Josh Sharkey [00:05:59]:
Yeah, fat burning to sugar burning basically.
Seamus Mullen [00:06:01]:
Yeah. Fat burning and sugar burning. And then you have fasting in the middle and those things are, they're all part of the same thing. One of the problems with keto is that people, again, going to the word that used earlier, people think of it as a panacea. It's a solution for everything.
[00:06:22]:
Yeah. It is a great way of reducing inflammation in the body because most inflammation is being driven. If you're dealing with chronic inflammations, one of the key inflammatory inputs is gonna be refined sugar hydrates. So when you take out, it has less to do with what the keto diet consists of and more to do with what you take out.
Josh Sharkey [00:06:43]:
That makes a ton of sense. I mentioned Walter, Dr. Valter Longo, a while ago, and that's a big part of what he does to treat cancer patients is fasting. Because of the autophagy that occurs once you hit that, that ketogenic state, you have to do a pretty deep ketogenic state, because essentially your body's just starting to eat itself and the first thing it goes for is all the bad cells and the mitochondria that are, that are the weakest. And that seems to be one of the benefits of ketosis as well, is that your body is not necessarily gonna be in the state of autophagy, but if you're doing that plus fasting, then there's a huge help there.
Seamus Mullen [00:07:10]
Yeah. There's four key drivers for autophagy and autophagy is essentially for people that may not be familiar with.It's the idea that, You have broken or weaker mitochondria essentially at the powerhouse within the cell, which is natural. It's a natural part of our biology and through targeted stress when the four like main drivers of that are fasting.
[00:07:38]:
So you essentially up cyclone and reintegrate the broken mitochondria into healthier mitochondria. Moving heavy objects, which is like lifting heavy weights versus doing long endurance workouts that will promote autophagy hot and cold exposure. Experiencing hot sauna, just getting uncomfortable.
[00:07:56]:
I mean, going back to what I was talking about with comfort, we have engineered a world which we don't have to ever, I remember Jimmy Carter made the case for what I called sweater gate. You know, essentially he was like the energy crisis in the 1970s. He suggested that everyone turn the heat down and wear a sweater.
[00:08:12]:
It was a terribly ineffective campaign. However, he was really onto something because we have got so used to we're too cold. We turn the heat on, we're too hot, we turn the AC on. We can create our environment to make it super, super comfortable at all times for our own detriment. And that doesn't promote healthy and strong cells.
[00:08:32]:
Yeah. I was thinking about this a little while ago, but because you mentioned autophagy and something that I'm really interested in this analogy that I think is helpful. If you think about the savanna, you have a pride of lions and you have a herd of antelope and there are no mortal enemies. They live in, in a symbiotic relationship and in this greater symphony of nature.
[00:08:54]:
And then the lions get hungry and they decide, okay, it's time to eat. We're gonna eat ourselves in antelope because we have the grocery store right there, and they work together to isolate an antelope in the herd. And usually it's probably a slower one. Or maybe it's even a sicker one, or it's an injured one, or it could be an older antelope.
[00:09:15]:
And then the lions work together communicating and corralling, and eventually there's chaos and the herd goes all over the place. And the antelope's defense mechanism is to try to move in all sorts of different directions so the lion can't isolate one, and they get exhausted, but they continue to just focus on the single antelope, and then eventually they get the antelope and they kill and eat the antelope.
[00:09:35]:
And then lions and antelopes go back to being totally good neighbors. Like everything is done and now they're good neighbors again. And essentially what they've done, it's kind of like a macro version of autophagy. What they've done is they've found the weakest link within the herd of antelope and. They have called the herd and made the herd stronger. They've made the species stronger while making their species stronger as well in a very, very balanced and symbiotic way.
Josh Sharkey [00:10:00]:
It's so interesting how it has a Darwinism feel to it.
Seamus Mullen [00:10:04]:
You know, it's totally Darwinism. If you were to reduce Darwinism, this what's happening within, at a subcellular level, you know, with not only within our species and all living things, I mean, you know that to make good wine, you grow grapes in poor soil under harsh conditions, cold nights, hot days, like things like that, that makes for strong fruit. And it goes back to stress like that. Stress is really, really important and I think it's really interesting that we can actually look at that stress as being like a disease model. Because going back to Valter Longo's point of using fasting or ketogenic diet to treat cancer, you're creating targeted stress that is going to essentially wipe out the broken pieces that can't endure stress. It's going to fortify the strong parts.
