The Backyard RD Podcast: Recent Episodes

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Olivia Myers, RDN, LD founded Lowcountry Street Grocery’s (LSG) GroceryRx program in 2017 with the intention of pushing food and prevention into the healthcare system. She oversees the growth of this initiative in efforts to move the dial on medical reimbursement for fresh, nutritious food. Her current work is deeply rooted in righting the wrong in the food access world and challenging a system that locks the disadvantaged in a charity-based cycle.

She sits on multiple local and state-level boards to promote equality and diversity in the dietetics profession, as well as expanding “food is medicine” strategies across the state.

Olivia’s personal and professional experiences surrounding food have taken many shapes, from counseling native populations in rural Alaska to leading the nutrition and food curriculum at a therapeutic wilderness program for teen girls to working clinically with inpatient and outpatient populations at leading hospitals.

The interest innutrition evolved from many years working in kitchens, from bakeries to fine-dining. She has lived the homesteading lifestyle while establishing life in a yurt on a small piece of land outside of Seattle, where she expanded skills of growing, raising, preserving, hunting and butchering food. Food is the seed that all of Olivia’s personal and professional ambitions extend from and her entrenched belief is that it has the ability to heal mentally, physically and emotionally.

In this episode we discuss:

• Olivia's homesteading experience.
• Hunting & fishing in Alaska.
• Creating a grocery prescription program (GroceryRx).
• The top 3 issues in our food system.

Episode transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QHW-phOMn4N0sQ5l2s7OHz0yQRuGOn3FlfXP7fqVELA/edit?usp=sharing

Community Supported Grocery:https://www.communitysupportedgrocery.com/

Instagram:

@grocery.rx @communitysupportedgrocery @lowcountrystreetgrocery

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I recently attended the Polyface Farm Intensive Discover Seminar. A two-day intensive seminar on everything from livestock management to water conservation.

Polyface Farm is a rural farm located in Swoope, VA run by Joel Salatin and his family. Salatin has been featured in many books such as The Omnivore's Dilemma and the popular documentary Food, Inc. The farm uses unconventional methods such as rotational grazing, composting, and carbon sequestration, with the intent of operating as an ecosystem versus a conventional farm.

In this episode, I answer listener questions like:

• What did you like best/least?
• How do they rotate their animals?
• What did you eat on the farm?
• How is Joel in real life?
• What practices surprised you?
• Will you do anything differently with your homestead since attending?
• Was it worth the money?

Podcast script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xOURIhBNchuHpBqk7bJzuGvVviyD7rHMb3f4sxPBKsQ/edit?usp=sharing

If you like this episode please subscribe and provide a review to help extend our reach! Thank you!

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Michael Don Ham is a founding member and President of the Wild Orchard Tea Company. Wild Orchard’s teas are the world’s first to have obtained Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) and winner of 10 medals at prestigious international tea competitions. Wild Orchard was created out of the desire to share the world’s purest and highest quality organic teas, backed by an unmatched regenerative and biodynamic cultivation process, with people across the globe to improve human and planetary health.

Ham has a degree majoring in Kinesiology with a minor in Nutrition and has spent the past two decades in the field of health and wellness, serving in leadership roles within the non-profit, organic farming, custom integration and consumer packaged goods sectors.

Michael is part of the International WELL Building Institute as an Accredited Professional and Faculty member as well as with Fitwel as an Ambassador to increase awareness of how the spaces where we live, work, study and play can impact our health and to share his passion for continuous improvement through people and planet-centric design and technology.

He has a deep background in regenerative organic agriculture, indoor air quality, water quality and other important aspects of wellness technology for the home. Michael has been invited to speak about wellness and technology at IAQA, TecHome Builder Summits, Housing Innovation Alliance, GreenHome Institute, LivABLE Design Summit, CES 2021, CES 2022, CEDIA, Science in Design Summit Tour and the World Tea Expo.

www.wildorchard.com

INSTAGRAM

Hyperlink: https://www.instagram.com/wildorchardteas/

Our ID: @WildOrchardTeas

TIKTOK

Hyperlink: https://www.tiktok.com/@wildorchardtea

Our ID: @WildOrchardTea

FACEBOOK

Hyperlink: https://www.facebook.com/wildorchardteas

Our ID: @wildorchardteas

LINKEDIN

Hyperlink: https://www.linkedin.com/company/51640280/

Our ID: Wild Orchard Tea Company

TWITTER

Hyperlink: https://twitter.com/WildOrchardTea

Our ID: @WildOrchardTea

Podcast Script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PPtTtlbiksSqmN8Zmx0o5IN1pFjjsGkOZ70tvTfIoE0/edit?usp=sharing

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Making a baby may be natural, but that doesn't mean it's always easy. Anna can help. Anna Bohnengel, MS, RDN, LD is a registered dietitian trained at the National Institutes of Health with a decade of experience in clinical nutrition research and nutrition counseling that empowers women to take control of their health. She now teaches women how to prepare for a healthy pregnancy and reverse infertility through her proven process, FERTILE IN FIVE™.    In this episode we explore: * Foods that boost fertility. * Common fertility misconceptions. * Is "estrogen dominance" real? * How to avoid environmental toxins. * Laboratory tests you'll want to get done if you can't get pregnant. * How to choose a prenatal supplement.

Free Guides:  4-Step Fertility Action Plan (with list of recommended testing)  Guide to the Best Prenatal for Fertility      Anna's Website: https://www.fertility-nutritionist.com/ Anna's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myfertilitynutritionist/   Podcast script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ln4XGroZmkLfvWZzExUZgE9smKFZLoypLPB_vsk_wXQ/edit?usp=sharing

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In this episode, I talked to a very special guest (Mr. Backyard RD) about hunting and specifically deer hunting. I know this topic may be controversial for some, and I'm okay with that.

My goal is not to dissuade you from your beliefs, and as a former vegan and vegetarian, I know that I would have a hard time doing that anyways. My goal is not to compare eating wild game to eating no meat at all, but to instead explore how hunting may be more sustainable compared to factory farming.

I also want to expose you to someone who takes hunting very seriously and hopefully from our conversation, you'll understand that only a small percentage of hunters are in it for trophies.

At the end of the episode, I'll explain what actually got me to go from an all vegan diet to eating deer meat, and I'll take a deep dive into the nutrition powerhouse that is venison.

If you like this episode, please subscribe on Spotify and follow us on Instagram @BackyardRD. You can also read my blog on this topic and many more like it at www.backyardrd.com.

Script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWVSFCKnXSHFHLlaDJKD3lzbLH-AaI5iGXqZLdtDD7E/edit?usp=sharing

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backyardrd/

Website: https://backyardrd.com/

Venison Nutrition Facts Blog Post: https://bit.ly/3OC1dKM

Venison Nutrition Comparison Bar Charts: https://bit.ly/3yfZjds

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Amy Hager has been a registered dietitian for 18 years. She's also a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist as well as Certified Health and Wellbeing Coach through Wellcoaches.

In her career, she's enjoyed roles in wellness, employee health and diabetes management, until she opened her own business as a private practice dietitian.

She enjoys the flexibility of self-employment and has several hobbies including beekeeping, documenting her mountain home build on YouTube, and making jewelry from the honeycomb of her beehives.

Her private practice is primarily telehealth and insurance based. She also teaches a course to help RDs transition into self-employment and is currently working on a program to help burned out health care professionals take a Sabbatical break.

Whether you’re a new RD, a healthcare worker feeling the burnout, or simply someone who’s interested in remote living, you’ll take something away from our conversation.

If you like this episode please subscribe on Spotify, and head over to our blog at www.backyardrd.com, and please follow us on Instagram @BackyardRD

Connect with Amy and Learn more here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-hager-rdn/

Website: https://AmyHagerRDN.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/colorado.mountain.living/

Colorado Mountain Living YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ColoradoMountainLiving

Amy’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/YourInspiredLife

Sabbatical School Waitlist: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/627b06c7ec932442485964f1

Script:

Amy A: Hi, Amy, how are you?

Amy H: I'm good. Thanks.

Amy A: Good. I'm really excited to have you on today. I know I say that basically every single podcast I do, but I feel like, you know, I've been following you on LinkedIn for a while, and I'm just super interested in what you do. And from an RD perspective, I feel like you and I have very similar personalities.

I would kind of consider myself like a type A-B. Where I'm creative, but also very organized. So, looking at you on LinkedIn, I kind of feel like I get that vibe too.

Amy H: That's so funny you say that because I was blessed with a very organized mind so I can keep things super organized, but I'm really laid back as a person.

I'm an achiever, not overachiever. So maybe that's where the, where the blend is. And that definitely creativity is a big part of my life.

Amy A: Very cool. Yeah, that definitely comes out on your LinkedIn page and your YouTube page too. So getting into, [00:01:00] um, that I guess let's start right off and you can tell us your background as an RD.

Amy H: Yeah. I feel like I was fortunate in that I started off as an RD in wellness. I think a lot of people maybe typically start clinical or in community and make their way, but I really had an strong interest in wellness right away. Um, so my very first job was, it was at a hospital own wellness center in North Carolina, where I taught cooking classes and weight loss classes.

And I did some, one to one counseling and then I moved into diabetes management which was probably the most clinical that I got was outpatient center. I didn't have any training though, so I like to always tell that for folks that you can sometimes get jobs without the certification. And then I got the training on a job.

Then I got my CDE, you know, after I qualified to take the exam. But then, I ended up meandering back into wellness, taking a job as a health coach doing onsite employee health in a corporate setting. And again, I didn't have the certification as a health coach, [00:02:00] but my company put me through the training, a certification program offered by well coaches and I loved this work because it included topics outside of nutrition. So I got to do a lot with fitness and stress management and smoking cessation, and I really thought this was the pinnacle of my career until I decided to make the transition into self employment through private practice.

Amy A: That's really cool. And I definitely feel like you and I are on the same page because I actually started my career off in North Carolina too, but unlike you, I did start off in clinical, believe it or not. So. Did that for, I think six or seven years. And then now I do work for a corporate wellness company, but I work on a different side where I work with dietetic interns. So I kind of feel like you and I are on the same page there.

So you mentioned your private practice. Why did you decide to open your own private practice and what advice would you give to new RD's wanting to [00:03:00] do the same?

Amy H: I felt like I was really fortunate in every job that I had and I always made the most of it and it kind of felt like I would come to this point and in the position where either there was nothing else for me to learn or there was nowhere else for me to grow. And I just overall got tired of working in large organizations because there was a lot of micromanagement. It felt like even though I was the only dietitian in many of these organizations, I just never really had a lot of control over how I was supposed to do my work.

Um, You know, I just, there wasn't enough opportunity for growth or even to earn more money, you know, it was like, well, I have to wait next year to see if I got a raise. If I get one and wow, it's, you know, $10 more per week, you know, it just, there wasn't a lot of real incentive to do a lot in most positions.

So I think it just got tired of the typical work construct where you have to show up at the same time every day, every day of the week, you know, five days a week. And [00:04:00] regardless if you had actual consults. And to me, it just seemed inefficient and uncreative and non rewarding. Um, ultimately, you know, I felt like I had a lot of gifts and talents that I really wasn't using.

And so I was like, I don't know. There's something else that could be doing. I just know it.

Amy A: Yeah. I totally get that, like that feeling of you're missing something because that was how I felt when I was in clinical. I was like, I don't mind my job. I go in there and I like meeting with the residents and the patients and physicians, healthcare team.

But the day in and day out, I was just like, there's, it's just weird. Like I'm comfortable, but there's something that's not right. Like, I just don't feel like this is what I'm meant to be doing. So I totally get that. Um, with you starting your own private practice and the flexibility to which I think after the pandemic, a lot of people are looking for that flexibility.

Amy H: Yeah. A hundred percent.

Amy A: So to switch gears here, which I'm super excited because you're [00:05:00] a fellow beekeeper. So I really want to know when did you start beekeeping and what was your motivation to become a beekeeper?

Amy H: So funny that I'm saying this, but it's been 11 years. Since I've been keeping bees. I don't know.

I guess somehow I got old in the process. I just can't believe it's been that long. And a lot of people ask me all the time and I can't really put my finger on it. Like why, what was the reason other than I guess I had a curiosity about self-sustainability, like what would happen if we were like on an island, we had to be self-sustaining.

And so I think part of it was that, and then I've just always had a strong affinity for understanding nature and beekeeping is a perfect intersect that gives me the opportunity to take a closer look at humans and how the inner stack with honeybees and the cycles of nature. So all of that together, I think was it.Just that curiosity, like it's a thing that people do and, [00:06:00] and who doesn't like honey? So I think that was the beginning.

Amy A: Yeah. And it's crazy the more, cause I'm only in my second year beekeeping, but the more that you do it, that you learned so much about the bees and the whole ecosystem and the queen and all it's so intricate and interesting.

And it's just strange that as humans we see everything from a very surface level. And there's such a diverse, weird ecosystem that exists. That's how, that's how I feel about beekeeping anyways. It's just blows my mind that that whole system is even in place.

Amy H: I still feel like a beginner sometimes.. Like I'm always still learning.

Amy A: Definitely. I totally feel that. And then when something comes up, it's like, you have to learn all about a new aspect of beekeeping.

