A Tiny Homestead

Polyface Farm - Joel Salatin on Food Emancipation

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Today I'm talking with Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.

 

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00:00

You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Joel Salaton at Polyface Farms in Virginia in the United States. Good morning, Joel. How are you? Good morning. I'm very good. Thank you very much. What's the weather like there today? ah Well, last night it was down about

00:29

15 degrees today. I think it's supposed to be a high of maybe 34, 35. And then drop down into 20s tonight. Tomorrow's going to be warm. It's going to be about a high of like 50 tomorrow. So. We're going to be warmer than you are in Minnesota today. It's supposed to hit 45 degrees today. Oh, wow. That's cool. That doesn't happen very often that we're warmer than Virginia.

00:58

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, uh, it, it's, we, we've been in a really, really cold, I mean, the river's frozen over. It's, uh, we've been in a really cold, uh, cold dip here lately. Yeah. I think the whole United States has been at some point in the last week and a half. It's been, it's been unbearably cold here. And I'm really looking forward to getting back into what we would consider to be temperate degrees here. Um.

01:27

So I saw that Polyphase Farms is closed for the next week or so. Do you guys close for the holidays? Yeah, we do. We close for about two weeks. And that you got to realize much of many of our staff, we have a very, very young staff here. And so often they like to go to family over the holidays and things and New Year. we just, it's just the easiest thing is to just close for two weeks and

01:58

Um, just keep a, you know, keep a kind of a core here to  do chores and feed cows and gather eggs and  kind of hold the ship together, uh, for, for a couple of weeks and let everybody,  uh, just enjoy. And then, and then those people that, put their hands up and say, I'll stay through Christmas. Then obviously they get there. They get there two weeks. One guy already took us two weeks back at Thanksgiving.  And, and then, you know, they, they, they,

02:28

stagger out, you know, through January. you know, usually by the, by mid February, we're back at full staff and up and running, but these two weeks were pretty,  were pretty core. That's fabulous. And it gives you and your wife and your son a chance to maybe spend some time together as a family. Yeah,  some, although  I'm a bit of a scrooge, you know, we've done this all our lives and,  um, the, uh

02:58

The holidays, you know, the work stays. So we end up picking up the slack because we live here. don't have to go  see family. know, we're here.  so we pick up a lot of extra work during the holidays. I'm actually,  what I've started doing in the last few years  is the holidays oh with the crew kind of down to core level.

03:26

and not doing, not biting off any great big projects.  That's when I do my writing. So  yesterday I started on my next book and I'm almost  done with the third chapter. I got two chapters done yesterday. got, em I was trying to get my third one done this morning before this, but I didn't quite get it done. I have to finish after our call here, but  I'm hoping  to get this knocked out here in the next couple of weeks.

03:56

And we'll be up and running. you have a working title yet? Oh yeah. The title is  food emancipation.  Oh,  awesome. Cause we need that real bad right now.  We do. We, we need it desperately.  And, you know, this,  I consider this, told Teresa this morning, this is probably going to be my, my single biggest contribution, I think to the culture.  And  of course she said, well,

04:26

It's taking your whole life to get to this, you know, to get to this point.  but,  uh, this, this, the food freedom, the food freedom, I think is  the biggest issue we've got now agriculturally, oh uh, and, and in the food system.  And, um, so, um,

04:50

I'm really digging into it. I'm excited about it. In fact, I couldn't even sleep last night. got two chapters done  and, um, um, I'm really excited about it and glad to be jumping in. The  big thing with a book, hard part, the hard part is starting.  And, uh, so yesterday when I got that first chapter done, I  was, I say, you know, I was on a roll  and, uh, and now I'm, I'm just really excited about.

05:20

about knocking it out. Yeah, somebody told me a trick once that if you're stuck at the beginning, start in the middle. Like literally just get the words on paper and then you can move it around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's true. That's true. So, know, I have an outline, have an outline. And so I've got, you know, kind of the chapter, the chapter ideas, chapter titles,  and, know, they'll, they'll change and they'll morph and things. mean, a book kind of takes on its own.

