Bytable Podcast - Know Better Live Best

Listen as Conor Crickmore tells us about his journey from IT to farming, tips for those who want to grow their own food, and the importance of being connected with your food system.

Bio:

Conor left the city, moved to the country and started what would later become a world class farm from nothing and with no experience. He left a IT job in a cubicle to create a homestead on a river where he could catch and grow his dinner. It did not happen quickly as it was very hard those first couple of years for Conor and his wife Kate. Conor and Kate were driven by finding a connection to nature and their food and to make a better life for themselves and their two kids born on the farm. What they ultimately created was one of the most successful small scale vegetable farms in the world.

After a decade of building their farmstead, they now teach others their high production, low till farming methods. Conor found that the current landscape of tools did not work well within his style of farming and thus he became a designer and manufacturer of farm tools. Other farmers agreed, and the tool company, Neversink Farm Tools, was born.

When you buy seeds to plant in your backyard garden, do you wonder where they came from? Brijette Peña, owner of San Diego Seed Company, joined us to share with our listeners the importance of knowing where your seeds come from. The idea is simple: If good seed that is adapted to our climate is produced locally, then we can add one more layer of support to our regional food systems!

Brijette Peña, Owner of San Diego Seed Company:
In 2010, Brijette Peña came to the stark conclusion that few companies were producing regionally adapted seeds for Southern California climates, she took an oath. An oath to produce organic, regionally adapted seeds that gardeners, farmers and market growers could depend on. This lofty goal has led to the amazing development of San Diego Seed Company.  Through her seed company, she not only produces organic heirloom varieties well adapted for the Southern California growers but she also facilitates and promotes ethical seed production aimed at providing growers the best varieties for their success.

In the end, for San Diego Seed Company it’s about supporting those that support us by growing nutritious local, food.

In part two of our conversation with award-winning author and journalist Charles Fishman, we discuss how we can all do our part to help conserve water and inspire change in our communities and government.

Bio:
In the last four years, Charles Fishman has become one of the most forceful, challenging and inspiring public voices on water issues, speaking everywhere from MIT and UCLA, to Hershey chocolate and the US State Department.

Fishman’s book, “The Big Thirst: The secret life & turbulent future of water,” has become the best-selling water book in a generation, and is changing how people think about water, and how they confront the challenges of climate change. “The Big Thirst” does something few water books do — it restores a sense of wonder about water, along with a sense of urgency.

Fishman’s message is both blunt and optimistic. Everywhere in the world, climate change will make water problems that already exist worst. And many places that don’t think about water will suddenly have too much or too little. At the same time, the next decade will see a revolution in water akin to the revolution we’ve seen in computing, in medicine, in communication, in the last 10 years. Around the world, how people use water, how they get it, what they pay for it, and how they think about it — all will change. Because it must change.

Fishman is a former reporter for the Washington Post, and was a reporter and editor at the Orlando Sentinel and the News & Observer in Raleigh, NC. Since 1996, he has worked for the innovative business magazine Fast Company. Fishman’s work has won numerous awards, including three times receiving UCLA’s Gerald Loeb Award, the most prestigious award in business journalism.

He is the author, most recently, of “One Giant Leap: The impossible mission that flew us to the Moon” — a groundbreaking history of the race to the Moon in the 1960s that was an instant New York Times bestseller.

Fishman is the author of two other New York Times bestsellers, “The Wal-Mart Effect,” about Wal-Mart’s impact on how we live; and the #1 NYT bestseller, “A Curious Mind,” about the power of curiosity, with Hollywood producer Brian Grazer.

Fishman grew up in Miami, Florida, and graduated from Harvard. After a stint in Mexico City, he now lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, also a journalist, their two children, and their two Labradors. A two-foot wide creek runs through his backyard.

When you turn on the tap or buy a bottle of water, do you ever wonder about where that water comes from and all the work and energy that is required to bring that water to you?  Are you curious to know what you can do individually to help conserve the world’s water supply and what you can do to help your community avoid a water crisis?