Like, we just went through the whole winterizing process, so it's like, oh wait, you have to actually do stuff to keep them alive?[00:07:00]

Amy H: Yeah, I could definitely relate when I did most of my beekeeping in North Carolina, the first six years, and then me and my husband moved to Colorado and it like a high altitude or high elevation, and it's a whole different ball game.

So the long winters and, um, worrying more about the large pests, not the small pests. So, you know, putting up a solar fence to keep bears out, for example, is a real thing that you have to do here.

Amy A: Oh my gosh. I didn't even think about bees. And then I think it was last year we had a black bear that was going from town to town. And I think I was like at the grocery store or something, and my husband called me and told me about it. And I was like, oh my gosh, the bees and like our chickens too but I know they're notorious for just decimating, beehives and going after that, honey.

Amy H: Yeah, keeps you on your toes.

Amy A: Definitely. Um, so why don't you go into a background, I guess, for people who are unfamiliar with [00:08:00] beekeeping, what all goes into beekeeping, and primarily, what do you need to get started?

Amy H: Uh, initially, you know, I think you really need a willingness to observe multiple variables and respond accordingly.

It's not like, oh, I'm going to have bees and just let them do their thing. There's an active management process that's involved. And I took a class from a local extension office. That's how I first started learning, um, you know, immersing myself in learning. It was a couple of weekends long and, you know, they go all through honeybees as an organism, to the duties of a beekeeper, making sure that they have the clean house or a hive food, water, and the monitoring for disease, which I didn't even know was a thing to know that honeybees can succumb to disease and pestilence.

It's like, oh, wait, what? Um, but I think like any agricultural endeavor. You know, you have to have careful monitoring. And, um, I think if you [00:09:00] want to get, you're interested in keeping bees, I definitely recommend learning before jumping in, although that is your fastest learning curve, but it can be, uh, disheartening because when you have a fast learning curve like that, you do make a lot of mistakes.

I made all of them. Absolutely all of them had every pest that there was, you know, the things that can affect your hives and, um, You know, you've had a lot of equipment and also there's a little bit of a cost to buy the equipment, to make your hive and buy the bees and buy your tools and that type of thing.

Um, but there's, there's so much out there now you can go to YouTube and look at videos. There's tons of, there's always been tons of books. A lot of the beekeeping companies, supply companies, they have a lot of educational libraries where you can watch videos through them. So there's more than ever resources about how to do the keeping, where I think I was kind of on the cusp of it when I was getting started 11 years ago, there wasn't quite as much, um, had I jumped on the YouTube bandwagon back then I'd probably have a huge following, but now there's tons of channels out [00:10:00] there and folks that are willing to share knowledge.

And I think it's amazing. So. Learning that way is great. And even better ways to find a, another beekeeper that you might be able to do some shadowing with or is apprenticing with or just learning hands-on. And that there's nothing like that. Just being able to get your hands right in the hive and just observing with your own eyes.

So, um, yeah, there's, there is a lot involved. I used to make a joke saying beekeeping is easier than having a dog, but it's more work than having cats, but it's, uh, it's a little bit more like. In the season, the unseasoned, like the spring and into the fall, it can be pretty busy. Um, fortunately for me now, like that's a very short season it's about now until the end of September.

So it's very short, but some people, if they live in a more moderate temperate environment, they can have a bee beekeeping could be a year round endeavor. So you're constantly, you know, you're constantly monitoring. Yeah. So you're, there's times where you're [00:11:00] checking on the hive every few days in the spring, when they're building up and wanting to make sure they're not swarming and they have plenty of room to expand, uh, you're monitoring to see if the queen is healthy and laying eggs in an appropriate fashion, and they have adequate access to food and water.

So there's a little bit of interaction, but ultimately the bees are really good at taking care of themselves. So sometimes too much of actions is not good either that I've been guilty of that. So you can, you can learn from them and, and they can learn from you, but it's a great, it's a great relationship in my opinion,

Amy A: Right, yeah, definitely. I definitely have watched YouTube a lot to learn some different things. And then, what you said about learning from other beekeepers too, that's been a great part of our beekeeping journey. Um, especially because a lot of people here, which I'm sure it's the same in Colorado with the winters, you never really know if your hive is going to survive or not.

And we have a couple of friends whose hives didn't survive the [00:12:00] first time around in the winter. So we kind of learned from them like, what did you do that we shouldn't do? I guess. So learning from mistakes is really, um, piece to bee keeping too.

Amy H: My favorite part about it is a how connected, how much more you pay attention to seasons in nature and the trends.

It's just stuff that I was just kind of ignorant to. And now I'm like, oh, the nectar flow happens this week of the year. Oh, it's late. This is how the moisture from the melting snow has affected the wildflower bloom. Like, it's just awesome because I was just like, spring, summer, fall was so simplified and now it's a lot more, I feel a lot more of a part of it.

Amy A: Right. Yeah. And I just learned. I guess I'm kind of still new. So I just learned that you shouldn't extract the honey in the beginning of the spring time, because the flowers still aren't in bloom. So they really rely on that source of honey to carry them until the [00:13:00] flowers bloom. Correct.

Amy H: Yeah. I usually wait until the very, to the absolute end of the nectar flows. And, um, at 9,000 feet, it was not until like mid July and then North Carolina. earliest June. So it was like a whole six weeks later. Um, so I usually would wait until the end of the nectar flow to do any harvesting. Yeah.

Amy A: That makes sense.

I guess this brings us to our next question. So, you know, A big talk about sustainability recently, especially, coming off the tail end of the pandemic and how does sustainability fit into everyday life and specifically, what does sustainability mean to you?

Amy H: This is an amazing question, cause I had never thought about it before. Um, as I'm, I'm glad I had a chance to really truly think about sustainability. I actually think of it in a really the broadest sense of the word, like being able to exist [00:14:00] without any undue pressures more in harmony with my surroundings, with what I already have.

And ultimately for me, that means living in a way that utilizes less resources on a day-to-day basis. You know, for me, that's just being more efficient with my time and energy. And for me working from home is a perfect fit for that. You know, not commuting, um, taking small steps to be, become more efficient and less wasteful.

We do recycling with our, um, with our trash locally. And, um, I'm getting into composting this year and I've done worm composting in the past, up here. But, just in our home situation, it wasn't as conducive. And so now I think I could do one of those barrels. That's got the two chambers and that would be bear proof.

And I might even be able to do it on the deck to kind of keep anybody out of it. So I wanted to get into that this year. I'm not a big shopper.. I don't really not a huge consumer. Um, so I, you know, overall less, you know, shopping, consuming, I think it's more sustainable. I cook [00:15:00] mostly at home. 95% of the time.

So, you know, not dining out as much or doing takeout. I almost never do takeout. This year trying to do a CSA. Um, it's at 9,000 feet, gardening is very difficult. Uh, it's a very short season. I'm very good at growing kale and lettuce and radishes. But other than that, Very labor-intensive and it feels a little contrived and artificial to try to make that happen.

Self sufficiently, to be sustainable, to like put all these resources into constructing a garden. Um, so for me, a better fit is to do something like being part of the CSA work gardeners, who, and farmers who have. In a lower elevations near Boulder and Denver. Um, there was tons of farms on the front range.

And so we're in our location. We're having access to, um, the community supported agriculture that way. So I can't wait to see, I just paid for my first shares in, so I'll pick it up on this weekend and I can't wait to see what's in my bucket.

So [00:16:00] ultimately sustainability for me means to be able to continue this type of lifestyle. You know, for the long haul, not just trying to, like I said, artificially, create some type of labor-intensive, self-sustaining draining homestead that would require an exhaustive list of resources to make it happen.

Amy A: Right.

Yeah. I love that. I feel like the more that I try to force myself to be more sustainable, I guess the more exhausted I get, so I guess you also have to consider your own personal sustainability and what actually works for you and consider, you know, mental health and everything like that, and just make sure that it fits into your lifestyle for sure.

But I was silently cracking up when you're talking about the bears and everything and going through the compost because I feel like that's not something that a lot of people really have to worry about too much. And I was actually watching one of your YouTube videos the other night with a moose that was eating at your garden.

I think it was, [00:17:00] I think it was like a patch of kale or something. And you were just like, "there's a moose eating all the kale that I just planted."

Amy H: I was really upset because I was super proud of that kale. I had grown hydroponically and then I transplanted it to the garden and it grew into shrubs of kale.

And I was like, Ooh, it's going to frost. So what I'm going to turn that I'm going to harvest all that kale. And the next day a family of moose came by and ate it all down to the ground.

Amy A: That's how it usually works too. You get like a good garden going, and then you go out the next day and a rabbit or here the deer rampant.

So I'm like a deer comes through and just decimates everything. And you're like, oh no, I just worked three months for that. Um, so I definitely feel that, but we, we don't really see too many moose around here. I guess, going off of that question, what do you think sustainability means for the average person?

Because honestly, I wouldn't really consider you the average person. I think you kind of live like an off the grid [00:18:00] lifestyle. Um, so what do you think it would mean for the average person?

Amy H: Well, I think when people hear that word, sustainability that there's mixed ideas and on one end, you've got people who think that true sustainability is the self-sufficient homestead.

You know, you grow your own food and you manage your own waste, but then you have other folks on the other end of the spectrum who think sustainability is like, well, I'm going to, this is made with recycled material. Or this is a compostable spoon or, you know, so there's that aspect to it. And I think there's a way or a place for everyone to kind of fit on that range no matter where they're at and they can comfortably move down or closer to what they, their ideal of sustainability is.

Um, so, you know, there's a range of perceptions, but I think, yeah, no matter where you are on the spectrum, it starting where it makes sense for you, I think is absolutely the way to go. So for somebody that could be growing their own herbs or tomatoes for the first time, uh, or deciding to [00:19:00] drive to town less, you know, um, less frequently, it could be another way to do it, but I it's definitely, it's a buzzword and I think there's a lot of misconceptions around it, but I think being able to access it is, um, is the key, you know, that letting the extreme version of.

Uh, sustainability throws you off and maybe being able to find where your place is on the spectrum.

Amy A: Yeah. I love that. Have you heard of the app Too Good to Go? Yeah, I just learned about it the other day. One of my classmates actually told me, so it's an app where, different restaurants can sign up for it.

And you know how restaurants at the end of the night kind of just like chuck everything, whatever they don't use. So it's an app where they basically bundle up a little baggies for you. And it's a ton of food. I've seen people that do un- baggings where they get basically five meals.

And it's at a discounted price. So something that you would maybe pay like 30 bucks for you're paying like five or $6 [00:20:00] for. And so I think that's really cool. Cause I feel like for people who aren't super into the off the grid lifestyle or the homesteading lifestyle, that's something very achievable for the average person where if you're going out to eat every single day, that's something that you can possibly do and save money in the process too.

Amy H: I think there's a lot of work coming that about food waste, diversion tactics for that. Back when I was in my internship, I was working at whole foods market in the produce department. And I remember how much food that we, I felt like it was a waste. And I used to take a bunch on like, you know, bruised peaches that were only suitable for jam or something.

But I was like loading up bags, making, uh, blanching peach skins off at like 10 o'clock at night after work, because I was like, I'm not wasting this food, but we wouldn't put aside some stuff for folks, but I know it's kind of tricky. Organizations and companies have to come up with policies to be able to divert this food.

And I think [00:21:00] it sounds like, especially with this app, that's the way it's going. People are figuring out those ways, right?

Amy A: The food waste issue is huge, for sure. So I'm glad that people are taking steps to reduce that at least.

So I guess talking about sustainability and, especially coming off of the tail end of the pandemic and everything.

So I know that when you and I met earlier, you mentioned that you have an interest in working with healthcare workers primarily, so, maybe just tell us, why are you interested in working with healthcare workers?

Amy H: Yeah. Um, but I think healthcare workers is another misunderstood group of people where, you know, they're really bright, highly trained professionals and they care a lot about the health and wellbeing of others, but they themselves are often found that finding that their wellbeing is at risk because they're having an unbalance in their, in their, in work-life balance.

I had a vivid personal experience of this. When I came down with a [00:22:00] rotten cold, after being asked to work multiple health screenings in a row for like, For a second and third shift, I was doing employee health. And I'm like, you know, it's like the second night in a row at three o'clock in the morning.

And I'm just like, this isn't me. My body was not having it. And I knew it was not the kind of lifestyle I wanted to continue. And I'm like my job is wellness, and this is not wellness. I can't do this. Um, so I just knew that, that I had to make a change and my hope is to help other healthcare workers.

Identifying and discover their optimal work-life balance scenario, whether that be through an extended sabbatical leave or trending towards self-employment, if that's an option or perhaps just working less hours in a week, because it's easy with healthcare, especially once you get the salaried roles and it's like, you know, I had an unending hours of expectation from employers of please put in more work.

And,[00:23:00] so it just feels like it's not fair, you know? And if we don't, we kind of have normalized that in healthcare, it's like, well, I have to work more. You know that I got to do a 12 hour shift or a 16 hour shift or more. And so, um, I think if we want to promote a cultural wellness, then we need to really embody that as a healthcare provider and it starts with the lifestyle choices.

And that's also including how we choose to work. So in fact, I'm developing a program called sabbatical school in concert with a business partner who's a physician and we plan to launch this summer and our main goal with helping healthcare providers identify their areas of burnout and how to address it.

