Realfoodology - 9: Why Organic Farming is Going to Save Our Planet with Rodale Institute

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

This week I speak with Diana Martin of Rodale Institute about regenerative organic agriculture and why it’s so important. The Rodale Institute is a non-profit organization that has been around since 1947.   They have the oldest organic and conventional farming side by side comparison trial in North America.  In addition to their studies, Rodale Institute helps farmers transition to organic and educates consumers on the impact they are having with their food dollars. We also discuss the solution to climate change, rising healthcare costs and the rise of lifestyle driven disease. Show Links: https://rodaleinstitute.org Rodale White Paper

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. This movement is for everyone. It's not elitist. We have to stop thinking that organic is for wealthy people. We need to make organic for everyone. Hi, guys. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. Today's episode is a really important one. I recently, actually the very first,

the second episode I ever put out was all about organic food and kind of why we should care about it, the ins and outs of it. And after that episode went out, there is an institute called the Rodale Institute. And I actually referenced them in that podcast episode, they reached out to me and were hoping to kind of elaborate on that conversation, on that discussion on organic farming. And I was so excited. I was so flattered because I've been following their studies, their research and everything for a really long time now. And they have the longest standing study on organic farming. They have been doing this for 40 years now. And what's so cool about is that they study organic farming side by side with conventional farming. And what they have

found is really incredible. And it, it's just such a testament to how important organic is and how important organic farming is. And I don't want to give too much away because it's such an amazing episode. And she just has so much information. And I love it. We shine light on how it's affecting our health, how it's affecting our climate and climate change, and also the farmers that it's affecting. It's really affecting our farmers a lot and the effect that it's having on our healthcare system. So we really dive in deep and it's such

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I don't know what's going on in your body. So just know that this information on this podcast is not a sub for individual medical or mental health advice, and it doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor first. Today's question is from, I don't know. I didn't actually get a name for my producer, but that's fine. We don't need to know that. She said, or he said, he said, oh my God,

he or she said, I'm like, I feel like we should just leave this in here. It's kind of funny. They said, I don't want to assign any genders. Hey, Courtney with Halloween, just around the corner, my kids are going to be inundated with candy and sugar. I know I have to let them be kids and enjoy their day, but what are some healthier alternatives to all this candy that I know is poison? So I like that this person said, I know I have to let them be kids because I think this is a very important component of this. And we don't want to deprive our children of fun Halloween. Halloween was my absolute favorite holiday ever growing up. I still really love it, but it was so much more fun as a kid. So we don't want to deprive them of that experience. And I

think every kid should still experience that. But I think when we start becoming more aware of sugar and of candy and all the horrible ingredients and like the conventional candy, the very least what we can do is buy healthier, organic, cleaner candy to keep in the house. You're not really going to be able to control what they're exposed to at school. If they're back in school now, I don't know, pandemic vibes, um, or, you know, at friends' houses or while trick or treating, but there is a list of, so I made a list of a couple of my favorite organic and healthier candies that you can find at any like major natural food store, or you could buy them online too. But I know for sure Whole Foods has them. Um, I F I feel like a

lot of the other grocery stores probably carry these now because they're pretty popular brands. There's a brand called unreal snacks and they do peanut butter cups. They do M and M's that are healthier and cleaner. And I think also, I just saw that they're making these like coconut chocolate bars now that are similar like mounds. And there's Justin's peanut butter cups. They do white chocolate peanut butter cups and those are amazing. They're so good. Smart sweets has a whole line of almost sugar-free gummies. Now they have peach rings, watermelon gummies. They just came out with worms and they have something similar to sour patch kids, as well as sour bears and regular bears. Can you tell?

I love them. There's yum earth who makes an organic candy corn. If you, I feel like candy corn is such a specific thing and you either like love it or you hate it. I love candy corn. I recently had a conventional candy corn, like the ones that I grew up on. And I actually thought it was really disgusting and it tasted like plastic, but these yum earth ones taste amazing. And they taste, I don't know, like how I would imagine like a cleaner candy corn would taste and it's cleaner ingredients, no hydrogenated oils or trans fats. And then there's a brand called Ocho that's doing copycat candy bars. So they have like

