Food Slain

This week, we're talking with Jana Short, a renowned global influencer & mindset coach in the health and wellness industry. She is an NLP, RTT Practitioner, best selling author, public speaker, host of Oh, My Health… There is HOPE! podcast, and Best Holistic Life magazine editor.

Messages are getting into our eyes and brains (and even our noses) by the thousands each day in an effort to get us “triggered”, for lack of a better word, both mentally and emotionally to influence us to whip out our wallets to purchase their products.

We are inevitably influenced in one way or another thanks to the exponential growth of online marketing.

So it begs the question that is the topic of this week’s episode, are we really the ones making the decisions when it comes to healthy food options? We have the illusion of choice, but are we really in control of our minds?

Let's listen to Jana and find out how we can take control of our food choices by adjusting what we say....to ourselves!

Check out this video snippet with Jana.

Today is a day we commemorate the late, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was an advocate of justice (most notably, racial justice), and one of the most meaningful things he advocated for in the later years of his life was economic justice. He believed that one of the ways poor people could thrive was through land ownership. I agree.

And these two ladies, Aubrie Maze and Temra Costa are two extraordinary women, feeding community in Sebastopol, CA. This is the second episode in the Food Slain Farmer Spotlight Series.

Aubrie is a farmer, herbalist and community organizer. She has dedicated her life to the arts of land-based skills, finding beauty and purpose in the tending of land. Temra is a co-founder of Green Valley Farm + MIll, manager of California Foodshed Funders and author of "Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat."

Listen and share with a friend to learn how these ladies are shaking things up on their farm to keep things equitable, honest and in balance with animals and nature.

Happy 2021 y'all! In this week's episode, we're talking to Farmer Chippy! He started an urban farm in Plantation Park Heights in Baltimore, MD.

Farmer Chippy is changing the game (and the future) for youth and elders alike in Baltimore by helping reduce food insecurity. Hundreds of kids in the city of Baltimore participate on his farm to learn about innovations in urban agriculture.

Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm is the one of the few city resources for access to cleaner, greener foods for the community and if you like the way that sounds, please vote for his #AgriHood right now! They could win the Farm Bureau's 2021 Ag Innovation Challenge with the help of your vote! Click here.

Listen to this interview and share it with a friend to experience his infectious joy and passion.

The reality is, we eat more times in a week than we have sex, so why aren't we talking about food more than we're talking about sex?

I know...sex is just more provocative, but in this episode, we're going to talk about the world's most beloved fruit - bananas.

It's the 4th most popular agricultural product, following rice, wheat and milk, and by the end of this episode, you might still want to eat bananas, but my guess is, you’ll look at them a little differently.

We’ll pull back the curtain on bananas and their second imminent extinction, we’ll look at the industry as a whole and who the big bananas are who own the market. We'll dig into the history and the communities impacted by the mass production of bananas.

We’ll see whether the opportunity cost of eating a banana for breakfast tomorrow or, blending it up in your smoothie, or scarfing down that slice of banana bread leaves the same taste in our mouths. Enjoy!

The question this week is, can lab-grown meat, aka “cultured meat” solve the problems conventional animal agriculture has created?

The core question is valid, and it is VERY complicated. Luckily, that’s what this week’s podcast is digging into...thanks to two loyal listeners (Yvonne and Vincent) who made the suggestion for this topic! 

Cultured meat is looking like it's "the next big thing" that billionaires are sinking their money into in an effort to combat climate change, end animal cruelty and of course, make a lot of money.

So, does cultured meat create more problems than it solves? Is it really better if energy and water consumption exceed traditional animal agriculture? Is it really less cruel if animals still have to die? Is it really "clean" if the same players remain in control of its infrastructure, manufacturing and distribution? Or do we just need to make adjustments to the industrial meat industry?

It's complicated. Listen in to this episode and share it with your favorite climate change advocates, vegan friends and bio-tech supporters and ask them...

And if you want to listen to the interview that I did with Claudia Cometa of Peace Advocacy Group, for her podcast called Minding Wellness, check it out here!

In this week's episode, we're talking about food banks. It's the hottest topic these days because food banks are helping 10 times the amount of people they've helped this time last year.

With the effects of the pandemic impacting our lives so profoundly, many people who have lost their jobs have turned to local food banks for support, and the millions of volunteers on the front lines are amazing! There's no doubt about that.

But...the honest and eye opening inquiry this week involves us looking at what's happening behind the curtain. Charity is heartfelt and heart warming, especially this time of year.

However, with food banks running out of money and food, how do we know that the money celebrities donate to the biggest network of food banks in the United States is getting to the people who need it most? How do we know that the food being distributed by food banks is not exacerbating the health disparities in these communities?

We don't. And that's what we're digging into today. This episode is NOT meant to downplay the enormous generosity of people like you and I, average folks, who genuinely want to help people in need. It's about following the money to make sure that the food that does end up on our tables, isn't going to do more harm than good.

Listen in and share with someone you love.

In this episode, I’m interviewing Bob Klein from Community Grains. If you remember my interview with scientist Dr. David Killilea, we talked about whole grains and the research he was doing in partnership with Community Grains.

Listen in and learn how Bob Klein is creating a grain economy, 100% traceability from the field to the fork, and learn how we screwed up the most important food in civilization!

TIMESTAMP

03:58 - Why Community Grains and the Emerging Culture of Food

09:13 - The Flour (and entire Food) Industry Driven By Ad Gods

11:34 - Disrupting the System to be Radically Transparent

14:25 - Creating Trust and Accountability - Aligning Values From Field to Fork

21:08 - Testing Wheat and Results with Dr. David Killilea

27:44 - Transparency Is Complicated

31:18 - Changing the Grain Game

35:46 - The Economics of Healthy Food Options

41:08 - Reasons to Build A Grain Economy

47:22 - Connecting with Community Grains & Their Recipes

51:52 - If given a choice, what would a 5th grader choose?

54:28 - We screwed up the MOST important food in civilization and how to fix it

In this bonus episode, I am welcoming May and West back to the podcast to talk turkey!

For the first time, they wanted an inside look at turkey processing, and they wanted to participate directly in the processing of the turkey they will enjoy for Thanksgiving.

Listen in as they share their experience about what it takes to get a turkey from the farm to the table, and also listen as they share their reverence for their turkey.

See you on the other side of the plate. Chow.

Welcome to Food Slain. Today we’re talking about turkey…it’s Thanksgiving next week and I figured I should share a few little facts about turkeys, a little bit about the history of the original Thanksgiving, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and that first meal, and maybe give you a few reasons why you might want to consider supporting a local farmer where you live and get close to your holiday food.

We consume almost 2 billion pounds of turkey meat each year, and most of that is turkey raised in commercial facilities. The truth is, the welfare of these wonderfully curious animals is threatened at these large production facilities. An organization by the name of Mercy for Animals did an exposé in 2011 which resulted in a first ever, felony animal cruelty conviction. Historic!

As we enter the holiday season, this serves as an important reminder that we control the market, as consumers. We can vote with our dollar - and many of us do. There's no shortage of bad actors out there, and if there's one thing you know I don't like, it's liars. Check out my "Why I Talk Dirty...About Food" video, and we'll keep talking until they stop giving us something to talk about....because there is NO consequence to speaking up, if what you're saying is true. Boom!

Thanks for listening. Share this episode with someone you love, and I'll see you on the other side of the plate. Chow.

Welcome to Season Four! In this episode, I'm welcoming Michael Wittman back to the show for Part 2, to talk more about regenerative agriculture, the indigenous ways of farming.

We to talk about what's standing in our way and how we can get back to basics, restore the nutrient density of our food, AND restore our soil and ecosystems, our water systems, our air, our health, and our economy.

Thanks for listening in...time stamps for your convenience.

01:14 - Differences between sustainable and regenerative agriculture

05:01 - How can agricultural commodity growers use regenerative practices

08:25 - The interdependence in nature : the beaver & the wolf

14:31 - The pathway back to indigenous land management

18:37 - Nature will always be here

21:27 - To Move Into a Regenerative World, We need consensus

23:25 - How education is impacting our systems

26:22 - We need co-existence and common sense - not fear

31:54 - Small Steps to Move in the Direction of Regenerative Agriculture

36:04 - Building Resilience by Doing is an Evolution

38:27 - We rule the Corporate Food-Scape through Supply & Demand

42:14 - Values Based Purchasing - How Politics Guides Our Food Supply

50:01 - Why Women and Youth Will Save The World

52:42 - Greed Always Takes Over