The Processed Foods Epidemic

What happens when you decide to take on a multi-billion dollar bureaucratic framework that is actively failing the health of the people who defend this country?

In this episode of No Hype, Just Standards, I sit down with legendary chef, entrepreneur, and former Royal Navy cook Chef Robert Irvine. Across a high-impact career spanning 22 seasons of Restaurant Impossible, private casino management, and global supply chains, Robert has operated at the peak of high-volume systemic execution. But his most critical, unpaid mission is happening right now inside the United States military, where he is completely dismantling the toxic, convenience-driven food systems that feed our joint force.

Robert opens up with fierce, unfiltered candor about his battle against institutional laziness, structural procurement tariffs, and outdated legislative frameworks that have kept military and school dining facilities trapped in a cycle of processing low-quality, prepackaged food. He breaks down the operational execution behind turning a $600,000 baseline renovation into a high-technology, cook-to-order culinary system that processes a thousand troops in ninety-eight seconds while operating 26% below historical budget costs. You will also discover the staggering data behind modern military food insecurity, the real physical and financial tolls of obesity-driven disease pill management inside the VA, and how to apply these raw, whole-food strategies within your own household kitchen.

Transcript

Auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly formatted. Each timestamp links to that moment in the video.

0:00 I would go to the butcher in your supermarket and and have him slice you two steaks right in front of you instead of buying the prepackaged. I would never buy prepackaged anything. It was an eviction notice. I give 10,000 a male money. She would give 10,000. We paid the back debt. He two years later in the same house. The chicken nuggets weren’t It was ground up chicken bound together with protein. Wasn’t even chicken. Has to be able to feed 800 people in the middle of a jungle at any point in time. Makes me feel great. Makes me sleep good at night and know they’re making a difference. If food is fuel, why are we feeding the people we ask the most of the worst fuel we make? The kids in our school, the patients in our hospital, the young men and women we send into uniform. We have engineered the food systems that surround them around cost, shelf life, and convenience, not around them. The bill comes due decades later. Mostly we pay it as a country and we call it health care. I’m Zac Armstrong. This is No Hype Just

1:01 Standards. My guest today is Chef Robert Irvine. If you have a television, you know him from Restaurant Impossible. 22 seasons, more than 300 episodes of walking into failing restaurants and rebuilding them in two days. If you have a son or daughter in the military, you know his name from the Robert Irvine Foundation and the work he has done for the veteran community for years. If you’ve ever picked up a high protein bar at a gas station, there’s a good chance it carried his name. He is also a former Royal Navy cook. And that piece of his story matters for today’s conversation than most people realize. I asked Robert here because of what he has spent the last three years doing, working unpaid as a special consultant to the United States Army. He’s been inside the dining facilities at Fort Hood and Fort Lee rebuilding how the people who defend this country actually get fed. In April he took the argument national as the inaugural guest on the Secretary Kennedy Podcast. The case he made there is the one I think about every day on this show. The food system failing our troops is the same one failing our kids in

2:02 Schools, our parents in the hospitals, and our chronically ill country. The fix is upstream of medicine. And if you’re new here, hit the follow. If you’ve been here for a while, share this with someone you know who is fueling someone else, whether it is a child, a parent, a unit, or a patient. Let’s get into this. Hey Robert, thank you for joining us this morning. What part of the world are you joining us from? I’m actually just got back from Scotland. I’m in Tampa and Colorado tomorrow. Oh nice, a little bit different temperatures there. Oh, it’s freezing. Um Yeah, so most people listening are going to know you from Restaurant Impossible. Um but can you take us back, you know, where did you grow up? What was kind of the house like, the food, inspiration there? Um yeah, I mean I grew up in a typical um poor family in England. Um joined the secret outs at the age of 11. My father was a a soldier in the army. My brother was in

3:02 The army. I joined the secret outs at 11. Didn’t want to join the army. Um I was uh in a home economics class at the age of 11 because there was 30 girls and me and I thought I’m going to get a girlfriend. Yeah, and I love food and here I am 6 years old still doing the same thing. Um served in the navy for many years. I was on board various warships in the Falklands, HMS Apollo. Uh Royal Yacht Britannia, uh Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, and all the other places that uh take you on your journey as you well know in the military that you don’t know until you get in the military. Yeah, then you know. You don’t know until you know. Um was there a person, anybody early in your life, a grandparent, a friend, teacher that kind of maybe turn turned you on to food? No, my mother was a terrible cook. Um or actually wrote a book, one of my first books of several, and I put a chapter in there about her,

4:04 How bad she was. I had to tell her that oh, by the way, I wrote this book, and she said, “I’m so proud of you.” I said, “Well, you it’s really about you and how a terrible cook you were.” Um and she said, “Well, that’s the way your dad liked the food.” I said, “Well, drinking vegetables through a straw is not exactly healthy.” No, not most of the time. Um and so, you came up through the Royal Navy, as you just mentioned. I don’t feel like most uh Americans would even know that. Uh can you kind of tell us like how that happened, you know, how old were you? What what was kind of the career path there? I was not a good kid at school. Uh I loved home economics, I loved history, I loved woodwork, and I loved sports. I played rugby, football, or soccer to you. Um uh badminton. I was good at all sports, and uh good at woodwork, great at history. Um they’re the only things I really enjoyed in home economics. So, I rarely went to school. My mother would go to work in the morning, catch a

5:06 Bus, I would wave, and uh and I would double back and drink my dad’s beer with friends until one day she caught me. And it was the demise of Robert Irvine. Uh she marched me down through an office at the age of 15 years old, 15 and a half years old. Um I took the NAMIT test, which is a naval arithmetic and math test. Five being the highest, low Sorry, five being the lowest, one being the highest, I got five five. He said to me, quote unquote, “Congratulations, sonny, you’re in the Majesty’s Royal Navy, and you’re going to be a cook.” To which I my reply was, “Woohoo, awesome.” cuz that’s what I wanted to anyway. Little did I know that cooking was very different to what I was used to as cook. Oh man, yeah. Anybody who’s ever been in a Navy galley would understand that. Yeah. Um yeah, for you, so you know, so what was something that you maybe took from those naval years that you’ve carried through with you? You know, I can tell you point-blank everything that I do now is based on the