05:49

Uh, kind of takes on its own, uh,  uh, persona, you know, as you get into it and  new things come to mind and all that. But for me, I find that, that just sitting down and cranking on it and trying to get it knocked out on a couple of weeks, you know, a rough draft at least,  um, is the way to be the most efficient because it's often hard to leave it for a month and come back to it.

06:16

You know, to know, what did I say this that I said, you got to go back and review. I can't remember where I put this in or that in. So, you know, if you just start and just, um, go through, you, it's a lot, it's a lot more efficient. Yeah. And if you stop and come back to it a month later, you've lost some of the momentum and the energy that you had for it. So that's right. So I, there's no, there's no energy like first energy.

06:44

You know, if you've ever written something and then lost it on a computer, you know, hit a button and it all goes away. And you can never, you can never resurrect  the second  writing with the same energy as you did the first one.  No,  it's like new relationship energy. You know, when you meet somebody new and you're just learning about them and you're all excited.

07:09

That's what happens with books and articles. It's amazing. I love it. I used to be a freelance writer and every time I would get into it, I'd start writing, come up for air two hours later and be like, oh, I was in the zone. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. That's exactly right. Zone.  Love that zone. And I actually would love to get back into writing, but I don't have time right now because I'm too busy  talking to amazing people like you every week. um So I was going to ask you about the whole

07:39

cost of beef situation and the snap benefits fiasco and things are just so heavy right now. I would actually just rather ask you about what where you've been this year, what you've learned, what your favorite parts of the year were. So where have you been? Where have you traveled this year? Oh my goodness. I've been, I've been all over the place. Uh, yeah, I mean, I'm gone. I'm gone. don't know a third of it, a third of the time or more.

08:09

Um,  I've,  I've,  I've do a lot of homestead homestead fairs.  Uh, so, you know, if you want to go around the country, you know, it's, it's, um,  it's a homestead festival in Columbia, Tennessee. That's about, you know, 6,000 people.  And then, uh, then you got,  um, Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. That's Melissa Norris's group. That'll be three or 4,000.

08:37

And you got Ozarks, Ozarks  Homestead Conference with the  folks there. That's, you know, that's another whatever, three or 4,000. um Cheryl is the lady that does all that. Then you, you know, you have the Ohio Food Independence Summit. That's another three or 4,000. You got Homesteaders of America up in Front Royal, Virginia. That's  7,000.

09:07

Uh, these, these homestead fairs are  huge. Then what's happening this year, for the first time, I really noticed it this year is I'm starting to do, um, 10 or 12 homeschooling conferences. It's like the homeschoolers have, have matured to, to move into the edu-, move into the food space beyond the education space. What I think there is that.

09:35

You know, when you, when you try something alternative and you find it soul satisfying, you, you know, you come up from that experience and you say, wow, that was pretty cool. Uh, what else have I been missing? And so these homeschoolers, when they find, uh, homeschooling to be satisfying, uh, they start looking at food, at investment, at recreation, at

10:02

uh, energy, you know, uh, all sorts of things.  And, uh, so I think it's a very, very natural permutation that the homeschoolers are coming to homesteading and, um they're just such a, such a fun bunch and, and I enjoy them a lot. So suddenly that, that has really blown open here in 2025  and,  and it's, it's pretty, it's pretty,  uh, it's pretty different. It's added a tremendous,  a whole new dimension.

10:31

I have a question based off of that. um So are you going to homeschooling conferences or are you going to actually homeschools and talking to the kids too? Oh, no, no, no, no, these are conferences. Okay. I don't do this for free. No, no. uh I go to these conferences and these are state, you know, almost every state has some sort of state homeschool convention.  The biggest one in the nation is Florida.

11:00

The Florida, and they all have different names, Florida Parent Educators, uh FPEA, Florida Parent Educators Association. ah You know, Virginia is a big one, but they're all over. And then there are, are uh overriding groups too. Like, ah they find it here, the great, great homeschool conventions. uh

11:28

those they do about six a year around the country. so, you know, they're big, know, there are thousands and thousands of people and yeah, they're a lot of fun. Awesome. So what have you, what have you learned in 2025? Because you've learned a lot in your beautiful long life, but what surprised you this year?

11:58

So this year, my epiphany was about halfway through the year.  And uh I've really become this voice of food freedom.  And  of course,  I've had the privilege uh of, for the first time in my life, being  seen by people in the political sphere, administration.