Snickers and stuff like that. So look for those online or at any major grocery store. And with that, let's get to the episode. Did you know that most cookware and appliances are made with forever chemicals? Yes, that means your nonstick pans, your air fryers, your waffle makers, your blender could possibly have PFAS, and yes, even our beloved crockpots and pressure cookers. I have actually been talking about this for so long. Back in 2006, my mom came to my dorm room and made me get rid of all my nonstick pans because she was concerned about me being exposed to something called Teflon. Teflon is a coating that is used on nonstick pans and a lot of these appliances that I just named. So I've avoided Teflon. Teflon is a coating that is used on nonstick pans and a lot of these appliances that I just named. So I've avoided Teflon, nonstick, PFA coated appliances, pots and pans,

you name it, for a very long time. And the only option for a very long time was just stainless steel pots and pans. So I was really excited when a company like Our Place came out because they started creating really beautiful cookware and appliances that are like pieces of art. Every appliance that I have from Our Place, I legit want to store it on the counter. And I'm the type of person that does not want anything on my counter because I like it to look really just clean and minimal. But I'm so obsessed with all the Our Place products that I have so many of them displayed on my counter because they are legit pieces of art. ArtPlace is a mission-driven and female-founded brand

that makes beautiful kitchen products that are healthy and sustainable. All their products are made without PFAS, which are the forever chemicals, and also made without PTFE, which is Teflon. If a company is not outwardly stating that they don't use these chemicals, then if they are using nonstick coating on their appliances,

they are absolutely using forever chemicals. And there's been increasing global scrutiny for their impact on the environment and our health and recognizing this impact. The EU plans to prohibit PFAS by 2025. Our place has always been PFAS free and they offer durable toxin-free ceramic coatings, ensuring a healthy, safe cooking experience. And let me tell you, you guys, they are changing the game with non-toxic appliances. They have a blender, they have an air fryer, they have a crock pot, not to mention their amazing always pan. They have a perfect pot, which is just the perfect size for soups. And they also just came out with a cast iron that I'm loving as well and I more recently

replaced all of the bowls and plates in my kitchen because I really needed an upgrade my other ones were so old so I got some from our place and they are so beautiful the ceramics are beautiful the colors are amazing like I said everything is like a piece of art if you want to try any of the products from our place go to fromourplace.com and enter my code realfoodology at checkout to receive 10% off sitewide. That's fromourplace.com, code realfoodology. Our place offers a 100-day trial with free shipping and returns. This is really exciting. Organifi now has kid stuff.

They just released two kid products. One is called Easy Greens, and it's a refreshing green apple juice where kids will never know that it's packed with veggies. And the other one is called Protect. It's a delicious wild berry punch like the Kool-Aid that we used to have as a kid, but without any sugar. This is really exciting. And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you know that I'm a huge fan of Organifi and most specifically because every single product that they make is glyphosate residue free. So you know that you're going to be able to give these powders to your kids and know that they will be able to consume them safely without any glyphosate in it. So let's break down each one. The Easy Greens is a nourishing and delicious blend of superfoods and veggies that provides essential nutrients, probiotics, and digestive

enzymes to bring balance to kids' growing bodies without fillers, additives, or junk. It helps to fill in nutritional gaps, aids in growth and development, supports digestive health, has a rich micronutrient profile, and includes digestive enzymes. This would be a great way to sneak in greens for your little one without them actually knowing that it's healthy for them.

And the second one, which is the wild berry punch similar to Kool-Aid, is called Protect, and it is to support your child's daily immune health with food-derived nutrients that work to strengthen their body's first line of defense. I know just through girlfriends of mine that have children that when your kids are going to school, going to daycare, they're coming home sick a lot more often just because they're getting exposed to different kids and different viruses when they're out in the world playing with kids. So this would be a great way to help to support your little one's immune health.

It's organic and it's also made with real whole food ingredients. It has a delicious berry taste and it's low sugar and it's gentle enough for kids to take every single day. And I really love the ingredients in this one. It's orange and acerol cherry, which is a powerful source of vitamin C and antioxidants, astragalus, elderberry, and propolis. These are all really great for overall immune health. If you want to try the products that I talked about today or any of the Organifi products, go to Organifi.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology for 20% off. Again, that's Organifi. It's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com slash realfoodology. Well, we can just, you know, kind of continue on with our conversation that we're already having. Um, so I've already told you this off, um, Mike, but I'm really, really happy that

you guys reached out. I was so flattered, um, for a little bit of context for people listening, Rodale Institute actually reached out to me because they had heard my podcast with Max Goldberg about organic food and farming and everything. And I had briefly mentioned Rodale Institute because I've been following you guys' work for a really, really long time. And I just love so much what you're doing. So first of all, for people that are listening, can you explain Rodale Institute and kind of what you guys do and all that good stuff? Absolutely. Well, I'll introduce myself to anyone who's listening in. I'm Diana Martin. I'm the Director of Communications and Marketing at Rodale Institute.