6:06 Service. Everything. Sure. I assumed. Discipline, the camaraderie, the loyalty, the friendship, uh the seriousness of staying operating procedures, the way we do things, the the management structure, meaning the leadership structure, everything that I learned in her majesty’s Royal Navy is to to me with me still to this day in everything I do. Everything. And we’ve got my goodness, you know, I’ve 19 funny companies with a lot of people. Um from food to drones to uh uh humanoids to I mean, you just name the gambit, we’ve got it. Um and that’s successful because of those lessons I learned in the military. Not because of what I learned now. Yes, you learn things in life, but I think the military grounds you in such a way that you don’t

7:06 Allow others to step on you cuz that’s not how the military is. There are some bad eggs in there, course there are. But um on the outside world, somebody wants your job, they’re going to trample all over you. In inside world, you don’t get that. You know, in the civilian world. Very rarely. Yeah, it’s um take care of each other. Your brother is just as more is just as important as mission, right? People mission. Um when you walk into a divi- uh you know, for those that don’t know, you’re now um helping you know, the army come up with a better food system, hospitals, children, um schools, um so when you walk into a di- dining facility now on a military base, is there anything that flashes back for you? Everything. Look, first of all, I’m I’m a highly specialized expert in what I do for the for the joint force. So, that’s not just the army. The army was the biggest one to take the plunge uh 3 years ago with uh Chris Mohan and Michelle Donahue, who was a two-star, now a three-star, and Randy George, who was the chief of the the army at that time,

8:06 Which I had known for many years. Um called called me into his office depending on where we have a restaurant and said, “Look, I want to do this. I want this this thing to be changed.” And I said, “Well, you you’re going to have to be my battle buddy if you’re going to take a lot of bullets for me. I’m going to piss a lot of people off.” And I did, and I am still, you know, um one thing I can’t abide is is laziness. And again, that’s a military thing, right? All right. Um We do things as if it’s easy. No, we don’t. We train repetitively, so we don’t have to think about it when it gets hot. Right. And I think that’s And I think exactly. And I think that’s my my disregard for the for the legislative system in our military and schools in our military, by the way, and prisons and schools on the outside that have led me on this crusade for 23 years to change what I believe

9:08 Um is just laziness. Right? Buying your food the wrong way. Why are we buying food for a piece of salmon at $9.24 when I can buy it fresh for $2? Why are we using these people to put tariffs on top the the whole world. Look, I’m in a fight with the whole world. Um It goes the BLAs the BLAs. Um I’m dealing with the highest level of of of national security meaning Well, bureaucracy but also national security because food is national security, whether we like it or not. The you know, the 13 ships, 14 ships that are off the coast of Iran right now, whether we’ve made a peace deal or not, still have to be fed. The people in Germany and and on the coasts of of Poland and everywhere I go every week, still have to be fed and we’re asking them to be triple A athletes and we’re not giving them Yes, we give them bullets and we give them rifles and yeah, but but we don’t treat them like adults. We don’t give them

10:10 What they need to succeed. No, under fueling for sure. And that’s my That’s my flag. It’s a big one and one that I would love that I join you joining you on a smaller scale for sure, but um definitely look up to. For someone, you know, to go from the Navy, you know, from the Royal Navy to Restaurant Impossible, that’s not exactly a linear line. How did How did that kind of unfold for you? Well, I came out the Navy, um didn’t know what to do, went into a hotel, played football soccer for a short amount of time. Uh I was not very good at it, by the way, um but played in Warsaw. But I was working in the hotel that the club owned as a chef. Um then I got bored of that because it wasn’t fast-paced enough for me. I um went to a cruise ship in America on the coast of America in Miami um became an executive No, I became a sous chef, my first contract, then became executive sous chef, then chef, running my own ship. Um

11:11 Then I went to another company around the world sailing um as executive chef, then went to Jamaica for a while, put two hotels together, then got a call from a headhunter to run Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, which is Trump’s casino. He had four of them. Uh, I became the number two there. And I said to Donald Trump himself, if I’m not number one within a year, I’m out of here. Uh, I stayed a long time, made him a lot of money. He made me a lot of money. Um, and we changed the way we purchased food, uh, wine, products, uh, by buying futures on all of those things that nobody understood at that time. Right. You know, military told me that a long, long time ago. And yet, we don’t do that here in the military, which is phenomenally crazy to me. The amount of money we spend, and yet we don’t do that. So, I I So, my my upbringing,

12:11 You know, I’m 60 years old. I’ve been in charge of things since I was 30. I make you a lot of money. I mean, my base pay was $250,000 before a half million dollar bonus. Yeah. You know, that’s not small change. Uh, it’s which is kind of funny when you think about it. It’s not money that excites me. It’s the challenge of of of fixing something. In this case, it’s the military feeding and the weird schools, uh, 178 of them at the moment, um, which has been set in place since 1933 because somebody back in 1933 decided that the Department of Education should run military feeding. Since, you know, that was way back before my my time. Um, we got legislation changed for the Army, which is now looking at all the joint force. Um, and we saved hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars, yet giving better nutrition, cooked to order, just like you’ll get in a

13:12 Restaurant or a triple A school. Right. It’s, um, kind of a loop in system that’s broken. And I’m glad someone like you Nobody’s Nobody’s brave enough to take it on because they wear uniform. And there was levels of of of leadership in those uniforms and you well know this. You know, one star, two star, three star, four star, secretaries, secretary of defenses, and so on and so on and so on. Um I don’t wear uniform. I don’t get paid. What they do, they pay me a dollar. Uh and I like and I like the fight. Because I’ll fight for something I believe in. Uh and I know I can change and I’ve proven that in the last six bases that we’ve changed. I was in Germany a couple of weeks ago looking at Wiesbaden which will change in October and at the school system and then last week at Fort Bragg and their seven schools. Looking how do we change that, standardize the menu to get better food for kids that they want to eat and not just because somebody they’re already dealing with a lot too, right? Deployed Somebody just said, “Oh, we we’re going

