Brooke Rollins obviously knows the industry well. People have come after her for being an insider and a seed oil executive, which I understand. What I would like to immediately hear is I've worked on the inside and I've seen how bad it is and I know how the game works. Therefore, I'm the best person to flip it upside down. I haven't heard that yet.

[Alex Clark]

Right.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And that concerns me.

[Alex Clark]

I can only imagine behind the scenes, RFK Jr. Must have been in Trump's ear, like, please don't. Please don't.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well, and I just posted this morning that, you know, Trump is watching X like a hawk.

[Alex Clark]

Yes.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And we have influence.

[Alex Clark]

Okay. I just was interviewed on somebody else's podcast about this. And, and she was like, you know, asking me, like, how much do I trust Trump and his motivations with Maha and all this. And I said, we have so much more power than you think, because this man wants to be liked more than anything else in the entire world. And so he is actually looking and he's asking all of his people in his administration, like, what they say about this decision, what they say about this? I mean, that's how he is. Like, we know how he is. So he does watch what's trending and, and how people respond. So if all of a sudden everybody's like, whoa, we do not like this. And we're all banding together, like, for example, the people that care about health and wellness and food and seed oils or whatever, if we're all posting like, we do not like this decision, he's going to start asking people in his administration, like, why are they saying that? Like, tell me, what is it about Brooke that I don't know? So. And you know, like, I am with you, where I'm like, I have a sliver of hope is that maybe she's had a come to Jesus moment and she's like, whoa, like, everything that I used to believe or whatever, now I've changed my mind. Because for me, I mean, a couple years ago, so I did not believe or care about any of this. I was the seed oil chicken nugget queen. And now all of a sudden, I have a freaking health and wellness podcast and am testifying at the Senate on chronic disease. It's mind blowing. So I'm like, if it can happen to me, maybe it has happened to her. But yeah, you're right, we haven't heard that from her. So it would be nice. Or maybe because she's in the sphere and, you know, the Maha movement is going, and now she's going to be rubbing shoulders with RFK Jr. Maybe she's going to hear for the first time this science on seed oils and things like that, and she's going to be like, whoa, okay, well, this is all interesting. I didn't know.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And I also think people who are who are really built and stitched into government have always operated from this mindset of, well, I just need to do what the system does. Right. We're in a. We're in a world right now where the system is being flipped upside down and is effectively being thrown out. We're seeing it through Doge. We're seeing it through all of these different ways she may be now sees it as, I've wanted to break free from these shackles, and now I can. I can operate independently. And that's something that we saw with Trump, too, in his first term. It was very much about fighting with the media and trying to course correct the reputation. They were. They were, you know, kind of painting of him. Now he doesn't care. He's like, I don't have another term to run for. I know that people love me. I'm at the highest approval rating, and I can just be myself. So I think that's where we're going to see this entire. I call it like a reconciliation of the way in which government works.

[Alex Clark]

Is food becoming political a new thing or has it always been political?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

You think everything comes back to food?

[Alex Clark]

Yeah.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Food is both the great unifier and is the center point and the starting point of every single element of our policy, both economic and even militarily around the world, world wars are fought over food. Right. Like, before we had currency, salt was currency. That's why it says you're worth your weight in salt. Right. Like, salt was the currency. Food was currency. And all of our. Our macroeconomic policies were originally built into the government by way of commodity food pricing and food distribution and trade.

[Alex Clark]

Let's talk about salt.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I love salt.

[Alex Clark]

What is the deal with table salt and microplastics and real salt? What is real salt? And is salt actually good for us?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Salt's great for us, and we should be eating more salt. So when I see people say remove salt once again, this is where the big food processor have screwed us. The only salt we shouldn't be eating is the salt that's baked into processed foods. Because it's all this chemically laden salt and it's hidden. Right. When you add salt on your food at the end, that's great. That's what you want. I don't use table salt because it's got anti caking agents in it, which is only in it by virtue of the aesthetics. Right.

[Alex Clark]

What salt brand do you like?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

So I love Vera Sea salt. It's a microplastic.

[Alex Clark]

I like Vera, too.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah. I'll also use like a Like a French sea salt. A fine sea salt. Or we'll use like a. Just a traditional kosher salt.

[Alex Clark]

Are you scared about lead?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I eat pencils, so that's a secret ingredient. On his menu, I always joke, my first tattoo ever, I have a lot of tattoos. Was on my finger right there.

