The Hero’s Journey℠ Podcast

We all want to eat food, but we don’t necessarily have the wherewithal to learn where and from whom our food came. That is where good storytelling comes in. Today, our guest is the Emmy and James Beard Award Winning Sophia Roe. Sophia is a chef, writer, and the founder of Apartment Miso. In this episode we go deep into Sophia’s background and how that informs her advocacy today, her relationship with food, and her interest in supply chains. In this candid episode, Sophia opens up about why activism requires you to be in a consistent  relationship with sorrow, the pressure of actively needing to care about everything, and advice for the younger generations about how to stay motivated and hopeful. 

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“If you’re going to fight for anything, you should fight for freedom of speech.” 

Today on the pod, we have the inimitable journalist Carey Gillam. Carey shares her Kansan origins, what drew her to journalism in the first place, her career trajectory from national correspondent to uncovering Monsanto’s wrongdoings, how she’s stayed resilient in the face of corporate pushback, the value of non-profit journalism, dissecting the concept of “truth”, the need for nuanced thinking, and more. In this candid conversation, Ashley and Carey get real about their individual experiences as women in the media facing hostile actors. Thought-provoking and powerful, we end with the urgent call for freedom of speech and freedom of the press. 

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If Elon Musk can put a gas station in a garage, why can’t you put a landfill in your kitchen? Joining us today is Matt Bertilli, CEO of eco-friendly company Lomi Home Composter- the first countertop composting appliance on the market. Does that sound too good to be true? Ashley certainly agrees, but she bought Lomi anyways and now has the greenest lawn in the neighborhood, sans chemicals. In this episode, Matt challenges our notions about the power of capitalism and impact entrepreneurship to effect change. Ashley and Matt discuss all things waste streams and management, the impressive climate impact of composting, why we should focus on progress over perfection, solving social problems with the market, the complexities of venture capital, the challenges of staying on mission, the importance of intellectual honesty, and more. 

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When you prioritize diversity over specialization, amazing transformations can take place. Paula Daniels, our guest today has activated this theory of change throughout her career and spearheaded institutional change on local and national scales. Currently, Paula is the Co-founder, Chief of What’s Next, and Founding Chair of the Center for Good Food Purchasing. In this episode, we discuss Paula’s origins, how indigenous ingenuity motivated her towards food policy, her experience with civil service, the ins and outs of a food policy council, the power of procurement, Paula’s cat, turtle, and dolphin theory, and so much more. 

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Within the non-profit industrial complex, communities of color are chronically underfunded. This is a problem today’s guest, Iara Peng is working to solve. Iara is the founder and CEO of JustFund, an online portal democratizing philanthropy by connecting grantmakers directly to organizations. In this fascinating episode, we learn about Iara’s personal relationship with concepts of democracy, why she drove the original Declaration of Independence from Vermont to New York, why philanthropy is inherently exclusionary, her visionary solution to making grantmaking more accessible, and more. Ever wondered what Donor Advised Funds are or why philanthropy lacks accountability? This episode is rich with information the average person might not know about the philanthropic world and how we can build a more equitable system. 

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How do we overcome the personal and industrial inertia that keeps our society stagnant? The answer according to today’s guest, Senator Chris Lee, is with wholesale change. Chris Lee is a State Senator in Hawaii and was the youngest member ever elected to the Hawaii State Legislature. He has authored laws making Hawaii the first state to commit to 100% renewable energy and a carbon negative economy by 2045. In this episode, Ashley and Chris discuss how he became a legislator in the first place, what it takes to get elected, the health scare that changed the trajectory of his political career, his policy wins, why your vote actually does matter, how everyone can participate in the democratic process, and more. For anyone curious about what it’s really like to run for office and coalition build for real change, this episode is jam packed with helpful insights and practical advice. 

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On today’s podcast we have San Diego’s clean energy godmother Nicole Capretz. Nicole is an environmental attorney, the founder and CEO of the Climate Action Campaign, and the primary author of San Diego’s 100% clean energy action plan. Nicole has been doing climate work and activism before people knew or cared about climate change. If you or someone you know is interested in politics, civil service, or running for office, this episode is rich with anecdotal advice and wisdom. Nicole shares her personal journey, the lessons she’s learned along the way, how to stay resilient when facing powerful actors, and strategies for fighting cynicism. 

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The less news coverage you have, the less accountability. In a society where local news outlets are collapsing, news is becoming more and more consolidated, news mistrust is at an all time high, and outlets are dependent on corporate funding, choosing to be an independent investigative journalist is an act of serious heroism. Today,  we have Helena Bottemiller Evich, founder and editor-in-chief of Food Fix, the go-to source for food policy news and analysis. Helena is an award winning reporter who previously led food coverage at Politico. In this episode, Helena and Ashley dive deep into the infant formula debacle and its relationship to the larger food conversation, why food policy deserves its own beat, why Helena classifies herself as an “accidental journalist”, why media coverage in politics matters, what the investigative process looks like, how we maintain connection with people we deeply disagree with, and more. 

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What is the Hero’s Journey? Why has everyone heard of it? Why is it the title of this podcast? Who is Joseph Campbell? Today we have the Executive Director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, John Bucher to spill all the tea. In this thoughtful conversation, Julia and John talk about everything from his personal relationship with the Hero’s Journey, our collective Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell’s journey and how his teachings have impacted the world, the internal and external threads we need to weave, the devaluation of mystery, what to do when one feels lost or off-track, and so much more. This episode is rich with information, inspiration, and motivation that should move us all forward on our Hero’s Journey.

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When we tend to our inner gardens, we are better able to transform the outer world. Inner work is something our last guest of the season, Center for Food Safety Executive Director Andrew Kimbrell believes we must prioritize in order to be effective activists. This episode covers a wide scope of topics. Andrew and Ashley discuss his heroic journey from pianist to lawyer, the impact of his mentors, his path to the Supreme Court, the need to transition environmental law to criminal law, how a war against nature will always be a war against ourselves, and what keeps him hopeful. This episode also goes deep, covering the intrinsic value of music, why activists must fall in love, what it means to shift the collective consciousness, why we need to view ourselves as creators instead of consumers, and so much more. 

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For today’s show, Ashley is delighted to be joined by the Center for Food Safety’s Executive Director Andrew Kimbrell to have a fascinating conversation with another world-renowned eco warrior, Vandana Shiva. Vandana Shiva is a quantum physicist, ecologist, activist, teacher, author and more. In this episode, Vandana and Andrew go deep into how the patenting of life and the antiglobalization movement led to their activist paths converging. With Ashley’s probing, Vandana and Andrew discuss the power of the WTO protests in Seattle and Cancún and what organizing in this moment requires, breakdown the dangers of philanthrocapitalism, why the human relationship to earth must be radically transformed, the need to embrace biodiverse solutions, what it means to be attacked by corporations, and why their activism isn’t about success or convincing others.

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We are the earth, and the earth moves through today’s guest by singing songs to empower us all to embrace our own earth warrior. Hila the Killa is an eco-rapper, educator, and comedian hailing from New York City. Growing up in the city, Hila was not regularly exposed to nature, but when she was, she found an all-consuming adoration for it. In this episode, Hila, Ashley, and Julia discuss how burning man influenced Hila’s art, how her work fosters a sense of joy and empowerment, the role of art in activism, the difference between organizing and informing, where intergenerational outreach fits into her mission, why viewing nature as bizarre and absurd should help humans foster self-acceptance, how categorizing can limit human possibility, where Hila accesses her gratitude, and more.

On today’s episode our guest is a vanguard, an activist, organizer, father, ordained chaplain, and a former farmworker. Baldemar Velasquez is the founder of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) and an internationally recognized leader in the farmworker and immigrant rights movement. For the better part of his young life, Baldemar worked in the fields with his family, exposed to the harsh realities farmworkers face in the US given their lack of equal protection under the law. In this episode, Ashley and Baldemar have a rich discussion that travels through time, exploring Baldemar’s personal journey, current work, the impact of in-person organizing, how faith can bridge intolerance and foster solidarity, how the current global food landscape impacts his ability to support US farmworkers, the role of intergenerational knowledge sharing, and why living out a vision for change often requires some fumbling. 

Baldemar Velasquez was born and raised as a migrant farm worker from South Texas. In 1967, at the age of twenty, Velasquez along with his father and a small group of farmworkers, tired of the mistreatment formed the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. (FLOC). In 1978 he started an eight year strike and boycott of the Campbell Soup Company that culminated in the first multi-party contracts in labor history between farmworkers, farmers and numerous industrial produce corporations.  

These were the first supply-chain agreements in labor history achieving precedent setting human rights reforms. After Campbell Soup, many other  manufacturers followed with similar agreements, Heinz USA, Vlasic Pickles, Dean Foods and their subsidiaries Aunt Jane Pickles and Green Bay Foods. In 2004, he culminated a five year struggle with the Mt. Olive Pickle Company in North Carolina in signing a blockbuster agreement covering 8000 “guest workers” from Mexico working on over 800 farms in the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia. The agreements brought fair treatment and humane working and living conditions for the impoverished farm workers.

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When you are engaged with world issues, it can feel more upsetting to keep quiet than to speak up. For our guest Sharon Lerner, reporting on and exposing powerful actors serves as her activist playground. Sharon Lerner is an investigative journalist at ProPublica and worked at The Intercept for 7 years prior. In this episode, Ashley and Sharon discuss the role of investigative journalism and storytelling in social change, Sharon’s personal journey into journalism, her work investigating the AIDs epidemic and COVID pandemic, as well as the EPA. Sharon, a learner and journalist at heart shares why it is important to follow what interests you, how she navigates a hostile political landscape, and the critical ingredients to successful journalism.

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How does the earth want to move through you? In conversation with nature meditation teacher Mark Coleman, this episode is “soul food” for activists. Mark sees his work today as a quiet, rather than direct, form of activism that helps others deepen their relationship with nature. Contemplative activism sparks the realization that what we do is an expression of the Earth, and shines light on how we can transform our grief into protecting what we love. In this episode, Mark shares how the climate crisis has impacted his work, traces the roots of meditation to nature, breaks down the importance of mindfulness and meditation, and why letting ourselves feel everything is essential to activism. We hope this episode inspires you to go outside and reconnect to nature in some form everyday.

Mark Coleman is an insight meditation teacher who has been teaching meditation retreats worldwide since 1997. Mark is passionate about integrating meditation and nature and regularly leads wilderness retreats through his organization, Awake in the Wild, where he also offers nature-based meditation teacher trainings. Mark is also the co-founder of the Mindfulness Training Institute, where he co-leads yearlong mindfulness teacher trainings in Europe and US.   Mark is the author of three books, Awake in the Wild, Make Peace With Your Mind, and From Suffering to Peace. He lives in Sausalito, in Marin County, CA and likes nothing more than to spend his time hiking, biking and kayaking outdoors.

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On today’s episode, we have the food movement “fairy godmother”, professor and prize-winning author Marion Nestle. With a doctorate in Molecular Biology, Marion didn’t know she was signing up for a career dedicated to food. But when she was assigned to teach a class in nutrition, what she learned about the food industry and its impact on public health transformed her trajectory. In this conversation, Marion and Ashley deep dive into how food industry strategy impacts our consumption of ultra-processed foods, the driving forces of the obesity epidemic and debunking the narrative of personal responsibility, the evolution of Marion’s career, the personal and societal impact of her writing, the professional consequences of speaking “controversially”, and where Marion finds hope. This episode provides a plethora of food advocacy examples and resources for anyone looking to actively engage in food policy. 

Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, in the department she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She holds honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky and the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York.

She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley. Previous faculty positions were at Brandeis University and the UCSF School of Medicine. From 1986-88, she was senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services and editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. Her research and writing examine scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice and its consequences, emphasizing the role of food industry marketing.

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“One never knows the impact that one’s activism can have.” On today’s episode, we have bestselling author, advocate, funder, and founder of Real Food Media, Anna Lappé. Anna has dedicated her life to critiquing and unpacking dominant food, health, and hunger narratives while also exposing industry tactics that keep us confused and paralyzed. In this powerful episode, Anna and Ashley discuss Anna’s journey into food activism, why you can’t have an ego when it comes to activism, how the industrial food system in the US impacts hunger globally, why it's not just what we eat but what we grow, the power of story and storytelling, how to define hope and how to apply it, and we end with a call to action; in the face of all that is being stolen, we must resist the loss of joy. 

Anna Lappé is a bestselling author, advocate for sustainability and justice along the food chain, and funder for food systems transformation. Since 2016, she has developed and led the Food Sovereignty Fund of the Panta Rhea Foundation. She is also the founder and strategic advisor to Real Food Media, which works with food movement partners around the world to develop powerful media and communications strategy. A national bestselling author, Anna has authored or co-authored three books and is the contributing author to fourteen more, including Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It. She regularly speaks with audiences around the country and her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among other outlets. Along with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé, Anna also co-founded the Small Planet Institute and the Small Planet Fund, supporting grassroots changemakers around the world. A James Beard Foundation award recipient, Anna is lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two daughters.  

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Our relationship with the environment changes when we look at the land as a teacher and the animals as our elders. In today’s episode, Latrice Tatsey and Liz Carlisle share insights on being in relationship to the land. Why is it important that indigenous communities lead this work? How different would this work be if we acted with the next generation in mind? Latrice Tatsey is a member of the Amskapiipkni (Blackfeet) Nation, an ecologist and advocate for tribally-directed bison restoration. Liz Carlisle is an Assistant Professor at UC Santa Barbara’s Environmental Studies Program and author of “Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming”. Ashley, Latrice, and Liz discuss the need to reintegrate native people and ancestral knowledge into the conversation about regenerative agriculture, the role of research in activism, how to honor and garner a more appreciative relationship with the land, and so much more.

Liz Carlisle is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara, where she teaches courses on food and farming. She has written three books about regenerative farming and agroecology: Lentil Underground (2015), Grain by Grain (2019, with co-author Bob Quinn), and most recently, Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming (2022). She holds a Ph.D. in Geography, from UC Berkeley, and a B.A. in Folklore and Mythology, from Harvard University. Prior to her career as a writer and academic, she spent several years touring rural America as a country singer.

Latrice Tatsey is an ecologist and advocate for tribally-directed bison restoration who remains active in her family’s cattle ranching operation at Blackfeet Nation in northwest Montana. Her research focuses on organic matter and carbon in soil, and specifically, the benefits to soil from the reintroduction of bison (iin-ni) to their traditional grazing landscapes on the Blackfeet Reservation. Latrice is currently completing her master’s degree in Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at Montana State University and she serves as a research fellow with the Piikani Lodge Health Institute and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

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What does a community value when it prioritizes the health of a grass lawn over the health of the collective? What is the relationship between activism, audacity, and low hanging fruit? On today’s episode, we speak with Mackenzie Feldman, founder of Herbicide-Free Cal and Re:wild Your Campus (formerly Herbicide-Free Campus). Mackenzie and Ashley’s conversation covers the decolonization of aesthetics, how to face activism criticism, the impact of Lee Johnson’s trial against Monsanto, how to approach adversaries with care over punishment, and the value of multigenerational dialogues in cultivating real change.