14:12 To put You’re going to eat a a half a cup of boiled broccoli a day.” Who came up with that? It’s just mind-blowing to me. Yeah, so I you know, I think a good question here is like you just said, you know, I think most people know you from the TV, protein bars. Like you said, you have 19, 21 you know, collaborations right now. What made you decide to pick this fight? For 23 years like I’ve been on this journey of with the USO, you correctly mentioned the shirt. Um Mike Linington’s taken over there. Done a done doing an amazing job. Armed Forces Entertainment. Um Fab uh is doing amazing job. I traveled the globe the last 23 years. Uh 23 and a half years and seen some of the worst slop. And that’s the best way to describe it. On warships uh forward operating bases, um around the globe. Afghanistan, Iraq, Poland, Spain, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, etc. etc.

15:12 And been disheartened that, you know, we can do better for our servicemen and women and their families, by the way. I’ll get into that piece in a minute. That’s a separate piece. But, I I felt um and every chairman, every secretary, the last four, five, I’ve had these conversations. I’m in conversations now, but it’s actually happening. Uh 3 years ago, we changed or went into change legislation. Myself, Chief of the Army, uh a whole bunch of Jack folks, uh AMC Army Materiel Command, G4, and I wrote the RFP with them people for their service uh uh of these dining facilities. Meaning, instead of folks coming in and cooking food and putting in a hot box 8:00 in the morning, and then nobody coming in from the way to o’clock, and still getting paid, you know, the full amount, and not serving anybody, it was ridiculous. So, um Randy George and these other folks I’ve

16:12 Mentioned said, “Hey, how can we do this?” I took them to Columbia University in in used upstate New York. 95% uh 95% retention rate from year one to year five in their studies. Average age same as military. But, the difference being, they were 2 mi from any food in any way at any direction in New York City, and the military’s not like that. And yet, they had that 95% retention. No refrigeration. So, food coming in at 2:00 in the morning, got distributed, cooked, served. Next day 2:00, same thing. Um for this for for less money than we serve our service members. That’s Well, So, that’s That was the fight. I took 60 of them up there. I did the first two visits, three visits, and I said, “Hey, you can we changed this 10 years ago. Look at it. You do your own work. You figure it out, and let me know when you want, and um they came back to me, they said, “How fast can we go?” And we’re going like uh

17:12 An F-18 right now. There you go. Um I like I like the reference there, too. Um, what is something maybe you’ve seen or, you know, heard from a service member that you just can’t unhear or unsee? I think Look, for years and years and you know, again, I keep I keep referring cuz you’re in the military. Um, people were not the forefront of food in the military up until three or four or five years ago. Everybody thought about it, but they didn’t do anything about it. Bradley George was the first person, Dan Driscoll, the second army, um, second war, where people say, “You know what? We got to take care of people.” Because they are the people fighting the wars, flying the jets, doing the tanks, and you know, um, and for me, we can’t go fast enough, you know, if we look at the bids, a new bid comes out this week, um, for the next tranche of of restaurants. So, we have right now

18:12 With training bases and, regular bases, Fort Fort Hood. So, Fort Carson will have two new drive-thru dining facilities. They’ve got one open, one’s being built now. Fort Hood, same thing, one open, one’s being finished now. Fort Riley, Fort Bragg is next. I’m going to try and do seven to nine schools at the same time. Uh, that’s in the next eight weeks. So, we’re rapidly Look, we’re taking 40 or 50-year-old buildings and face-lifting them, literally. You know, the the total amount of uh, dining facilities in the army is about 200, uh, sorry, 180. I think we can lose half of them just by the service standards of quickness of service through the ones we’re rebuilding. Yeah, the efficiency levels. Efficiency putting people through the time. And if I tell you we put 1,000 people through Fort Lee, which was a uh, uh a $600,000 conversion.

19:14 Um I’m looking at West Point right now as as we speak. Um all those kind of things. Um I put a thousand people through an old base with a $600,000 facelift in a minute and 38 seconds. Food was fresh from each station. You go from one station to seven and you pick up fresh food being not dumping stored from a from a hot table or a back. A minute and 38 seconds. Where’s that ever been done before? I can tell you, nowhere. No. Um the microwave Yeah. And it’s really exciting to see the soldiers’ feedback. Like it’s a great improvement by you or General Mohan or General, you know, Donahue says, “Oh, we’re doing a great job.” It’s not us. It’s when the soldiers tell you. Or is it my $39? You know, we used to give you $5 for breakfast, uh seven for luncheon, and whatever for dinner. And if you didn’t go for breakfast, we still

20:15 Take your money out of your pay. And then you would have to go and buy it. Well, now they’re using that $39. And and it’s almost like you we can literally every soldier personally give them a um a meal plan. It’s it’s it’s incredible the technology and how we managed to do that with great partners. Like it’s not Robert Irvine cooking, it’s Robert Robert Irvine with a baseball bat making sure you do what I’m telling you to do. Right. baseball bat. You know, it’s funny you say that. Military Times called you the bat. Did that come from anybody or you or how did that come about? Well, I I threatened I threatened the CEO of a certain company if he didn’t hold his bargain to the RFP, I would beat him with a baseball bat. That sounds something like I I say. So uh not very good in the public eye, but um and I meant what I said because at the end of the day the the 2.7 million active duty men and women uh deserve

21:17 The best we can give them, the best guns, planes, submarines, ships, uniforms, etc., etc. You got to feed them. And and nutrition is we can spend all this money on H2F. You know, and and build new gyms for SEAL teams, but if they don’t have dining facilities uh Colum- Columbus Air Force Base, 2/3 of our pilots Air Force pilots go through there. There’s not one dining facility down there. They’ve just opened, thanks to my visit, a grab-and-go. Um because I went to the Secretary of Air Force. I own the Secretary of Air Force. I said it’s ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah, that’s uh that’s a fact that like many people won’t see, but I don’t think they understand. I understand, but to know what that impact can have on people is huge. And so like let’s talk about that. 42 Bistro just opened in February. What does a you know, what does a soldier see when he walks in now? Uh what is the on the line that has been not on the line, you know, for the last few years?