Amy A: That's so cool. I'm definitely interested to learn more about that. I'm glad we were talking about this because on my last podcast, I feel like I kind of harped on healthcare workers saying some people who are giving advice, aren't even taking their own advice, not taking care of themselves, um, which you do see a lot.

And I'm glad that we're talking about [00:24:00] this now, because I kind of want to expand on that. So, I definitely felt the same way that you felt when you were working in healthcare specifically. When I worked in the acute care setting, I was on a team of 20 different dietitians and it was a very high volume, level one trauma center.

So it was very, very busy. And we saw upwards of 20 patients a day. So it was just, you know, you, you don't even really have time first of all, to talk with the patients, you literally get 10 to 15 minutes and then you're onto the next one. And then you're charting. And it was at that time I was living off of Starbucks coffee and whatever I could find in the cafeteria, which sometimes I wouldn't go for the most healthy option.

And I definitely had times where, like you, I was feeling, run down and sick and of course this was pre pandemic times. So I actually was like going into the hospital, not feeling well. And it's like, that makes no sense. Like, why are you going to work in a [00:25:00] hospital where there's very acutely ill people when you don't even feel well.

And it's this constant urge to just be overworked. I think we're so addicted to it. And it's like, no, you have PTO for a reason. And you can say no if somebody asks you to do something, if somebody asks you to pick up a patient for them, and you're already seeing 25 patients, you don't need to add 26.

So. Um, I really love that. You're talking about that and you're tackling that issue. It's so, so important. And people don't realize that either.

Amy H: Yeah. And people don't know where to go for the resources, because what they really need is to kind of spend the time to look within and we don't give ourselves that time hardly ever do we just slow down and be like, what do I want, what do I really, you know, like really ask the deep questions. Why am I doing this? What would make me happy? Is this still the plan? You know, just to have. If you don't have even have to have the answers yet, but just to have the questions asked is [00:26:00] huge. And I, I don't know.

I guess I was fortunate earlier on I'm. Like, I was like really asking those big questions. I was like, I don't know, this doesn't seem right. I want this or I want something different or this is the balance I'm looking for. I want to spend more time on my hobbies. I have to say, I think beekeeping spurred me into self-employment.

Cause I was jealous that my job was taking so much of my time. I have to check on my bees and I can't do it until Saturday. That's not fair. So that was my mindset. And I was like, I gotta make this work somehow.

Amy A: That's so funny. You can use your bees as an excuse for sure. Um, okay, so kind of talking more about the workforce. How do you see the workforce changing?

Amy H: Uh, I, I feel like there's no avoiding change at this point. Cause I feel like it's already started to happen and the pandemic accelerated it. And you know, the pandemic presented a lot of unique opportunities and one of them was to help people remind them about life [00:27:00] priorities.

A lot of people were very exposed up close and personal to an illness and death for probably for some people for the first time in a long time. And it was like, you know, right in front of you, it was like the only get this one life. And like, most of us spend it working away until retirement or until we die.

And it's like, do I want to wait until I'm 70 years old to like, do what I want with my time? Um, I think people are really craving a balance between more work and home. And I remember having clients during that time. Um, working at home and they, they were around their kids and it was technical to like, you know what?

I love this. I could work from home. I love being at home with my kids. I never get to see them. I was always doing it, work in the field. And now I'm home with my family. Yeah. It's hectic. But like, I, I, I don't know if I can go back and I was like, what, when do you ever get that opportunity? To see you know what you're missing out on.

And so I think that, that, Pandemic it gave us the opportunity to [00:28:00] say, you know, and not everybody had the same experience. Some people, it was a lot more stressful. And especially for healthcare workers, it was very stressful. So not everyone had the same experience, but a lot of people got a taste of what it was like to have a little bit more of a relaxed pace and a little bit more of a relaxed environment, a little bit more balanced with home.

And, and I think also on the heels of that, there's an emergent. Company culture shift to address productivity by experimenting with shorter work weeks. I think I saw an article about that and I think it's just cracking into the tip of the iceberg, like looking at this, I'm sure there are studies in the works that are going to be, I'm curious to see the outcome of how this develops going forward.

Can we become more European, like by having more vacation and having happier workers, to be more productive, you know, we're out already working from home and some people have extended their hours because they're constantly on their computer, but traditional jobs and careers are changing too.. [00:29:00] That rapid pace of technology and social media.

Now there's like more ways than ever to make a living. You know, people are wondering where the workers went. I think they went to social media. They figured out a way to generate income doing who knows what you got sponsorships. You don't have to have a technical job anymore you can make a living by being an entertainer.

You don't have to be a famous actor to do it either. So if you can provide value or education, entertainment, it's, uh, you can make a living in this new creative economy. So I just feel like we're on that threshold of just watching it happen so anyway, I'm curious of working with healthcare workers in that aspect too. Like if they want to shift gears, Do you have to go back to school?

I don't, I don't think so.

Amy A: Right. Yeah. I totally agree with that. Um, and that brings me to another point, like with dietitians too specifically, I feel like a lot of people just make nutrition their life. It's [00:30:00] almost like they don't have any hobbies beyond eating food and you know, doing stuff about nutrition and exercise and everything like that.

So, I love that you're helping people explore their hobbies too, and not necessarily, just looking at what they do as a career, which I think is apparent in what you I've seen you post on social media anyways, with your artwork and your jewelry and everything like that. I think that's what we need is for people to come out with talk about their hobbies and their interests.

Amy H: You know, it was, uh, when I made that shift into self self-employment in private practice, you know, it was just getting going, but I suddenly, I was blessed with all this free time. Right. I wasn't at a job. So I was like, oh, I can write a book.

I can. Um, I can have a puppy, something that that's something that I got, uh, I had time to work on jewelry, which was a creative interest of mine. And. Becoming a life of its [00:31:00] own. Uh, and then the beekeeping as well. So there was, I have a lot of interests and I was like, I want time for these. And I, you know, I feel like we have a hard time justifying time for our interest because we dedicate so much to career, you know, dietitians, health workers, and just, you know, American workforce in general.

It's like, I talked to a lot of clients day in and day out that. They barely have time to talk to me because they're so overworked and I'm just like, ah there in lies the problem, this is why their life is. It's not just your diet, that's imbalanced, you know, there's a lot of other imbalance going on because of how we're restructuring our priorities.

You know, I'd love to. I actually, when I got into the the bee jewelry, um, design, and I started doing art shows, I've come across a lot of people who are doing other artists in, um, Uh, businesses and they used to be in healthcare. So it's just interesting to see a little bit of a [00:32:00] trend of people that used to work in healthcare, and they're just like, I couldn't take it anymore. I needed a more relaxed lifestyle, something more creative and something I could, you know, kind of make a living at that you could definitely make a living doing the art show circuit and doing vending fairs and things like that. So yeah it's a whole other ball of wax, but something I found intriguing when I was, as I was talking to people and meeting people in that area.

Yeah, for sure. I think as healthcare workers, too, we dedicate so much time to other people that we don't allow ourselves to have time for ourselves either. Um, so talking about dietetics specifically, where do you see the field of dietetics going? Do you see it changing at all?

I think it's been changing for a while.

And then I'm hearing kind of seeing more discontent with just the traditional dietetic career paths. I last summer I interviewed a lot of dietitians about are now, and they were talking, you know, [00:33:00] citing reasons of poor pay, lack of recognition and respect, discontent with big brand partnerships kind of dictating things in our, in our field.

And I think with more information widely available, thanks to internet, uh, it seems like more RD's are kind of jumping into self-employment earlier in their careers. And, you know, it took me 10 years to make that transition to work for myself. But there are RD's that are coming right out of internship and going right into private practice without even blinking.

And I think that's awesome because that shows confidence, you know, And that, you know, you, you are, you already have experience and knowledge from school and you're going to gain more experience the more you talk to people, if you do it in private practice. So not letting fear be a factor, I think is definitely huge.

The other thing I think is pretty amazing is I see a lot of opportunities for RDS as health experts and helping people achieve lasting change in the field [00:34:00] of health coaching. And I know it's an exploding field. Um, there's a lot of, there's a lot of a rivalry between RDS and health coaches because health coaching was pretty unregulated for quite some time.

So you've got people giving nutrition advice, labeling themselves as health coaches, but health coaching coaching really is just helping people change to healthier. And there's a lot of opportunity out there right now, whether you want to work for an insurance company or. Health management apps that are coming out where you can be a dietician and a health coach, helping people achieve change.

Um, by just doing counseling, doing virtual remote work. That's what I did a few years ago. And you've got so many skills and that the knowledge set and the counseling skills that you can really cash in on to tap into that. I think health coaching, I keep talking about it because it's, there's been a lot of push to get insurance billing codes developed for health coaching and [00:35:00] it's in the works to get those reimbursable at this point. So the industry that's behind, positioning health coaching, they're really being active and getting, board certification and positioning it well in the healthcare industry.

So I just see that more and more, because it's an accessible way for people to work with someone who, uh, time and expertise to, to counsel, um, where, you know, physicians just don't have that time right now. And, there's just not enough dietitians to go around. Believe it or not people have a hard time finding dietitians to talk to you for, for outpatient.

Amy A: Yeah, I think it is changing for sure. I mean, I, I became an RD. Oh my gosh. It's almost like nine years ago now, which is kind of crazy, but I would still consider myself a fairly new RD. Um, but even at that time, back in 2014, I think the mindset was okay.

You get your RD, you go into clinical. Or you work like a part-time job in clinical, just get under your belt, [00:36:00] um, move into a full-time position, get like five years in clinical, and then you can do whatever you want. And I think there's definitely a push for our RD's to explore every option in front of them and not necessarily, and there's nothing wrong with clinical.

I liked clinical and I know many people that like it. Um, but I definitely think there is a push to explore different avenues, which I don't think there was before.

Amy H: Yeah. When I was in my internship, it was like, you've got three paths, community clinical, or you know food service.. And that was like, that was really all that was presented to me.

And there was nothing creative out there other than working in like a weight loss clinic. And it was just, that was like the most interesting or diabetes outpatient was the most interesting rotation I had. I mean, they should be doing rotations on social media, like there's so much potential. Now, if you think outside the box, there are dietitians on YouTube that are [00:37:00] killing it.

And I mean, like they are, you can do sponsorships, you can do ad revenue, like, and that's just YouTube. Like there's so many different platforms where you can position yourself as the expert in a creative way and make a complete living. Just solo. I'm not a social media expert. I dabble in it, but I it's the potential is there. So it's there.

Amy A: Yeah. I see it every day. If I'm like on Instagram or something that, or the Tik TOK videos that come up and things like that. It's so cool that that's like a new avenue to explore. Yeah. So, what is your favorite thing about being an RD? Because I feel like there's, like you said, there's a lot of discontent, I guess, in the RD realm.

So I'd love to hear some positives and what you, you really like about being an RD.

Amy H: Yeah. I agree. I think, it's easy to kind of get back down and it takes more effort to really positive in this world about any topic. And so I [00:38:00] like being that person that's like, you know what? I like being an RD, like, I used to be like, oh, don't ask me what I do for a living.

It's going to be embarrassing. And then like, no, I like, I love this. And it's so versatile. You can jump from food service to clinical, if you wanted to do. The credential allows you to work in so many different opportunities. Every time that my interests change, I've had new opportunity in front of me and I didn't even have to have the training to do it.

Like there's so many different things. And obviously this will depend on your geographic location. If you wanted to have a traditional going to work type of job.. So where I went to school and university of Vermont, I didn't have a lot of opportunities in Vermont. So I did my internship in North Carolina and there was like a job as soon as I finished. I've always been able to find a good fit for the type of work that I wanted to do. Um, my preferred work is talking with people though. Like I got really great at clinical and I would have probably failed at food service. I'm not great at following recipes. I'm just like, eh, whatever, [00:39:00] but I love being a soundboard and a resource for people to help them make positive change.

And there's maybe a little bit of a psychologist in me. Um, You know, people better their lives and empower them. You know, I love helping people discover that they have within them the power to change and breaking things down so they're simple, not overwhelming. Um, that's my favorite part is just, uh, I guess I'm just a coach through and through, but, um, I love food.

I love eating. And so whenever I can bring that up in a conversation and being part of things, like I'm excited about the CSA coming up and being part of food in the community too, I think there probably some aspect of that can see myself doing in the future.

Amy A: Yeah. There's so many avenues that you can explore as an RD.

It's really cool. I was laughing when you were talking about food service, because when I was trying to apply to my first job, I was kind of just throwing my resume out everywhere. But I really wanted to work in either clinical or community, but one of [00:40:00] the first opportunities that came up for me was working as a food service manager in a jail.

And I remember, I, I didn't take that job spoiler alert. But I remember being in that interview and I was like oh, my gosh, what am I doing here? First of all, I'm five foot, four, 110 pounds and they're asking me a question about how I would handle an inmate who found a knife in the kitchen or something like that.

It was like something ridiculous. And I was like, Hey, what am I doing here? I don't like food service I am not cut out for this jobs. I was just like chuckling, when you mentioned food service.

Amy H: I think I made my first job coming out of my internship. I was employed at whole foods. And I think I stayed there for about six months because I was ha I wasn't finding the right fit. You know, I was like, eh, I don't know. I'm just going to stay here for a while. I loved it. I love working in produce.