Josh Sharkey [00:10:49]:
Yeah. There's like this underlying theme that I feel like comes up a lot. As humans evolve, we try to remove more and more suffering from our existence. One of my favorite books is Viktor Frankl “Man's Search for Meaning”, which is essentially. It's about the Holocaust, but essentially that suffering is what brings us meaning, and it really does sprinkle through everything that we do from not just sort of the way we live our lives, but the way that plants exist and how they thrive and how animals thrive and live together.
[00:11:19]:
And so interesting how that theme, you know, just plays into so much of what it means to live, you know, a meaningful life. And we have to have that, we have to almost search for that suffering, which is silly nowadays.
Seamus Mullen [00:11:34]:
This is one of the things that I've talked about in the intro to the book that I'm working on, is that our ancestors didn't wake up 15,000 years ago and say, oh, look at that icy glacial river. I'm going to go shrink my thyroid while you're doing nasal breathing, and calm my parasympathetic nervous system. And then I'm gonna come out, I'm gonna feel like this incredible dopamine rush and I'm gonna be stronger and it's gonna reduce my inflammation. Now they were like seeing that on the other side of the river there was some dry wood that they could stack and make a fire out of.
[00:12:00]:
So they had to go through the river to get to the wood to make the fire. And now we operate in a world in which we don't even have to look for wood. We just click a button or even take our phone and turn our nest to the whatever temperature we want, and then we have to then compartmentalize and seek out that suffering.
[00:12:16]:
We have to go to a gym and codify it, and we lift the hard weights. For 45 minutes at this time, or we go to Barry's bootcamp and we do it at this time, or we have to take a cold shower because Andrew Huberman told us we have to, or we have to like, you know, whatever. We have all of these compartmental elements of suffering that we've created within our life.
[00:12:34]:
We've taken so far out of our lines. I'm interested in how that idea of leaning into it is not only about the physical experiences we have, but it's also about the emotional experience. If you're in a hard place leaning into the feeling just it's okay, like you kind of need to feel sadness. You do need to feel sadness.
[00:12:55]:
To understand joy, you need to experience physical pain to understand pleasure, and Anna Lembke talks about this in “Dopamine Nation" as the pain pleasure spectrum. As we insulate ourselves from experiencing pain, it dramatically impacts our ability to experience pleasure. So we have a reduced capacity for natural dopamine production because of our avoidance of pain and also our pain receptors become much more sensitive to the point where pain becomes much more painful to us.
[00:13:28]:
And I think that it's a metaphor that carries over even into relationships with other people. Like we think about the world that we operate in now, in which everybody is tiptoeing around everyone because we're so worried about saying something that's inappropriate or offending someone. And again, it goes back to isolating ourselves from a world of difficult conversation and pain. I think there's a long-term deleterious impact and it makes us as a species a lot less resilient and more, more susceptible to illness and disease.
Josh Sharkey [00:13:48]:
I couldn't agree more. Yeah. I know this is sort of such a hot topic now. We were talking about it, but we are definitely at an apex right now as it relates to AI being more prevalent. Because the purpose of it, when you hear Sam Altman or someone talk about it, is we want to improve the lives of humans in aggregate, and we wanna remove suffering and increase happiness. And you know, in essence, there's a lot of ways in which that can go really wrong, where we can start going this route of removing all quote unquote suffering that we're talking about and pain.
[00:14:29]:
And that's what makes us human. And that's actually what brings us joy, whether we realize it or not, and what brings us meaning. And if you remove all of that, again, like you were saying, they didn't choose to go through those glaciers and they didn't know that that was gonna sort of affect their parasympathetic nervous system.
[00:14:43]:
They didn't know that, right? But that was just happening. That's human nature. Now we have to almost recreate that in these behaviors that we have, and we're forcing ourselves to create these sort of synthetic behaviors because the world is becoming easier. So I think it's really important. There's a huge place for AI in a lot of what we do.