22:17 Well, number one, it’s a $4 million renovation. When the soldier walks in there, it’s light, it’s bright, it’s wooden floors, it’s stations, it’s technology where you can either use your phone to order something ahead of time from the stations, eight stations. You can use your phone or you can use the tablets on the walls. By the time you’ve put it in, it’s coming off line cooked in front of you. And yet, if you think we were doing zero through for I can give you the number zero, and we’re doing 4,000, 5,000 people through there for dinner alone. And Fort Carson’s even more than that, and we opened that 4 weeks ago. So the people utilizing their money, getting there, you know, if you Fort Fort Hood has eight people making protein shakes continually. Continually, eight people. And you make a shake for just under five bucks, 25 g of protein as is standard. And then you can add spinach and you can add anything

23:18 You want to it, right? It’s just like going into a triple A school of an athlete. It’s bright, it’s it’s well-lit. Um it’s clean, it’s healthy, it’s nutritious where each depending on where the base is, we have one station that is locally grown food from the farmers. So, we don’t really put bases and and people there. We’re growing from the We’re We’re buying from the local economy of farmer. Which which to me um mushrooms, lettuces, all these things to from Fort Hood which they’d never seen before, right? And that station revolves There’s 3,000 items. Think about that. And yet We are 26% below average on the cost of a plate of food because we’re buying fresh food. And it’s not processed and we’re giving the people the fuel and then you’re giving back to the the the local economy. Is that that’s about as good as you can get. How many people are

24:19 Actually like helping maintain that food in? Are these soldiers or are they Oh, so these are all outside contractors. The one problem we have in all forces across the joint force, nobody Everybody wants to be a pilot. Everybody wants to be a surgeon. Everybody wants to be a you know, a tanker or whatever. They don’t want to be cooks because you know, the grind is is 18 hours a day. It’s a grind, 18 hours a day and you never up and you and and you get disgruntled when the food doesn’t come in and so what the army and I discussed three years ago was let’s take the the Gulf 92s that we have. Let’s train them for forward operating. When they come back from forward operating, which I’m working on right now as we speak, we put them back in school so they can catch up on the technology that’s used sous vide and whatnot in the outside world of of of food. So when they do leave, they’re already ahead of the game. Right. As right now we’re so far behind. So we don’t have the the manpower to be able to cook in in continental US.

25:20 We don’t. Um and we’re looking at the same in Europe. Um how do So Wiesbaden, I was there a couple of weeks ago um with Chris Donahue, he’s the four-star out there. We start that project in October, it’ll be open by probably just after Christmas. Um Once you you you have people who want to do great things, but nobody wants to be the great cook, um which I think sad. But with the technology of value-added product now, and if you think what that What does that mean? Think of Uncle Ben’s that said boil in the bag and rice, right? It’s the same kind of idea, but way more technology-driven because in every spoonful of mashed potato in that bag that I boil and open, there’s more nutrients in the actual that bag than there is in a potato. Because we make sure they’re in there per scoop. Right. Stews and and, you know, chicken and all this other stuff, poached eggs. And

26:23 There’s so many things that can happen that save on labor. So we save on buying fresh food, we save on the tariffs on the food from DLA, we save on the waste because we don’t cook what we don’t need. We cook ala minute like a restaurant. When you walk in a restaurant, you read a menu, you order, and then we cook it. We don’t cook it before. Right. make money. So we’ve done the same thing. We’ve taken all the old practices out. And thanks to Secretary of Education, she gave me the the or the the the sick army, but uh me, too. The ability not to use the Randolph Sheppard Act, which which is destroying the food in our military. Yeah, so when you work efficiently, more costly, more cost effectively as well. Um hard to say no to that, especially when you’re improving it. Well, well, Fort Jackson, they said, “Oh, we don’t The The originally didn’t want to do it.” Of course. People don’t like change. Because they don’t like change. But I

27:24 Said, “Just give me and General Kelly, a one-star in charge of Fort Jackson, a training base at that time.” He said, “Robert, I’m going to give you the space. Just prove to me it works. Here’s Here’s 1.4 million.” In 4 months, they had that 1.4 million back. And it’s still it’s still growing every day, and we’re we’re a year and 8 months into it. Yeah, and I think people understand it. Like when you work smarter and more effectively, not just in this, but in all things of life, it usually improves it. And we dis- we discount things like food or things like that. And you know, you’ve said it yourself, food helps improve sleep, cognitive repair, recovery, all these things. What in our food is actually helping in there that people maybe not realize? Well, I think that Look, 5 years ago, the vitamins and and minerals and all that were in the in the soil is not there anymore. You know, we’ve lost all that. So, a tomato 5 years ago was better than a tomato is today, for sure. Proven. It’s not Robert Irvine saying it. Just That’s just proven. Um giving healthy, nutritious food, meaning the mix of food, I can tell you every

28:26 Day what’s sold in every place at what time in 15-minute increments. So, when people say, “Oh, data, show me data.” I’ve got more data than than than your your planes have. Right? So, so with that data, I’ve gone one step further. Because it’s great if I can feed you on a base, but then you have to go home. And E1 through 4 are food insecure in our military, period. They don’t make enough money to put They don’t. There’s no There’s no financial literacy, which I’m taking that on as well. And And that’s another story you’ll hear about in a couple of weeks. They buy a TV, they buy a car, and yet they they’re not feeding themselves. Oh, they do McDonald’s and cheap stuff. And all the garbage and garbage out. And garbage out. And you know, uh I’m Pete Buttigieg said this, “Look, we’re we’re we’re going to be the best military in the world.” Whether you like him or you don’t like him, that’s irrelevant to me. He’s right. We have to be the best military in the world, the