That was the best, one of my favorite jobs. It was a very great social opportunity too, but I really got tons [00:41:00] of free food. Um, so I, you know, sometimes it's being, being where you're comfortable until you find that right fit. I think it's worth it.

Amy A: Yeah, definitely. That's cool. So to tie this all in together, how do you think RDS can empower people to live and eat more sustainably?

Amy H: Well, I always start small and aim for the low hanging fruit. So I think, you know, I mentioned this earlier. I think the easiest way to empower is to help people recognize what's right in front of them and within easy reach and easy way, and then build from there, if someone's interested in starting a garden, right.

You know, maybe it's just a container garden, you know, this year, but milking experience for the joy of it and the learning that it provides. Um, and the fun is what's going to get them to continue doing it the next year. If they are going to like overwhelm themselves with a 20 by 20 garden clot and then get disappointed because it grew up with grass or a [00:42:00] rabbit came in and ate it all, at all, you know, that's, that's going to not have this.

Impact of an experience. So you can always start small and build from there. And I think that's, that's the key and not being afraid to try things that seem interesting to them. So I, I mentioned, uh, last year I started hydroponics. Seeing somebody posted that. And I was like, I'd like to try that.

I don't know. What does that like, is that really complicated as a lot of chemicals for something, you know, I was like, how does that work? Um, and I, you know, I was pleasantly surprised about how much basal I could grow. Cause I, I took a shortcut and got one of those hydroponic diesel plants from a grocery store and I split it up into five plants and I had a literal forest of basil, the middle of winter and made pesto in February.

I was successful at kale. And I think some romaine lettuce grew up pretty well, hydroponically and now was out of Mason jars in my basement. That was how complex it was very easy. [00:43:00] And, um, I'd like, you know, I didn't do it again this year, but I might try it again at some point. I see. So if you have clients who aren't really interested in doing, you know, hands-on work, they can always support other people who are doing it.

You know? So as an RD, you don't have to say, oh, It could do the CSA thing or they could go to the farmer's market and like get a taste. What does fresh vegetables out of the garden tastes like? Cause that broccoli tastes way different than the frozen broccoli in your freezer. It might just get them to kind of change their mind about what they think of vegetables.

Um, but yeah, so that can, that can be that a motivator to just to get it. I think the hands-on the hands-on taste.

Amy A: Yeah. Very cool. I think that's like the foundation of dietetics too, just those small attainable goals. So I love that and I love that you did hydroponics. I've actually never tried hydroponics before.

But I do have a kit. I got my husband a kit one time for his birthday, but we've never, I don't think we've ever used it. I have to [00:44:00] ask him. Um, but that's really cool.

Amy H: It's fun. It's fun to watch because you think, I don't know how this is going to be so small, you know, you're like, how is this going to turn into edible food?

And then like, suddenly I have a giant plant, but, um, yeah, it's kind of, you know, it's the same as gardening, but when you live in a, in a climate like me, where it's like cold nine months of the year, your, your, all your alternatives and eventually my husband and I want to get one of those geodesic dome, you know, uh, type of greenhouses.

And so that's kind of on my bucket list. Like, Ooh, that would be really cool to have a nice warm place to have plants growing in the middle of winter. Like, Ooh, that would make it definitely more bearable six months of winter.

Amy A: Yeah. If you do that, you need to make a YouTube video on it.

Amy H: Absolutely.

Amy A: So thank you so much for joining me today, Amy. It's great to have another Amy on the show and another RD. So I really appreciate it. I think you are a wealth of knowledge today, and I definitely think our listeners are gonna be excited.

[00:45:00] So, um, to wrap things up, just tell everyone where they can find you, whether on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, wherever they can find you.

Amy H: I have enjoyed being a guest. This is super fun. I love talking about different topics like this, the non traditional dietetics topics for sure. Um, I am on LinkedIn, Amy Hagar, maybe Amy Hager RDN that's also my website, AmyHagerRDN.com and I have two YouTube channels. One is Amy Hager RDN where I kind of talk about self-employment as a dietitian and how to breakout and do your own thing. And then I have a bigger presence on YouTube with me and my husband's Colorado mountain living channel, which documents our move across country, building our own home ourselves and kind of developing our homestead we call it. I try to live a little bit more sustainably. And right now we're in the process of building a shed to kind of like house all of our tools and things. And, uh, it's definitely been a [00:46:00] labor of love , been about four years doing that, but it's, um, it's more entertainment for sure. And a taste of what it's like to live in Colorado.

Amy A: Yeah, I love both the YouTube videos or channels rather, but, um, I love watching all your videos with the moose and I think you built a staircase one time and all these different things.

Amy H: Yeah. My husband built spiral staircase out of wood for our home. Oh, I did forget I have one more, uh, social media.

That's Instagram, it's colorado.mountain.living. And they were showcased a little bit more of my beekeeping and my bee jewelry. So that's a little bit more of the artistic side for me. Um, and it kind of ties in with our lifestyle here. So not too much direct dietetics stuff. I don't really do social media to get clients.

Um, but I'll tell, you can find out more why on my YouTube channel.

Amy A: Yeah. There you go. Perfect. Well, thanks so much again, it was really a pleasure.

View Details

Anthony is the Founder of Regeneration Nation - a clothing company and community hub for the heroes and advocates of regenerative agriculture. He is also the Managing Director at Outlaw Ventures - a family office investing in growth-stage food and agriculture businesses with the capacity to provide substantial financial returns while having a positive impact on human and environmental health.

In addition to his work at Regeneration Nation and Outlaw Ventures, Anthony is also the Director of Business Development at Regenerative Food Systems Investment (RFSI) - a venue for the funders and change-makers of regenerative agriculture to connect, build, and scale regenerative food systems.

Anthony was a third-generation family contributor and executive at Indianapolis Fruit Company before joining RFSI. Anthony oversaw a sales & marketing team that provided fresh produce products and services to over 2,500 retail customers across 20 states. Anthony’s professional background in food distribution and personal health journey led him to his commitment of building regenerative food systems. 

Anthony’s mission is to help heal our people and planet through ventures that inspire the production and consumption of healthy, nutrient-dense foods.

Anthony holds a B.S. in Business from the Kelley School at Indiana University, where he was a varsity athlete as a tight end on the football team.

In this episode we’ll discuss what regenerative agriculture is, how the average person can support regenerative crop production, Anthony’s struggles with an autoimmune disease, and why he eventually decided to launch a clothing company backing the regenerative agricultural movement.

Links:

Regeneration Nation Website: https://regenerationnation.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/regeneration___nation/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonycorsaro/

Ep #8 What is Regenerative Agriculture? with Anthony Corsaro. Amy: [00:00:00] Okay. Hey everyone. Welcome back today. I'm so excited because we have Anthony from regeneration nation on the podcast. Hi Anthony, how are you? Good. Good. Thanks so much for being on the podcast. So we're going to jump right into it. So first of all, I really want to know personally, what is your background?

And then how did you get into agriculture?

Anthony: Yeah. Great question. Um, so my background is I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana in a family, fresh produce distribution business. So think people that deliver what's in the produce department to grocery stores, uh, you know, my dad was a part of that business. My grandpa was a part of that business and I told myself I was never going to be in produce.

Um, and then I ended up eating those words as a young adult and kind of got back into the family biz. And it was really fun and great work experience. Since I was 14, I've had an auto-immune disease called and really it's caused me to take a look [00:01:00] at a lot of things in my life and in. Food as medicine was the foundational piece to healing myself or, you know, kind of living with that disease.

And so while I was working back in Indianapolis group, the family business, uh, I actually decided to step away from that business and take a health sabbatical and really deal with the auto immune disease pretty severely for the first time. And during that kind of five months off, uh, food is, medicine was a huge piece and stress and mold was also a huge piece..

And I actually got asymptomatic from the disease for the first time. And as I was coming off that five month hiatus, I was asking myself what do I want to do with my life? And the regen- ag bug, just bit me, super hard. And I just couldn't stop learning about it. I was super interested in it and I was having.

Conversations like this. I was watching movies. I was reading articles. I was reading scientific journals. I mean, I just couldn't get enough. And you know, a year or two in now, um, I'm just the exact same way every day. I just love learning about it so much. I love working in this space [00:02:00] and it's manifested itself into a lot of really cool opportunities for me to, uh, to help the movement.

Amy: That's so awesome. I love how you took a personal story and really went deep in and started researching. So that's super cool. And I definitely want to ask you about your autoimmune disease, but I know we'll get into that a little bit later. I've actually never heard of that auto immune disease before, so you will definitely need to educate me on that for, for sure.

So why regenerative agriculture? Um, and then I feel like I've talked about this on my podcast before, but maybe just like a pure definition of regenerative ag and then like why you got into it.

Anthony: So regenerative agriculture is positive quicksand. And what I mean by that is like, once you get your feet in, like, it just sucks you in and you, and you can't go anywhere.

And I say that because the more you learn about regenerative agriculture, the more you're just like, why is this not like what we do with everything? Why is this not the norm? This makes too much sense for too many things. And if we can find a way to really adopt it at scale, like. [00:03:00] So beneficial across human health, economics, food security, land security, racial justice, social justice, ecosystem restoration, carbon sequestration, and climate change.

I mean, if you're passionate about any mainstream topic in today's world, regenerative agriculture has a positive effect on getting those things to where we would like to get them. Um, a true definition is still yet to be defined. I think there's, there's been different attempts out of different camps.

I as a non farmer, non agronomist, non ecologist, um, I, to give it a firm definition, but when I think about it, I think about it as one it's not, not extractive like the current kind of agriculture paradigm is. And then the other thing that I think of is it leaves their resource better than when it was found versus conventional agriculture.

They need there just sustains the resource or degrades the resource to a worser or worsen extent than, than what.

Amy: Awesome. Um, yeah. So now I definitely want to [00:04:00] hear about your personal history with health and food. And definitely gave me a definition or go into what your autoimmune disease is, because like I said, I've never heard that before.

Anthony: Yeah. So growing up, I ate way more, I think way healthier than my peers. Um, I mean, we owned a produce distribution company, so we had fresh fruits and vegetables, in the house and in the fridge, like all the time, but we were still a very active family, two working parents, three kids. All the sports ,all the activities.

So we ate fast food a lot. We ate out a lot. Um, and we used vegetable oils a lot, like just a lot of those typical, like late nineties, early two thousands, like health miscues that we didn't know about. I drank like three Gatorades a day because I played sports. And we thought that was good and it was horrible for me.

Um, so, so some things like that, and I don't blame my parents because the mass marketing machine was telling them these things were great. And there were no issues. My autoimmune disease. Hydradenitis suppurativa [00:05:00] is skin related. So I think there's probably conflicting, uh, opinions on whether it's an autoimmune disease or not.

I'm firmly in the camp that it is. So that's probably maybe why you haven't heard it associated with that term before. Um, but basically long story short, you get very undesirable skin lesions or boils, or I call them super zits. Uh, if you are symptomatic and, HS actually affects a pretty large percentage of the population, I'm not going to say the exact figure, cause I don't remember it, but it's, it's much higher than you would think.

Um, usually the most visible, the ones that you can see are kind of on the back, like the NAPE of the neck and you see some large bumps on people's neck, that's a sign of HS, but you also get the lesions in other areas of high friction on the body. Um, so it's not necessarily a physically debilitating disease unless you have it really, really bad.

I mean, there's some people that have like ginormous lesions that are, you know, really debilitating. That was not the case for me. It was more of the case of [00:06:00] this is not supposed to be here. This is not natural. This is still very painful. Um, but you know, this isn't right. And so it kind of just weighs on you mentally and, you know, Your body's not supposed to look like this, feel this way, this is supposed to be happening.

Um, and so I got to give my parents a lot of credit. They've really supported me on this crazy, crazy health journey. Um, and early on that looked like typical Western medical dermatologists, but the solutions that were proposed and implemented by, by those three or four doctors really, made the problem worse. I mean, I was on low grade antibiotics for like five years straight, which did mask the symptoms during that time period, but completely wrecked my gut and made the symptoms much, much worse when I got off of that.

And so, I first kind of dipped my toe into the non Western medical world with working with a functional medicine doctor, which was extremely beneficial. Um, and I kinda went a little bit deeper and started working with actually two or three different Naturopaths. They kind of treat me in tandem now, which [00:07:00] is amazing.

And they use all the amazing Western medical modality tools that you can think of like blood testing and just all your typical stuff. But then they use diet, stress reduction, herbal medicine, and all these natural modalities and remedies that have been amazing for my health and really been the reason that I've healed or gotten the disease in check.

Amy: Awesome. Thank you. Um, what does your diet look like now? I'm just curious.

Anthony: So there's a book called The Hidden Plague about HS, um, and they recommend really like a paleo diet. And they recommend significantly, like if you're still having problems doing the AIP diet, which is basically paleo, and I think you remove chocolate and coffee and nuts and nightshades.

And so early on I did the AIP diet and I removed everything. Um, and I saw some crazy results and it was awesome, but it wasn't super sustainable just to like go out with friends and always have to eat that way. And so I kind of got myself to [00:08:00] a certain level of healing.

Now I cheat a little bit more than I did previously. Um, but I do eat paleo. So pretty much the majority of my diet is meat and fruits and vegetables, uh, and a little bit of dairy to treat myself because I love ice cream, but, but pretty, pretty rare. Um, and I eat a ton of pastured, regenerative grass fed beef, pork, lamb.

