Andrew Gruel
Appearances
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
It's great to be back. Thank you so much.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
The go-to dish is definitely prime rib. Maybe like braised lamb or lamb shoulder. I see some of that, but primarily prime rib. And based on the questions I've been getting, it's like 95% slanted to prime rib. So that's the go-to.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
Yeah, I say spoon tender. I want to be eating my prime rib with a spoon, maybe a spork, but most likely a spoon. You know, everybody, they make a lot of mistakes with their prime rib because they think that if they just sear it really, really high and hard, it's going to seal the juices in. That is a misnomer, right?
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
So what you actually want to do is first you want to salt your prime rib 24 hours ahead of time. So you salt it, right? You let it sit in the refrigerator. It's called a dry brine. That salt goes in and out of the meat multiple times. It breaks down those protein strands. and it actually seasons all the way to the center of the meat.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
And then what you want to do is you want to just rub it down with some butter and throw it in a low temp oven, 250 degrees, and bring it up. It's going to take about three or four hours, right? And then you bring it up to about 110 degrees. And then you put your seasonings on there at that point, right? You pull it out. You can put like garlic on there, spice, seasoning, bacon, whatever you want.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
And you blast your oven to 500 degrees. And that's when you sear that outside. It's kind of known as a reverse sear in the industry. And then at about 120, 125 degrees for a good rare to mid-rare, you pull it and you let it sit.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
When you cut into it, what you'll notice because you started at that low temp is you're going to have that perfectly even color from edge to edge with a nice crispy exterior as opposed to those gradients where it goes like gray, lighter red, hard red. lighter red, gray. You just got one even color. Because of the pre-salt, you've broken the meat down and that low roast.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
Most people don't know this, but actually between the temperature of like 80 and 115 degrees, there's enzymes that live in the meat that break the meat down. If you bring it up to temp too quickly, you kill those enzymes. So it doesn't do its natural tenderization. So that low heat is what you want. And then you just got to let it rest for about 10 or 15 minutes. And there you go. Bob's your uncle.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
You'll be eating it with a spoon.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
I mean, our economic problems would be cured if people ate like that. 20% of our federal budget goes towards health care that are all a result of a lot of these chronic diseases, right? I mean, everything from diabetes to obesity to autoimmune disease, hypertension, you name it, the list can go on and on.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
And I'll tell you one thing that I think is really funny is if you actually take a graph and you graph out the size of the USDA, the size of the FDA over the past 30 years, and then the number of chronic diseases and how sick we've gotten, the bigger the government gets in those agencies in particular, the sicker we've gotten.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
So, I mean, even if you want to pull out to 30,000 feet and say, well, what do we need to fix? I think the most immediate thing is you realize is that the government's not helping us. They're making it worse. So that's first and foremost.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
It is, and it's not just the sugar. I mean, the sugar is obviously a driver, but it's also a lot of the other chemicals that you mentioned that are in our food, including things like seed oils and all these inflammatory products. But what's interesting is that it's the Food and Drug Administration for a reason. I mean, you just described coming off of a drug, right?
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
Described coming off of an addiction, whether it's alcohol or any type of other hard, illicit drug. The same thing happens to our bodies, but then when your body starts to get nourished, it almost changes the mind as well. Your mind recognizes, because... The majority of our neurotransmitters, funny enough, are actually in our intestines, not in our brain.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
That's why many times, especially the pharmaceutical agency, when people have stomach issues, they treat them with antidepressants or anti-anxiety pills. Now, I'm not advocating that, but I just think that's an interesting kind of story that shows how your stomach affects everything and what you eat affects everything.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
There are so many anecdotes out there nowadays, and most of them are also scientific, that prove that how fixing your diet will fix your body. But the problem is that takes time, it takes effort, it takes energy, but most importantly, it takes a relationship with your food and being in the kitchen.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
And, you know, when I look at this whole RFK confirmation, one of the things that he's done is bringing this attention to food. I mean, food has symbolized unity throughout history, right? Bringing people together across cultures, generations. Good food is more than just sustenance. It's a tool for bringing stronger relationships, drawing inspiration from traditions like
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
like the family dinner table, right, and conversations around food. If we get to know our food a little bit better, cook a little bit more, then you're going to be able to have that stronger relationship and break those addictions. Now, the second piece to that is that you can't have the drug dealer around 24-7.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
And unfortunately, in this case, the drug dealer has actually become the government and big food manufacturers. And, you know, if they're incentivizing us to continue eating this food through so many different mechanisms within the government, from subsidies to just general marketing, then we're not going to be able to break that.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
So, you know, Kennedy talks about the awareness of food, which is important, as I just mentioned. But then, number two, reexamining the structure and the relationship that these major food companies have within our government and our food system. I mean, four major companies control more than 60% of the US market for pork, coffee, coffees, beer, bread.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
The top four companies control more than 80% of the US market for beef, baby food, pasta, soda, right? So they've gotten a grip on us and we need to break that.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
One thousand percent. I mean, there's a silver lining in every curse, and that's one of them, is that it did bring together multiple factions, a diverse group of people. And I saw it, you know, hands-on in the restaurant industry, which is notorious for being incredibly progressive and liberal. And I saw chefs and restaurateurs and even, you know, the individual-level workers saying,
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
that have completely changed their tune and are now on this Maha Trump train who were, you know, they were out there protesting capitalism six years ago, right? So it is pretty amazing what I've seen. And the reason I think that the restaurant industry was at the tip of the spear was because it's something people understand.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
I've always talked about this kind of government driven curse of knowledge. They use all of these confusing legal terms and all of this jargon and the semantics to confuse the American people.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sunday Special with Michael Franzese, Jeff Van Drew, Ned Ryun, Andrew Gruel 12/22/24
and then what they do is they lie to you and propaganda and headlines of these bills things like the inflation reduction act right you read the legalese and you're like i have no idea what this says and then they say no it's an inflation reduction act and the average everyday person says okay sounds good to me well you can't do that with food because we all know food going back to my original point food is the great unifier so you're not going to pull the wool over our eyes and now finally we're holding people's feet to the fire and drawing awareness to this and i think that it's a great thing once again