Listen as award-winning author and journalist Charles Fishman teaches us about our strange and complex relationship to one of the earth’s most vital resources, water.

Bio:
In the last four years, Charles Fishman has become one of the most forceful, challenging and inspiring public voices on water issues, speaking everywhere from MIT and UCLA, to Hershey chocolate and the US State Department.

Fishman’s book, “The Big Thirst: The secret life & turbulent future of water,” has become the best-selling water book in a generation, and is changing how people think about water, and how they confront the challenges of climate change. “The Big Thirst” does something few water books do — it restores a sense of wonder about water, along with a sense of urgency.

Fishman’s message is both blunt and optimistic. Everywhere in the world, climate change will make water problems that already exist worst. And many places that don’t think about water will suddenly have too much or too little. At the same time, the next decade will see a revolution in water akin to the revolution we’ve seen in computing, in medicine, in communication, in the last 10 years. Around the world, how people use water, how they get it, what they pay for it, and how they think about it — all will change. Because it must change.

Fishman is a former reporter for the Washington Post, and was a reporter and editor at the Orlando Sentinel and the News & Observer in Raleigh, NC. Since 1996, he has worked for the innovative business magazine Fast Company. Fishman’s work has won numerous awards, including three times receiving UCLA’s Gerald Loeb Award, the most prestigious award in business journalism.

He is the author, most recently, of “One Giant Leap: The impossible mission that flew us to the Moon” — a groundbreaking history of the race to the Moon in the 1960s that was an instant New York Times bestseller.

Fishman is the author of two other New York Times bestsellers, “The Wal-Mart Effect,” about Wal-Mart’s impact on how we live; and the #1 NYT bestseller, “A Curious Mind,” about the power of curiosity, with Hollywood producer Brian Grazer.

Fishman grew up in Miami, Florida, and graduated from Harvard. After a stint in Mexico City, he now lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, also a journalist, their two children, and their two Labradors. A two-foot wide creek runs through his backyard.

Listen as we discuss Mushroom Mountain, which Tradd Cotter owns and operates with his wife Olga, to explore applications in various industries including food production, mycoremediation of environmental pollutants, and natural alternatives to chemical pesticides.

About Tradd:
Tradd Cotter is a microbiologist, professional mycologist, and organic gardener, who has been tissue culturing, collecting native fungi in the Southeast, and cultivating both commercially and experimentally for more than twenty-two years. In 1996 he founded Mushroom Mountain, which he owns and operates with his wife, Olga, to explore applications for mushrooms in various industries and currently maintains over 200 species of fungi for food production, mycoremediation of environmental pollutants, and natural alternatives to chemical pesticides.

In 2014 Tradd published the best-selling book Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation (2014), that is still one of the top ten releases with the publisher, Chelsea Green. Tradd has won numerous awards for his work including the prestigious Clemson University Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2013), the EPA GRO-U Fellowship Award (2011), and an expert lecturer on all topics related to fungi in agriculture and medicine.

His primary interest is in low-tech and no-tech cultivation strategies so that anyone can grow mushrooms on just about anything, anywhere in the world. Mushroom Mountain is currently expanding to 42,000 square feet of laboratory and research space near Greenville, South Carolina, to accommodate commercial production, as well as mycoremediation projects. In 2018 Mushroom Mountain started a daughter company, MYCOMATRIX, that develops novel medicinal extracts for consumers and cobranding into consumer products. Currently the Cotters have opened Blue Portal, a psilocybin research and mediated session center, that is available in Jamaica and soon Costa Rica. Tradd, Olga, and their daughter, Heidi, live in Liberty, South Carolina.

Listen as Shawna teaches us about her Anti-Inflammatory lifestyle and how she has found pain relief from severe spinal osteoarthritis through diet and an active garden lifestyle.

