Today’s episode sounds like it was lifted off the pages of a Hollywood screenplay: two renown survivalists find themselves in an all-too-real survival experience, after a natural disaster decimates their tropical island home. Yet that has been the past five months of reality for my guests Carmen and Matt Corradino, husband-and-wife survival skills instructors who live on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where they have been dealing with the devastating aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria. The category 5 storms, mere weeks apart in a slew of powerful storms churned up in the Atlantic this past fall, were two of the most intense hurricanes in recorded history. 

Though there may have been no one better prepared for such a “force of nature,” as Matt referred to the storms. Together, he and Carmen have nearly three decades of survival skills experience, including a five-year stint living in a primitive shelter while teaching at survivalist Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. And for the past decade, the two have carved out a subsistence lifestyle in the tropical forests of St. Croix (now with their 3-year-old daughter Ilee), where they own Mt. Victory Camp eco lodge and teach primitive and survival skills by way of their school, Caribbean Earth Skills. 

Hear from Carmen and Matt as they not only share survival lessons learned from the hurricanes, but the paths that led them to their way of life, and the contentment they've found in an existence deeply immersed in the natural world—even in the face of natural disaster.

It is 2018. Scientists sent a man to the moon half a century ago, they mapped the human genome more than a decade ago, and yet we still have scant scientific understanding about breast milk -- the lifeblood that has sustained humankind for at least the past 7 million years. All of that is about to change, if my guests today have their way. Meet Lars Bode and Alan Daly, two of the scientist powerhouses behind the newly launched Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation Mother-Milk-Infant Center of Research Excellence (LRF MoMI CoRE) at the University of California, San Diego—one of the first research centers in the world focused on unraveling the mystery of human milk. 

Lars, who serves as director of the new center, is a noted human milk researcher who is also the president of the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation and an associate professor of pediatrics in UCSD's Division of Neonatology and Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition. (Some of you may recognize his name from my book, Unlatched, in which I visited his laboratory at UCSD and delved into his groundbreaking research on human milk oligosaccharides and the microbiome.) Alan, who serves on the scientific advisory board of MoMI CoRE, comes to human milk research from the social science side: He is the chair and professor of the Department of Education studies at UCSD, as well as executive editor of the journal Educational Neuroscience.

In short, these two guys are rockstars of the academic world (with the global travel schedules to match), and I was so thrilled to finally get the opportunity to sit down with them and talk about The Milk Moonshot, as we dubbed it; find out the full story of why breast milk is not a food, but a human tissue; and get two male scientists to weigh in on the "mommy wars." You won't want to miss this one! 

In America today, 25 percent of women go back to work less than two weeks after giving birth. Seventy percent of babies under the age of one are regularly cared for by someone other than a parent. When you consider the biological imperative for mothers to be close to their babies -- the indisputable norm for how babies were nourished, nurtured, and protected from potential predators for millennia of human history -- it would appear we are now in the midst of a biological and societal experiment in child-rearing unprecedented in the history of humankind. 

This experiment hasn’t been without consequences, says Erica Komisar, my guest today and the author of the thought-provoking (and controversial) new book Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters. In it, she explores the critical nature of a mother’s presence in early childhood, and connects the alarming increase in childhood mental disorders over the past 30 years to our society’s absence and devaluation of mothering. Erica is a psychoanalyst, so not surprisingly we unpack a lot in this interview -- from the neuroscience underscoring the pivotal role of motherhood and our time’s misguided focus on gender neutrality, to her thoughts on technology, modern-day alloparenting, and how we can spark the revolution toward a truly child-centric society in the 21st century. 

If health is the measure by which we humans are equipped to survive in our current environment, then our children are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. One in 13 American children has a serious food allergy. Nearly one in 10 has asthma. One in five is obese. And one in 68 has a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. The rate at which these and other chronic conditions have become commonplace (read: epidemic) over the past few decades is equally stunning: childhood food allergies have increased 50 percent since 1997; celiac disease has more than quadrupled over the past half-century, with rates increasing particularly among children; and serious mental disorders, once rare, are now expected to afflict 20 percent of children over the course of their lifetime. So what the hell is going on?

My guests today, Dr. Michelle Perro and Vincanne Adams, offer some stunning answers in their must-read new book What’s Making Our Children Sick? How Industrial Food Is Causing an Epidemic of Chronic Illness, and What Parents (and Doctors) Can Do About It. In it, they explore the connection between genetically modified foods, glyphosate (the world’s most widely used pesticide), and gut health, and make a damning case for the related rise in chronic childhood disorders since GM foods were introduced to the American public. 