29:27 Best at what we do, because our adversaries, China, Russia, Iran, and all these other people are not going to stop building bombs and and you saw India was delivered the first submarine yesterday from China. And even though India is a partner of ours, Chinese made made the submarine. So, to me, I then look at, which I’m working on now, it’s in front of the president and and the whole team, uh this SNAP benefits. So, SNAP benefits the the uh supplemental nutritional um for low-income families. And I’ve said, “Okay, well, what about the SNAP food program for our military E1 through 4?” It’s like SNAP. The same thing. Here’s Here’s 1,200 bucks on your phone. We’re not giving you three-day-old food. You know, we’re not putting a label on it that was going to go out of date so you get it cheap. We’re giving you real food. If you think that major companies, I won’t name them, but the biggest spends throws away $22

30:28 Billion worth of food a year. And we till as a country, we have farmers um farm, and then we till the food, meaning go back into the ground again, and we paid them again. 44% of the food we grow gets wasted. I’m saying we can use AI. We have the data, we have the technology we right now to say, “Okay, we’ve got in Idaho X amount of potatoes. Let’s move it to Kentucky. Let’s process it and sell it instead of tilling it. And they’re still getting paid.” Um just like if you think of of um priceline.com, they might plan this the owners that started that using AI and put predicting the growth cuz we know what’s growing. It’s just like predicting a fleet of F-18s. We know the serial number of 1 through 10. We know when the maintenance happen. We know when the O-rings go. We know when the you know, the same it’s the same

31:28 Concept. We know what food needs to be done and and harvested and and we’re working with major retailers right now. I am. To say, “Okay, we’ve got the food piece in the military or in next couple years will be fixed. My schools will be fixed in the military. The the the weird schools. Now let’s attack the big schools because the the the systems are so disorganized in the way they purchase, the way they claw back money. Some get federal grants, some get private money, some get the it’s they’re so um convoluted convoluted and and just crazy. Um the weird schools are easy because I’m also of them. Yeah. One system, I can change it, prove it like I did Port Jackson. Um I’m working with the Marine Corps right now. Um and the Navy and the Air Force. So I I I believe that once we get these next couple open,

32:30 It will be adopted by the whole fourth of joint force. That’s great. And that that’ll be a hell of a goal there. And you you know, you you talked about this to Secretary Kennedy um you know, on his podcast in April when you talked about the foods at our prison and our schools. And then what you know, what is what are we actually in these foods that we were feeding our kids or our patients or you know, you So, it’s not even food. And that’s the funny part. I went to I went to Wiesbaden a couple of weeks ago and I asked the I went to specifically to look at a school and and some things some other things. But um the chicken nuggets weren’t it was it was ground up chicken bound together with protein. Wasn’t even chicken. And I and and I and I said, “Okay.” And then you served this sauce. It’s like having a ramen noodle right on a ship. There’s 1,500 mg of sodium in that in that without daily intake supposed to be 600. So, I was blown away. And it’s the same

33:31 With what’s put in these chicken nuggets for the kids. And burgers, pre-cooked burgers. We have people in these schools that we pay 20 or 30 dollars an hour to cook. And yet they open a box, put it in an oven on a tray, put it in the oven, and they serve it. I took over a dining facility. I had 700 kids. I cooked for the kids and they ate everything. And it was nothing processed. It was all fresh. And and they were amazed that kids would eat, you know, roasted broccoli with onions. Why wouldn’t they? As opposed broccoli and and a half a cup of peppers that were raw by the way. Who’s going to eat that Yeah, it’s just So, so I have I have double fight with the purchasing of the food for our military and then I have fight with I you know, I don’t tell a general how to run his military. Never would. It’s not my world. Don’t tell me how to run restaurants. Cuz you don’t know how to do it. You know, so stick in your lane. And and I’m very lucky I’ve got people like that are amazing

34:32 That I talk to daily that understand my mind process. And how to be the bat. And how the civilian world works. Yeah, and it lets you be the bat, right? And that’s something that is needed. You know, I I would say that most people listening to this, you know, what we’re talking about is very much at scale. And from the people listening, they’re most individuals. You know, if they go to the grocery store and they go home to cook tonight, what is what are things that they should be cooking? Well, look, nobody’s asking you and there’s one thing I will tell you. I don’t want you to be a rabbit and run about in in any salad or cuz I think that’s absolutely preposterous. There is everything in moderation, right? Nowadays, the products that we can buy, I would be looking at when you buy chicken breast or a whole chicken for, you know, and I would say a whole chicken and break it down rather than than buying the breasts and the legs or thighs. Because most of this is sold on weight. So, that chicken that you buy as a

35:34 Chicken breast already has pump in it of of saline water. They’ve already pumped it. So, when you get it, it’s probably 600 to 1,000 mg of sodium already in there. And then you season it, right? Well, you don’t need to. It’s already done. Uh I would say look at the whole muscle meat, the whole the whole chicken. And learn There’s videos. You see, if I can do it, I can do it in my sleep with one hand tied behind my back. And and no knife. I I literally do it on TV on a show where I show you how to break down chicken with your fingers. Yeah. No knife. And it’s so easy because like us, they have joints. It’s so easy to I would say always be looking at the whole chicken instead of the pieces of chicken. Learn how to break it down. You will be so amazed how simple it is. Uh Uh, there are 24,000 recipes online if you Google Robert Irvine uh, broccoli and carrots and and you know, how do you get your kids interested? And this is