About Shawna:
Shawna Coronado is an author, photographer, and media host focused on antiinflammatory lifestyle, organic gardening, and whole food cooking. She has written 7 books and her photographs and personal story have been seen in many international women’s magazines and home & garden magazines. Shawna’s garden, food, and ecoadventures have been featured in many media venues including television news programming, radio broadcasting, and PBS television.

Shawna was diagnosed with severe spinal osteoarthritis in 2015 and has found pain relief through diet and an active garden lifestyle. Telling her dramatic story and experience, Shawna inspires and educates audiences to make smart anti-inflammatory diet, food, and health choices. Her goal is to help people stick with a positive lifestyle plan in order to relieve and overcome chronic inflammatory pain and conditions. Shawna dreams of inspiring more people to be active and pain-free so they can discover a healthier and more fulfilled lifestyle.

Listen as we discuss how chickens and ducks can be utilized to improve your garden, the importance of eating pasture-raised eggs and poultry, and Lisa’s hopes for the future of agriculture.

Bio:
Lisa Steele is a 5th-generation chicken keeper, Maine Master Gardener and lifelong thrifty New Englander. She’s the founder of Fresh Eggs Daily®, the popular natural chicken keeping site which has been named one of the top ten garden blogs by Better Homes & Gardens magazine.

The author of several books including Fresh Eggs Daily: Raising Happy, Healthy Chickens Naturally (St. Lynns Press, 2013), Gardening with Chickens (Quarto, 2016), and most recently 101 Chicken Keeping Hacks (Quarto, 2018), she has appeared on Home and Family on the Hallmark channel, P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home on NPR, Good Morning Maine, Great Day Houston, Good Day Columbus, and San Antonio Living among others, and has been featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

In addition to writing books and handling her social media, Lisa hosts a “country lifestyle” television show on NBC in Maine and New Hampshire called Welcome to my Farm. From the farm  in central Maine where she and her husband reside, and she’s carrying on her family tradition raising a mixed flock of chickens, ducks and geese, and growing vegetables and herbs while inspiring others with her natural, fun and accessible approach to integrating gardening and backyard chickens for a more productive flock and a more bountiful harvest.

Listen in as we discuss the history of monopolization and corporate influence in our agriculture system, the decline of the family farm and rural America, the rise of private funding for agriculture research at public universities, his work on the new film Right to Harm, and my favorite part - how we can work together to fix our food system, support our farmers, and how if we each work on our little piece of the world we can work together towards a better one. 

About John:
John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri, Columbia.

Listen as fitness icon Denise Austin teaches us the keys to longevity, the importance of eating a diet of real food, and how to establish healthy habits with your family. 

About Denise Austin:
Denise Austin, fitness icon and pioneer, has been helping individuals worldwide as a health and fitness professional for over 35 years. Denise’s accomplishments include publishing 12 books, selling 25 million exercise videos and DVDs, and hosting the longest running fitness show in history. Every day, Denise inspires women to find their happiness and make small life changes to keep them feeling young, fit, and fabulous.

Links:

Listen as Sarah teaches us about the Quivira Coalition and how they foster ecological, economic and social health through education, innovation and collaboration. 

Pasture-raised, non-GMO, organic, cage-free, fair trade, grass-fed, all natural...what do these all mean?  Listen as Rebecca teaches us about food labels and what to look for when you make your next food purchase.

Ann Adams, Executive Director, Holistic Management International (HMI) joins us to discuss regenerative agriculture, helping family farmers and ranchers become more prosperous, improving food quality, and how we all can do our part in improving the environment.

Bio:
Ann has worked in the nonprofit world for over 20 years, creating and directing national programs, collaborating with over 100 non-profit and government entities to create positive impact among producers and land stewards seeking to build & maintain sustainable farms, ranches and healthy land. Her fund development work has included raising over $1 million for national whole farm planning training for beginning farmer programming. In 2015, she was awarded the Quivira Coalition’s Leadership in Conservation Award.

