Transcription
Bill Gates now owns one of the few natural healthy tonics we had, and he's putting the apples in it with, oh, the appeal, the appeal, the creep. Oh, what is that? That's like a coating that they spray on the outside of vegetables. It's like some schma to keep the apples preserved longer. Is it just apples for Costco apples to stay fresher longer? But what is in it? I would love to know. I would love to know these things. They can get stuff out there before anybody's aware that these things are a problem, and then, like, years later, you're like, "What's in it? Tal asbest?" And then you don't find out till later. So it's like talking about this and just being like, not being suspicious about, like, should apples last for four weeks? And then I guess he owns half of the McDonald's potatoes for the French fry.
And it's true, there aren't that many natural companies that are now independently owned. It's becoming less and less and less each and every single year. I'm going to show you a graphic at the end that's sort of probably going to blow your mind: how there's about eight companies total that own almost every company in the food and beverage space.
I also want to talk about Appeal here for a minute. Appeal was founded with a research grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation many years ago. And here's what Appeal is: it's that coating you're going to find on a lot of fruits and vegetables. You ever noticed that there's this sort of almost like a plastic-like coating on some of our fruits and vegetables today that helps them stay around longer? Well, Appeal is marketed as "food gone good," a plant-based protection that helps produce stay fresh longer. The coating works by slowing down moisture loss and reducing oxidation.
And here's the thing: you can't wash it off. That's one of the things to just get out there: you can't wash it off. And she asked a good question in this video: you know, shouldn't apples and produce go bad after a certain period of time? And yes, that's normal. Obviously, there are things like refrigeration or fermentation even longer that allow fruits and vegetables and other produce to stay around longer. But they've created a concoction here.
And by the way, I want to say I'm not going to be the judge, jury, and executioner on this exact product, but I want you to be informed on what I know and what most people know about Appeal here. Many organic grocery stores are choosing specifically not to carry products that have this Appeal coating on it, and it's not currently allowed for use on organic products in the UK because it uses mono and diglycerides of fatty acids.
And so you'll see here some of these compounds, you know, are synthetic. They have to be manufactured, or at least they're not natural to what you would find on a plant. You're not going to find, you know, diglycerides of fatty acids in a vegetable. These fatty acids, or at least not in most vegetables, can contain trans fats, which are also known to be harmful to your health. Manufacturing Appeal often exposes products to heavy metals like lead, nickel, mercury, toxic ash, and arsenic, according to some manufacturers.
Now, I want to say this: when it comes to Appeal, you know, did Bill Gates create something that may actually be natural in protecting food? There is a small chance of that, but based on the research that I've seen on what's actually in it and how it's manufactured, it is possible that we're going to be 10 years from now and realize that, oh, this actually isn't so healthy, and whatever is synthetically created there harms our health in some way. This happens constantly.
She mentioned Aestus in that video, and I also find it really suspicious that they don't tell us exactly what's in the product. Now, sometimes companies are trying to protect their intellectual property by doing that, but in most cases like this, if it's on food nationwide, we have a right to know the exact ingredients that are in that product. So just as a warning for everybody, this is why you should buy organic or also look to stay away from a lot of those foods that have that waxy covering and coating on them, would be my recommendation.
The other thing here is sort of a bigger idea: eight companies own almost all of the natural food companies now. And by the way, I remember this: there is a supplement company, it's still around today, and it's called New Chapter. When I was in high school and college, this was known as a really good supplement company. In fact, they were probably the largest, most prominent supplement company you would find in natural health food stores or a place like Vitamin Shoppe or Whole Foods Market, one of these places you would go. Then they were acquired by Procter and Gamble, and one of the things I noticed as I saw this happen is Procter and Gamble went— a lot of the ingredients changed at that time in New Chapter's products.
So there were some ingredient changes, some things that they started doing differently at that time, and the company just started tanking and not doing well at all. Now listen, some of that might not just be ingredient changes. Procter and Gamble might have come in and fired, you know, some of the key founders and people that were critical to the original success of New Chapter. But I do want to state again, this happens frequently.
Another company, Burt's Bees—did you know that Burt's Bees was acquired by Clorox? Here's another one: Primal Kitchen was acquired by Kraft Heinz. Coca-Cola bought Odwalla. Colgate-Palmolive bought Tom's of Maine toothpaste. Pepsi bought Naked Juice. So we see a lot of companies today, bigger conglomerate companies, buying up these small natural companies or semi-small natural companies.
This can happen over time, like Garden of Life was acquired by Nestlé. Now, I do want to say some companies, I think Nestlé and Unilever in particular, are more conscious of keeping the quality of the product. So I do think you see some large companies—so listen, I don't think some people might jump in and say, "Okay, any small company that's been bought by a big company, their quality is going to go down." I don't believe that's true, and I know because I'm in this industry and I see this a lot.
So what I've seen is a lot of companies get acquired by a big company, and their quality goes down because they have investors and start shaving on prices and things like that. But I do see a few companies—again, I think companies like Nestlé and Unilever—that actually have a lot more natural brands. They're more conscious of this; they let the founders or the people that started the company continue to run it the right way, use quality ingredients, and just let them use the resources.
Because I think they've realized that if they come in and change everything about the company and products, they've seen it happen like a crash, like New Chapter or other brands start to crash and don't do as well when they go in and change the quality of the product.
So I want to say this: it's important to be mindful of who owns the company that you're buying from and also to know what is the virtue of the company that's buying the other companies. Like Nestlé has actually made a big shift recently to try and become more natural, which I applaud them for, because it was the original thing that they were trying to do before they became a candy bar company. Then they just sold all their candy bar companies, and now they're trying to go almost all natural.
So listen, just because a big company owns it doesn't mean that small company is going to change for the worse, but it does mean that that will happen oftentimes. So I just wanted you to be aware of that. Bill Gates is not a health expert; he doesn't really understand vitamins and minerals, exercise, and actually how to live to be over 100. He doesn't—he's not the person that I would trust in that at all.
So hey, I'd love to hear what you think about a few things here. One, what are your thoughts on all of these big companies—eight companies in total—owning all of the small companies? And what are your thoughts on Appeal, that coating on the food we have? And by the way, you can see, if you're watching this video, you can see this chart here where I show these few brands that own all of the other brands here on this chart as well.
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