[Alex Clark]

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[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well, let's just look at the facts. The FDA has only gotten bigger and bigger and bigger over the past 10 or 20 years. And we've only gotten sicker and sicker and sicker. The primary metric upon which we keep funding them and funding them more. They failed on what would happen in the private market. Everybody would be fired or the business would shut down, down. So bingo, right there, the FDA has completely failed. And I described it earlier when we talked about seafood. 2% of the imports being inspected. And they might say, oh, well, it's about the amount of people or we need more money. It's like, no, use the money you got and prove to us you can do the job and you can't. I think originally, a lot of times these federal agencies were created to do nothing more than coordinate. It's like you need an assistant sometimes when you got a lot of work to do, right? Like they were assistants. They were just little, little departments and little agencies and, and. But then they got manipulated by big business. You know, I always joke about Upton Sinclair who wrote the Jungle, which like we all had to read in like third grade. Remember, it was about the meat packing business in the early 1900s. Well, there was a lot of money that was Given to Upton Sinclair through special interests to write this book to highlight all of these horrible stories from Big Meat because they wanted more regulation.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, I need to reread this. Like, that is really interesting to me now. I'm like, ooh, I wanna reread that, knowing this.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And that's what created the Meatpacking Act. And they wanted the regulation because what is regulation good for pushing small business out.

[Alex Clark]

What is the biggest food industry fraud you've ever witnessed?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Olive oil.

[Alex Clark]

Are you anti olive oil?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

No, I'm going to get hit by the mafia here. A lot of olive oils. Most olive oils imported from Italy are cut with seed oils. So that's why I always say, know where your olive oil comes from and you'll taste the difference. I mean, we were just doing this. This cooking video. We were with Dr. Drew the other day, and we were using a real fresh California olive oil oil. And when we, like, taste it, we're like, whoa. Like, that is unbelievable. Because a true extra virgin olive oil is one of the most boldest, sometimes bitter flavors. Bitter in a good way. Like, you know, that kind of like good bitter. I know, that's weird. Negroni type bitter.

[Alex Clark]

Yes.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

When America started going Mediterranean diet Italian food olive oils, this mafia in Italy started importing or exporting olive oils cut with seed oils into New York City to their mafia. And it just proliferated all over the industry.

[Alex Clark]

How do you think that we can tackle corruption in the food industry and change food policy for the better?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Get rid of the government? I mean, I know that sounds crazy because.

[Alex Clark]

But we can't, though.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

We can, because everything on a federal level is redundancy.

[Alex Clark]

But if we were to live. I mean, but it's just not. I mean, I was just say it's not super realistic.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well, I don't mean get rid of government. What I mean is like, downsize the agencies. I don't quite literally mean that, but. But you can decrease the size by like 80%. You know, someone will say to me, like, oh, you don't want kids who are hungry to e eat lunches, right? It's like, no, because the state still has the same power. I don't think people realize how government works, frankly. And it's a lesson in civics. So If I give $20 billion to the federal government for national school food lunches, they're not making those lunches. All they're doing is then using that money to create requests for proposals for a few massive manufacturers and creating a huge bureaucracy to then give rules to the people producing the food things like you've got to have seed oils in it. When it comes to like baby formula, that same like silly crazy construct will apply in school lunches. Then those food manufacturers take over the contracts on a local level or a state level. And then the government takes whatever money's left over after they've wasted it and given it to other corporations and they give like 45 cents per student to the state as a subsidy. All that money you think that you pay in taxes goes to feeding kids. It doesn't.41 cents to each kid when we put 19 or 18 billion into national school food lunches.

[Alex Clark]

So if you as a professional chef are put in charge of public school lunches and totally reforming them, what would it look like in your eyes?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Okay, so there would be no RFPs. You wouldn't need like a Compass group or an Aramark to be one of the only approved supplier. I would make sure that the approved suppliers were small local chefs and food producers. Right. So I would want to make sure that I bought at least 60 to 70% of the food from a 50 mile radius and it could go out further in the Midwest. And then I would also want to make sure that 60 to 70% of the workforce came directly from that local community. There would be no contracts involved. The only money that I would take from the federal government is to actually invest in assets. So I would put commercial kitchens in every school or in every school system so that the food could be produced locally. And then that money would be, it would be depreciated off the federal budget. Right. Because it's an asset. So it's an investment. It's not just a giveaway. And then you're actually stimulating the local economy by giving all those jobs.

[Alex Clark]

And then what would be on the plate?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Any local foods. Right. So like people think that that's just going to be like an apple and a lot of vegetables. No, no. A lot of protein. Right. Local meats like sliced flank steak at three or four dollars a pound with, you know, like good roasted baby Dutch yellow potatoes and maybe you know, kimchi or like pickled broccoli. That's a good food. Bittersweet chocolate with raw milk ice cream as a dessert. Right.

[Alex Clark]

Like drizzled raw milk ice cream at public school lunch.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Yes. What is this? Nirvana? I love it. Oh my God.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

So like I could go on, but you see where it's possible, like that's, that's not an expensive meal. How about just like really good grass fed fed meatballs?

[Alex Clark]

Can you imagine which country do you think is doing public school lunch the best?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Korea.