36:34 The thing, you know, we’re starting to put gardens in schools where kids understand where fruit and vegetables come from so they Yes. start to experiment with them having grown them. Part of ownership is a great thing for kids and it and they’re interested by how it grows. Um, that’s why I’m looking at uh, Dillard schools doing those things with the schools, putting gardens in them. There’s a beautiful one in in New Orleans that Emeril Lagasse put in uh, as a gift for Dillard school. Um, I’m looking to do that in all of them. That’s amazing. Uh, where we can put a nutritionist, where we can put a gardener that becomes part of the curriculum so when you grow up, unlike me in England that grew up in you know, a very poor building Drink beer. you know, drinking beer, you know, now I understand food. Right. You know, and if you can understand it and start to like this stuff that you know, people forget about taste buds. You and I am a little older than you but as we get older our taste buds we lose them

37:35 Or we gain them as we’re younger. You know, when if if you was 4 years old and you don’t like salt by the time you’re 6 you will. Because your palate changes changing. Um, so I think people should be looking at different way look, the vegetables are never going to change. Tomato’s tomato, uh, broccoli, carrot, they’re always the same. The method of cooking them and by the way, the best method of any vegetable is to slice it up, turn the oven on at 350, little olive oil, I use grape seed oil, um, uh, little sea salt, pepper, roast it till it’s golden brown and I’ll tell you, your kids will go nuts. I’ve done a test with my own kids from and my one is 27, one is 25. Now, one is a criminal lawyer, one is a a pediatric speech pathologist in John Hopkins. And I would take them to the store. And the kids I would let them pick out x amount of colored vegetables, x amount of green vegetables, come home,

38:35 Blindfold them, let them taste the the the product when it was raw. Guess what it was. If they got it right, it was 25 cents for getting it right. That’s That was before inflation. Yeah. And then and then They would cook. Then I would cook the vegetable, and they would have a completely different concept of that vegetable. And my kids never ate And this is the truth. Sorry. My kids never ate McDonald’s chicken nuggets, nothing like that, because I was so three-star Michelin restaurants. I took my 6-month-old daughter to Le Bec-Fin, by the way, and and George Perrier pureed apple for her. I mean, So so I think it’s it’s it’s the same as bases. Schools, home. When you start kids to enjoy and have fun with the process, They’ll enjoy it. They’ll enjoy it. They’ll do it. But if you don’t give them the opportunity, and this is our problem right now in our military. We get everybody from everywhere, and it’s great cuz we’ve got

39:35 The enlistment, but they they come from backgrounds like me where they don’t know what food is. They don’t know what financial literacy is. They don’t know you don’t spend your first paycheck on a you know, a 100-in TV or a car. You know, cuz that’s what happens. Now, you go to army bases, there’s there’s there’s used car sales that like half a mile off base. And then same-day payday loans, right? There’s these all these crazy. So mine is just educate and and luck. I mean, fortunate fortunate enough to I serve, but um have a family serve, I would say. I would say a step further. You’re continuing to serve. Yeah, well, thank you. Yeah. When So speaking of like talking about looking, when you when somebody goes to the grocery store and they look at that label, what is three, four things that you say, you need to look at that? If it’s a chicken something, it better the first ingredient better be chicken. You know, one of the things I find label and now you can there’s apps now on these phones and my wife is the worst at

40:35 It, right? Because she’s a health freak, she’s a wrestler or was a wrestler. Now, she does her own TV stuff, but she will literally go to with this app, look at the the label and like, no, we can’t have that. Can’t have that. Um one thing you’ll find on labels, the FDA does not control all the labels on food. No, nor supplements. or pills and products and you know, you don’t. Um so, for example, we we talk about GMO, um which basically chews your food up and spits out before you do. So, so think about chicken soup. No, yeah, well, that’s what it does. I know, it’s just the way you put it. Right, if you think about or or soup base, which is used in every Chinese restaurant in the world, by the way, not just Chinese, but Italy and Italian and all of that. There is there is stuff in there that is not on the label because

41:35 It’s hidden under a different name. Mhm. And they get away with that, um it says no added MSG. It’s already in there. Yeah. You know, so I would say definitely look at these apps that you can find, um where you just point it at a label, it tells you exactly what’s in it and my wife does it every day. Um pick pick even when you go to to pick uh beef and things at supermarkets, you know, there’s been this huge um movement of when you go to a I won’t name names cuz I don’t want a lawsuit, but um they put steak sliced and they put gas into them to keep them looking fresh. They plastic wrap them and then when you take them off they’re bad, but they look beautiful. Right? So I would go to the butcher in your supermarket and have him slice you two two steaks right in front of you, right? Instead of buying the

42:37 Pre-packaged stuff. I would never buy pre-packaged anything. I want to see it. Yep, that’s what I want. Um and buy it. You know, I pick I I don’t buy pre-packaged carrots and I pick the carrots and I pick the tomatoes and I pick the onions. I pick the lemons. So talking about picking, you know, for the person listening, what’s a bite that they should pick right now in their kitchen to help their family for the next you know, not now, but you know, 20 years from now? I I would say the biggest lesson I give anybody at home, single guy, girl, mother four, whatever, plan a menu. Look, we have plenty of time. People say, “Oh, there’s not enough time in the day.” I’m on the phone from morning noon till 9:00 at night, but I still do it. And I travel 345 days a year. On a Sunday I write out a menu on a piece of paper. And I make a shopping list. I go shopping on a Sunday. I prep the stuff for the next week.

43:37 And I finish it. It should take for a family of four should take 20 minutes to finish a meal when you come home from um swim practice, dance practice, da da da, because it’s all prepped. Everything’s Use these weekends to get the family involved to help you prep. Get the kids to help you prep. Get your husband to help you prep. My wife and I get We do the same thing. My sister in Australia spends one day on a Sunday making ginger of and all this for her husband who’s a senior enlisted to the Australian Defence Force. They make their meals every Sunday till next Sunday. The same as what we do. Step by travel with mine. I mean, you got to think about um 20 years from now and I said that I say this all the time. It’s great when you’re 19, 20 year old kid cuz you feel you’re untouchable, you can fly, you can you do anything. When you get to 40 and you’ve done 20 years in the military, then all you all of a sudden you’re retiring or 30 years, whatever, then you start to feel aches and pains.