Um, I don't need a ton of seafood just cause I'm in Indiana and there's not a ton of like great fresh seafood in Indiana, um, ton of pastured eggs. So yeah, I really, really kind of those paleo, core principles and, and that's what I do for the most part.

Amy: Do you drink coffee?

Anthony: I do. And I think I'm dependent now and I, and I wish I wasn't. I get coffee out every day, too. So that's like a major no-no cause it's expensive. And usually that coffee's like moldy and pretty chemically intensively farmed. So that's one thing I need to clean up. Um, but I also just haven't wanted to buy a, like an espresso [00:09:00] machine for my house. So that's my, that's my next purchase that I think I'm saving up for to, to take the next stepthere.

Amy: There you go. Goals. Um, I asked because I actually just went off coffee Friday or Saturday. Um, so it's been like five or six days, but the first couple of days, cause I was like five or six cups a day, which is awful.

Um, and then I'm in grad school. So 10 o'clock at night rolls around and I'm still working on a paper and I grab another cup of coffee. But the thing that I will say the first couple of days, I felt like crap. Like I felt I don't drink either. I don't drink alcohol. Um, but I felt like I was hung over.

Like I was 18 years old again and hung over for like three days. Um, and then just two days ago, it kind of felt like that lifted. And now I'm just like constant energy all the time. Like there's no, before it was like peaks and valleys. Like I would, I would wake up, drink my coffee. Get some [00:10:00] energy crash, drinks, more coffee crash. And now it's just like total like energy all day and no brain fog either, which is really cool.

Anthony: Yeah. I need to get off coffee. Um, and I, I have had times where I've not used it and I used to abuse pre-workout in college as an athlete cause I needed the caffeine in that. And so I've had, I've had some times where I've been a little too dependent on caffeine.

Um, I also don't drink and I had it for three years, so that's been like a super integral part to my healing. Um, and I can't recommend it enough. I mean, you were talking about not having brain fog and having more energy and mental clarity, like that has been huge.. Um, so yeah, I need to, I need to find a way around my, my coffee addiction.

Amy: Okay. Well, this isn't intervention, so we'll move on to the next question. Um, what is your biggest roadblock right now

Anthony: In life? In business? What mean? That's a tough [00:11:00] question. Um, I am a ambitious overachieving perfectionism person when I am operating a little past what's healthy. Uh, and so just kind of staying underneath that threshold is, is the most important thing for me because I will overwhelm myself.

I will overload my calendar. I will say yes to too many things. I will try to be Superman and unfortunately, we are not. Um, so, uh, that is always the biggest kind of thing for me. And I think the immune disease and just the journey with that had shown me when I originally, when I originally came to, to kind of grappling with it, I thought it was all diet.

I thought about. You need to eat perfectly clean and, and you'll be fine. And my naturopath, Dr. Bisco really explained it in a way that was awesome, which was like, we all have a bucket and the bucket fills up with water and the water comes from different sources. So it may be stressed and maybe a lack of sleep may, maybe food.

It may be environmental toxins, whatever it may be. But basically once the, [00:12:00] once the bucket just overflows overall, like your symptomatic and that inflow from stress was way higher than I was giving it credit for. And so managing that is probably always the most important thing outside of managing what I,

Amy: For sure. Sleep is huge too..

Um, for me, I've been trying to get rid of my phone for like the two hours before I go to bed and that's helps significantly as well. So sleep, stress, diet, all of that stuff. So important. Um, I think I skipped around a little bit. So, uh, tell me about your frustrations with big ag.

Anthony: Yeah. So big, big ag is, is a lot.

I would, I would reframe it to my frustrations with the current agricultural system or paradigm because there are some large scale operators that do really great work and they do things and they're regenerative and that's all well and good. So not all big is bad. [00:13:00] Um, my frustration with, with big ag or with the current setup is really...

the government and the capital markets have incentivize the wrong behavior. And so when we think about that, I think that it's much more than just, we have to convince Joe Farmer to do something different because Joe Farmer is an independent person and an independent business person. And what most Joe farmers are doing is exactly what they've been incentivized to do.

To be the most profitable to, uh, have the most social acceptance, to, uh, you know, use the tools available to them. And so I think my biggest frustration is just that to change, to, to really systems change those things. It's usually a glacial process. Usually it takes a very long time. So my biggest frustration is just the amount of time it takes to kind of get those conversations, going, get that momentum, rolling, get those changes made, but I'll tell you one [00:14:00] thing.

The, the momentum and the progress made in the regenerative agriculture space and just the last 18 months has been incredible. So I'm really excited to see that, you know, just get kind of thrown into a flywheel that's spinning very quickly.

Amy: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Cool. Um, what are the, I know there's like five crops that are subsidized, right?

That have been subsidized since the great depression. Do you remember what they are? It's like corn soy, wheat.

Anthony: I know it's corn, soy and wheat. If I had to guess the other two, I don't know, for a fact, maybe cotton and maybe rice. Um, but that is what I think one thing that I think if a lay person doesn't understand that they don't know a lot about ag or don't, you know, understand agriculture a lot, um, The majority of what we grow in this country is not food for human beings.

The vast, vast majority of our acreage is corn and soy, uh, which is fed to confinement animals. And then, you know, we eat the [00:15:00] animals, right? So the amount of acreage that we could use to have pastured livestock production or fruits and vegetable production, um, I think the, the latest, one of the latest stats is three or 4% of, of what we are the land use is for fruits vegetables and nuts. So like what we grow from a food perspective, is that such a small percentage? Like that's insane.

Amy: Right, yeah, for sure. I think another frustration of mine is marketing too, because there's just not enough, fruit and vegetable or even meat, you never see meat really advertised either.

It's just all the really yummy processed foods which in- turn kind of lead us to pay for those things and go after those things, because they're constantly in our face. Um, and especially with the younger generation too, I think that's huge. Um, because everything's marketed toward them.

Anthony: And we've, we've moved from a [00:16:00] space where originally that was just all marketed as it tastes good.

And it's indulgent, which is at least somewhat truthful, even though it's really bad for you, but now we have just straight up lies of this is healthy for you and it's actually so not healthy for you. I mean, I think of vegetable oils, I think of the whole like low carb fat and how so much of that is really not great.

Uh, I think of Keto and there's nothing wrong with Keto. I think Keto is great in some circumstances, but a lot of these fake sweeteners and some of these Frankenfood ingredients in some of the keto products. And so that's the most disappointing thing to me is to see not only marketed like that, but marketed as healthy when it's, it couldn't be furthest from healthy.

Amy: I'm going on a tangent now, but uh, for a while I was going to the supermarket and I was taking pictures of like keto bread, keto cereal. Cause I was like, what is this sorcery? Like, what is in this that makes it Keto or low carb? If you're having bread, which is like the biggest source of carbohydrates in this country, [00:17:00] it just makes no sense.

And you're totally right marketers know that people are looking for healthy foods. So everything has like a health halo on it now. And it's just, it's insane. It really is.

Anthony: Um, yeah. And the calorie, like the calorie marketing thing is. Horrible too, because we think of everything in terms of calories, instead of in terms of nutrient density and actual what's in it.

And is it going to satiate you and is it going to give you the building blocks, you know, proteins, amino acids, vitamins minerals that your body actually needs? Um, cause I can show you a lot of meals that are way higher galleries than others, but they're way, way, way better for you than, than those others, as I'm sure you know, are well aware of definitely.

Amy: I hate that. Okay. So tell me about your work with Rodale Institute. Um, what is the Rodale Institute and how are they transforming the agricultural industry?

Anthony: Yeah. So shout out to you for [00:18:00] rocking the hoodie. Thank you very much. Um, So regeneration nation partnered with the Rodale Institute for our second collection.

And we did the rebellious consumption hoodie, uh, which has really a call to action for regenerative organic eaters to unite and Rodale has been doing scientific research and farmer training and consumer advocacy on organic agriculture forever. Um, their founder J I Rodale was really an early pioneer in organic agriculture.

And. They will state the claim that, you know, nothing can be regenerative unless it's chemical free and organic to start. Uh, which I think is great. I think that's a great aspirational kind of goal for us to reach as an, as an agricultural system. Um, but they do amazing work. They do like I said, the scientific research that's really important to back up that these practices are better.

This food is better. They do farmer training to help people actually implement those practices and become regenerative organic. And then they do consumer advocacy and education to say, Hey folks, let's buy these foods. Let's eat [00:19:00] like this for our health, for our planet, for our wellbeing. And for our future, you know, children and grandchildren,

Amy: Do they do farm to school initiatives?

Anthony: Probably they do so many things. I've lost count. Um, one thing that to flag for you, I don't know if you've seen, uh, but they're doing like an event for healthcare providers and they're getting really kind of into food as medicine, more professionally. Um, and I forget when that event is, I know it's coming up in the next, like three to six months, but you know, my sister is a nurse and her and I are always kind of talking about that and she's going to be an NP and how can she, how can we weave these healthcare and, uh, food and ag worlds, like exactly what you're doing, because I think that is the biggest lever to, um, to unlocking regenerative agriculture at scale. I don't believe we're going to get everyone on board, uh, from a climate change perspective. Like I just, I just don't believe that we're gonna get every American to really care about climate change and make this sacrifice for the greater good and what they eat. But I'll tell you [00:20:00] what I do believe we can get every American to say, I want to eat this versus that, because it's way better for me. Uh, and so I think that is the Trojan horse to, to lead with on the regen-ag side.

Amy: I completely agree with you because if it's like they're doing something for themselves, then they can actually see the progress versus like, I don't know, doing all this like eco stuff. It's like hard to see the difference you're making. I guess it doesn't make sense. Really. Um, the thing that you said about healthcare workers, that's huge.

Um, and that was kind of like my frustration working in the clinical realm for so many years was that like a lot of health professionals, surprisingly, first of all, don't take care of themselves, and second, like they don't really see the benefit in nutrition counseling, or just anything to do with nutrition in general.

Um, so it's really hard to really convince those doctors, especially, and I don't want to say anything bad about doctors, but like the old school [00:21:00] mindset of like, here's your medication. Okay. Now get out of the hospital. Um, so I love that they're doing some things with healthcare workers. I'll definitely check that out for sure.

Anthony: Absolutely.

Amy: Um, and then your first, I do want to touch on your first collaboration with savory Institute too. Can you tell me about that?

Anthony: Yeah. So just like, uh, been around for a really long time, doing it so much. Great work in regenerative agriculture. Both of these people were doing this work before we didn't add was like getting cool, like it is now.

So they have the integrity and they have the utmost respect from, from me. And so we partnered with savory for the first collection, which is the t-shirt I'm wearing that says, uh, soil on the front and it says, regenerate or die on the back. That kind of envelops the whole ethos of regeneration nation, which was let's make regenerative agriculture cool. Let's give it some edge. Let's be a little bit different than the classic green t-shirt with a root or a tree on it. Um, and so I couldn't be more thankful for that because we hadn't done [00:22:00] anything to that point. And Bobby over there really helped me do the first collection for regeneration nation.

So savory will always have a special place in my heart and they do amazing work on a lot of the same topics a lot of the same kinds of categories as Rodale, but on the more livestock and grassland management side, because Allan, Savory's kind of the, the grandfather, a thought leader of holistic management and how to use ruminate animal impact the way that the bison used to impact this country and the elk used to impact this country before we settled it, uh, to be the Keystone species of these ecosystems that are regenerative and are thriving.

Amy: Very cool. That's awesome. Um, yeah, so I think the next question I have for you is what steps can the average person take to support regenerative agriculture?

Anthony: Great question. Um, there's actually a lot now and I, and I think if you asked people that have been doing this work for five to 10 years, they would tell you that was not the case five to 10 years ago. There's [00:23:00] a saying, if you work in the industry, you know, 10 years ago, if you wanted to work in Virginia agriculture, you had to make the job like you had to create the job like they weren't available. And that's definitely not the case today. First I'll start with just what you eat, right? And so you can consume regenerative foods.

Um, and there's a lot of ways to do that. There's great. Um, direct to consumer products that ship nationwide, there is products hitting local grocery stores all around this country with the land and market seal, which is what savory kind of helps run and the regenerative organic seal, which is what a Rodale and Patagonia and some other self run.

So look for those certifications, cause those are kind of the first and most respected at the moment, regenerative certifications, um, and then supporting your local producers. Not all local food is regenerative, but you can definitely go to the farmer's market or find people on all these various regenerative farmer maps and talk to them, visit them, see if they are regenerative, ask them about their practices, ask them about their products. Um, so those are the three main [00:24:00] ways I think, from a consumption side that people can help. And then. I work a lot in the investing space. So there is ways that you can, you know, you can spend your money or invest your money.

Uh, Steward does a great job that any kind of investor can do crowd lending. There's all kinds of other people that are creating new vehicles to have people actually kind of put their checkbooks up and help expand reserve agriculture. And then thirdly, educate yourself, spread the word with advocacy and then policy.

I mean the farm, the 2023 farm was coming up and there's so many people doing great grassroots work around that and trying to influence our politicians to clean up the farm bill and get a lot more dollars allocated for soil health and regenerative ag. Um, kiss the ground is doing a regenerate America campaign.