[Alex Clark]

Why?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Food is integral to their day. Right? And the same is the case in Italy and Spain where they have siestas in the middle of the day. But in Korea, it's like you eat at home and you constantly eat with your family and you have heirloom recipes that go from generation to generation. So they care about where their food comes from and when it's stitched into the kind of DNA of the culture, they're going to care about it. In all the institutions you've called out.

[Alex Clark]

Out fake food influencers. What is that?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Oh boy. I look to Lauren on this one, but. Well, here's what happens. You got people who have accounts and they build their accounts up pushing food products. Originally it was all about like the big food, the food porn. And look at where this is. And then when that money dried up, they moved into product placement, right? Like we, we all know the deals that we get emailed to us like, oh, here's your code and push this product and then they push that product and then they flip to the next hot product or the next restaurant. And they're just doing it for the money. None of them are doing it for a love of food and where the food comes from. And we saw that very clearly during the 20, 20, 2021 era of the pandemic when it was like, if you didn't have the black square on Instagram, then you were like a horrible person and you get cancer canceled. So then it became those food influencers were pushing political messages and all of those food influencers that were really into food in the beginning now suddenly are talking about seed oils are great. What do you mean seed oils aren't bad? It's like you're being paid to say that because you think it's cool to be hip and progressive. And that's what you know, the left is telling you to say. That's the nuttiest thing about all of this. Like, I remember talking about seed oils five years ago and I think it was vice came out and they were like, what's up with like right wing conspiracy theorists and seed oils? We stopped using seed oils at the restaurant like six years ago. Like, oh my gosh, this wasn't a thing that we promoted. And everybody was calling me a right wing conspiracy theorist. Now that it's becoming hip people like you are talking about it like cool people, young people, people who are getting a following. All those other people I was just describing and denigrating now suddenly they're like, oh look like here's a seed oil free this. And it's like, no, I don't want to hear it. Okay. You can't flip sides like that.

[Alex Clark]

Okay. Are we like in this new exciting E with restaurants where we are going to see like all these chains going seed oil free?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yes. And it's going to be done. 50% of it is what I call greenwashing. They're doing it because it's hip and it's cool. But so what, like, you know, that's great. And then the other 50% are, I, I think are going to see that like a Steak and Shake, that they did it. Okay, now we can do it because there's somebody out there who's taking the first step forward.

[Alex Clark]

Do you trust Steak and Shake?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah. Because I think that that's something that, like if that gets out like that, that'll kill your brand for forever. And all it takes is one hourly employee to say they're not really using beef tallow.

[Alex Clark]

But here's my thing with that. I'm like, okay, great. But I still wouldn't eat there because all of the other stuff they're using, I mean, in their food, you know what I'm saying?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I agree with that. However, sometimes it's like give them a little credit, you know, for doing the right thing and then let's see if we can use that entryway, that gateway by virtue of the fats to get them to change some of the other stuff. Cuz the other stuff will actually be easier to change. Change. That's just buying from a different purveyor or getting like chemically free, chemical free foods.

[Alex Clark]

We got to put pressure on In N Out. I don't understand. In N Out is conservative owned, Christian owned. They're seeing the writing on the wall with all the Maha movement, everything. You're going to let steak and shake, you know, get ahead of you on the seed oil free. Like where's in and out in all this, don't you think?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And they've said they're not going to change it.

[Alex Clark]

I know. And I don't understand that.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yep. So I, I, I don't know if you follow seed oil disrespect or on.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, of course, yeah, yeah. Legend.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Him and I put a concept together called Comfy. It's raw milk, milkshakes, 100% hand cut fries, beef towel only did the whole thing. We've done the raise right. Like we're ready to launch it and we're pretty much saying in and out if you don't do it. Like, we're going to do it and we're going to blow up because people want this.

[Alex Clark]

A national chain.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah, national chain.

[Alex Clark]

Yes. Jesus, yes.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

All the right stuff. But here's the thing. I'll say this really quickly. I'll be, I'll be very brief. If McDonald's stepped out and said, we're going to go beef tallow with all of our fries, mark my words, 30 years from now, every single business class in every single business school is going to be like, using that as a case study. You know, in 2024, there was this movement for beef towel. And people would be like, wait, you don't cook with beef towel? Because then in my mind, everyone will be using beef towel. And McDonald's stepped forward and changed it. And everybody said, your stock price is.

[Alex Clark]

Going to drop and they've got Grimace's head on a steak.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, it is such a no brainer. I am blown away that it hasn't been done.

[Alex Clark]

I'm blown away that it hasn't been done. But I feel like we're getting, we're inching closer and closer and, you know, know sweet green and true food. And I, I just see it as a professional chef. Do you think fine dining and Michelin stars are overrated?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Michelin stars are overrated because they got politicized.

