“Zero sugar.” “All natural.” “Made with whole grains.”
Yeah… and Big Food cares about your health.
In this episode of Stay in the Gray, Ryan Lafield exposes the chemically-engineered circus we call the American diet. From factory-farmed meat and banned additives to fake labels and real damage, this is what they’re feeding you—and what they’re hoping you never question.
🎙 Topics include:
– Grocery store lies and label games
– Food additives banned in Europe (but not here)
– Factory farming and ethics we ignore
– Why RFK Jr. might be the only one saying it out loud
📉 40% of Americans are obese.
🧪 Our food is a lab experiment.
🐄 Our meat is misery.
Hit Follow to hear what they wish you’d stay too fat and tired to notice.
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction: The Deception of Food Labels
00:33 - Personal Reflections and the American Diet
02:01 - The Misleading Nature of Food Labels
03:47 - The Impact of Processed Foods
10:27 - Factory Farming and Food Ethics
12:12 - Taking Action: How to Make Better Food Choices
14:05 - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food Regulation
19:11 - Conclusion: A Call to Awareness and Change
00:00:00
The food labels lie harder than Pfizer at a press conference.
00:00:03
Your all natural snack is not all natural.
00:00:08
I don't know why they get away with it.
00:00:10
What we're really dealing with isn't nutrition, it's a profit
00:00:13
driven deception disguised as a well-being as a life change, as
00:00:19
a lifestyle choice. Like KFC could literally mean
00:00:21
10 chickens, one on top of the other in a barn without ever
00:00:26
seeing the sun, with ever being outside in the fresh air.
00:00:30
And we wonder why we're sick, why superbugs are rising.
00:00:33
Hey guys, good to be with you again.
00:00:37
I love it every time I hit record on the camera.
00:00:41
It is April the 30th, 2025. It is one day until May.
00:00:46
Please slow down. I'm not getting any younger
00:00:49
today I'm going to hit something that might seem cliche these
00:00:54
days. It may seem like, oh, here we go
00:00:56
again. We're tired of hearing it, but
00:00:58
my God, it needs to be said. And of all people to do it, it's
00:01:02
somebody who is guilty of exactly what I'm going to bitch
00:01:05
at everybody about, which is food and diets in this country.
00:01:15
It's it's disturbing. I started thinking about it
00:01:18
recently with the new administration and Robert
00:01:21
Kennedy Junior and all of the things he's trying to do.
00:01:25
And until somebody kind of puts it in your face, you just kind
00:01:28
of you just you just you roll with it.
00:01:31
You live, you go to the grocery store and you move on, you go to
00:01:35
restaurants and without questioning anything you eat.
00:01:39
And every once in awhile, that's OK.
00:01:41
Everything in moderation is what most people say.
00:01:44
But when it stacks up and stacks up over years, that's the reason
00:01:47
that our country is looked down at when it comes to health and
00:01:51
food. It's just a fact.
00:01:52
So I'm titling this show processed, poisoned and proud as
00:01:56
hell. Welcome to the American diet.
00:02:00
It seems to apply. You think you're eating healthy
00:02:03
when you see things like low fat, 0 sugar, all natural.
00:02:08
That's what the label says. That's what they're advertising.
00:02:12
I'm guilty of it. I drink Coke Zeros and all that,
00:02:15
that no sugar stuff. I know there's aspartame in it.
00:02:18
I know that there are other things in it, but that doesn't
00:02:22
matter because I'm staying away from the sugar, which is we all
00:02:26
know is bad. But here's the truth.
00:02:28
The food labels lie harder than Pfizer at a press conference.
00:02:32
Your all natural snack is not all natural.
00:02:37
I don't know why they get away with it.
00:02:38
The FDA has not labeled natural to mean anything, so somebody
00:02:44
puts it on there. It sounds great.