Mackenzie graduated from UC Berkeley in Spring 2018 with a degree in Society and Environment and a minor in Food Systems. While attending UC Berkeley, Mackenzie and Bridget Gustafson created Herbicide-Free Cal after the two got herbicides banned from their beach volleyball courts and decided to expand the campaign to the rest of the campus. Upon graduating in 2018, Mackenzie expanded the campaign to the rest of the UCs, and then nationwide, and Herbicide-Free Campus was born.

The campaign resulted in the entire University of California system going glyphosate-free; HFC also worked with the Protect Our Keiki Coalition to get all herbicides banned from every public school in the state of Hawaii. Mackenzie received the 2019 Brower Youth Award for her work with HFC. Mackenzie is also a Food Sovereignty Research Assistant for the FAO and a Food Research Fellow for Data For Progress, where she writes food and agriculture policy for the Green New Deal.

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Are we undervaluing the role of the courts in enacting social change? What does it mean to codify a harm into the law? With two conflicting visions about the planet and our food systems at the nexus, how can food law pivot us towards a brighter future? All that and more in today’s episode with CFS’ very own Legal Director George Kimbrell. In this episode, George and Ashley dive deep into public interest litigation, exploring how and why the “Davids” of the world can defeat the “Goliaths”. George shares his personal journey to law, his greatest legal battles, how he handles his darkest moments, the importance of work-life balance, and the bits and pieces of wisdom he’s gained along the way.

George Kimbrell is CFS’s Legal Director, overseeing all of the Center’s legal work. Along with his Director duties, George is counsel in many CFS cases. His legal, legislative, and policy work runs the gamut of many CFS program areas, including pesticides, genetically engineered organisms, animal factory pollution, food labeling, foodborne illness, organic standards, and aquaculture. Among other landmark cases, George was counsel in the first U.S. Supreme Court case on the regulation of genetically engineered crops. He received his law degree magna cum laude from Lewis and Clark Law School, where he now teaches food and agriculture law as an adjunct professor. He has authored numerous law review articles and other publications, and often speaks on all areas of food and agriculture law and industrial agriculture’s impacts on the environment and public health. Before joining CFS in 2005, George completed a clerkship with the Honorable Ronald M. Gould, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

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Not all heroes wear shoes. That is the case with our first guest Charlie Tebbutt, a pioneering environmental lawyer who has spent decades suing corporations across over half of the country, defending citizens directly impacted by industrial pollution. Charlie shares his journey from activist to litigator and the value of standing up and standing out. In conversation with our host, Ashley Lukens, this episode highlights law as an avenue for social change, resilience in the face of corrupt systems, the link between human rights and environmental rights, and how an action as simple as taking a picture can support legal activism.  

Charlie’s office assists communities, organizations, tribes, unions and individuals across the United States in protecting themselves and their members from industrial pollution and chemical injury. Through litigation, negotiation, and grassroots campaign building, Charlie helps his clients enforce our nation’s environmental laws and hold polluters and regulatory agencies accountable. He has worked on “waters of the U.S.” protection issues throughout his career, including cases such as Northern California River Watch v City of Healdsburg, CARE v Henry Bosma Dairies, National Cotton Council v EPA, Center for Biological Diversity v BP, and an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of Western organizations in Rapanos v U.S.

During his more than 30-year career at the Western Environmental Law Center, the Atlantic States Legal Foundation, and in private practice, Charlie has brought citizen suit and toxic tort cases concerning pollution and chemical exposure against scores of Fortune 500 companies in 30 states. Charlie has litigated cases involving the Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and Clean Air Act (as well as NEPA, FIFRA, CERCLA, EPCRA, and FOIA). Recent cases include Kupale Ookala and Center for Food Safety v Big Island Dairy (Hawaii) and Center for Biological Diversity, et al. v De Santis (Piney Point, Florida).

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