[Alex Clark]

What do you mean?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

So originally, Michelin stars was about like the absolute best of the best of the best of the best in every single way. And it was so limited. And then they started creating all these different categories of like Michelin star, street food and Michelin star. Like if. If it's a. An equity owned restaurant restaurant, they get better points.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, so there's DEI Michelin stars.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well, DEI got st into the whole system.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, gosh. Okay, so.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

So once that started happening, then for me, it was all over. Same thing with the James Beard award. It was all about, and I'll probably get completely canceled, but I don't care. They hate me anyway. The James Beard award was like the coveted award. And now, you know, they've gone all 100% woke and it's like, can we just get to the food? I. I appreciate this story concept. Yeah, I know. I appreciate the story of the people cooking the food. Don't get me wrong. And that does translate to what hits the plan plate. But we don't need kind of a grading curve.

[Alex Clark]

Do you, after cooking all day or whatever, then do you want to cook for your own family? Are you like, I can't Even take one more second in the kitchen.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Oh, yes, I want to keep cooking. It's apples to oranges. Right. So in the kitchen, it's business. It's like, it's more assembly line production. And then when I'm cooking for the family and we're cooking at home, like, it's just pure chaos. It's a clown car.

[Alex Clark]

What's like a favorite easy meal for your family? Family?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

This is how we always do it. Lauren will come up with, like, some really cool, like, salad with a bunch of vegetables and, like, fermented vegetables and sauces and dressings. And I'm always throwing on a steak or, like, a roast that I grabbed from the restaurant. And then the kids pepper in what they want. So, like, each one of our kids likes different things. My son loves just dipping those little English cucumbers and salt and, like, kimchi juice.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

So he'll eat that. And another one of my sons is like, oh, I just want, like, this fruit tossed up with, like, yeah, yogurt. So we all then have our own little side dish, almost like Korean food. Right? You have all the side dishes, and then we've got, like, the meat. Lauren's like, crazy over the top fermented vegetable salad. And that's it.

[Alex Clark]

How early did you start your kids learning how to do things in the kitchen? And what tasks do you think are good to start with?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

When my son was able to sit up straight in a high chair, we used to put him at the end of the line in the kitchen, and he would sit there and he did his little toothing cracker watching all my line cooks cook. And I would be on extra Expo. He saw it from that point on, so probably like a year, a year and a half, and all the other kids thereafter. Lauren and I run the businesses together.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

In 2019, we opened, like, 16 restaurants before we sold that concept. We also had a baby and had also another baby during the pandemic, and they traveled with us. That's how we got into the Turning Point schools, because our kids go to one because it's considered a charter school homeschool program in California. California. So we were able to take them out and have them travel with us.

[Alex Clark]

If you're listening and you have no idea what he's talking about, we have a really, really cool department at Turning Point USA that specifically focuses on education and homeschooling and creating curriculums. And, like, it's. It's amazing. And there's all these little homeschool co op hubs and stuff, like all around the country.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Exactly.

[Alex Clark]

Which is super cool. That's neat that you guys do that.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Who is the celebrity chef that you've met that you're like, this person's my dog. Like, I love them. Like, they can come over anytime. Like, they're actually so cool.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Jets, Tila.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, tell us why.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well, he's just the most genuine guy in the world. He is an honest guy. We know him because we've done a lot of events with him. And he used to co host a radio show that I. That I now host. And he cooks amazing food. Him, both him and his wife, they cook unbelievable food.

[Alex Clark]

What do you think about the career trajectory of Martha Stewart?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I love it. I love it.

[Alex Clark]

Isn't it so cool? Did you watch that HBO docu series or whatever?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I didn't watch it at all.

[Alex Clark]

So good. She fascinates me and then. I know. Fascinates me.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

I love all things Barefoot Contessa. Although I know she's a huge lib, so I just forget about that.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah. I mean, you know, food is a great unifier. So. And that's the point is, is that, like, I found that people who think that they're liberals really aren't when you start talking about food policy. Because when I'm like, hey, do you want to eat that raw milk cheese from France? They're like, oh, I love that cheese. I had it in Paris. Well, deregulate the government and you can. Okay, suddenly you're a libertarian.

[Alex Clark]

Can local beef save America or is it too late?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

It can save America because local beef. Beef typically means better soil, regenerative agriculture, which is good for the environment. Local beef is good for the local food, community and economy. And we know that we need to be eating more beef. Eating more beef is going to save us. Right. And it's going to help with all these issues we see from the chronic diseases. It's not going to be the panacea. It's going to help it a lot. So it can be one of the things that saves us.

[Alex Clark]

What I'm confused about when it comes to seafood is I've got people saying, you know, don't you dare ever eat farm rays. That stuff is crap. It's horrible. But then now they're saying, well, don't even bother with the wild caught, because they're all consuming plastic. So that's also horrible for you. So what is the solution there? And. And what seafood should we eat?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah. And that's all propaganda. Right. So they were. There's a lot of money in Getting you to eat either farm raised or just wild. But the real reality is is that the answer is not that simple. A lot of wild fish starts off in hatcheries, so it's kind of farm raised. I mean, 60% of the seafood in Alaska that's labeled as wild starts in hatcheries. Now, that's not fully farmed, but it's on the spectrum of farming. Every oyster, clam, mussel you've ever eaten is farmed. Right. But those we know are not just good for the environment. And they actually filter out all the microplastics and particulates into their shells.

