Welcome to Season 3 of the Farm to Body Wellness Podcast.

After some time away, I'm excited to reconnect and share the next chapter of this journey. In this episode, I reflect on becoming a father, learning through gardening in Florida, and how those experiences have deepened my understanding of the systems that connect agriculture, food, nutrition, and health.

I also introduce The Journey of Food, a new companion series available on YouTube, where I explore the many paths food takes from its origin to its destination through shorts that complement the conversations we have here on the podcast.

Thank you for joining me as we continue exploring integrated health and food literacy through a systems-based approach.

Until next time, do your best to stay healthy and be sustainable.

Welcome to the Farm to Body Wellness Podcast.

Starting over or starting from scratch is a commonly used strategy after months or years of distress and discontentment. Many who fall in this category who potentially start over once, will likely start over more than once. By changing our mindset to a place of resetting at our current location and starting from where we stand, we can more easily make progressions

Many skills and techniques have long been forgotten and not passed down through the generations, leading many astray and looking for direction. With modern technology and social media platforms, many look for guidance by others that are just as untrained as them. Utilizing simple strategies, which have been lost to time and restarting from here, forgetting about the time that has passed, we can all be extremely successful. It takes time, patience, and a little direction.  This is part of what I plan to offer through the one-on-one and group sessions soon. Stay tuned for more and until then…

Sit back, take a deep breath, and Let's Dig In.

Welcome to the Farm to Body Wellness Podcast.

This week the episode is related to the RAM Recipe of the month. I had a basil plant that was extremely large and it seemed about time to cut it back. I have been on a kick of making sauces and spreads recently. Chili Garlic Oil, Chimichurri, Teriyaki Sauce, recently Roasted Garlic, and not Pesto. As with prior episodes, I talk more about the plant and how it grows in addition to the recipe. Basil is near and dear to my heart, so this episode has a lot of history involved in it. 

While there are a lot of different varieties of basil, the main variety that we see here in the United States is going to be either Genovese or Sweet Basil. If you are a new gardener and are looking to get started in something that is edible, easy to grow, and has a lot of versatility, basil might be the one you should start with. As I talk about in the episode, you can buy it as a start or as a seed and can propagate it quite a bit. Additionally, the recipe will be out on August 1st, on the website and it will be in the RAM Newsletter in the coming weeks for the month of August. 

Sit back, take a deep breath, and Let's Dig In.

Welcome to the Farm to Body Wellness Podcast.

This week ended up being another special request… partially a recommendation by my wife and then a friend (and member of the community) had a question that aligned with the topic. There seems to be a lot of confusion around our food these days and what is “healthy” and what is not. “Highly even Ultra Processed Foods” are not necessarily bad for us, but it is relative to what the item is and the macros and other ingredients inside of it.

This week we are talking about the macronutrient “protein.” The building block of the human body and generally speaking the most under consumed macronutrient in the human diet. Certain levels are not necessarily needed especially for the average human, but jump into this episode and take a listen at some information that might give you a new perspective on protein. 

Sit back, take a deep breath, and Let's Dig In.

Welcome to the Farm to Body Wellness Podcast.

This week, by special request… which I did not mention in the episode, I am talking about meal prepping versus batch cooking. It is an interesting ever evolving topic which I ended up going back and adding a few things. If you notice what happened let me know. I am curious how the sound quality is through the course of this episode.

While there are a lot of differences in the two subjects today, there are more similarities. There are some important topics which I discuss that many people may take for granted while doing this meal prepping or batch cooking. Some of those topics include food safety and sustainability. Come listen to what I have in store for you in this intriguing episode. 

Sit back, take a deep breath, and Let's Dig In.

Welcome to the Farm to Body Wellness Podcast.

I have not spoken recently about what I am doing with RAM (Riverside Arts Market), so I figured I would take an episode and kind of go into it a bit. There is not much to discuss here, so if you are a local to Jacksonville or Northeast Florida or are interested in what I am doing, come take a listen. Otherwise, this might not be the episode for you. I am as real as it comes, so I want to give each of you the truth, if you read the description. 

The bit of information I do mention in the beginning and end of this episode is that choice I recently made to change the release of my episodes to Monday at 10AM, instead of releasing them on Sundays. Mainly because, in case I get behind, it gives me a little extra time to make sure it is all completed. 

Sit back, take a deep breath, and Let's Dig In.

Welcome to the Farm to Body Wellness Podcast.

In this episode I dive into the world of sustainability. When most people think of sustainability they immediately go to the environment and the potential catastrophe that we are currently projected to end up in the upcoming decades. Many people look at the macro changes that need to take place in order to fix all of the world's environmental problems, but there are many changes we can make on an individual and micro level. 

Throughout my life, I have spent a lot of time in and around different organizations that are all related to the larger concept of sustainability. I love recycling, but before we recycle, we should learn to first reduce and then reuse. Recently I reused some of my containers that had food in them for gardening. This is a perfect example of a step to take before recycling. Listen to this episode and learn about my journey and some ideas you can take on yourself. 

Sit back, take a deep breath, and Let's Dig In.

Welcome to the Farm to Body Wellness Podcast.

This week is a special topic. Simply because I could not figure out what to speak about, so the idea came from my amazing wife. This week I am giving an overview on institutional food service management. What is this one might ask? Essentially, this is food service for schools, universities, hospitals, long term care facilities and many more. 

A lot of blame is placed on why children and sick individuals are being fed food that may not be deemed healthy. In this episode, I dive into this topic and explain some of the ideas that need to be taken into consideration before getting upset at the front line workers who work in our schools and at our health care facilities. If you have time, this episode is a bit longer than some of the past few. So go ahead and…

Sit back, take a deep breath, and Let's Dig In.

Welcome to the Farm to Body Wellness Podcast.

Vanilla Bean Extract is something that I have made now three times in my life. The batch size that I made is fairly large and given that I do not use it so often, I have quite a bit left. Over the years, I have given it to friends and family, but still have quite a bit remaining. For the past four to five months, I have needed to make a new (the third) batch. When I did, it gave me a thought to do an intro episode about extracts and tinctures. 

In this episode I dive into just that, extracts and tinctures. They have many similarities and a few differences, but because I am not an expert in the field, I am only about to skim the surface. I dug deep to get you good factual information and hope that you enjoy this episode. I discuss some of the differences between the two and differences between extracts for medicinal purposes and those for culinary purposes. We will definitely get a professional on the podcast at some point and learn more about it from someone who dedicates time to this field. And now that we have that covered...

Sit back, take a deep breath, and Let's Dig In.

Welcome to the Farm to Body Wellness Podcast.

Linguistics or language is possibly one of the most difficult aspects to understand in life. What someone is intending to say and how it is interpreted could be the same or completely different. Have you ever played the game telephone, either as a child or as an adult? And that is just saying the words, not even understanding the meaning. 

Within food systems, there are many words that are very scientific and complex, but this does not inherently mean that they are proven to have a negative connotation. Most of the time, it solely depends on the context of the situation. Social Media and the speed at which information travels causes many people, many influencers, to misinform their audience and those who come across their videos and posts. In this episode, I discuss the use of different words that are commonly incorrectly represented and how looking and listening at the bigger picture is important when gathering information. And now that we have that covered...

Sit back, take a deep breath, and Let's Dig In.