12:26

Uh, as an asset, not a liability.  And so I've been able to  spend some time with, you know, RFK junior with people,  uh, you know,  close to him as well.  And, um,  and this whole, you know, food emancipation, this, this food freedom thing is, is such a, is such a big deal.  And, um, the thing that's  struck me about it.

12:54

The epiphany I want to share  is all my life I've been. Whatever preaching, get in your kitchen. You know, if we want a different food system, get in your kitchen, get in your kitchen, buy whole foods. You know, don't buy processed, get in your kitchen and cook from scratch. It's never been easier. And you know, we've got Insta pot hot running, hot and cold water refrigeration,  uh, time bake  Insta pots, the bread makers, ice cream makers, you know,

13:24

Um, get in your kitchen this summer. I realized after looking at what Americans spend on convenience food, 75 % of the retail dollar is convenience food. Um, and hearing RFK junior talk about ultra processed and, and all this, and this, the whole, the whole maha, I mean, the year started with Teresa and I being invited to go as guests to the, to the maha inaugural ball in DC.

13:54

We'd never been to an inaugural ball. And so I had to go, you know, get a tuxedo and we had to, we had to go up there and froze our buns off. But, uh, we, you we went to that thing. And so what I've come to the conclusion is that I'm going to quit preaching, get in your kitchen. Now I still believe that I still think I'm not, you know, I haven't gone to the dark side, but what I'm suggesting is that that horse has left the stable.

14:23

Americans,  until some catastrophe happens, Americans are not going to get in their kitchen. They're just not.  And so that leaves the convenience food option  as the single biggest category of food purchasing in the country. Now there's no reason why a convenience food, say, you know, a heat and eat

14:52

frozen chicken pot pie needs to be junk. It can be good chicken, good carrots, good peas. It doesn't need monosodium  MSG in it. It doesn't need red dye 29. It doesn't need glycerin, antifreeze in it. know,  these 10,000 food additives that are in all these uh convenience foods that Europe only has 400 of them.

15:21

They don't have to be there.  And so, so  I'm...

15:29

And then you've got, you've got the farmers. There's  obviously you're watching these things too.  And, um, all the press on 2025 agriculture is negative. I'm the soybean farmers are going to lose a hundred dollars.  Uh, the tariff blowback is having this effect, that effect. Um, and of course, you know, when beef prices jumped, when they closed the border with Mexico and shut down a million, a million cattle coming into the country.

15:59

That spiked the prices and then Trump blamed the farmers, cattle farmers for being greedy and selfish. Well, they didn't have anything to do with it. That only took him a week to backtrack from that. I think somebody got to him on that because they told him, look, Trump, you these farmers are the ones that got you in the White House. Don't you be bad mouthing the farmers. And so I am done.

16:29

uh, trying to guilt people into getting in their kitchen. And instead I'm pivoting and saying, how can we get farmers  access to the convenience food market? That is, that is where the money is. That's where the food is. And there's no reason why it has to be junk food. It can be good food. And so hence food emancipation.

16:58

Let's take the shackles  off our farmers and let farmers  access the food supply  and take the shackles off of the buyers who don't have choice. So both parties win if we take the shackles off. The only party that doesn't win  is the industrial commercial  food system that will be uh

17:28

You know, that will have new competition in the marketplace. I love that you're pivoting and I do the same thing on my podcast. So I'm constantly telling people that if they want to save money, they should learn to cook from scratch and that it's better for them. And you're right. People don't want to take the time to cook. And it's so tragic. I love cooking.  spend, I spend an inordinate amount of time cooking and I enjoy it, but if you hate it, it's no fun. So.

17:58

Or  if you're so far removed from it, you're intimidated by it. I'm meeting more and more people now who,  young,  you know,  twenties and thirties, who  are literally intimidated by the kitchen. I mean, they're scared of food. They've heard about, you know, whatever, uh disease and safety  and all this sanitation and all this stuff. And they're paranoid that they're going to...

18:25

Um, make themselves sick or get some sort of disease because they didn't wipe the counter off well enough. mean, it  actually,  when ignorance, when ignorance finally hatches to its final uh destination, it turns from ignorance into paranoia.  And that's what we've got right now in the average,  uh, American home is literally food paranoia.