Land Corp does a bunch of really cool research in that space. And there's many, many others that are doing great. Uh, lobbying and policy work to, uh, to really get that done because that farm bill that happens every five years is probably the most important thing to us creating [00:25:00] long-term change in this country with regenerative agriculture.

Amy: I love that. Yeah. I just started seeing, um, the regenerative ag. I don't think it's like a seal. I think like every product kind of has their own thing, but I just started seeing that on the milk that I buy, which is so cool. Cause there's not like a. There's some local dairy farmers around here, but not a ton.

Um, so that was really interesting to see at the grocery store that that's kind of, I don't know, every single week I go to the grocery store and I like find something new and I'm like, look, this is going mainstream. And my husband's like, you're such a dork stop. Um, but yeah, I thought that was really, really cool.

So, uh, you touch a little bit on soil health in our last question.. Um, so tell me about soil health. This this something I'm super interested in researching about. Um, and why should we care about the current state of the soil in the U.S.?

Anthony: Um, there is not, that is, that is a long list. Um, when I would [00:26:00] tell people is go watch, kiss the ground, uh, the movie, and that, that wouldn't do an amazing job articulating it better than I can.

You know, the UN basically said a couple of years ago, we have like less than 60 harvests left if we don't get our stuff together. Um, and so that is obviously extremely important and I mean, I can't quote them off the top of my head. The amount of topsoil, we lose on a yearly basis. The amount of chemicals that have been found in our streams, rivers, lakes, and fish, uh, the ecosystem degradation that we've experienced as a world and as a country, I mean, it's, it's appalling and it's staggering.

And we have got to do something about it. And from a soil perspective... soil microbiome is very similar to the microbiome in our bodies. And so that was really what was the light bulb moment for me as someone that had a significant health issue or is going to live with it forever. Um, this they're going to be something more important to work on because if we improve the microbiome of the soil, we're collectively going to [00:27:00] improve the microbiome of the planet and everyone on it.

Um, and so that to me is the biggest reason why people should care about it.

Amy: Definitely. And the more nutrients we're stripping from the soil, like the more nutrients we're stripping from our food. So, um, yeah, it's crazy. These are the things that keep me up at night. So my last question, why hoodies and t-shirts?

Anthony: You know, that's a good question.

Well, when I first looked at myself in the mirror and said, like, I'm going to dedicate myself to regenerative agriculture. I was super anxious to kind of get started with something. And I was coming off that sabbatical. So I wasn't working. And I knew I wanted to do something entrepreneurial. And I had a lot of ideas and I researched a lot of them talk to people about a lot of them and merch was going to be a small part of the original idea.

But it seemed like the right thing to just get started. And I was just really gravitated to [00:28:00] it being a creative outlet for me. I had all kinds of ideas around the branding and the marketing and the design, and the go to market strategy and that stuff. Just really energizing to me. I like working on those topics.

Um, no one had trademark Regeneration Nation, and no one had bought the domain, which I thought was awesome for me. And I was like, okay, let's, let's scoop that up real quick. And my biggest frustration with the space was we had these amazing movies. We had amazing podcasts. We had amazing advocacy groups. We had amazing research being done.

You know, we had, we had so much cool stuff going on, but I didn't think that we were still making regenerative agriculture cool enough. And me as a masculine 27 year old male at the time, I was like, what t-shirt like, can I wear, like, there's nothing that I would want to wear, like no hat, no hoodie. Um, and I thought that was a miss because especially when you look at beef, if beef is the most like finger wag food, like in a world, like this is so bad for climate change.

We need all the masculine and [00:29:00] carnivorous men to eat grass fed, regenerative beef. Um, and so with all that said, I was just like, I think I could create a cool brand. I think I can create some cool designs. And I think that we can bring a edgy Moto chic style and vibe to regenerative ag that it hasn't had to date.

And if people see this at the farmer's market or the grocery store or on Tik TOK or on Instagram, and it just gets them to come to our website and learn a little bit about it and then go to the Rodale Institute, go to the Savory Institutes, uh, and learn more from them while also buying a, an item that, you know, directly benefits them from a fundraising standpoint.

That's a win-win win. Um, and if kiss the ground and the biggest little farm showed us anything is that we need more levers than just the food that we, that we eat to teach people about regenerative ag. I mean, I wish I, I just watched the new Batman movie. I wish I had a Batman utility belt and I can just flip out medium rare regenerative, grass fed, you know, [00:30:00] burger patties to people just eat on command and they would never go back, you know, but unfortunately that's not, that's not a reality maybe today. Um, and so I just wanted to have a lever that I could use my creative expression to help advance the work and advocate for the work, um, to people that have never heard of it.

And then give the people that have heard of it. Like you and I, that are very passionate. A tool to help spread the word, uh, that they can rock. And it's fun.

Amy: Yeah. That's awesome. And you guys definitely have to pick up the hoodies. They're so comfy. I love them. I got a medium, so it's a little bit oversized.

So for those summer nights where you're like around the campfire, I think that was perfect. So definitely pick those up. Um, yeah, I think it's really, really hard to make agriculture regenerative agriculture, and then just eating healthy and like primitive, sexy, because getting back to like that whole health halo thing, like people [00:31:00] want you to be on Instagram with like, I dunno like a metal straw and like the Mason jar and everything.

And like, I dunno, pushing all these like eco-friendly products. And there's nothing where you can sit there and hold up a vegetable with dirt on it and be like, Hey, this is cool. You know what I mean? Um, so I definitely love that you kinda took your creative side and turned it into something that people can feel pretty cool about.

I love that.

Anthony: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Amy: Yeah. Yeah. So I think that is about it. So, um, tell everyone where they can find you on Instagram and your website.

Anthony: Yeah. So on Instagram, we're at regeneration three underscores nation, and then, uh, on our website, www dot regeneration, nation.com.

Amy: Awesome. And pick up the hoodie.

Anthony: Yes, please. And subscribed to the emails because everything that we do. Basically time-bound collections that are only available for a limited [00:32:00] time. So if you're not subscribed, you might miss out.

Amy: Oh, good one. All right. So thank you so much, Anthony. I really appreciate it. I had so much fun, um, and definitely learned a lot today.

Anthony: Thanks for having me , Amy. This is awesome.

View Details

Jane Zhang is the host of the food sustainability podcast Farm to Future. As a researcher, Jane studied urban agriculture and tomato farming at McGill University, before writing a children's book about acorns and foraging for her Masters thesis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

In her own food journey, Jane went plant-based for four years before returning to her omnivore roots and discovering the importance of plants and animals in a regenerative food system. Her mission is to bring expert perspectives — from farmers, foragers, chefs, and tastemakers — to everyday foodies, so we can all feel empowered to nourish our land and bodies.  

In this episode we’ll discuss what sustainability means for the average person, Jane’s journey through veganism, and how if at all the U.S. can adopt foraging as a mainstream concept.

Links: Farm to Future: https://pod.link/farmtofuture Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farm.to.future/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/farmtofuture LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/1janezhang/ 

Ep #7: Foraging, Veganism & Entrepreneurship with Jane Z. from Farm to Future Amy: [00:00:00] All right. Welcome back everyone to the backyard RD podcast. I am so excited today because I have my first guest on the podcast. Um, and it's somebody that I've been so excited about. Her podcasts has been a new favorite of mine. So today we have Jane Z from Farm to Future, on the backyard RD podcast.

Welcome Jane.

Jane: Thank you so much, Amy, for having me, I'm so excited to chat today and I feel like I'm in the presence of a celebrity with Amy Adams.

Amy: Thank you. Yeah, I get that at the grocery store all the time, everywhere I go out. Um, and Jane and I actually, we met on Instagram, which is so funny. Um, but I think you had posted the Joel Salatin, podcast episode, which if you guys haven't listened to that episode.

Definitely go listen to it. So amazing. Um, so I liked something of yours and then we just started chatting [00:01:00] back and forth and it was totally like just became best friends instantly.

Jane: Love it organically. No pun intended.

Amy: Okay, so let's dive right into it. I know our listeners are probably super excited to hear about you, um, especially if they've listened to your podcast before.

So, um, tell us a little bit about your background and then specifically, how did you get into sustainability?

Jane: Yeah. Um, so I, I'm not a big noun person, but if you want to put kind of labels on my career in terms of sustainability, um, I guess you could call me a sustainability researcher or design researcher by training.

Um, but I'll take it back to my childhood because I think that's where the roots of some of these values come from. So I grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada. And, um, growing up weekends were all about hiking and the mountains and the forest, or [00:02:00] going to the ocean. Uh, we spent summers camping and doing road trips.

So I was very lucky to have so much access to the outdoors and just to be close to wildlife and so many different flora and fauna. Around me. So I always felt that connection to nature. Um, and then in our household, so my parents and I actually immigrated from China when I was four. And, um, what that meant was we didn't have a lot of means as an immigrant family.

And so we would thrift shop for clothes, which is now like such a hip thing. But back then, Because we had to, and we would grow little herbs in like old buckets. And we took public transit everywhere. We walked everywhere, um, all because we had to, but I realized later on that, you know, those little actions really add up and in university I studied [00:03:00] sustainability and I remember our first week in, you know, in the program, they had us take.

The ecological footprint assessment, which is something that came out in the two thousands and was, uh, it's a great tool for anyone out there who wants to take the quiz and, see basically like how many, if everyone on the earth live, like the way you, that you do, how many earths would it take to sustain everyone?

Um, so that's the idea of the footprint test and it was there that I was shocked to learn two things. One is that your income is the biggest correlator to your carbon footprint. So the more money and wealth that you have and you earn, um, the more likely you are to consume more materially, um, You know, kinda makes sense.

And then the other big shocker for me at the time was that flying and air travel is a huge part of our carbon footprint. [00:04:00] Um, and at the time I was flying back and forth between Vancouver and Montreal, where I did my studies and then. You know, flying across the continent, it's like quite a, quite a big, um, carbon footprint.

So, um, yeah, it's a really good tool to just kind of visualize, you know, uh, how does my lifestyle impact the planet? And so in college I studied sustainability. I was part of this new and exciting interdisciplinary program where we studied earth sciences and policy and geography and econ, basically different lenses to look at climate change. And what are some different tools we can use to assess, but also come up with solutions, um, around the same time.

Uh, because I was learning all about these climate issues. I really felt compelled to do something, you know, when you're young, you're like 19-20 and you just like. You want to do it all, like you have so [00:05:00] much energy. Um, and so I was learning about these issues and I was like, what can I actually do?

Uh, besides living in a tiny apartment and walking, which I was already doing. Uh, but food became this area of my life, where I was like, okay, here's something I can actually control and contribute to. And so I'm sure we'll dive into this more, but for four years I went vegetarian and within that time, I also tried going vegan and raw vegan.

Um, which I definitely did for not healthy reasons. And the way I went plant exclusive, uh, did take a toll on my body. And so eventually I did transition back to eating meat, and now I'm a full-on omnivore.

Amy: I love that. Yeah. We'll definitely dive into that a little bit later, for sure. Um, so talking about sustainability and I, I think it's such a buzz word now, too.

Um, and I'm honestly not sure that the average person [00:06:00] really even knows what that means. I don't really even know what that means sometimes. Um, so I'd love for you just to kind of go into, you know, what do you think it means for the average person to live and eat sustainably?

Jane: Yeah, totally. I think any word that has more than three syllables needs to be broken down?

Yeah. So I guess on a practical level, I see, I mean, just talking about food, cause we could go into all kinds of different aspects of travel and how you live and whatnot. But if we just focus on food, I would talk about it on three scales. So first, if we start out with like a bird's eye view, um, of talking about your food shed or watershed, um, is looking at where does your food actually come from?

Where's it grown? So. If you want to try and eat locally, which is one of the best ways to [00:07:00] reduce your carbon footprint, cause it doesn't have to travel so far and then the quality of the food is way better too, and it's fresher.

Um, so if you want to do that, you want to look at, you know, what's the actual biome and ecosystem you live in and what can actually be grown there? Obviously today we have technology like hydroponics and we have indoor farms. Um, but if you're talking about conventional outdoor farming in New England, you probably wouldn't have tomatoes and cucumbers in the summertime or in the winter time.

Right. And so, um, and so we want to try and adapt our diets to what is available locally and seasonally. Um, and then if we, scale way down to the individual level, there's the understanding of your body, right? And this is where your expertise comes in around nutrition and diet is, you know, for your lifestyle and for your specific body.

What makes you feel the best? What makes you perform the best? And what do you [00:08:00] enjoy the most? Um, because I had a wonderful person named chef Dr. Mike on Farm to Future. And he talks about this, uh, you know, the relationship you have with food as a sort of template with all your other relationships.

Right. If you have this joyful, loving relationship with your body, where you can nourish it with good high quality food, you know, that sets the tone for how you are with your friends, with your family, your loved ones. And I love that, um, way of seeing food as this, like, almost like original relationship with the world.

Um, cause if you think about it, it is a very intimate way of engaging with the land, right? Like you're putting in your body, what's come like miles and miles away that somebody else has grown and processed and shipped to you. Um, You know, entering your body's [00:09:00] ecosystem. So anyway, without getting too woo.

Um, the third kind of scale I'll mention is the scale of the kitchen. Um, I think a big part of the issue around, you know, why, why we go to why we go to fast food and processed food and frozen foods is a lot of us just aren't familiar with the kitchen and how to put together like tasty food. Right.