[00:15:01]:
I mean, we're deploying it into a lot of how we're growing meez as a product, but there's also a lot of ways in which, you know, it can be really dangerous. That's all I'll say about that because I don't wanna go down a rabbit hole.
Seamus Mullen [00:15:11]:
Yeah, I won't go down that rabbit hole either. I mean, I've played around with ChatGPT a little bit and I'm impressed.I mean, it's really impressive, but it's also really scary. There are people that are much smarter than I am that are thinking about this from a philosophical and ethical perspective, which I'm very interested in now. But the part that really, that you said that I love is this idea of creating a world in reduction of suffering for greater happiness.
[00:15:36]:
And I mean, all of the world's great philosophical traditions have understood that no mud, no lotus. You need the suffering to experience the joy. Without suffering there is no joy. And Buddhism does an incredible job of reframing suffering, understanding it as an integral part of the experience of being humid.
[00:15:55]:
And I think one of the challenges that we face now as humans, as a species is something that I think really started a long time ago. Have you ever read, “Ishmael ?” It’s a great book. You should read it. It's basically a conversation between a guy and a gorilla, but it's an incredible book and if you enjoyed “Sapiens”, “Ishmael” is kind of like the precursor to “Sapiens”.
[00:16:14]:
It's in a fictional environment, but it's like, it's one of my favorite books. In it, one of the things that becomes really, really clear is that so we tell stories, there's myth that we tell ourselves and in our storytelling and our ability to create narrative, which is what really distinguishes us from other species, is our ability to have common belief in fiction.
[00:16:34]:
We do something, we separate ourselves from nature. We believe ourselves to be separate and apart from nature. And of course all of the world's religions, or at least the Judeo-Christian religions, have created a narrative in which nature is something for us to dominate. And nature is something that is ultimately, it's sinful.
[00:16:55]:
So in domination of nature, we are separate and apart from nature rather than understanding. We are actually a part of nature. We have a very, very important role in that. Just like the lion who's eating the sick antelope. We as humans have a really, really important role, but because we've gotten pretty far off the tracks to a point where we are dominating, we're heading towards a crash course, but I think it's also just part of it's natural.
[00:17:22]:
We'll probably head towards some pretty rough times in the next couple hundred years, a couple thousand years, and then there'll be something else that happens. That's part of what evolution is. It's a constant change.
Josh Sharkey [00:17:32]:
So funny. Yeah. I never really thought about that, but it is certainly like a cognitive bias that we almost have, but you look at nature as.Something outside of you that you're seeing or experiencing, but not part of you. It sounds obvious, and a little crunchy, but we all must be like that. I can't wait to read that book.
Seamus Mullen [00:18:00]
Yeah, I think it's really good. It's really good.
[00:18:05]:
This podcast is brought to you by meez, the culinary operating system for food professionals. As a chef and restaurant owner for the past 20 years, I was frustrated that the only technology that we had in the kitchen was financial or inventory software. Those are important, but they don't address the actual process of cooking, training, collaboration, and consistent execution.
[00:18:24]:
So I decided if it didn't exist, I'd do my best to get it built. So the current and next generation of culinary pros have a digital tool dedicated to their craft. If you're a chef, mixologist operator, or generally if you manage recipes intended for professional kitchens, meez is built just for you.
[00:18:40]:
Organize, share, prep, and scale your recipes like never before. And get laser accurate food costs and nutrition analysis faster than you could imagine. Learn more at www.getmeez.com.
Josh Sharkey [00:19:01]:
I am gonna tie this back to being a chef, by the way so we can wrap up here. In that same interview, you said something about outsourcing your happiness. It really struck me probably more than anything because when we think about why we cook. You know, for me, like I love cooking more than anything.
[00:19:16]:
It brings me so much joy to just know I can go to bed and there's something like braising overnight or like when I season the sauce and it's perfect or my, I got my whole prep list done. That feeling is just as a cook, there's nothing better than that. But we as chefs, there's a part of what we do that is somewhat narcissistic, right?