00:02:45
Oh, this is all natural. Meanwhile, it's probably not
00:02:50
making you very healthy. 0 sugar, like I said, it's
00:02:53
basically a chemical cocktail that sounds like it belongs in a
00:02:57
hazmat suit rather than in your body.
00:03:00
Today we're going to RIP that label off and let's show you
00:03:03
what you're actually ingesting to a point.
00:03:07
I know that hearing everybody just get on you and get on you
00:03:10
and give you a hard time about this kind of thing is annoying,
00:03:15
but I'm going to look at it in a light hearted way and if I can
00:03:19
start acknowledging this and just become aware or more aware,
00:03:24
anybody can. I mean, we all want to look
00:03:26
better. I have about 10 lbs I'd like to
00:03:29
lose. It's difficult when you get to
00:03:31
be middle-aged and time is of the essence, but things like
00:03:36
this can help and I, I, now that I have children, I want to live.
00:03:39
I want to live a while. I don't I'm not ready to go yet.
00:03:41
So I started thinking about it and I just thought it'd be good
00:03:44
to talk about so let's talk here we go.
00:03:47
Like I said, we all know that the United States is how it
00:03:51
reviewed when it comes to being obese.
00:03:53
And again, I'm guilty of all of it.
00:03:56
I don't mind. I love going out to eat dinner.
00:03:59
I love pizza, I love Chipotle, you know, even especially
00:04:04
breakfasts from fast food restaurants.
00:04:06
Give me an egg Sausage Mcmuffin with egg and I'm happy, man.
00:04:11
But that's not good. That was fine when I was 19 and
00:04:13
I was exercising and I was in better shape.
00:04:16
But now it's tough. And what happens is I go, well,
00:04:19
I'll just get it one day and then I'll get it again months
00:04:22
down the road. And then then a couple days
00:04:24
later you're like, OK, one more time.
00:04:26
And that's the same with anything that becomes a little
00:04:28
bit addictive. 40.3% of Americans are obese.
00:04:34
I'm going to go ahead and tell you that 41, a little over 41%
00:04:38
of those are women and only 39 are men.
00:04:42
I, I have something that was a little bit surprising and I'm
00:04:45
going to latch on anything I can for my boys.
00:04:47
So my Target, your fridge, your pantry, the restaurants you
00:04:52
frequent and your smug little health food aisle when you think
00:04:57
you're doing good for yourself, when you're not, what we're
00:05:00
really dealing with isn't nutrition.
00:05:02
It's a profit driven deception disguised as a well-being, as a
00:05:07
life change, as a lifestyle choice.
00:05:10
A lot of these bad diets will do that.
00:05:12
Keto and Atkins were very similar.
00:05:14
You've got the carnivore diet, you've got the Mediterranean
00:05:19
diet, all of these quite possibly just luring you in for
00:05:23
whatever reason. In reality, it's probably more
00:05:25
of a, you know, picking and choosing and not eating as much
00:05:28
processed food, which is what we'll get to.
00:05:31
So the labels are misleading. Let's start where it all begins
00:05:34
from the grocery store. I walk by all the time and you
00:05:38
know, again, you look at the labels a lot of times you're
00:05:41
going fast, you're going down the aisles and you just kind of
00:05:44
see something. You go, oh, that's great.
00:05:45
If you're gluten free, you know, gluten free, perfect.
00:05:47
When in reality, there's, it's not always 100% what it says it
00:05:52
is. My wife's big into the gluten
00:05:54
free thing. I used to give her a hard time
00:05:56
about it. She truly 100% believes it makes
00:05:59
her feel better. And sometimes it'll say gluten
00:06:03
free and it's really not. There's stuff in there that
00:06:05
actually does contain gluten, very small amount, but if you
00:06:09
have celiac disease or something very very strong gluten
00:06:12
intolerance, it affects you. So is that false advertisement
00:06:17
and should they be allowed to do that?
00:06:19
Natural means, like I said, it means absolutely nothing.