[Alex Clark]

But then would it be good to eat that?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

They filter it out and it goes in their shell. It's a natural filter feeder. So that's actually great. And not only by filter feeding, it gets the impurities out and it cleans the ocean. So it's not as easy as saying yes or no. But I will say this. The United States is the only country, one of the only countries doesn't have an open ocean aquaculture policy. So we say, say we're not going to set up an aquaculture policy because we don't want to eat farm seafood, but then instead we import farm seafood. So why don't we just do it here? One example is In California hub SeaWorld, they created a program where they actually did stock fortification. So the California white sea bass, which is the most delicious fish in the world, was commercially extinct. So what they did was they started raising hatchlings in like, like trays, feeding them in organic feed, et cetera, but then growing them out in bigger pools, like eating what they would normally eat in the wild, no chemicals, nothing. And they release them into the wild. Then they started mating in the wild again. They brought it back to its maximum sustainable yield. So if it wasn't for aquaculture or fish farming, which in a way that is, we never would have had that wild stock. So I think we need to find the balance between the two, and then we need to promote it and tell people about it.

[Alex Clark]

I was scrolling through Instagram the other day, and I couldn't help but notice the clean girl aesthetic taking over. You know, the soft, glowing natural makeup look that seems effortless, but always flawless. It's like everybody's embracing this fresh, dewy complexion. It really made me think, in 2025, less is more. But that doesn't mean that we can skip out on clean ingredients. If you're loving this glowing fresh face vibe, then Adele Natural Cosmetics is perfect for you. Adele has been making clean, clean skin, loving products since 2014, and their products deliver that clean girl aesthetic that we're all after. Their moisturizing foundation is my go to for that glowy, natural look. It's hydrating, buildable, and blends seamlessly into the skin for that no makeup makeup vibe. Plus, it's made with nourishing ingredients like raw coconut oil and cocoa butter, so it's as good for your skin as it is for your look. Their cream blush. It has beautiful shades, gives the perfect pop of color, and it doubles as a subtle eye tint. Because who is time for multiple products? Products ready to embrace the clean, glowing look. Head to Adele natural cosmetics.com use the code ALEX for 25% off your first order and start shopping. Clean makeup that'll keep you glowing all year long. That's Adele Natural Cosmetics. Code Alex for 25% off your first order. If you have raw salmon that's not been cooked yet in your fridge, how many days is it good for in there?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

It was really good when you got it. Two to three days.

[Alex Clark]

If you want to just try a new type of fish. Like, what's an underrated? Like. Oh, you should. If you want to be adventurous, look for this on the menu.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

California halibut, as opposed to, like, an Alaskan halibut. I would try groupers, snappers, Baramundi. Baramundi is a really good one. That's a fish that could save the world. Look for various types of, like, a white sea bass, a wild Pacific albacore tuna. Try out fresh albacore tuna as opposed to, like, a blue fin or a yellow fin. Trout. US Trout. We have the best trout in the world, and people don't order trout when they go out to eat at restaurants. But trout's a cousin of salmon, so if you like salmon, you're going to love trout. It's milder. It's got great Omega 3 profile.

[Alex Clark]

Are chain restaurants using fake meat?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well, some of them are, yeah. Some chain restaurants are using fake meat, but they're advertising it as such.

[Alex Clark]

What does that mean?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Cell cultured meat. So it's meat that it's created in a lab, and then they pitch it as meat, but they say that it's not real meat. So it's kind of that impossible type of meat. But the scary thing is they're now approving actual meat that can be marketed as meat that's grown in a lab in a cell, like Franken meat.

[Alex Clark]

And what would that do to the human body, you think?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Nobody knows. And I say when you're manipulating DNA structure, in proteins that we consume. We are setting ourselves up for an absolute disaster, A zombie, like, disaster.

[Alex Clark]

How nasty is food at those chain restaurants? We talked about, like, a Cheesecake Factory or Olive Garden. Like, could you eat it?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I can eat it. I mean, I think we all have kind of that moment of. Of weakness where we're like, we know it tastes good because of the MSG and the chemicals.

[Alex Clark]

Is it just microwave?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

A lot of it comes in bags. Right. And I worry the plastic in. In many of those situations than I do about the chemicals. You know, Dr. Marty McCary just wrote that book recently and talked about how the microplastics have screwed up our endocrine system and what we're seeing in regards to, like, fertility, et cetera. But it's all in the plastics. Most of that food comes in bags and then gets dropped in boiling water. And then you cut it open and, like, put it into a Bain Marie and jazz it up with some fresh chives or garlic. When you get into that chain restaurant setting, that's the problem.