[00:19:34]:
Because we also like giving people food and getting gratification or reaction back. I'd love to sort of understand this is, this might be, it's a little deep, so take it however you want, but like, I wanna know why you cook and what you think now about sort of outsourcing your happiness as it relates to what you're doing as a chef.
Seamus Mullen [00:19:56]:
Okay. I'm gonna get vulnerable here with you. Yeah, I'm gonna get raw here. So why do I cook? I grew up in an environment where I would say a pretty socially adjusted, well adjusted child, but I grew up in an environment where my dad is on the autism spectrum, so he doesn't really connect very well emotionally.
[00:20:16]:
As a child, I didn't like, feel seen by him, and my mom was, really kind of like a survivor and a real, not a touchy-feely, warm person that gave a lot of compliments and I didn't feel seen as a child. My grandmother was incredible, but she was like, she was also really, really tough.
[00:20:37]:
She fought in World War II. She shot anti-aircraft guns during the blitz in London. She was tough, but when I learned how to cook, I got loved the way that I wanted to be loved. Like I got a lot of compliments. Food makes people happy. It's an incredible gift when you give someone food and in giving a gift, the real gift is for the giver because the giver receives appreciation and love.
[00:20:58]:
And I realized that that was a big part of why when I cooked I would get the love that I felt like I was missing. Yeah. And then because I started cooking as a kid, I was really young. And then as I got better and I started to do it professionally, then it became much more about the ego and like, oh, I'm getting awards and people are recognizing me and people know who I am and like I’ve got people coming into the restaurant and telling me that this is the most amazing meal you've ever had, and you know, blowing smoke on my ass.
[00:21:26]:
And it really starts to feel really, really good. And then at some point I did realize that all of this really means nothing. Cooking is a wonderful thing to do because it's expressive. It's a craft. I don't think it's an art. I think it's a craft. It requires so much skill and attention to detail and like when you're braising your braise overnight, you're thinking about it and you're excited about it.
[00:21:49]:
You're thinking about, like, what is happening chemically? What's the science that's happening in that pan right now? You process so much information when you're cooking, but then there's like this intangible. Component to cooking, which is love. Ultimately it's love and passion and you can tell when you have something that's cooked in a bag and it's technically perfect, but there's no soul and love to it versus when you like having a braise that has been labored over and observed and no recipe.
[00:22:19]:
And to really land this plane, I wanna bring it back to meez because meez has been like one of the most incredible tools to actually, to come as close as you can get to capturing the, what it did means to cook, because you can write the most detailed recipe, but ultimately as a really good cook, you have to be observing.
[00:22:40]:
Because one lamb shank is different from another lamb shank. Because you know, I remember at Boqueria, my partner, we had a conversation once where he was like, I don't understand the food costs on the Iberico ham is all over the place. One week it's 32%, the next week is 38%. It doesn't make any sense.
[00:22:54]:
What's going on? Is there food waste? And I looked at him and was like, pigs aren't cubes. And that's just sort of the reality. It's hard when you're looking at margins and running a business. But the reality is that cooking requires observation and adjustment in the moment and reaction.
[00:23:10]:
So sometimes I'll have people say, well, the recipe said this, and only add this much vinegar. Well, what else is going on with that? Maybe this pork belly is fattier than the last one. Everything is different. You have to evolve and, and react, and I think that's part of why I became a cook because I love the challenge of improvisation.
[00:23:29]:
I love the challenge of reaction in real time, but I think from an emotional standpoint, I derived a lot of, and it goes to that idea of outsourcing my happiness that you mentioned, like in order to feel good about myself, I needed that positive input externally. And a big shift for me has been like understanding, you know, developing self-compassion and self-forgiveness, understanding that like, I am perfectly imperfect and not everyone is gonna like me, and that's okay.
[00:23:58]:
And it's affected the way I cook too, because now there's much less showboating in my cooking. It's much more humble and to me, I think reverential to the ingredient rather than reverential to the chef.
Josh Sharkey [00:24:06]:
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, man. It means a lot and I can totally relate. I'm also curious about what you think about sort of the intrinsic versus extrinsic part of cooking, because I have always regretted that I didn't carry on my career in cooking. I sort of stopped after Grey Kuntz.