00:06:21
The FDA hasn't labeled that. I've already mentioned the 0
00:06:24
sugar is sugar alcohols, aspartine, things like that.
00:06:29
The big one is that I see that is when it says made with whole
00:06:32
grain. I used to think that was like
00:06:33
that was the thing, but it's whole, whole grain, whole wheat,
00:06:36
whole this whole that I've learned that it can be in
00:06:39
microscopic amounts and it's right there with like corn syrup
00:06:43
and white flour. They're able to use very tiny
00:06:45
amounts and then and just label it.
00:06:48
But it's not so I don't believe that we're necessarily shopping.
00:06:51
It's just a bunch of advertisements that you're
00:06:53
walking through and you just kind of take the best
00:06:56
advertisement, the one that gets you.
00:06:58
And a lot of times it's not just the ingredients or or these
00:07:01
labels, it's the way they you know, I remember a long time ago
00:07:05
I did an episode about wine A a not didn't do a whole episode,
00:07:09
but I did a part about a wine bottle and I even plugged it
00:07:12
saying this got me just because of the label.
00:07:15
It was cool. So there is a lot to that.
00:07:18
It's not just as simple as, you know, this says this, throw it
00:07:22
in the cart and people just need to be aware, aware of it.
00:07:25
We fall for it cart after cart, cart after cart because we trust
00:07:29
packaging more than common sense.
00:07:31
The processed food, in my opinion, the most important to
00:07:34
me because of of lifestyle. We're on the go, we're doing
00:07:38
things. It's hard.
00:07:39
It's easy to pop that, you know, enchilada dinner or that frozen
00:07:42
burrito in the microwave on the go.
00:07:45
I'm not some people don't like those things, but it's fill in
00:07:49
the blank for what you do like with processed foods and that
00:07:52
can be healthy cereal that can be all kinds of stuff dressed up
00:07:57
playing a role as good for you. When in reality the the the
00:08:00
process is not and, and the statistic I have is 60% of the
00:08:05
average American diet is processed.
00:08:08
There's a lot and that includes, like I said, the health cereals,
00:08:11
those protein bars, the frozen dinners on my favorite are these
00:08:14
Lean Cuisine. Here, eat, eat this much food
00:08:18
and it's only, you know, 200 calories.
00:08:20
Well, no shit. It's like 2 spoonfuls.
00:08:22
What people are forgetting is that even though it says Lean
00:08:24
Cuisine or Smart Choice or Atkins, it's still very heavily
00:08:29
processed and that's just as bad.
00:08:33
So they're not just unhealthy, they're designed to hijack your
00:08:37
brain. What are the results?
00:08:39
Well, I'm glad you asked. The obvious ones are obesity,
00:08:42
type 2 diabetes, which is scary, but the common ones down the
00:08:46
road are heart disease. How about depression?
00:08:49
A lot of people eat to try and thwart depression.
00:08:53
In reality, what they're doing is they're probably making it
00:08:56
worse because of the processed foods.
00:08:58
So we're not feeding ourselves, we're sedating ourselves.
00:09:01
So the hidden ingredients, the chemical additives, that's
00:09:04
something to look at too. Here's some fine print if you're
00:09:06
not reading the labels. Something like TBHQ, that's a
00:09:11
petroleum based preservative. You know, like motor oil, but in
00:09:15
your crackers. Sodium nitrate.
00:09:17
This one's scary to me. Not in lunch meat.
00:09:20
It's also been linked to a correlation between that and
00:09:23
cancer. I know there are a lot of
00:09:25
studies that it's linked to cancer.
00:09:28
It's linked to this or linked to that.
00:09:31
Man, I don't want to take a chance when it comes to cancer.
00:09:34
Tell you what, over my lifetime that lunch meat is comes in
00:09:36
handy. Throw it in a wrap, throw a
00:09:38
tortilla, throw it in A and some bread.
00:09:40
Sandwiches are easy as a kid, Bologna and cheese.
00:09:44
I make my children now they eat, you know, sandwich meat,
00:09:48
something they look to consider. And maybe there's a way to get
00:09:50
deli meat from the counter where it's not so processed, but stay
00:09:56
away from that packaged, that packaged meat because that's
00:09:59
what I'm reading here about red 40 and yellow 5.
00:10:03
These are dyes, artificial dyes and they're banned in other
00:10:06
countries, but here generously sprinkled in your kids fruit
00:10:11
snacks. Again, easy snack for kids.
00:10:14
They love it. And I feed my and I give my kids
00:10:16
fruit snacks. I try for the all natural ones,
00:10:19
but as I'm learning, those may not be good either.
00:10:22
So if you can't pronounce it, it's probably not to be meant to
00:10:25
be in food. So think about that.
00:10:27
So OK, let's talk about farming. Factory farming, food ethics if
00:10:43
you will. 99% of meat comes from factory farms.
00:10:49
I'm not talking about farms where the cows are in the field
00:10:53
like you see driving on the highway down here in Texas.
00:10:56
I'm talking about warehouses of hormone jacked livestock pumped
00:11:02
full of antibiotics and living on top of their own waste.
00:11:06
First off, the issue is these poor animals.
00:11:10
I'm not OK with that. Even though I plan to have a
00:11:12
nice big rare piece of of you. I do not want you to suffer poor
00:11:17
poor animals. I just don't.
00:11:19
And to have these animals all on top of each other living in
00:11:23
their own shit and treated horribly is not OK and it makes
00:11:28
the product worse. So if you talk about ethical
00:11:32
Treatment of Animals later, go back and listen to our show with
00:11:35
the president of PITA, Ingrid Newkirk.
00:11:37
If you want to talk about ethics when it comes to Treatment of
00:11:40
Animals today. I'm just talking about the
00:11:43
quality of the meat comes from the animals.
00:11:45
And that's a big reason why chickens cage free doesn't mean
00:11:50
they're roaming around having a great life before the they're
00:11:54
they're fed to us by KFC could literally mean 10 chickens,
00:11:58
one on top of the other in a barn without ever seeing the sun
00:12:02
or with ever being outside in the fresh air.
00:12:05
And we wonder why we're sick, why super bugs are rising.
00:12:08
If you want cheap bacon, well, this is the cost.
00:12:12
OK, what can we actually do? Let's not pretend that it's doom
00:12:15
and gloom. There are lots of things here.
00:12:18
Read, pass the front label, look at ingredients.
00:12:22
I get it. Nobody wants to spend an hour
00:12:25
and a half at the fucking grocery store looking at every
00:12:28
label that you pick up shopping every single item you have to
00:12:31
get. It would take forever.
00:12:32
I get it. Start somewhere.
00:12:34
Just, you know, you scroll. How much time do you spend
00:12:37
flipping through reels? I don't know.
00:12:39
Take a little bit of time and just start with a few things.
00:12:42
Look at the the cereals and the bars and things like that that
00:12:45
you're getting the all natural stuff.
00:12:47
Do those things first and then maybe you'll know.
00:12:50
You'll learn as you go instead of, you know, I'm not telling
00:12:53
you to go to the store right now and every single item.
00:12:55
Let's look at it, but look at, you know, maybe one or two items
00:12:57
each time you go and Start learning.
00:12:59
Don't stop scrolling our reels and shorts.
00:13:03
Finish that first and then shoot over to the grocery store.
00:13:06
If you want a CHEAT SHEET. What I've learned is that if you
00:13:10
Google ingredients banned in Europe but still in the US,
00:13:15
that's a start. I mean, these are, this is very
00:13:18
common and it'll make you go in and throw out half the food in
00:13:21
your pantry. When you realize that most of
00:13:23
the world doesn't allow these, that's a problem.
00:13:26
They're not just stingy Europeans, which I like to call
00:13:29
them at times. Buy one ingredient foods.