[Alex Clark]

Speaking of Dr. Marty's book. Book. That section on peanuts and how we got severe peanut allergies in the United States absolutely floored me. Blew my mind. Had no idea about that. Did you know that before you read that?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

No.

[Alex Clark]

That was the craziest thing. So if you don't know what we're talking about, you have to read Dr. Marty's book.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

His new book just came out a couple months ago. It's insane. And now he is the FDA director. What is really being sprayed on vegetables at the grocery store? It's not water.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

It's probably. And I actually don't know, but I would assume it's like some sort of a water citric acid saline solution that's just keeping them plump and keeping them.

[Alex Clark]

Is that okay? Or you'd be like, I don't like.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Anything going on my food, even if it's salt. Right. Like, I want to know everything that's going into my food, and I want it to be labeled as such. The problem is the education and the labeling. You see, like, we don't know what's happening behind that curtain. And when that's happening today, it might just be something simple like lemon juice and salt. But, like, how do you know tomorrow they're not putting a little glyphosate in there?

[Alex Clark]

Eggs are basically costing rent. Now, what is your go to hack for cooking healthy, real food on a budget?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I'll say this because this is what we just came out with, a cookbook Chef Grohl's family cook cookbook. And we do like all budget food in there. It's 50 recipes. Lauren did all the photography. So I'll, I'll have to give you. I brought one for you. One of the things that we focus on in that is like you got to think about three things, right? So you want to think about having just good fats, right? So when you're cooking with good fats, you're bringing a ton of flavor out that you don't need to pay for. People don't realize this, but seed oils coat, coat your palate. Seed oils are bitter and they taste horrible and they leave you with an astringent, mutual, muted taste on your palate. Real fats, saturated fats, animal fats, not only do they amplify flavors and add flavor elements, but they let the natural flavors come out. So less is more in that regard. Like I can cook a three ounce pieces of piece of fish versus a six ounce with real fats and it's going to make me satiate, it's going to make me feel full. So that's important right there. Using fresh herbs and high quality citrus and vinegars is like something nobody cooks with. Their cheap. They're cheap as heck, right? I mean like 50 cents for parsley, chives, oregano. Like we always buy the dried stuff, the fresh stuff thrown in at the last second with like acid. Because acid in food, it balances out flavors of food and it amplifies those flavors. So just finishing with a little bit of fresh citrus zest or juice vinegar, high quality vinegar. Well, you can take the most pedestrian meal, I mean just like ground beef and cheap carrots. Hit it with a little fresh vinegar, lemon juice or citrus zest, fresh herbs, and then cook it in real fat and you'll feel as if you're eating on the Tuscan countryside with the barefoot contessa, like whipping you with beef tallow.

[Alex Clark]

Which big box store do you think has the best budget friendly options for organic produce and like best quality organic produce for less?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

The big box grocery stores are getting first pick. Then the cheaper grocery stores that are like the ones that are like, oh, you're going to get this for $3. Less. Less. And they're kind of offering the same thing. They're just getting second pick. They're just as good.

[Alex Clark]

It's just like they're not as pretty looking.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well actually, yeah, you're right because they're, they're considered ugly fruit. So like there's all of these packaging standards that you have to Meet in order to be like the model at the Whole Foods. And everything else either gets thrown away or shipped off. The USDA sets those standards. Like, tomatoes aren't naturally round and 5x5 in a box box. Like tomatoes are all different shapes and sizes. You could have a zucchini that's a tomato. But then the grocers came together and said, we will only buy five, you know, these round red tomatoes. And in order to get every single tomato round and red, what do they do? Genetically modify them, treat them with a ton of chemicals so that they're shelf worthy, and we throw all the rest away.

[Alex Clark]

Okay, let me give you like, a couple, like, random, like, everyday type of meals. And like, what would you do as a professional chef to just, like, give it a little extra oomph? Scrambled eggs.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I finished scrambled eggs with freshly grated parmesan, a little bit of. A little bit of sea salt. Right. And then I will cook with my. I start my scrambled eggs in a cold pan with a dash of milk.

[Alex Clark]

Explain that.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

The cold pan means that the proteins slowly coagulate. They don't come together really hard. And that's what gives your eggs that silky smooth finish that you get at, like, a French brasserie.

[Alex Clark]

What pan brand are you cooking on?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

At home, we use carbon steel pans. So it's like a mix of a cast iron skillet and like a stainless steel pan.

[Alex Clark]

Grilled cheese.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

What's the best part of a grilled cheese besides the melting cheese?

[Alex Clark]

The bread.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

What do you have on a piece of bread? Two sides. You want to take the best part of a grilled cheese and double it. Toast your bread on one side first. Flip it. That's the inside of your grilled cheese sandwich. It's buttery and toasted, so you're doubling that beautiful toasted flavor. Flavor. Then build the inside with the melted cheese and then toast the outside as well. So now both sides of the bread are toasted.