Seamus Mullen [00:24:26]:
I know you're one of the most talented chefs I know. You're such an incredibly good cook, such a thoughtful cook and such an intelligent cook. There's not enough cooks like you.
Josh Sharkey [00:24:46]:
Well, I appreciate that man. There were others too. I talked to Barkha about this, but you know, I always felt bad because I feel like Floyd was disappointed in me for leaving and I was disappointed in myself. And I think about it so much, it's been so many years now. I still cook all the time, and it still brings me so much joy and I smile every time I'm in the kitchen.
Seamus Mullen [00:25:04]:
You're doing exactly what you need to be doing because you haven't lost your love for that craft.
Josh Sharkey [00:25:07]:
Yeah, I haven't. One thing I think about for chefs, for everyone that has that same joy of when you're in the kitchen and you have your mise en place, and you're seasoning something, and you have the just the right temp on that pan and that's cooking that and that feeling is so incredible.
[00:25:16]:
And I think about when I make something and it's delicious and I know it's delicious, how will I feel if no one ate that? You know what I mean? And it really sticks with me. I'm like, shit, I don't think I would feel. Nearly as good if I couldn't give that to somebody. And that's part of why maybe I justified it for myself, but it's part of why I sort of was able to say, you know what, you know, maybe it's okay that I moved away from to to find dining dream I had because that's narcissistic and that's not intrinsically making me happy. But I think about that as a chef. If you did it exactly how you wanted, if you had that joy of cooking and you made this delicious dish and then no one ate it, how would you feel?
[00:25:58]:
What a great question. It's funny, I've actually thought that before because it's been a while since I've done this, but I used to have like date night for myself where I would go and I'd get some beautiful lamb chops and I go to the farmer's market and get a bunch of stuff, and I use lamb as an example because lamb is one of those proteins that I love to cook. And when you cook it well and you see it is perfectly cooked, perfectly rested. It's not bleeding out when you carve it and it's just that moment of cooking something. I mean to me ultimately it's gotta be eaten too. Then there's the eating it part. Then you turn around and you're like, I gotta share this with someone because it’s so good.
[00:26:42]:
Who can I call to come over and eat my leftovers? Cause this is like really fucking good. And I think I have gotten to a place in my life where I'm okay with not sharing, like honestly, some of the best things I've ever made, no one else has tasted. Some of the best things I've made that no one else's tastes have been just so ridiculously simple.
[00:27:08]:
But they have been just about, you know, whatever, .I'm super present with the food that I'm making, but it's inevitable that we all do look for that external input. It's almost like validation too. This is the other thing that's weird. I don't know if you've ever had this experience. Of making something that you were just like, I hit it out of the park with this.
[00:27:25]:
This is amazing. And then you give it to someone else and they're just like, it's not that it’s bad. It's okay. It doesn't have the same wow. And oftentimes I think as chefs, historically, this is a big shift, and I think when I open Boqueria, there's been a big shift.
[00:27:41]:
We used to cook for other chefs. Rather than cooking for the joy of cooking and for the craft. There's a competitive component of cooking for other chefs. Like, let me show you what I can do. My skill set or my creativity. And there's just sort of like, ah, or poo-pooing other people I don't know, for whatever their vision of creativity was.
[00:28:03]:
And I think that there's a big shift that when you like cooking for the dish, not necessarily for anyone else, not for another chef, and not for yourself, but you're actually cooking for the dish, like you're cooking for the asparagus. That's a level of mindfulness that brings you to a place of presence with food that then when you do consume it, because if you're cooking for the asparagus and you're like, what is this asparagus telling me it wants, how is this artichoke speaking to me?
[00:28:29]:
What is the language this artichoke is speaking? And let me communicate with this artichoke and I'm gonna communicate through fire and acid and salt. And it's gonna communicate through nature. What am I going to do about this? And then there's a presence and a mindfulness that comes with that if you can carry that into then your experience eating it will impact how we absorb nutrients and how we relate to our food. And then ultimately, like that's what it all comes down to.