Um, when my fiance and I first started dating our go-to dish was salmon, broccoli, and rice, we would have that. Like a good three to four nights a week and like it's healthy, but you know, that much salmon is, you know, maybe not the most balanced diets. And so over the years we've expanded our repertoire. We can now. We'll do like a whole chicken and have that for the week. We'll do pork chops. Um, and different kinds of beef dishes, all with [00:10:00] different kinds of veggies.

And it's such an empowering thing. When you just have a week's worth of dishes under your belt, it's like, wow. Like I don't have to eat out. I can just like, have this like really good, healthy food. I know what's in, it can save money, live better. So, so those are kind of like the practical ways I would break down sustainability in terms of food.

So is it sustainable for your community and for your food shed? Is it sustainable for your body? And can you practically make it happen as part of your lifestyle?

Amy: Right. I love that. That's great. Um, definitely from like a dietitian standpoint, what you said about, you know, connecting with your body and making sure, it's something that sustains you.

Um, I think that's something that people don't necessarily understand when they meet with a registered dietitian. They're like, okay. I thought this person was supposed to tell me what not to eat. And like, I'm not supposed to have, I don't know. Anything under the sun, [00:11:00] pretty much nothing with white sugar or anything like that.

Um, and it's really about like adapting to what feels good for you and not necessarily looking at the plate next to you. You know, I love that you mentioned that. Um, and I also love what you said about the kitchen. I kind of feel like attacked a little.

Jane: Oh no.

Amy: No, I'm, I'm slowly becoming and this isn't to say that I don't cook a lot.

I definitely cook a lot, but I am like exactly what you said about you and your fiance. Like the salmon, rice and broccoli. Like that is me. If I lived alone. Like what I would have all the time would just be like chicken, rice, veg. Um, and that, that would sustain me, but I'm, I'm becoming better at, um, I guess like dabbling in different kinds of cuisine. And, um, I just made my first chicken soup for the first time, um.

Jane: From scratch?

Amy: Yes. So, [00:12:00] um, like you said, cook the whole chicken, um, which is really like a great, sustainable way to eat for the rest of the week, put that on salads during the week. Um, and then was able with the help of my husband to boil down the bones and create a broth and then cut up some carrots and different things like that and throw that in.

So, um, so I love when you talk about like reconnecting with the kitchen and just basically just learning, like all you need is the basics of cooking to understand what to do.

Jane: Yeah, exactly. And once you have like a template, you can apply that like most meats will cook pretty much the same. You would like put some sauce or some seasoning on it.

You bake it or put it in some kind of Stewy thing. And that's it. And with veggies, I pretty much just stir fry, everything with salt and oil and. The way I rationalize it is you get the natural flavor of the vegetables.[00:13:00]

Amy: Okay. So you live in Boston, which I love, um, cause I'm in the Boston suburbs. So talk to me about how you live sustainably in a city and then how maybe others who also live in a city can take baby steps to live, um, and specifically eat more sustainably.

Jane: Yeah, totally. I love this question because so many of us who live in cities are essentially removed and abstracted from the food production process.

You know, we don't see the happy or stressed out chicken behind our dinner plate, or, you know, we don't see the greenhouses that our veggies are grown in, um, and then shift over. So instead we have to rely on essentially marketing. As well as labels to figure out, you know, what's in line with my ethics and what should I actually have for dinner?

Um, right. And this is where food literacy becomes really [00:14:00] important. Um, where you have to understand a little bit about the labels that you see in the grocery store. And, what things you can stand behind, but also are within your budget. Um, and that's a big piece of the mission behind Farm to Future is to demystify some of these things and do some of the leg work so that folks can go in prepared.

If you want to go all out homestead, um, just like you are, um, you know, there's the option to raise chickens and, you know, raise pigs and, build a homestead, have a vegetable garden and be self-sufficient. That's definitely my dream. I would love to have that one day. Um, I'm starting with indoor microgreens.

Yeah, but that's, that's definitely like a bigger commitment level. And then a step down from that is, you know, changing the way you shop for food. So going to the farmer's market, getting to know your farmers and local producers.[00:15:00] Joining a CSA, our community supported agriculture, like a weekly basket of local organic produce.

Um, those things I would say are still can be a stretch goal for folks. Um, either because of time or budget, you do have to shift your habits a little bit. Um, but I would say for like super beginner step, um, you know, what to do to start out is I would carve out an extra hour, let's say of your week for your food shopping routine.

And you may only have to do this once, or even like once a season. And, um, you want to start out with a little bit of research. So I mentioned before understanding your food shed and watershed. So within where you live, for us new England, certain things can grow in certain seasons, right? We have a really hefty winter, which is thankfully thawing out.

Um, but during those winter months, [00:16:00] We're not going to have, you know, fresh lettuce and tomatoes per se. I mean, you, you can grow them indoors, but you're probably gonna have a lot of root vegetables, um, like swiss chard and things like that. Um, and if you're not familiar with cooking those things, you probably want to start with some recipes.

So look up some recipes. See, what's good. See what you think might taste good and have that, um, kind of set up your grocery list for the week. So once you have your kind of handy list of items and you go shopping, you want to give yourself a little bit of extra time to browse the different options. So if generally you buy conventional produce, try out the organic, see how it tastes and see how that factors into your budget.

And then, looking at proteins and things look for humanely raised, uh, pasture raised. You know, chicken, beef, pork, that kind of [00:17:00] thing. And for seafood, you want to look for ocean-wise, and different labels and generally understand where the fish or whatever you're getting, like where that's grown, like what country it comes from.

Um, and you may have to do a little Googling on the spot or when you get home. But that's where it's important to take extra time just to do that auditing. And like I said, you may only have to do that once.

But once you pick up your stuff comes the fun part of experimenting in the kitchen, you know, try out those recipes and maybe even have some friends over for dinner to do a little taste test. Um, but you'll kind of figure out what dishes, um, you love and what you can re-purchase. And over time, you'll kind of build your own recipe library. Um, and hopefully it'll be a fun journey.

Amy: Perfect. Yeah. I love that. Um, I love when you talk about the labels too, and understanding, you know, is this humanely raised?

Is it grass fed um, [00:18:00] because I think just understanding labels and the marketing with food, like the marketing industry is so big that I feel like there's so much confusion behind those labels and what they really mean.

So going back to the chicken breasts or the whole chicken that I bought the other day, That was organic, humanely raised grass fed. Um, and it was, I think it was $22 originally, but it was 50% off because it had a sell by date of the next day. So sell by dates, aren't federally regulated. So, um, so it's just kind of for inventory for the manufacturer, which a lot of people don't know.

So that doesn't necessarily mean that the meat is going bad or is bad. Um, so I think that's like a really great way for people to eat sustainably . Just knowing those labels and what they mean. Um, and knowing that you can purchase something that's really [00:19:00] well-raised and well fed, um, and not like breaking the bank.

Jane: Yeah, totally. I always look for the yellow sales stickers and see what's good.

And, um, I shop at whole foods, which is bougie. I will say that, but the nice part is they do a lot of vetting on their end. And so most of the options I'm looking at are, you know, grass fed, pasture raised, humanely raised. And so when there's a sale on.

Amy: Perfect. I love that. Yeah. Love a sale. Um, so switching gears here a little bit, you, when you were in school, you wrote your thesis on foraging acorns, um, which I was super intrigued by when I listened to your podcast where you were interviewed.

So can you tell us, I'm sure you could go on for another hour about this, but can you tell us a little bit about your research?

Jane: Yeah, for sure. I could go on forever about this. I'll try to contain it. Um, so a little background before the acorn thesis for my [00:20:00] undergrad, I actually studied tomato farming, which is why I brought up tomatoes a few times, but I was looking at.

How you can grow tomatoes on an urban greenhouse, urban rooftop, greenhouse versus a regional greenhouse versus conventional, um, field tomatoes. And I looked at the metrics of water, use energy use, land use, and carbon and carbon emissions across those three methods. One of the big takeaways was that the regional greenhouse offered economy of scale.

So it was a cheaper option, but you still got high quality because it was local. But probably my bigger takeaway from that research was that there's so much that you can't measure with food, um, that ties into taste and preference and culture. And that became more of what I was interested in is like, if you're looking to shift habits, say on a policy scale, yes numbers matter, but also you have to start with, [00:21:00] people's pallets. You, you got to start with tastes like we're human. We're emotional creatures. We like what tastes good. And so a couple of years after that, I became really fascinated with this dish. I remember eating in China, it's an acorn tofu dish and it looks like acorn jelly.

These rectangular piece of jelly and you serve it with vinegar and sugar, you have it cold. So it's like a Summer-y dish and I just remember having it and I asked people about it and, the acorn flour or starch that they use is foraged. And this stuff has been foraged for a long time. And especially during the communist revolution, you know, because food was scarce and it was rationed and people are hungry.

And so they would go into their backyards and literally pick up these acorns and, and have them supplement their food so they didn't die. Um, so that was like an interesting bit of history. And when I dug into the literature, I found that there [00:22:00] was dozens, if not hundreds of different communities around the World, in temperate regions who subsisted off of acorns for many, many years before farming and agriculture.

And , you know, even in recent history, there's more than 27 countries that are known to have eaten acorns. So for example, you have the acorn fed ham in Spain, they also used to serve roasted acorns at the theater. In Germany, you had acorn coffee, uh, Korea they make a similar acorn jelly dish, and there's some first nations, um, communities that would make acorn bread out in California.

And so there's all these different societies that made use of Oak trees as a food source. And it's very different from the way we think of food production today, where it's like you have these mono- crops, but first if you have a forrested of a piece of land, you got to cut down the trees and plant things.

You know, this, this kind of [00:23:00] culture, which there's a special name for it called Bolano culture, the culture of eating acorns. Um, it doesn't require you to disrupt an ecosystem per se. Like you can keep the Oak trees, you can plant things underneath them and collect the acorns. Um, and so those are some of the findings.

And so. Research question was, well, what would the world look like if we actually went back to mass scale foraging and everyone foraged and ate acorns. And so, because I was in a design school, I got to get creative with this, and I wrote a children's book set in the year 2047. Because it would have been 30 years in the future and it takes that amount of time for an Oak tree to mature and bear fruit.

And so I wrote the story around a few characters who foraged acorns and there would be owl drones that delivered acorns around the [00:24:00] world and you had all kinds of dishes. And I'm sure there are so many other examples of this- of foods and cultural things that used to be a huge part of humans lives that we've forgotten that maybe we could bring back and would be kinder to the.

Amy: That's so interesting. I love that. Um, so how do you think that we could, because you know, being from new England, you see all these acorns around and it's kind of like, I'm hearing you saying all of this and I'm like, we need to do something with this. So how do you think we could normalize potentially foraging in the US?

Um, and what are some easy plants that maybe Americans can forage?

Jane: Yeah, totally. So, I think one of the reasons we don't, all forage acorns is like raw acorns are actually very, very bitter. And if you eat a lot of them, they can be poisonous because they have this thing called [00:25:00] tannins in them, which is what makes it bitter.

It's like what's in wine too, but just like a tiny bit. And so it does take a little bit of work to crack open the acorns and soak the meat essentially in water. Uh, pour that out and do that a couple of times to basically rinse out the tannins. So there is some processing involved and I think , there's this misconception too, of a lot of people who think like, oh, acorns are toxic.

Um, It turns out it's not, but it does require some work. So there's that education piece. Um, if we were to do this at scale, I did find a company who does crowdsource forging for black walnuts. They're based in the Midwest. And, what they do is every fall, they'll do a call out to anyone that has equipment or wants to go out and forge black walnuts, and you bring them to these processing centers and get paid for them.

So I could imagine a world where we have like this cottage industry of freelance [00:26:00] foragers, who like, you could hang out for six hours in the forest and just pick acorns and nuts and other things, and you bring them to a center and get paid for it. Like that's a very viable job market.

Um, and it sounds like a very chill life. But yeah, I'm sure there's other ideas out there, but yeah, I think if we were to do this at scale, we would need some investment in business models, as well as infrastructure behind forging. Right. Um, and then on an individual level, I have to give a shout out to Falling Fruit.

So if you go to fallingfruit.org is, is very cool. It's, uh, essentially a world maps. It's like a Google map and you can zoom in on your city or where you live. And, People have basically marked on the map where they found fruit trees or Berry bushes, or edible flowers or wild garlic, things like that on the map.

So you can literally [00:27:00] go to the park or go down the street and pick these things. Um, that's a great place to start and it's like a fun adventure, if you just want to like, you know, hang out with some friends and go pick some wild pears or something. They're not wild pears, but, um, like pears that are just hanging out in the city.

And I was looking at the Boston map and there's a lot of fruit trees. We've got pears, apples peaches, wild garlic, like I mentioned, there's flowers like rose there's mulberries crab apples. Um, essentially it's like a fruit basket, but like in our backyards. And obviously if everyone were to go out and forage these things, we'd have nothing left.

Um, and so if we were to do it on mass, we'd have, we'd probably need some kind of etiquette where it's like, take some, but leave some for everybody else. The last thing I'll mention around foraging is there's. If you're on TikTok, [00:28:00] there's a few really awesome foragers who create content. So Alexis Nikole is someone who comes to mind and she is like a mushroom queen.