[Alex Clark]

Chicken breast.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Have your oven on. Sear it first. Put a little bit of juice in the pan, maybe a piece of fennel, herbs, citrus, and then finish it in the oven at 350 degrees. Convectional heat will keep it from overcooking on the outside while the inside's still raw.

[Alex Clark]

Spaghetti.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

You want to use some of the water in which you cook the spaghetti to make your sauce rich and creamy. So after you strain your spaghetti, take one cup of the water that the spaghetti was in, because now all the starch from the spaghetti is in there. Add the spaghetti back to the pan with butter Red sauce and a little bit of that starch juice and let it reduce. And that's how restaurants get that beautiful, velvety, cloyingly rich spaghetti sauce on the spaghetti.

[Alex Clark]

Chocolate chip cookies.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

You got to use salt in your chocolate chip cookies. Also, you want to use melted butter. People use room temperature butter, but you want the butter to melt so that you create gluten between the melted butter and the flour. And that's where you get a chewy chocolate chip cookie. Gluten is just when the proteins come together to give it more chew. Perfect steak reverse sear. So you always start in a low temp oven first between 80 and 120 degrees. There's enzymes in the meat that break the meat down. So you want it in that temperature zone as long as possible, and then you sear it at the end or grill it at the end end. Oh, and that also gives it a beautiful exterior, because while it's in the oven, you're releasing a lot of that moisture, and that moisture is what inhibits the browning. So in the absence of that moisture, you get a quicker sear on the meat.

[Alex Clark]

What is your hack for a picky kid who only wants to eat, like, the same three things?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Take those three things and then just start to create little offshoots. Right? So if the kid only eats the chicken tenders, start figuring out different ways to make chicken. Chicken tenders, maybe bread them yourselves. But don't finish them in breadcrumbs. Finish them with, like, you know, tallow fried potato chips. Right. Crushed up. And then create sauces, different types of sauces, so that you can slowly expand their palate based on what they already know.

[Alex Clark]

Is there a way to cut an onion without burning your eyes?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

You can wear goggles. They say putting an ice cube in your mouth works. But I think the. The best tip for chefs is just a sharp knife.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, okay.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Because if you think about it, with a dull knife, you're like crushing the. The little water balloon cells.

[Alex Clark]

You say that gluten free is a cult, and bread is not your enemy. Now I am gluten free. So radicalize me.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I don't think that it's a cult. I think that a lot of people who eat gluten free are only doing it because somebody else was doing it. They either. When you have celiac, that's like one issue. And Lauren's eating gluten free right now. But I'll always tell the story about the guy who came in and he wanted a gluten free sandwich, so he made. So I ran to the store and got gluten free bread. Right.

[Alex Clark]

Nice of you.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

He comes back the next day. He's like, best sandwich I've ever had. I've never not had an issue with, with in a restaurant. Right. Make me that sandwich again. Make him the sandwich again.

[Alex Clark]

You're like, gotta go back to the store.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Well, third day comes back, I need the sandwich again. I've never felt so good eating out at a restaurant. So I'm like, shoot. I'm out of the bread. Run to the same store, go to grab it. This time I realize it was the Rudy's brand. I go, shoot. I grabbed their not gluten free line. So now I had a moral dilemma. Do I tell, do I tell him or do I keep cooking the non gluten free? But he had no issues and he loved it.

[Alex Clark]

Maybe it was all in his head.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying yours is. I'm just saying that's a funny story.

[Alex Clark]

Yes.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Where it was like, is it trendy? Is it not? I think because I don't think it's the gluten. I think it's glyphosate.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah, I would agree with that. I. I'm only doing it because I love bread. I'm only doing it because I was told to with autoimmune issues. They told me to avoid gluten. You know, this is the problem of doing my job is that I interview all of you experts and then, you know, one person says, do this and then another person says, do this. So my whole life is. It's like, avoid, avoid, avoid. And then I just interviewed somebody that was like, no, I think it's completely fine. I'm like, are you kidding me? Yeah. So who knows? Who knows?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

I'm just a chef. I'm not a doctor or a nutritionist.

[Alex Clark]

What is your opinion on the paper versus plastic straw debate?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Paper is disgusting. I mean, it's like, it's. Those things turn into like, turn into recycled gnats in two seconds. I don't love plastic straws in general because I don't love plastics overall. If you're going to have a straw, like just carry around a stainless steel strip a straw and. And like a guy walking around with a straw is also a weird look. But there are certain situations, especially with kids, where you need a straw. I think overall as a society, we can decrease straw usage.

[Alex Clark]

Do you think that the same red flag of like, men who care about their birthdays is a red flag? That that also applies to Men who like to drink out of straws.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah, 100%. That is actually a really good analogy.