Josh Sharkey [00:28:56]:
It's a little out there, but like to the point we were talking about earlier, if we are a part of nature and not outside of it, then you know, that's a part of the experience. We talked about Boqueria. I've heard you say it a couple times, that like that wasn't your full vision, or at least it didn't become what your full vision was for what you wanted to do. And I think you mentioned once that Yann, who's the owner, great guy, you know, he mentioned that the food is better than it needs to be. And now it probably is, you know, closer to where it is for a scaled kind of Spanish concept of its nature.
[00:29:32]:
What did you learn about scaling food, scaling a concept like that you would change now? Because in the same way you were talking about you cooking for the dish, right? Like yeah, it's a mushroom croquette, but what is the greatest version of a mushroom croquette that you could do? Even if you just went sort of that route, there is obviously so much more, maybe either what you would do differently, what you learned. Is there another version of that that you've sort of envisioned in the future? Not necessarily the medium of Spanish food, but just scaling food?
Seamus Mullen[00:29:55]
Yeah, I think that, what is that great quote? I don't know who said it, but don't let perfection become the enemy of the good.
Josh Sharkey [00:30:10]:
I don't know who said that though, although Mateo, who I know from Jasper Hill. He said something to me that scared the crap outta me. He said standardization is the enemy, which is separate from perfection.
Seamus Mullen [00:30:14]:
I appreciate that from a cheesemaker, because that's honestly what he's tapped into. Again, being a part of nature. He's dealing with a live product that changes, depending upon the season. It changes depending upon what the goat ate. All of that. There's so much variation that standardization becomes completely impossible. And that's again, pigs aren't cubes.
[00:30:46]:
Like that's cool. That's us accepting our part of nature, not a part from nature. Standardization is a continuation of our desire to dominate nature. And that said, as a consumer, someone who's coming into a restaurant and they're eating a restaurant concept in New York, and then they would go to the same restaurant concept in Chicago.
[00:31:09]:
Their expectation, their desire is that it's gonna be the same, and I think there's definitely a point at which perfection does become the enemy of the good, where if you become so dependent upon individual skill, and beyond individual skills, not just skill, but it's also like passion and mindfulness and plating.
[00:31:31]:
Like think about, this is an issue that we have here all the time. I'm actually at Rosewood Hotel in Palo Alto right now and it's an issue we have all the time here with a crudo dish that it's so incredibly simple. You know, it has a beautiful green tahini dip and seasonal vegetables, and yet it's really difficult to get every person who's cooking it to choose, select, and assemble the vegetables with the same level of care.
[00:31:57]:
Because it's so simple, you have to really, really work to make sure that every radish looks great, every leaf of lettuce looks great, and the way in which it's it's organized on the plate looks natural and you can't, it's so, it is one of those things that's so hard to standardize because it's like painting a picture.
[00:32:16]:
And you can't ask, like every time you have someone new on the station, paint me this, this Rembrandt, like, everyone's gonna do their best, but it becomes difficult to standardize that. So I think that when you reach too far for expressiveness in food, it makes it incredibly challenging. To create consistency. Ultimately, I do think consistency is important.
[00:32:44]:
There is a difference between standardization and consistency. To me, standardization means that like, this is the shave of the bottle and it's always gonna be exactly like this because it's made by AI. And consistency means I'm gonna give you liquid in a bottle. And sometimes it's gonna look like this, and sometimes it might look more like this, but it's still liquid in the bottle.
[00:33:03]:
And there's a certain amount of wiggle room that's acceptable. And I think that part of that is figuring out when is the equation that defines the wiggle room, the the variance that's acceptable. And then there's also a part of that that requires entrusting the people who are making it and believing in them and giving them the tools to succeed and allowing them an input into it.
[00:33:29]:
Now, you don't want your AM cook to cook the crudo one way and your PM cook to cook it another way or play it another way. But you want to get, allow them the expressive freedom to be able to put their fingerprint on it.
Josh Sharkey [00:33:45]:
I never thought about it that way. So scaling good food requires consistency, but not standardization. And they're different. They're different. Yeah. I never really thought about that. But they are because consistency is really consistency. Delivering x and X is why you do it, the experience you wanna have. And that doesn't mean that it's always going to be a four inch piece of endive that's cut xyz.