44:37 And then that next 20 years with the VA costs us another 10 million just for you to keep you healthy. You know, it costs us 10.2 10.2 2 billion dollars in 1.4 million active duty men and women today as we talk on obesity driven disease, pills and potions. Yeah. I’m saying give me the 3 billion, I’ll save you seven, and I’ll fix the problem. I hear you on those potions. I like that. Um we’ve become a society that’s reactive in our health care, not not preventative, and that’s something I believe you’re talking about, too. Yeah. So, I greatly appreciate this. Um before we go, I’d like to do something called rapid fire. Uh I ask you a few questions and it’s supposed to be no thought. Just kind of the first thing that comes to your mind of the answer. Um are you ready? Yeah. All right. I’m fully ready. All right. UK versus American food, who’s better? Uh US. All right. Foods you’ve never that England is fast I know, but I will

45:37 Tell you the top 10 restaurants are in uh London right now in the world. They just happen to be French. Okay. I believe that. Uh what are some foods you’ve never eaten? What are they and why? The things I won’t eat um up until recently was cinnamon cuz I didn’t like the taste of it. I grew up in Europe. And what you use here as here is called cassia. It has pepper. Real cinnamon rolled up from from uh Sri Lanka is completely different. And until I did the TV show in Sri Lanka, I didn’t realize that. Uh now I’ll I’ll eat Sri Lankan cinnamon, but I won’t eat uh cassia American cinnamon. I won’t eat red peppers because they alter the flavor of the mouth. So, if I cook with red peppers, caps- capsicums, I have to add some kind of apple juice to sweeten it so that the the it doesn’t uh uh change the palate of the food I’m trying to cook. Okay. That makes sense. Um what’s one

46:37 Ingredient you would outlaw right now on every military base? Oh my god. Um soda soda energy drinks You know, all the things that everybody um Viagra. Now, you you’re laughing. Why do I say Viagra? You’re laughing. I like this. Now, I’m going to teach you Let’s go. I’m I’m all all my ears. So, Viagra was originally uh and Cialis were made for asthmatics, correct? Yes. Yes. You take you take a can of C4 Monster Energy rip-its, right? And the trend now is to take 5 mg of Cialis or Viagra to work out, not for sex, to work out cuz you get a good pump cuz they’re uh vascular. Yeah. Well, what it does, if you put the two together and you have a weak heart, blows the heart out. Yeah. Literally. So, that two things are happy at all. I did not know that. Thank you That That actually did not know that. And I’ve not

47:38 Heard of somebody working out on Viagra. Yeah, I can tell you I can tell you uh we lost some people uh 3 weeks ago because of that, 26-year-olds. That That I believe. Uh we we do a lot of dumb things in this world, and that’s um You hear it from a buddy, and then that then that’s word of mouth. Yeah. Um speaking about that, um, who would survive longer? A navy line chef or a Michelin chef? A navy chef. How’s that? Uh, what’s the star chef is is used to doing so things so fine and it takes them an hour to cut a potato. Because that’s the that’s their world. A navy chef or an army chef or an apple has to be able to feed 800 people in the middle of a jungle at any point in time. A Michelin star chef could never do that. I’d watch Gordon Ramsay trained or any couldn’t do it. Call Gordon out, I love it. Uh, what’s the best meal you ever cooked in uniform? I’m going to reverse the question on you because it’s not the best thing I ever

48:39 Cooked in uniform because I cooked for every head of state in the free world and every service man wherever. The excitement for me of cooking, um, it’s the people I cook for in the uniform and I give you one example why I say that. In front and I can Afghanistan Afghanistan on the border Pakistan, I went there, um, got caught under fire, RPG fire as a hero landed. Everybody went to do their job. I found a barbecue, steaks and lobster in in a refrigerator. I cooked them. 20 minutes later the guys came back. Ate it. There was no concrete. There was no bags. There was no other no nothing cuz we blew the place up before 2 weeks. Um, it’s the people who you cook for and it can be anything be a hot dog although I don’t like that, but chicken it is is the it’s the thing that you put the most energy into because you truly believe that’s going to make a difference in that person that you’re that eating in their life at that moment.

49:39 Yeah. What we give back to others and what it gives back to us in return is usually awfully tenfold and I feel the same about that. Yeah. Um, here’s one as a navy guy, here’s a question for you. Navy or army, which one’s better? Two different jobs. Dodging it. Two different jobs. I know they are. I just you know the you know the the camaraderie as well as the rivalry. Yeah. I love this talking, yeah. Yeah. Uh who’s the first chef whose advice changed your career? I would say the first chief and by the way he wasn’t a chef. He was a chief in my training platoon who was a waifu and a and a NK and a chief mechanic who told me that I wasn’t a team player when I was a young kid in training. And this guy had it out for me from day one and my uniform was great cuz I was in the secret as a 11-year-old. I’ve been to every military base, marine base. My kit

50:39 Was great. My bed was great. There was there was nothing and he said to me one day, “I’m going to kick you out of the navy uh because you’re not a good team player.” Meaning the other eight people in my dorm by the way all university students. I was a kid from from nowhere. Uh I got up at 2:00 in the morning, kicked them out of bed, showed them how to clean and bone their boots with the back of a toothbrush, how to shine their boots, how to make the kit, how to make the beds. And I did it for the first 8 9 days and then they got wise to me being at 2:00 in the morning and they were up ready for me. Um but it was him. He was he told me what what what team really meant and and I’ve never forgot that lesson. That’s amazing. It was not a chef. It was a it was an air air mechanic. I don’t even know if he’s still alive, but uh he made the biggest impact on me learning what leadership truly looks like.