Ann has been a Holistic Management Certified Educator since 1998 and has practiced and taught Holistic Management® in multiple capacities for 20 years. She also has facilitated classes (onsite and distance learning), taught workshops and presented at conferences. She has written countless articles, helped develop agriculture-based software for financial and grazing planning and written a training handbook, At Home with Holistic Management: Creating a Life of Meaning. 

Ann also taught courses at Indiana University, Wittenberg University, and Antioch College. She earned her BSED from Ohio University and her PhD from Indiana University. When she isn’t serving as our Executive Director for HMI, Ann is Chief Goatherd on her small farm in the Manzano Mountains and Captain of her Earthship (a house made out of tires with photovoltaics, composting toilet and rainwater harvesting) southeast of Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

Dr. Cate Shanahan MD. teaches us about the problems that exist in healthcare and how it is linked to the modern food system.  The key to bettering your health is to eat real food.  Listen as we discuss the four pillars of the optimal diet - Fresh food, fermented and sprouted foods, organ meats and our favorite - meat cooked on the bone! 

BIO:
Cate Shanahan, MD is a board-certified family physician on a mission to awaken us all to the idea that culinary arts represent a powerful body of nutrition science (including most cookbooks published up to about 1940), and to encourage mothers to let their children grow up to be cowboys (and farmers) because this can save Nature while improving human health.

Dr. Cate trained in biochemistry and genetics at Cornell University before attending Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Practicing in Hawaii she discovered her older patients who grew up eating traditional foods were healthier than their own children and grandchildren who grew up eating according to government recommendations and realized that what dietitians and doctors learn about nutrition is dangerously wrong. She is author of several books including the underground classic Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food, which argues that our genes are programmed by culinary practices of the past and we now need to eat the four categories of foods people have always eaten. She has served as the Director of the Los Angeles Lakers PRO Nutrition Program, and currently works with professional athletes to optimize their metabolism for energy and performance. She also directs a corporate metabolic health program for one of Florida’s largest family owned companies. She has been featured in several documentary films and major media outlets including Sports Illustrated, Vogue, Prevention, Reader’sDigest, the NY Post, and the LA Times as well as on numerous TV, radio and podcast shows.

Listen as Joe shares his passion for gardening, ways we can help improve the environment and why we should care about where our food comes from.

Joe Lamp’l’s (aka joe gardener®) infatuation with gardening and nature began as a child. After a run-in with his parents’ favorite shrub, he panicked and jammed the broken branch into the ground. A few weeks later, it had taken root. Joe was not only relieved; he was also hooked on horticulture.

As one of the country’s most recognized and trusted personalities in gardening and green-living, Joe’s passion for living a greener life is evident to a nationwide audience who turns to him for gardening advice through his new joe gardener Online Gardening Academy™ and watches him in his current role as Creator, Executive Producer and Host of the Emmy-award-winning PBS series, Growing a Greener World® and, previously, as host of Fresh from the Garden on DIY Network and more. Joe also shares his know-how on NBC’s TODAY SHOW, ABC’s Good Morning America, The Weather Channel and through his popular books, podcast series, and more.

Past awards include: The American Horticultural Society selected Joe as the recipient of the Society’s B.Y. Morrison Communication Award, which recognizes effective and inspirational communication—through print, radio, television, and online media. Multi-award winner for Best On-Air Talent for Television by the Garden Writers Association, and The Taste Awards for, Breakout Storyteller of the Year, Best Environmental Television, Series, Film or Video, Best Branded Television Series in 2016 and their coveted Pioneer Award in 2017. In 2018, Growing a Greener World was awarded a Daytime Emmy for Best Lifestyle Program.

Joe is the founder and “Joe” behind joegardener.com – a gardening-intensive website with a focus on how-to videos, podcasts, online courses, and blog posts around the most popular topics gardeners want to know. 

Overseeing these endeavors and more is Agrivana® Media, LLC, a company devoted to creating quality broadcast and online content to inspire and promote environmental stewardship around the world. Joe is deeply committed to “growing a greener world” through his television series, courses, websites, podcasts, books (including The Green Gardener’s Guide), and more. When not talking or writing about gardening and living green, Joe can likely be found in and around his organic garden and spending time with his family on their Atlanta, GA farm. 