[00:34:05]:
You have, you wanna deliver the same exact experience every time. And the reason why that dish is the way that it is, and that is harder than having an exactly four inch diameter McDonald's burger with an exact size bun with X amount of sesame seeds because. You can engineer that and make sure that it's the same every single time.
[00:34:24]:
It just costs more money, but it's way harder to scale consistency unless you are really clear on why you're doing it. Yeah. And really clear on what the experience is supposed to be.
Seamus Mullen [00:34:34]:
Yeah. And the end result could be different. Like you might actually have a better end experience if you can focus on consistency versus standardization, because if, let's say for instance, you're making a recipe that's got olives, anchovies, and preserved lemons, three salted items. And you follow a standardized recipe that says you [00:35:00] four grams of olives, four grams of preserved lemon, and four grams of anchovies, and then it has like one gram of salt that has something else in it too.
[00:35:08]:
And then you happen to get a shipment of olives that are over cured. And so they have a higher sodium content than when the recipe is written. And so if you follow the standardization, you're like, well, I do exactly what I'm supposed to do. I'm standardizing, I'm a robot. I do exactly the same thing. You're gonna end up with a product that's gonna be too salty.
[00:35:28]:
But if you are consistent about what the end result is and you understand that, and you empower and train the cooks who are making it, develop their palette and understand what the end result is that you're looking for, then they have the freedom to create adjustments so that they can achieve consistency. Because standardization does not necessarily lead to consistency. The only thing that leads to consistency is consistency.
Josh Sharkey [00:35:55]:
Yeah. I think that's a good place to wrap up here because I don't know about you, but I've learned a ton today. plane. Also, just what a great way to catch up cuz we haven't been able to talk that much in the last couple years, but congrats man on everything. I can't wait to see the new book when it comes out. I did wanna ask, by the way, what is that blender that I see all the time.
Seamus Mullen [00:36:10]:
The Beast.
Josh Sharkey [00:36:11]:
Yeah, because our Nutri, whatever that bullet, whatever the thing, we have a Nutribullet, has broken like four times. So if you have a better version, please tell me.
Seamus Mullen [00:36:26]:
Oh yeah. The Beast. Absolutely. It's my friend Colin who developed it, and was the founder of Nutribullet, took his learnings, and he turned it into a brilliant blender. Yeah. Love it.
[00:36:45]:
I appreciate that we didn't make this into a meez advertisement, but I do wanna thank you for what you've developed in meez because it's something that is a tool that I've wanted for years. Because nothing like that has existed and it's become so] integrated into my daily life. I'm always using meez.
[00:37:05]:
It's such a great tool and, and I love the ability to be able to, I could literally write cookbooks now just by going into these and just, I got a cookbook because I have so many recipes that I've built into them and they're, the interface is always improving. It's a really great tool. I know this is an overused term, but it's totally a game changer and it has been for me.
[00:37:27]:
So I just wanted to thank you for that and for what you guys have developed. I think it's wonderful and the more we can empower people to cook real food, the better. And it's a great tool for doing it.
Josh Sharkey [00:37:37]:
Thank you man. That means a lot coming from you, so thank you. We have, we have a lot more work to do to make it what it needs to become. I'm really grateful to hear that you're getting value out of it, so thank you. Awesome man. All right, man. Well next I'm in LA I will hit you up. You'll let me know.
Seamus Mullen [00:37:49]:
We'll go for a workout. I won't run because my knee is all messed up.
Josh Sharkey [00:37:54]:
I'll bike if you want. Yeah, we'll go for a bike ride and do a cold plunge and sauna and we'll make a good meal. All right, brother. Good seeing you, man. Take care.
[00:38:10]:
Thanks for tuning into The meez Podcast. The music from the show is a remix of the Song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist, Fresh Daily. For show notes and more, visit www.getmeez.com/podcast. That's G E T M E E Z dot com forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you can share it with your fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts.
[00:38:33]:
Keep innovating. Don't settle. Make today a little better than yesterday. And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.
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