51:40 It’s we often don’t think about the ripple effects we cause in life when we do small things in life and how it can affect the world. Look at you. Um What was Is there any restaurant impossible turn around that like sticks in your mind and something that was impactful? Uh I’ve got I’ve got 370 of them. Uh yeah, I’m I mean I’ve got one that that was $1.1 million in debt in Cerritos, California, a mother, daughter, and granddaughter. Uh they’re now doing as of last week uh $3.4 million a year. And it looks like I I did it yesterday. That was 9 years ago. I’ve got one in New Hampshire. She was $300,000 in debt. It’s called the Covered Bridge. Um her and her husband divorced but still had to work together to get a mortgage of 300,000 on the restaurant. Day two, I told them one of you’s got to go. And I literally ratify a letter and take all the debt off one to give to the other one. The girl did it. I stuck with her.

52:41 And now there’s over 3 million a year. I just was with her last week. Um killing it. Then there’s one that that I There’s one very personal to me. Um a young 300-lb autistic kid. Now, one of very few people in the world with a rare genetic disease. His family had a restaurant. I fixed the restaurant. The mother gave me a paper when when I was about to give her a restaurant and it was an eviction notice of her house. I called my producer who was not there on set and said, “Hey, just say yes. Live on TV and you can watch it.” Um Uh LJ was his name. Um it was an eviction notice. I give 10,000 of my own money. The show give 10,000. We paid the back debt. He died 2 years later in the same house. Uh they sold the restaurant which was a success because they got their money back. But he’s in my show that travels the globe, my live show. There’s a segment in there specifically for him because he changed my life.

53:42 That’s funny how it is, right? When we do for others and when it always gives back to us. I preach that all the time and I believe with all my heart. I really do. And um it’s it’s super impactful for me. Um and I’ll get in that in just one more second, but I have two more questions for you. One’s my own because I love your protein bars selflessly. What’s your favorite flavor? What’s Well, I love I love mint chocolate mint. Um we’ve just got some new coming out right now. Um but the first one I actually made and nobody knows this, by the way. First one I made was a peanut caramel. But we could never figure out how to sheet caramel because it’s a hot sugar. Uh-huh. It It’s not possible. I It took me 4 years to develop and create a machine to be able to do that. So, I had four bars out before that first bar ever came out. Well, it’s awesome. Peanut butter one, but it wasn’t the first one I designed. It was peanut and caramel. That’s amazing. I get them all almost every week from Costco. So, very important to me as well.

54:42 That money goes to Thank you. Oh, it does it? I didn’t know that. Yeah, you look on it box at Costco, you’ll see where it goes to Robert Irvine Foundation. So, we’ve just taken that money that you pay um we just took 105 veterans to Scotland to do a 54-mile hike called the Cateran Yomp with uh Medal of Honor uh um recipient uh Slab um Britt Slabinski and um and 104 other from every um uh branch veterans 104 other veterans all completed, by the way, 22, 38, or 54 miles for 4 days through by a village and that’s what that does. Pays for them for that 4 days of going and and what it does is saves lives. Literally last year six this year, I think we’re going to save a lot more. That’s amazing. And um I’m going to ask you a question that you probably don’t get a lot. Um you get questions about everything you’re doing. Uh you know, what does it mean to do this? What does

55:44 It Here’s my question for you to end this with. What does it mean to you as a person to create these ripple effects and how they change the people’s life? What does it do for you? Makes me feel great. Makes me sleep good at night. I know they’re making a difference. Yeah. Um I think I can speak on behalf of like all veterans and um people that you’re helping make ripple effects in life and just like, you know, the person you still hold near and dear in your heart like you to remember those things. I can say thank you from the bottom of my heart and that you’re changing the change in the world. And the thing is is that ripple effect will go past you. It’ll live through generationals and uh so thank you for your service that you did for your country as well as our country. And thank you for being on my show. Thank you. I appreciate your service. I appreciate what you continue to and collectively and I say this all the time. It doesn’t cost money to help people. Not at all.

56:44 It means opening the car door, helping somebody cross the road. Listening can save a life. You can buy the food that goes through a cash register and you see it being pushed to the side. Pay pay for it because it may be a poor child that’s not been fed. Our job in a in position of um platform of power, which you have a microphone and I have my TV and I have my my own platforms. If everybody did something for somebody they didn’t know every day, our world would be an amazing place. We just don’t have enough people doing that. They do it for people they care about. They just don’t do it for others. And my and my statement would be it’s great and I thank you for what what everybody does out there, but do something different. Change it up. I’m not asking you to give a stranger money on the street, but buy a pair of socks, buy a meal, buy a coat, buy a sleeping bag. I don’t care. Do something that you don’t normally do because you’ll feel completely different when you do. Yes, you will. And uh again, um you’re not only an inspiration, but

57:45 You’re a great human being. And again, thank you for being on today and uh look forward to hearing all of what you do in the future. You’re welcome. Robert, thank you for not only your time today, but what you have spent the last 3 years doing that the press has not given you full credit for yet. The men and women in uniform who will eat better because of you do not know your name. They will live longer because you showed up. That counts more than most things that any of us do. Here is what I want everyone listening to to walk away with. The health care system we are living inside of is downstream of food. Sick care versus caring for the human in front of you gets decided three times a day on a plate. Robert is fighting that fight at the institutional level, base by base, school by school, hospital by hospital. The fight you are picking is the one in your own kitchen, with your own body, with your own family. That fight is not separate from his. It is the same fight scaled differently. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you know I work with men in midlife who are starting to see the bill of decisions they made 20 years ago come

58:45 Due now. That bill is mostly a food bill. Robert has spent an hour telling you why. Pick one thing he said today and do it tomorrow. That is how this thing starts moving. Rate the show, leave a review, subscribe. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, every platform. And go follow Robert. His foundation does the work in the veteran community that almost no one else is doing. I’m Zach Armstrong and this is No Hype, Just Standards.