#237 Steven Rinella - Founder of MeatEater

The Shawn Ryan Show

Shawn Ryan Show

Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.9 • 38.1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2025

⏱️ 148 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Steven Rinella is an American outdoorsman, writer, and television host, best known for promoting ethical hunting, wildlife conservation, and field-to-table cooking. He is the founder of MeatEater, Inc., a company that produces hunting, fishing, and outdoor lifestyle content across multiple platforms, including television, podcasts, and digital media. As the host of "MeatEater", a long-running TV series on Netflix and many other platforms, Rinella takes viewers into the field, blending hunting adventures with education on wildlife, ecology, and sustainable food sourcing. A hallmark of the show is its authenticity—highlighting not just the successes but also the challenges of hunting, including the reality that not every hunt ends in a filled tag. Each episode also emphasizes cooking and consuming wild game, reinforcing the deep connection between hunting and food. In addition to the TV series, Rinella hosts "The MeatEater Podcast", America's most listened-to outdoors podcast, which ranks among the top ten sports podcasts overall. Featuring expert guests, in-depth discussions on conservation, and plenty of entertaining outdoors stories, the podcast has become a go-to resource for hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts. An accomplished author, Rinella has written ten books (and three audiobooks) on hunting, wild game cooking, and outdoor survival, including American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon; The MeatEater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival; The MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook; and Outdoor Kids in an Inside World: Getting Your Family out of the House and Radically Engaged with Nature. His writing has appeared in many publications, including Wall Street Journal, Outside, The New York Times, Men's Journal, and Glamour. Rinella also appeared in the Ken Burns documentary, The American Buffalo. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: ⁠https://americanfinancing.net/srs⁠ NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-781-8900, for details about credit costs and terms. ⁠https://tryarmra.com/srs⁠ ⁠https://aura.com/srs⁠ ⁠https://betterhelp.com/srs⁠ This episode is sponsored. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. ⁠https://bubsnaturals.com⁠ – USE CODE SHAWN ⁠https://shawnlikesgold.com⁠ ⁠https://mypatriotsupply.com/srs⁠ ⁠https://patriotmobile.com/srs⁠ ⁠https://ROKA.com⁠ – USE CODE SRS ⁠https://shopify.com/srs⁠ ⁠https://trueclassic.com/srs⁠ ⁠https://USCCA.com/srs⁠ Steven Rinella Links: Website - https://www.themeateater.com X - https://x.com/stevenrinella IG - https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella MeatEater Podcast - https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater Books - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/84146/steven-rinella Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Steve Renella, welcome to the show, man.
0:07.7	Thank you. It's a privilege. Come on.
0:09.2	Like, I always watch your, I consume tons of your, the shorts you pull from your episodes.
0:15.9	Oh, thank you.
0:16.9	And I like them, yeah. Thank you.
0:18.4	I like all the, all the warriors, man, like hearing them tell stories as a kick, yeah. Man, it's an honor to do it. You know, I just, I just think it's really important to document the last war. I mean, I was in part of both of them. So I think it's just important to document that stuff, actually, how it happened instead of listening to some fucking newshead on the media tell us about what happened it had never been there or maybe they did a photo shoot there at some point in time but yeah but yeah i've been tracking you for quite a while so it's pretty surreal to have you sitting in here thank you for coming appreciate. Appreciate it. But all right, everybody starts off with an introduction.
0:57.5	So here we go.
1:00.3	Steve Ronella, an American outdoorsman, writer, and TV host known for ethical hunting, wildlife conservation, and field to table cooking.
1:09.9	Founder of Meat Eater, Inc. producing top-tier
1:13.2	content on hunting, fishing, and outdoor lifestyles across TV podcasts and digital media.
1:19.7	Host of the Meat Eater TV series on Netflix, you run the Meat Eater Podcast, America's
1:25.7	Number One Outdoors podcast, and a number one outdoors podcast and a top 10 sports podcast,
1:30.3	author of 10 books plus three audio books on hunting, survival, and nature,
1:36.8	including hits like The American Buffalo in search of a lost icon in the meat eater fishing game cookbook,
1:44.3	and you're a husband and a father.
1:46.5	Mm-hmm.
1:47.0	And so being out there a little bit, talking to your team, we were asking for funny stories,
1:54.0	and they had mentioned something about a hunt, I believe it was in South America for monkeys.
2:01.5	Yeah.
2:02.0	What is that?
2:02.7	I got to hear this.
2:03.8	Yeah, I had a number of real life-changing experiences hunting down in South America with indigenous South Americans.
	...

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