18:52

They don't want to touch it. They want to open up a bag, stick it in the microwave  and, um, and eat it because they're literally paranoid of, of viscerally engaging in the food itself. And so unless and until that changes the desperate need, desperate need of both consumers  and farmers  is to enable us to easily transact food commerce.

19:22

in that space without a million dollar facility and 10 bureaucrats breathing down our neck. oh That leads me to another question. I don't know what Virginia's laws are like regarding food production if you're not a business or a factory, but here in Minnesota, we're not allowed to sell anything from a home kitchen that requires cooling or heating. So

19:51

We can sell cookies that have already been baked because you don't have to put cookies in a refrigerator or an oven for them to stay good. Shelf stable things are fine. But if I wanted to make a cheesecake, I cannot make it in my home kitchen and sell it. So what's Virginia's laws like? Yeah, identical, identical.  And most, most states are identical. There are now four states.

20:20

that have  pretty effective cottage food laws. ah The best one is probably Maine. Second best is Wyoming. And in those states,  can uh produce any food in your home kitchen that you want to without inspection.  Now, the  ingredients in the food

20:49

have to be legal. unfortunately, this means that if you make a  shepherd's pie, let's say with beef in it, the beef has to be from an inspected  source. Okay,  Once you have the beef,  you can open that package and make a shepherd's pie and sell it without inspection in Maine and Wyoming.

21:19

So those  are huge wins  in this movement.  And  in fact, in this book I'm working on,  I'm going to oh put in the four states with these good  cottage food laws so that people can see the kind of language. So right now, the strategist that I'm working with, what

21:48

the strategy seems to be, we, if we could get, you know, 30 or 40 states to adopt these, these food freedom laws, then, then what we could get, hopefully, would be a federal blanket. I mean, I'm, I'm after a, an amendment to the constitution of the bill of rights that basically

22:19

Two consenting adults exercising freedom of choice to give their microbiome uh agency should be able to engage in a food transaction without asking the government's permission. Now,  I'm not saying that I should be able to sell it at Walmart  or export it to Sri Lanka and Vietnam. ah What I am saying is that  neighbor-to-neighbor food transactions

22:49

among voluntary consenting adults exercising freedom of choice. And I know those are powerful phrases, but I use them on purpose.  It should not require a bureaucrat's permission to engage in a neighbor to neighbor food transaction, period.  When do you think this book is going to be available to buy? Because I can't wait to promote it.

23:15

Yeah. So, uh, so I'm hoping to get it roughed out by the end, by, by the end of December. So I've got two weeks here and I'm cranking on it. mean, I'm, I'm every, I've got some other things I've got, you know, some podcasts I've got  a wood to cut and some other things to do tomorrow. We've got it. We've got a chip. So that Daniel wants me to go up and cut trees for him.  Uh, so, you know, I've got some things to do, but, basically,  uh, every spare minute I'm doing this, uh, I hope for this to be out.

23:44

sometime late next summer, uh August, maybe something like that.  And, um, because I'm trying to, I'm trying to coincide it with some other fairly large,  um,  documentaries that are coming out on food freedom. There's a, there's a lot going on in Maha  and, and, and I can tell you, I was just up in DC on Monday night at, at, uh, at the Maha,  um,

24:14

Gala.  And uh I mean, it was amazing. RFK Jr. was there and Lee Zeldin, uh Secretary of EPA  guy was there. uh Of course, you you had your regular uh group, know, CDC and  the new NIH administrator and all that.  that,  that

24:42

basic movement, that basic movement um is a real catalyst, I think, for this issue because ah one of the big phrases that's  been used now is agency capture. And I think people are beginning to realize that the watchdogs,  people wanted the government to protect them.

25:10

from those corporate interests that were hiding behind razor wire and guard towers in big industrial food complexes, whether they're,  know, canneries, uh know,  slaughter processing facilities or whatever. uh We didn't want a government bully big enough to look across the fence and protect our interests. And what they didn't realize was that  the government regulators  and the corporate interests were going to go to bed together.  That's what they didn't realize.