[Alex Clark]

It's. It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. What do you wish more Americans understood about the state of our food?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

That so much of it is owned by just a few corporations? Everything they're eating, they feel as if they have a ton of variety when they go and they look at the shells, but they don't. And the real variety is in the people, the people growing our food. And that when we get back to the land, and I know that's a cliche, but when we get back to where the food comes from, we're not just producing food, but we're understanding our environment. And there's so many different things associated with our environment. And it comes back to community. Right. I talked about the cookbook that we. We wrote that cookbook because we want families to come together and cook more together. We partner with Brave Books, actually. Are you familiar with Brave Books?

[Alex Clark]

Yep. We love Brave Books.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah. So, like, faith based organization. They. When they started In July of 2021, we started ordering their books. Mike. We were one of the first subscribers to their entire platform, and we were buying them every single month. The kids loved it. We love the stories, the allegories. There's, you know, the Bible, the kind of Bible verses in there. So it really worked with what they were learning at school. And then like three years later, we reached out to each other and it was like, have you thought about doing a cookbook? So we did the cookbook through Brave, using some of the characters because our values are the same. Let's get families together. Community. When you ask about food, it's like when everybody's eating from the same land and understanding and going out to eat in the public square and where their food comes from, from farmers and all of that. You're also creating community. And we can only. We're only as good as our community.

[Alex Clark]

What is your death row meal?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

My death row meal. And she might be the one who kills me too. My death row meal. I'm kidding. My death row meal might be the her chicken enchiladas with Mexican rice.

[Alex Clark]

I think it's cute that you're a professional chef and you're saying it's something your wife makes.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Oh, yeah. Well, she. So she's a culinary. And she went to school. She's a chef as well. We work in the business, in the restaurants together. Wow.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

She probably cooks more at home. So, like, we've come to love her. Dishes more at home. And then in a restaurant. She does the bar in the front of the house, and then I do the kitchen and the back of the house. But we get to be blessed with her food at home.

[Alex Clark]

If you could offer one remedy to hela sick culture, physically, mentally, or spiritually, what would it be?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

To cook more together with everybody, whether you agree with them or disagree with them. So starting with your family, going out to other circles, I think bringing people together through food. Dinner dinners, but cook, but like hands on cooking, you know, not potlucks where you bring something, you do it together.

[Alex Clark]

You also have several cooking shows going on. Where can people watch those?

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

So we just launched our second version of American Gravy. We call it American Gravy because that was my nickname for ketchup when I was growing up, but I think it works. So the first series was just Lauren and I in the kitchen with the kids doing a really basic, like, dump and stir and featuring good local ingredients. Talking about food policy that we've pivoted into having guests now. So we just. We're about to launch the episode with Matt and Ginger Gates. We have my.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, cool. You got Matt and Ginger on in.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

The kitchen with us.

[Alex Clark]

You know what? Let me tell you something about Matt and Ginger, which I really appreciated. So they both came to the senate hearing in September that we did on chronic disease, and Ginger posted on X like, oh, I'm here and I'm supporting. Supporting Alex Clark and. And I saw them, like, there to watch, and that meant so much with their busy days and busy lives and everything. I just thought, like, wow, that is the kindest thing. I cannot believe they came to watch and support.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

They are the most genuine people and they know food. Matt is like a good chef and Ginger knows food really well. And she's a smart lady. She knows policy. She knows food like, she knows everything. So it was just the four of us in our kitchen, like, it was hilarious. Dr. Drew, Mike Chernovich.

[Alex Clark]

Those are great. You've got all my favorite people on. So that's amazing.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

And that one, we're just right now exclusively airing on x rumble, YouTube, you know, like the. All the platforms.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, perfect. Okay, cool. So free.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Okay. People should check that out. And where should they follow you on X? You have one of the best X accounts. You are so good. You have, like, a comeback. I mean, if you. You can tell from talking to me, Smartest guy has a something to say about everything. And especially if you're, like, into politics and health, wellness. You're the best follow. So where should people follow you at.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Chef Gruel on X. And I go back and forth with with with my wife Lauren too. She's at Lauren Grul. So the two of us have some fun on X.

[Alex Clark]

Awesome. Thank you Chef Grohl for coming on Culture Apothecary.

[Chef Andrew Gruel]

Thank you for having me. It's an honor.

[Alex Clark]

If you had a blast listening to this episode with Chef Gruel, please leave a five star review. Tell others why they need to be listening to Culture Apothecary. We are one of the top 10 health and wellness podcasts in the world. We're on a mission to heal a sick culture. Twice a week brand new guests bring their own unique remedy to do just that. Mondays and Thursdays, 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific. Subscribe to Real Alex Clark on YouTube. You can find me on Instagram at Real Alex Clark the show on Instagram at Culture Apothecary. And also there's a Facebook group for fans of the show. Just look for cute servatives. New show Merch is available at tpusamerch.com code Alex Clark gets you temporary off. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.