00:13:32
So chicken, not a product of chicken.
00:13:36
Obviously, you won't try to get free range and not cageless or
00:13:40
whatever they say, whatever it is, because as we just learned,
00:13:44
it doesn't necessarily mean that they're free and open and then
00:13:47
support local farmers. A lot of these local farmers
00:13:50
have high ethics and high moral standards when it comes to this,
00:13:54
and that's where we want to get our food from.
00:13:56
Not only do you support them, but you're getting better food.
00:13:59
Don't wait for the perfection of food.
00:14:01
Just don't fall for the scam. Just start down the path.
00:14:05
Let's talk lastly about my man Robert Kennedy, Junior RFK.
00:14:11
This is a man who stuck with his principles and went from a
00:14:16
Democrat like his entire family to realize that he didn't want
00:14:21
to align with the Democrats. Don't blame him.
00:14:23
He went then independent, which is more where I hang out or have
00:14:27
hung out my entire life, and finally, after realizing that
00:14:31
wasn't going to get him anywhere, jumped over a board
00:14:34
with the Trump administration. And he is, of course, put in
00:14:39
charge of Food and Drug. And for some reason, this man is
00:14:42
still being chastised. He's not qualified.
00:14:46
Not this, not that I'm not going to say it.
00:14:48
I'm not going to show you anything.
00:14:50
Go look at the previous person in charge of this.
00:14:53
And, and let's talk about health.
00:14:55
Robert F Kennedy junior is, is doing a fantastic job.
00:14:59
He is motivated to make this country healthy again.
00:15:04
The left doesn't like when we say make America whatever again,
00:15:07
but make America healthy again, Maha or however you want to say
00:15:11
it is a thing and I'm all about it.
00:15:14
So they're trying to silence him.
00:15:16
And I feel like a lot of the opposition to the Trump
00:15:19
administration are big time, however you want to say
00:15:23
executive type corporations. And if he wants to fix it, then
00:15:29
that's not good because they're in bed with Big Pharma and Big
00:15:34
AG, which is farming. If they're in bed with them,
00:15:37
obviously they don't support what he's doing.
00:15:39
So he's calling out the FDA for being in bed with those people.
00:15:42
And he's demanding transparency in food labeling.
00:15:46
He's calling for bans for chemicals that are already
00:15:49
outlawed in Europe. And he's exposing how the
00:15:52
agencies are captured by the industries they're supposed to
00:15:55
regulate. How are these bad things?
00:15:57
I challenge anybody to tell me. Quit letting your blind hate for
00:16:04
the entire administration cloud your judgement.
00:16:07
Why would you not want this country to be healthy?
00:16:10
You don't have to be, but don't sit here and and talk about a
00:16:13
man who's done nothing but try and make it better.
00:16:16
He's not asking for a fucking kale smoothies everyday and he's
00:16:22
not asking for for you to alter your life 100%.
00:16:26
All he's saying is let's not poison ourselves.
00:16:30
That seems pretty realistic to me as far as a want in our
00:16:34
society. So here's the question.
00:16:36
When it comes to RFK, are you going to keep mocking him on
00:16:39
Twitter X because your feed told you to?
00:16:44
Or are you going to sit here and say, hey, let's get on board?
00:16:47
If there's one thing in this administration, for those of you
00:16:51
that do not like it, let it be this.
00:16:54
Why don't we come together on this and say, you know what?
00:16:57
Fuck everything else, but you know what?
00:16:59
Yeah, let's all come together because we are all Americans
00:17:02
here. And if those are the people that
00:17:05
want to say that we're being laughed at, This is why we're
00:17:07
being laughed at is because we're fucking fat and out of
00:17:10
shape. So let's change that.
00:17:13
I see no reason not to. In fact, Pepsi Company, we all
00:17:18
know what Pepsi is. I'm not a fan as much as some
00:17:21
other sodas, if you will, but kudos to them.
00:17:24
They've come out and they've committed.