She has these very entertaining videos of her foraging. And if you're not on TikTok, I think she posts on Instagram too. Um, but yeah, she teaches people about different mushrooms and it's awesome. And I hope we see more uh, foraging content out there.

Amy: Definitely. Yeah, not on Tik TOK yet, like working my way up to there.

Um, but I love that Falling Fruit. I've never heard of that before. I'm definitely gonna check it out. I think, you know, I'm surrounded by trees and forests and everything, so I'd be really interested to see what's actually out there that I've never even considered before. So yeah, that's an awesome resource.

Great. Um, so switching gears again, I know personally, I know that you were [00:29:00] vegan, um, for a little bit. And I also was, and ironically, I was vegan when I was going through school to become a dietitian, which now looking back on it I'm like, why did I do that to myself? So I'd love to hear just about your journey as a vegan, and then what made you want to become vegan?

First of all. And I also knew that you eat meat now, so then what made you transition back to eating meat?

Jane: So way back, this is about 10 years ago now when I was learning about all these, uh, things around, food systems and climate change, uh, I saw all these stats, especially around, cattle farming compared to let's say corn or soybean or really any other crop.

And the cows were essentially vilified. You know, when you looked at the amount of water they use or land or carbon emissions, And for [00:30:00] one, um, now looking back, I realize a lot of those stats have caveats. So, Diana Rogers, who's a registered dietitian that we both follow and the filmmaker behind sacred cow, I learned from her that about 95% of the water that's attributed to cattle farming is actually rainfall.

And so you think like most of that is just gonna fall anyway, and only about 5% is really groundwater or surface water. And so at the time I took a lot of these stats at face value and didn't really do my own digging or look into, um, you know, are there studies on alternative farming and regenerative farming?

But that's all to say that when I saw these stats point blank my immediate reaction and I think people around me, because at the time veganism was just like starting to go Vogue. I think I thought that this was like the only way to quote unquote, "save the [00:31:00] planet" is to cut out all meat consumption.

You only eat plants and that's like the best way forward for your body and for the planet. And so, um, and I will say I was one of those loud vegans, like, you know, that joke where it's like, how do you know if someone's a vegan? Well, they tell you. I was definitely one of those. And I feel like I was using my body as a political instrument.

And definitely not thinking about the balance of nutrients and macros that I needed. So I definitely was under- fed and this is like a separate topic, but I feel like I, I got myself in this, this toxic habit of under eating and then bingeing and under eating. A side note, I studied abroad in France for a year while vegetarian and vegan.

That was very interesting. People did not get it. And I ended up eating a lot of dessert to fill myself up. 'Cause they just didn't have [00:32:00] vegetarian options. And, but yeah, I was stubborn, I stuck with it. And then how I got into raw veganism was through a YouTuber named fully raw Christina, and there's this whole like subculture of raw vegans.

And for some reason I got sucked in, I was a very impressionable youth. But I remember going to the eye doctor a few months later and she was like, oh, you're missing a lipid layer in your in your tear ducts or like in your eye essentially. And so your tear ducts are not working. And I was like, what?

I probably wasn't getting enough fat in my diet. And so that was, that was something I never expected. It's like, oh, you could like break your eye and like, not be able to cry because of this. Um I mean, I was pretty young at the time. And so I didn't see like major health changes, but I knew that I felt hungry like a lot of the time and it just wasn't, it wasn't the right diet for [00:33:00] me.

And then how I transitioned was literally I moved back home for a year and the day after I get back, my mom takes me out for lunch and this never happens. We never have like a mom and daughter date. So this was very special and I was going to order a vegetarian thing, but there was like a salmon special on the menu.

And she was like, why don't you try that? And I dunno, I think it was partly just like being excited to be home with mom again, I was like on a whim, like, sure. Why not? And I was back on the west coast, so salmon was local and I tried it and it was great.

I felt normal to have fish and slowly but surely just living at home and being around my family who cooked and ate meat along with vegetables. I slowly started dipping my toes back in and it felt good to be able to go to dim sum and eat things and not feel like the weird vegetarian, you know, like [00:34:00] hippy person in the family. So my transition back to eating meat was a lot more culturally driven, I would say, or socially driven.

And I realized too that as soon as I started eating meat, again, I needed to eat a lot less in quantity to feel full, but also to feel nourished. And so now I'm like fully omnivore. Although if we're talking like diet specifics, I don't eat gluten or dairy because they make my tummy feel bad. Um, but that's where I'm at now.

Amy: Gotcha. Thank you so much for sharing that. I love that story and I, I felt the same way as you, when I was eating vegan personally, and, disclaimer, if you are a vegan or vegetarian or. All the power to you. You know what I mean? Like I don't judge anyone or, um, even though like I eat meat, it's okay for somebody else to be vegan.

And I totally get like the ethical mindset behind that too. Um, but [00:35:00] looking at people on a global scale and just like with regenerative farming and how to make our planet more sustainable. I just hope that people who are vegan or vegetarian, don't push it on other people because we know how important, livestock and integrating animals with agriculture is for our planet and for the people who need nutrition the most.

So. That's like my whole thing, but, um, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. That was great. Again, shifting gears and something that I'm so excited to ask you about because I don't know if I would consider myself an entrepreneur but I have an entrepreneurial spirit. So you are definitely an entrepreneur and a successful one at that.

So why, why did you want to become an entrepreneur instead of just working a nine to five? And then what is your best [00:36:00] advice for somebody who wants to follow this path?

Jane: Yeah. That's so generous and thank you. And I will say to be upfront, so I currently run Farm to Future as a side hustle. I did start a full-time job in January, so that's where I'm at right now.

And I've learned over the years that it's okay to not look like an entrepreneur, if that makes sense? Cause I think in the 2010s, it was very trendy to go all in and hustle and go hard and like put your whole self into this one thing. And I've since like part of growing up is you realize that there's you need balance.

Right. Um, and sometimes like going all in is not practical. Um, and in fact, 99% of businesses or startups fail. Um, but yeah, I guess going into it, I, I love ideas. I love talking about new [00:37:00] ideas, new creative ideas, startup ideas. And so in undergrad, I actually entered this competition to design a student run cafe, a sustainable cafe on campus.

Um, that was like such a cool experience where I worked with an engineer and another environmental study student and a nutritionist and we designed this whole thing and, um, we ended up winning first place and that's where I kind of like caught the entrepreneurship bug. I was like, wow, it's so cool to be able to have uh, a problem and reframe it as a creative challenge and then come up with ideas for how do you, um, how do you tackle that challenge? And this ties directly into the sustainability stuff, because there's so many problems to solve when it comes to food systems and climate change, but instead of only analyzing it, you know, I think when you look at it from a business or entrepreneurship standpoint, it opens up possibilities. Right?[00:38:00] That's where you can get creative and whatnot. So when I moved to Boston, when I started grad school, I had all these ideas for businesses I wanted to star. And I randomly went to this hackathon. It was that an education school and, uh, long story short ended up teaming up with this group to co-found a company called Room to Learn.

And we were in the space of classroom design. So, not related to sustainability. Um, but yeah, we, uh, we built this business around helping K-12 schools and colleges redesign their classrooms and helping teachers better understand how to use their space for different kinds of learning, like project-based learning and, essentially new forms of teaching and learning.

Um, the difficult part of starting a business, when you start with a social impact goal, is that there's not necessarily like a direct [00:39:00] buyer or direct budget line for this thing. And you have to do a lot of testing to figure out okay, if this is the value we want to provide to society, where does the business value come in? And who's actually gonna pay for that?

So that would be like my biggest piece of advice for my younger self slash any entrepreneur out there is if you have an idea, awesome, test it out. But the biggest thing you want to figure out early on is who is benefiting from this thing and who will actually pay you for it so that you can actually turn this into a self-sustaining business and product or service.

Right? So that was something that we struggled with being a startup that came out of a hackathon. But, you know, understanding your value prop is, is like pretty foundational. And I think the other big learning, is like, what I touched on around balance is everybody's got a different financial situation.

So you do what you gotta do to [00:40:00] make it happen. If you work evenings and weekends on this, or if it's just like a slow burn side project. For me, I'll say to be transparent with the podcast, I had quit my job in early 2021 to see what I could do with the podcast full time. And I think that was a really good investment in myself and my own time I joined an accelerator program.

I made all these podcasts friends. I got to experiment a ton and learned a lot about creating content. Um, did I turn it into a million dollar business? No. And I wasn't intending to, but I did want to see how far I could go. Um, and I realized that content specifically is the long game and with podcasting, um, You're ideally, you're building relationships with your listeners and your audience base over time.

So part of the reason I jumped into a full-time job again, [00:41:00] is I realized the long game piece. And I also wanted to take the pressure off the podcast where now it's actually way more fun and creative because I'm not thinking about like, oh, You know, how do I turn this into a business? How do I get the most out of it?

It's more like, no, let me keep providing value and keep having fun with it.

Amy: I love that you shared that. Um, because just like personally for me, I feel like I hear so many people that are like, you have to put a hundred percent into this and like, you need to quit your job.

And I'm so anxiety driven that I'm like, well, if I quit my job, how am I going to pay my mortgage right now? I feel like that would always be in the back of my head. So thank you so much for talking about that and, um, kind of not like contributing to burn out society here. Entrepreneurs can tend to do so.

Thank you. So talking about your podcast, which I love so much, [00:42:00] um, what are your plans for the future? And do you have any new ideas that you're looking into for Farm to Future?

Jane: I always have so many ideas. It's just a matter of actually like picking one and focusing.

I would love to publish the children's book. And then, um, and then with the podcast, there's a couple of different directions. So one I've been meeting amazing people like you, Amy, and I would love to host events, you know, maybe dinners where we get together to film screenings, things like that. Um, my dream is to have like an annual annual retreat.

Where we have like farm to table food and we're like hanging out on some farm or, uh, it'll be amazing. That's like a long-term stretch goal. And then the other kind of like a vision board stuff is some kind of publication. So probably, [00:43:00] um, in some book form where I haven't developed quite the thesis yet, but, um, I see.

I see like all these developments around regenerative farming and, um, and the startup space, um, where I could see potentially at some thesis around, like, how do you creatively develop solutions that are regenerative? Um, I'm not sure I'm rambling a little bit now. Um, because these are very half-baked ideas.

Um, I also see this space of like I think there's a lot of these ideas, like the acorns and these dishes that are maybe going out of style, or maybe we've forgotten as a species that are really important to document and highlight. And, um, from my perspective, I see this like really cool convergence between like the startup techie space and also these like [00:44:00] ancient, um, foods.

And farming practices that maybe we need to shed more light on. And so there's something in the crossroads there, maybe it's a business. Maybe it's a book, maybe it's a film. Um, but that's kind of like my learning journey with Farm to Future is as I'm talking to these amazing experts about what they're seeing and how they're growing food, I'm starting to pick out patterns.

Um, so I don't have a concrete answer for you yet, maybe in a year or two have like a more exciting, actual thing to announce. Um, but those are some things I'm thinking about.

Amy: That's awesome. I love that. Um, and talking about like marrying the old with the new, um, because I don't think like technology, isn't something that's going to phase out anytime soon.

And if anything, it's just going to get stronger. So I love that because I feel like we need to find a way, especially with our generation to kind of [00:45:00] bring us back to our roots, because I think we've become so far removed from that. So yeah, I would love to see you develop something in the tech space and, you know, put all your knowledge into that.

That would be amazing.

Jane: I'll keep you posted.

Amy: Um, thank you. So I think that really wraps everything up here and I am just so. I'm grateful to you for coming on the podcast and sharing your wonderful knowledge with the listeners. So thank you so much.

Jane: Thank you so much for having me. This was honestly a delight.

I feel like I've been talking your ear off, so I hope this is interesting for your listeners. Um, yeah. And if folks are interested to tune in, it's Farm to Future on Spotify, apple podcasts, all the podcasts apps, and, um, I'm on Instagram as well. So you can find me.

Amy: Awesome. Thank you so much.

Jane: Thanks Amy.

Amy: Talk to you soon.

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When you think of free-range chicken farms, you might think of happy hens waddling around in green grass and pastures. However, the term "free- range", as you will learn, is a vague, and when boiled down may be nothing more than a marketing tactic.

Listen to this podcast if you want to learn what "free-range" truly means. 

For more information, read my blog post Free-Range Chicken Farms: What's the Deal?

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"Sustainability" is such a buzz word, but what does it really mean?

In this episode, I share:

• What it means to eat sustainably.
• Concerns about soil health.
• Hunger and obesity statistics.
• 3 main problems in our global food system.
• Health benefits of eating sustainably.
• Food processing and environmental impact.
• Barriers and solutions to eating sustainably.

Looking for more information on eating sustainably? Subscribe to The Backyard RD blog.

**Are you a dietitian or agricultural expert? Let's chat! Join me on The Backyard RD Podcast.

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In this episode I discuss my New Year's Resolution, and why I decided to make the switch from a smartphone to a Light Phone. If you want to become more mindful in 2022, this episode is for you!

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Ep #3: My RD Story

This week in a solo episode I discuss how I became a Registered Dietitian (RD) and all the events leading up to how I obtained my current job. 

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This week Josh & I sit down to introduce ourselves and answer questions. Later we discuss organic vs. conventional farming.

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Ep 1. Backyard RD - Homesteading, Chickens, and Egg Nutrition with guest Josh Adams.

Click here for link to script!