25:40

And that reality  is really coming to light now  with, you know, Maha, with Moms Across Americas and Honeycutt. ah What these folks  are exposing  is pretty dramatic.  Well, I'm thrilled that this is going on.  This is a  movement now because it has been incredibly frustrating to me. I make a killer cheesecake,

26:09

And I have my cottage food license or registration for Minnesota. can't sell cheesecake in Minnesota because it's cooked in my kitchen. I know that's minor. It's small. It's tiny scale. But if your book actually turns people to understanding that there's nothing wrong with what's cooked in a home kitchen, as long as that kitchen is like, you know, relatively clean and there's not dog and cat hair everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Well.

26:40

So here's,  so the difference is the expectations. So, you know, when a food chain, when a food chain is opaque,

26:54

Uh, there are,  there, there's a trust issue,  but when a food chain is short and relational, the trust goes way up. See the butcher, baker and candlestick maker, or in your case, I'll say the cheesecake maker. Yeah. You used to be embedded in the village as artisans as craft and, and, and their kids played with other kids in the neighborhood. They went to the same churches.

27:23

They lived above their shops.  They didn't have employees only hanging on the door. People could come in, wander around the kitchen, know, look in the garbage can.  I mean, there was a transparency and an accountability that created the  vetting  procedure. But as food industrialized and  started hiding behind

27:53

you know, industrial  walls, the public became paranoid of the food. think I already said that. and,  and, and, here's the thing.  Let's take  another way to say this is the Uberization of food. You know, if 50 years ago, somebody had come to you and said, uh, you know what?

28:21

Mary, um, you know what? In, um, next week, you're going to go to, uh, Calcutta, jump in a car with a guy that has no chauffeur's license. The car isn't registered with a chauffeur agency and he's going to pick you up and you're going to say, take me to, you know, the museum, uh, at D street. And you're going to trust him to take you there.

28:49

You'd have said, what are you crazy? Calcutta? No,  I'm getting a cab. I'm getting a licensed, you know,  chauffeur service. I'm not jumping in the car with some, you Well, that's exactly what happened. It's called Uber. And what made it possible was that the internet with real time, uh real time,

29:17

vetting, know, one star, two star, three star complaints, whatever,  has, has  re-embedded the butcher  and the cheesecake maker.  I love that. uh In, in the global village with real time vetting.  And this is brand new. This is brand new.

29:44

And I mean, the same thing can be said of Airbnb. know, who would have thought that in 10 years, we would double the number of hospitality rooms worldwide without driving a nail, making another room. Just the power, the power  of a transparent transaction enabled by a renewed democratized voice called the internet.

30:14

And so here we are with your cheesecakes.  And if your cheesecakes aren't good, somebody's going to say, you know, Mary's cheesecakes are horrible. I would never recommend them. And you know what? You'll be out of business.  That'll go viral. But if somebody says, wow, these cheesecakes are unbelievable. Everybody should go buy those. You could actually have a side hustle. You could actually start a little business and,  and, make some money. and.

30:43

And the point is that the internet is its own protective vetting device because it has resurrected the transparent village voice of yesteryear. Crazy how that works, isn't it? Yes, it is. I love it. I love it. All right, Joel. And that's why people don't need to be scared. I mean, I can hear people.

31:13

Oh no, what if, if Mary's, you know, what if they're not good? What if they're not? Well, you know,  are you, are you, do you really think that you can trust a bureaucrat more than, than an artisan, a craft person, a cheesecake maker that you know, that you've asked around, Hey, what do you think about her? You know, what do you think about her situation? You've been to her kitchen?

31:42

uh You know, is she clean? she good?  And this  conversation we can now have so easily and cheaply, we don't have to  use snail mail, we don't have to put a stamp on it,  is revolutionary in uh creating  self-policing within commerce.

32:12

Absolutely. All right, Joel, I try to keep these to half an hour and we are there. So thank you for taking time out of your time off as it were. Chat with me again. I appreciate it. People can find you at Polyface Farm on Facebook and the website is polyfacefarm.com. Yes? Yes. Okay. All right. And as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Loved talking to you again, sir.

32:42

Thank you, it's a real privilege and an honor, Mary. And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  Same to you and yours. Have a great day.  You too, take care.

 

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A Tiny HomesteadBy Mary E Lewis