00:17:26
They've pledged that coming up here, I believe, I believe at
00:17:30
the end of this year, I, I forgive me, do your own research
00:17:34
that they are going to eliminate all artificial ingredients in
00:17:37
their foods. And it was they want to align
00:17:41
with this broader initiative that was put forth by RFK Junior
00:17:44
and of course the FDA commissioner for goals that they
00:17:48
have. And Pepsi was one of the first
00:17:51
major corporations to say, all right, we're on board.
00:17:54
And man, what a what a great deal if they can make their
00:17:57
products without this artificial bullshit and it still tastes
00:18:02
good and it's still people get used to it, man, This is a good
00:18:06
thing. Tell you what, I went on quick
00:18:08
story and it before and I went on my honeymoon over to Italy
00:18:12
and Croatia, Montenegro. And I've lived in Scotland and
00:18:15
I've been all over Europe and they're not as heavy as we are.
00:18:19
They're just not they and they eat, you know, the French eat
00:18:22
cheese and bread and they drink wine all day long.
00:18:25
And that's not a stereotype. That's what I saw in Italy.
00:18:29
They obviously eat pizza and pasta.
00:18:32
That's not a it's a stereotype, but it's also reality.
00:18:35
The difference is the quality of their food, the quality of the
00:18:38
wheat, of the flour of what they're using to make these
00:18:42
things. And man, it was delicious.
00:18:45
So I'm all for this. I think, you know, obviously
00:18:49
when I was younger, I'm like, hey, whatever, who cares?
00:18:51
I'm invincible. As you get older and you start
00:18:54
going, hey, we've got the technology to live longer and to
00:18:57
be happier, why not start with something like the food?
00:19:00
That's so easy. It just needs to be regulated.
00:19:03
And the people at the top who are benefiting from this poison
00:19:07
financially need to be called out.
00:19:10
And we need to make those changes.
00:19:11
So we've been lied to. Obviously.
00:19:13
We're living in the system that labels chemical trash as
00:19:15
wholesome, and it punishes the people who speak up until now,
00:19:19
hopefully. Americans love to call
00:19:21
themselves freedom loving, but they're chugging toxic sludged
00:19:25
labeled immune boosters. I don't think this is much
00:19:29
freedom. If you're offended by this
00:19:31
because either you're a fatty and you don't like that I'm
00:19:34
calling out Americans for being fat, good.
00:19:37
Maybe I hit something hard and maybe it will inspire you to at
00:19:41
least be a little better for yourself and for those who love
00:19:46
you. It's not about being perfect.
00:19:48
It's about waking up a little bit and starting somewhere and
00:19:52
getting ourselves. Being proud of food over here,
00:19:55
being proud of it. Right now, it's everyone goes,
00:19:58
yeah, I can't. I can't lie.
00:20:00
It's pretty bad. Well, why are we just accepting
00:20:03
that? Let's get it done.
00:20:04
I'm all about it. So thanks for staying Gray.
00:20:07
This is kind of a Gray area. It can be.
00:20:10
I think instead of going from point A to point Z, like without
00:20:15
any work, that can't happen. So I just challenge you to go to
00:20:20
point B. And then to C&D and keep keep
00:20:23
kind of cruising along at your pace, what's good for you.
00:20:26
And just to let's educate ourselves, that's all.
00:20:29
We can't all just go to Italy to get pizza every night, as much
00:20:33
as I would like to. There's one in particular so
00:20:35
good. If this episode made you want to
00:20:38
go look in your fridge just to kind of see 'cause you're
00:20:41
curious, share it with somebody else, give me a like and
00:20:43
subscribe and and follow. Give a write a review, tell
00:20:47
people all I'm trying to do is help.
00:20:49
So if someone want, if you think someone wants to hear this, pass
00:20:52
it on. Until then, stay sharp, stay
00:20:55
questioning, stay laughing, stay great.
00:21:00
Love you guys.