Listen as Dr. Terry Wahls shares how she changed her diet and lifestyle to restore her health and treat MS.

About Dr. Terry Wahls:

Listen as Peter Byck discusses documentary filmmaking, climate change, and his research on how regenerative grazing can improve the environment.

Chef Nathan Lyon teaches us about Fiber Fourteen, why fiber is so important for our overall health, and why great food starts fresh.

About Fiber Fourteen:
Fiber Fourteen is the passion project of Nathan Lyon, an Emmy-nominated Outstanding Culinary Host, acclaimed Cookbook Author and classically trained Chef with a Health Science background and Sarah Forman, a Recipe Developer, Recipe Tester and Project Manager.

In the fall of 2016, a family member (a parent) was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. A routine colonoscopy revealed a suspicious polyp which was later diagnosed as a “not a major concern” stage 1 cancer. However, a second opinion classified it as stage 2, possibly stage 3. Needless to say, this news came as a total shock to everyone.

And, what first began as a short visit home to help navigate the diagnoses, turned into a 2-month stay – through the duration of the first-round of treatment: a 6-week course of radiation. Nathan and Sarah took over the responsibility of cooking during the treatment.

Given the type of cancer, treatment and possible gastrointestinal side effects, Nathan and Sarah began making slight adjustments to their recipes. Mind you,their meals have always been on the healthy side: plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, good fats, lean proteins and everything from scratch. But, they decided to make a small change built on a simple idea: decrease the percentage of animal protein so that the majority of the meal is vegetable based (i.e. increase fiber). Armed with their new idea, the challenge was to make those vegetables even more delicious and more satiating than ever before; to make them the star of the show, rather than just humble backup singers.

The meals cooked during this time evolved into the beginner version of the now full-grown Fiber Fourteen Meal Plan, a 14 day fiber-rich, calorie-light recipe meal plan designed to improve your health.

As for the family member who was diagnosed with cancer? They made it through all of their treatments, are recovering quite well and above all, they are living their dreams…

Listen as Elisabeth Erickson-Noe teaches us about cattle ranching in Southeastern Colorado and the hard work that goes into quality meat production.

About Elisabeth Erickson-Noe:
Raised on her family’s cattle ranch in Central California, Elisabeth’s roots in agriculture run five generations deep. Expanding the family’s ranching operations to Colorado led Elisabeth to her future husband where together they run their own commercial beef operation and enjoy raising their children in the canyons of Southeastern Colorado.

Elisabeth obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology with an emphasis in Neurology from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Advocating for producers is in her nature and she has successfully helped defend local ranchers against government overreach attempts by the National Park Service and United States Forest Service. She is passionate about serving the people on the land and working towards the renewal of decentralized markets.

Elisabeth worked for the Colorado Independent CattleGrowers Association as their Media Coordinator, researching and writing for the organization on topics pertinent to independent cattle ranchers. Additionally she served one term as the National Beef Chairperson for Women Involved in Farm Economics. Currently, she devotes her time to raising and educating her two young children, working with her husband on the ranch, and ministering God’s grace and goodness as a leader in the Women’s ministry at her church.

Listen as Sonya Coté, Executive Chef and Kayce Braden, Projects Manager tell us about the farm to table experience of their restaurant Eden East Austin, why it is important for consumers to care about where their food comes from, and how they are doing their part in building a better food system.

About Eden East Austin: 

Located in East Austin, Eden East is a true farm-to-table dining experience. The restaurant serves a monthly prix fixe menu every weekend and an a la carte brunch on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Every Thursday, Eden East offers an a la carte dinner paired with live music or a DJ. Each month, chefs develop a menu based on the most vibrant seasonal ingredients from the farm, as well as local farms and ranches.

Rebecca Thistlethwaite discusses her passion for food, farming, and sustainable business models that advance equity, ecological integrity and restore human relationships.

Bio: