By Nate Reyher
The podcast currently has 29 episodes available.
If you went to the Union Station Farmers Market in the 2016 season, you saw an adorable couple running a stand stocked with gorgeous gourmet mushrooms. That’s Liz and Michael Nail and they are Mile High Fungi. Liz and Michael are “both passionate about fungus.” They’re pioneering the locally grown gourmet mushroom business here in the Mile High City. Not only that, they’ve already embarked on their next major effort, building what will become a full permaculture homestead.
Liz and Michael both hail from the Pacific Northwest and studied sustainable agriculture and environmental science, earning degrees from Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Together, they spent many days foraging for wild mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest.
Let me quote from their website; “For us, mushrooms just make sense. They blend our desire to provide healthy, local produce with finding creative solutions to harnessing the city’s organic waste stream. In this time of environmental instability, we strive to produce using the most sustainable methods available, including solar and LED technology. By partnering with local businesses we’re able to utilize resources from our community for our community. These amazing arborists, agriculturalists, wood workers, brewers and many more help us live the dream of sustainable mushroom farming.”
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This episode (#29) comes from Mile High Locavorist.
It's a big enough problem that is touching enough of these different segments of the industry: restaurant, retail, consumers, institutional, farm...that here in the Denver Metro area, there’s room for a lot of solutions...” – Brendan McCrann, Future Pointe
Food waste. Over the last year or two, this issue has been finding its way into the headlines more and more, both at home and abroad. From features on John Oliver’s HBO show Last Week Tonight to major national initiatives in Europe, food waste has reached the mainstream consciousness. And Denver, of all places, is becoming a focal point for solving our food waste problem here in the US.
In this episode, we’re going to talk about what’s happening now in food waste at the national, state and local levels as well as what we might see in the future. Exactly where we’ll go is unclear, as it’s still early days, but significant efforts are starting to come together and again, with Denver as a national focal point.
Brendan McCrann is President of Future Pointe LLC, a Colorado-based enterprise recognized for its extensive experience and expertise developing solutions for food waste, including emergent technologies which mitigate harmful greenhouse gasses, generate fertilizer inputs and provide other societal benefits. Brendan founded Future Pointe in 2009.
Reuben Gregory, a Denver local who serves on the mayor-appointed Sustainable Food Policy Council, is a Consultant with Future Pointe. Reuben has developed and implemented projects for food banks and farmers which keep food waste in the food system while saving - and often earning - money in the process.
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This episode (#28) comes from Mile High Locavorist.
Natural. Organic. Local. Heritage. Heirloom.
In this episode, I explore the confusing, even misleading range of choices we often face in the marketplace through the experience of buying an 18-pound turkey for my family's Thanksgiving celebration. I also delve a bit into the history of how today's modern turkey was created.
Did I make the right choice? What would you have done?
Let me know at [email protected] or at the website, www.milehighlocavorist.com.
– THANKS FOR LISTENING – This episode (#26) comes from Mile High Locavorist.It’s August in the Mile-High City which means we’re in the middle of the harvest season in the Denver region. I’m pleased to welcome back Chef Elizabeth Buckingham of Moveable Feast Colorado to the second in a series of three episodes designed to help us get the most of the locally-grown fruit and vegetables we’ll see in the early, mid and late-harvest seasons in the Denver region.
Check out the first episode in the series on early-season produce, some of which we are still seeing (leafy greens, herbs): Episode 22: Make the Most of Early Season Produce.
In the mid-season, we’re seeing:
Chef Elizabeth is going to talk us through:
Chef Elizabeth Buckingham is a Colorado native; she earned a Grande Diplôme from Le Cordon Bleu Paris. A spontaneous scuba diving trip to the Bahamas following her culinary school graduation led to a passion for the ocean and the next eight years of her career, first cooking aboard dive boats and later progressing to head chef aboard private yachts worldwide. In 2009, Elizabeth returned to Colorado and started her own private chef venture, Moveable Feast Colorado, through which she offers all kinds of fun and useful services from in-home classes to edible garden setups. Elizabeth is also a certified Master Gardener and runs a tiny urban homestead complete with chickens and a large vegetable garden. She is an avid home canner and preserver, a passionate advocate of local food and thinks everyone should know how to cook at least a little bit.
– IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN –“We’re a health equity organization before we’re a food security organization so we’re not going to deliver someone a totally unhealthy meal just for the sake of filling their stomach.” – Turner Wyatt
Increasing healthful food access is an effort that has grown in prominence over the last few years. It’s a complicated issue. So many factors influence healthful food access – the built environment, food costs, shelf-life, government regulation, nutrition, even social norms and stigmas.
Denver Food Rescue is a young organization meeting the challenge of expanding healthful food access with a unique operating model featuring bicycles, fresh local produce and a “no-cost grocery” concept. In 2015, they delivered enough food for 175,000 healthy meals with a focus on health, not just calories. “Denver Food Rescue is a health equity nonprofit that uses an innovative bicycle-based delivery system to increase the nutritional value in the emergency food assistance system.” And while reducing food waste is not their primary goal, Denver Food Rescue makes a big difference on that front, as well, rescuing 210,000 pounds of food last year. Plus they’re making big strides by employing technology to expand their reach and getting the attention of some big-time donors. *Correction: In my introduction, I incorrectly stated that Denver Food Rescue rescued 175 meals last year, not 175,000. Apologies! – IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN –This episode (#24) comes from Mile High Locavorist.
“Permaculture is the best toolkit we have to craft a truly sustainable future.” – Creighton Hofeditz
Permaculture – just what is it, exactly?
Here to tell us is Creighton Hofeditz, a CO native, permaculturalist, food educator and Board Member of the Denver Permaculture Guild. The Denver Permaculture Guild is a vibrant, sizeable and still growing group of folks focused on growing the practice and growing practitioners of permaculture in Denver. They also bring in some internationally recognized speakers from time to time and have a very active online community.
This episode is broken in to two parts. Part 1 – What is permaculture? and Part 2 – What is the Denver Permaculture Guild?
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This episode (#23) comes from Mile High Locavorist.
“I want people to know that fresh is a flavor and should be considered as such.” – Chef Elizabeth Buckingham
We’re entering mid-June, the early harvest season in the Denver region. I’m pleased to welcome back Chef Elizabeth Buckingham of Moveable Feast Colorado to the first in a series of episodes to help us get the most of the produce we’ll see in the early, mid and late harvest seasons.
In the early season, we’re expecting:
Chef Elizabeth is going to talk us through:
Chef Elizabeth Buckingham is a Colorado native; she earned a Grande Diplôme from Le Cordon Bleu Paris. A spontaneous scuba diving trip to the Bahamas following her culinary school graduation led to a passion for the ocean and the next eight years of her career, first cooking aboard dive boats and later progressing to head chef aboard private yachts worldwide. In 2009, Elizabeth returned to Colorado and started her own private chef venture,Moveable Feast Colorado, through which she offers all kinds of fun and useful services from in-home classes to edible garden setups. Elizabeth is also a certified Master Gardener and runs a tiny urban homestead complete with chickens and a large vegetable garden. She is an avid home canner and preserver, a passionate advocate of local food and thinks everyone should know how to cook at least a little bit.
– IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN –
– LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE –
– THANKS FOR LISTENING –
This episode (#22) comes from Mile High Locavorist.
“…What the markets offer in this growers-only context is an opportunity to reconnect to the food in a very meaningful way and it happens really simply by actually having that authentic connection to the source.” – Brian Coppom
The heart of Denver finally has its own farmers market! Union Station Farmers Market will launch on Saturday, June 6 and run weekly until October 22nd.
Union Station Farmers Market is operated by Boulder County Farmers Markets (BCFM), the non-profit that already runs the very well-respected and established farmers markets in Boulder and Longmont. According to their website, “We are a nonprofit organization operating producer-only farmers markets in Colorado since 1987. Our mission is to support, promote and expand local agriculture, making fresh products accessible to our community and strengthening relationships between local food producers and food consumers.”
Brian Coppom is Executive Director of Boulder County Farmers Markets. Brian, his team at BCFM and all his vendors have a lofty goal – to make Union Station Farmers Market “Colorado’s Flagship Farmers Market.”
Brian Coppom worked in the corporate world in product development, industrial design and telecom before joining Boulder County Farmers Markets in late 2013. Just two years later, in late 2015, he was surprised and pleased to win CEO of the Year from ColoradoBiz Magazine, despite carrying the title of Executive Director. He was also the first non-profit leader to win the award.
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This episode (#21) comes from Mile High Locavorist.
“There is literally no one thing that you can do that’s more
Engaging with local, whole foods requires a skill and that skill
Chef Elizabeth Buckingham is a Colorado native; she earned a
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This episode
“We’re starting to hear ideas that I’ve never envisioned or never imagined coming out of these plans and that’s really the exciting part of a community process like this. We hear what our businesses really need. We hear what our residents really need to have successful lives and we’re able to say, “How do we bake that in to a longer term vision and then how do we turn that in to immediate action…” – Blake Angelo
(Welcome to Season 2!!)
The City and County of Denver are in the process of creating a city-wide food plan called the Denver Food Plan. This subtly-titled document will help shape Denver’s food future through the year 2030. Community Listening Sessions are running from March through early June, 2016. These well-run meetings are YOUR CHANCE to offer your thoughts on what Denver’s food system should look like. What are your priorities? What’s your vision? Let your government know!
While the creation of the Denver Food Plan involves many people and organizations, in this episode, we speak to one leader closely linked to the creation of the plan. Blake Angelo is Manager of Food System Development for the Office of Economic Development at the City and County of Denver. Prior to this, Blake was Director for the Beanstalk Foundation and served as the first specialist in Urban Agriculture for Colorado State University Extension in Denver and Jefferson counties. He has a master’s degree in Public Health and a bachelor’s degree in Evolutionary and Ecological Biology.
– IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN –
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This episode (#19) comes from Mile High Locavorist.
The podcast currently has 29 episodes available.