GMOs have sparked endless controversy in the US, which is why it’s notable that Adams and Perro are far from the conspiracy-theory crowd: Vincanne is a professor and vice-chair of medical anthropology at the University of California, San Francisco, and Michelle is a pediatrician with over 35 years of experience in acute and integrative medicine (including as a former director of the Pediatric Emergency Department at New York’s Metropolitan Hospital). Here, they trace their own journeys from skeptics to activists and make a powerful case for why it's critical we move beyond the "GMOs aren't natural" argument. We also delve into Michelle's method for successfully treating children with chronic hard-to-diagnose health problems. So if you have a child with a chronic health issue (or even you yourself have a chronic health issue) and have been struggling to find answers, don't miss this episode!  

This week, I step away from my Skype interview setup to head out into the urban wild with Los Angeles-based survivalist (and National Geographic Doomsday Preppers alum) Christopher Nyerges, who has taught wild food foraging, wilderness skills, and ecology awareness to nature-starved urbanites for the past five decades. Christopher was the editor of the former Wilderness Way magazine, and is also a prolific writer, having authored thousands of articles and more than 20 books on the skills of self-reliance, including How to Survive Anywhere, Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants, Foraging California, and Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading in the City.

In many ways, that latter title could serve as the theme of his life's work, as I learned in this forthright conversation with Christopher about our societal obsession with money, his School of Self-Reliance, and what’s driven him to live a (some might say, though I wouldn’t) radically spartan, even off-grid existence in a city where materialism seems to know no bounds. I also got a literal taste of Christopher’s vast wild food knowledge, thanks to the accompanying edible plant walk he took me on in Pasadena’s Hahamongna Watershed Park. 

I couldn’t imagine a more perfect conversation to jumpstart your path to uncivilizing in the New Year than this one with Alyssa Ravasio, the wunderkind camping enthusiast and conservationist who founded Hipcamp. Alyssa created the online platform in 2013, just three years out of UCLA, and in that short time has not only transformed the antiquated camping researching/booking system of yore; she has inspired millions of Millenials and Gen Zers to put down their phones and head outdoors. (It is no coincidence that more than 1 million new households have started camping each year since 2014, the year after Hipcamp was founded.) If you’ve yet to utilize the site, picture Airbnb-meets-camping: In addition to being the most comprehensive guide to public camping across the United States, Hipcamp has opened up the experience of camping on private land, called "land sharing." This revolutionary concept-turned-movement allows private landowners to earn income from renting their land for camping; campers get to pitch their tent (or glamp) on a farm, ranch, vineyard, pristine land preserve, and more. 

Alyssa has always been guided by her deep love of the natural world, but I was fascinated to learn about her perspective as a "digital philosopher." Whereas outdoorsy types are often wary of our time's proliferation of digital technologies (ahem), Alyssa sees the internet as a powerful force for nature -- an obsession that began with the creation of her own Digital Democracy major at UCLA. We cover a lot of ground here, from the story of Hipcamp's founding to its ultimate mission as perhaps the most scalable model for land conservation on the planet. Not to disappoint, there are plenty of amazing camping tips in here, too! Whether you're a first-time camper, a seasoned outdoorsperson, want to learn what it's like to be a Hipcamp host, or like me, have made a New Year's resolution to get out and camp more this year, you'll want to check out this episode! 

Shelter has always been, and will always be, one of our critical human needs for survival. So I would be remiss if in a podcast seeking to uncover the core of how we were meant to live as human beings, I focused on cabins, tiny homes, and other stylish back-to-basics dwellings for upscale urbanites while ignoring an untenable truth I witness every day: That there are untold thousands of people living in our cities who, in fact, have no shelter at all. In Los Angeles alone, where the homeless population increased a staggering 23 percent in the past year and more than 50,000 people sleep on the streets every night, we are in the midst of a homelessness (really, houselessness) epidemic unprecedented in the course of human history. How have we, as a modern society, allowed homelessness to persist on this unimaginable scale? And how can we, as a modern society, begin to rectify it? 

This is the focus of my episode with LA-based writer, designer and architect Sofia Borges, director of the prestigious Martin Architecture and Design Workshop (MADWORKSHOP) and a faculty member at the USC School of Architecture, where she recently spearheaded the school’s first-ever advanced topics design studio on the homeless crisis in LA. The resulting project, Homes for Hope (a light-filled, rapidly deployable 92-square-foot modular microhouse for the homeless that could easily work as a backyard studio for the minimalist design enthusiast) won a 2017 Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award. Sofia has also authored and edited more than two dozen books on architecture and design, and as you will hear, is a true urban visionary. Here, she speaks passionately about the manifold possibilities for Homes for Hope, the scourge of NIMBYism, and the call for us all to be part of a sea change to combat unsustainable human suffering everywhere. 

In our world of endless consumerist and technological distraction, “undistractable attention” is about more than just shutting off the social media; it’s about tuning into the guiding voice that’s inside each and every one of us. One pathway to that voice may be meditation or yoga, but our most fundamental route—as I learned in this life-changing conversation with Jim Robertson, an aboriginal skills instructor and naturalist based in Santa Monica, California, who coined that term—is via our eons-old home in the natural world. As Jim explains here, the absence of that connection in our modern-day lives has led to an epidemic of physical and mental illness, and left us struggling to fill that void with one mind-numbing addiction after another.

Jim has worked as a naturalist for the Santa Monica Mountains and taught aboriginal skills and wilderness survival training to nature-bereft urbanites for over a decade. But remarkably, Jim didn’t come to the world of aboriginal skills until he was well into his fifties. It isn’t often in our modern world and culture that we have the opportunity to sit and absorb the wisdom of our elders, and Jim, 78 years young, held me rapt as he unfolded his captivating life history over the course of this conversation, including a moving look at his struggles with physical and emotional pain that brought him to his current path. Whether you want to learn more about plants and the fun of primitive campouts, seek inspiration on how to live more deeply and fully every day, or simply want to be enthralled by the wisdom of one of the most delightful human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of interviewing, check out this episode! 

For thousands of years, new generations -- and new mothers, in particular -- had the wisdom of their elders, of their culture, of their sense of place to guide them. Today in 21st-century America, where so many of us can only trace our ancestry back to one immigrant grandparent and what family we have is scattered across the continent (or the globe), modern motherhood can be a crushingly isolated existence. Add in the the demands of our go-go-go technologized life and an economically obsessed patriarchal society that doesn’t value motherhood as a meaningful pursuit, and it’s no wonder I often wish I could toss myself, my husband and our two little girls in a time machine and head back to a simple Little House on the Prairie-like homestead somewhere in my past. Except like so many modern displaced people of lost ancestry, I wouldn’t actually know where to point the time machine to go home.

So imagine my delight when I discovered writer Sarah Menkedick, who lived out my actual fantasy (minus an actual time machine). Four years ago, she ditched the modern world and her modern existence literary writing and trekking around the globe (teaching English to teenagers on far-flung Réunion Island, camping on the Mongolian grasslands) to start her family, offline, in a tiny 19th-century cabin on her family’s Ohio farm. The result was her beautiful daughter, and a magnificent memoir in which she explores the existential nature of modern motherhood and the meaning of home (but so much more): Homing Instincts: Early Motherhood on a Midwestern Farm, which was released by Pantheon earlier this year.

I was so excited to have the opportunity to interview the brilliantly talented Sarah about her book and other writings (she’s a writer’s writer: bylines in Harper’s, Pacific Standard, Oxford American, The Paris Review Daily, The New York Times and a Fulbright fellow, to boot), as well as how she’s taking lessons learned from a simpler existence into her life and home now, post-cabin. 

Groundbreaking physician Dr. Michelle Gerber joins the podcast this week to discuss naturopathic medicine -- a radically different approach to health and disease that is urgently needed in a modern world besieged by skyrocketing rates of chronic illness, and where few answers exist in modern medicine for those suffering, save for a disease name and a pill to treat the symptoms. I know few more qualified to dive into this topic: As a licensed naturopathic doctor, board-certified naturopathic pediatrician (the only in Los Angeles), and a certified professional midwife, Michelle is a triple threat primary-care physician perhaps unequaled even in the mainstream medical world. And as such, she not only has the holistic perspective of caring for patients from birth through adulthood, but through naturopathic medicine is able to draw on a breadth of traditional medical systems and knowledge (including Western medicine) to both support long-term health and uncover the underlying physiology of chronic disease.

Yet remarkably, naturopathic medicine is still well outside the mainstream, even though the roots of naturopathic medicine extend back thousands of years. Indeed, naturopathic physicians have practiced in America for over a century (naturopathic doctors attend four years of medical school and must pass extensive board exams just like conventional medical doctors; they are currently licensed to practice in 21 states). In our conversation, Michelle delves into why that’s so, and also lifts the curtain on everything you ever wanted to know about this timeless (and now, timely) branch of medicine: how a naturopathic doctor works to treats patients; naturopathic medicine's comprehensive and synergistic approach to uncovering the root of disease; the naturopathic doctor's critical role as patient educator; plus Michelle's wisdom on the modern dilemma of biological dissonance, nutrition and the microbiome, preconception care and more. Whether you or a family member are struggling with a chronic illness and are frustrated by the confines of conventional medical care, or you're simply curious about a medical paradigm that can promote wellness in an ever more uncertain future, you won't want to miss this episode!