And for anyone who's not familiar with Rodale, we are a nonprofit organization that's been a leader in the regenerative organic movement for actually about 70 years. So yeah, we're a nonprofit. We've been around since 1947. And really, we focus on research on organic agriculture. And that research can look like, you know, helping farmers deal with pests or disease or weeds without using chemicals. It can look like thinking about things like climate change. How can we keep growing food in this extreme and changing climate? And how can we start to mitigate climate change? We think a lot about human health, which is an area I know you think a lot about. And, you know, why is organic the healthiest option for people on the planet? And we take all that research and basically funnel it into helping farmers transition to organic and helping consumers understand the impact that they're having with their food dollars.

That's so incredible. I mean, that's what we need more companies to be doing that really. And that's why I'm so grateful that you guys are putting in the work to do this, because that's really the biggest disparity that I see in the education around this whole conversation is that, you know, we're being told that we do this industrialized conventional farming because we're trying to feed the world and it has a higher, better input and it's more effective. But then when I found all the work that you guys were doing, I was like, wait, no, it's actually the complete opposite. And we can do organic farming on a big scale, on a larger scale. And we have the science and the studies to prove it. Yeah. I think you bring up a lot of good points there that we've really been sold a bill of goods with industrial agriculture that it hasn't really been able to deliver on. We hear that all the time. Like we basically we need these chemical, industrial, conventional farming methods to feed the world.

Right. That's like the really strong PR that we've had coming out of the agrochemical companies. And it's just not true when we look at what are farmers actually producing in this country. And, you know, 70% of what we grow in the United States is grains. 50% of what we grow is corn and soybeans. So just think about that. 50% of what we grow in this country is just corn and soybeans. And a lot of that is being fed to livestock. Yeah, a lot of that is it's all GMO, monocropped, using a lot of these fossil fuel intensive fertilizers, being sprayed with glyphosate and other herbicides, pesticides. And what's happening with that corn and

soybeans? It's either turning into ethanol, which is fuel. It's being turned into feed for livestock or it's being turned into high fructose corn syrup and ultimately processed food. So we're kind of being told that, you know, we need to farm this way to feed the world, even though a lot of what we're producing is not even food for people. And we also have been, you know, sort of sold this bill of goods that, oh, yeah, when we have when we introduce GMOs, we'll be able to use less chemicals. Well, that's not true. Since we've introduced GMOs, we're using more chemical pesticides and herbicides than we ever have before. And we, you know, we're told we need this for the yields, farmers' yields. But our research has shown that actually what we need is resilient agriculture. We need healthy soil that can support the plants, even if there's drought and flooding

and all the new normal that farmers are facing. So, yeah, I think you touched on a great a few great points there of like what we're starting to unpack that a lot of people's understanding the reason they justify why we farm in this way is based on a lot of myths that have been perpetuated by agrochemical companies. Absolutely. I mean, it's a bunch of amazing PR work, really, and it's worked. And that's why I'm so excited to have this conversation with you today, because I want people to really understand the science behind this and that it's actually just PR spin. And what we have been told about industrialized agriculture is very false. And we have the data and science

to back it up and prove it. So one of those being specifically regenerative agriculture, which is something that you brought up. Can you explain to people that are listening what it is? Yeah, I think for a lot of your listeners, they might be familiar already with organic farming. That's a little bit more familiar to everyone. And organic has been around really for as long as our organization, for 70 years. Our founder, J.I. Rodale, back in the 1940s, he actually started talking about organic agriculture. And, you know, this was at the time, just to give people a little bit of context you know we're coming out of world war ii we were using a lot of chemicals in the war and basically these chemical companies were thinking about what can we do next we've been

manufacturing all these chemicals for the war you know we don't want to stop our business we don't want to stop our profits how could we use want to stop our profits. How could we use these chemicals in agriculture and sort of set their sights on agriculture and realize that a lot of the nitrogen they were using to make ammunitions could actually be spread on farm fields as fertilizer. And this is what started what's known as the green revolution. And it did really like massively increased yields. It helped to feed a lot of people. But there was people like J.I. Rodale who were sort of looking at this from an outsider's perspective and saying, what are the long-term implications of using all of these chemicals in our food system? And at the time he was like, really, we call him a pioneer now, but a lot of times that translates to that at the time he was just seen as a crazy person who was really, you know, he was talking with a lot of universities, with other scientists and saying, I want to study this.

I want to understand, you know, how can we take these toxic chemicals and make healthy food for my family? There's just something about that that doesn't make sense. And basically everyone turned him down. They wouldn't take his money. They said, this is the future of farming. This is modern agriculture. And that's when he said, OK, then I'm going to study this myself. And that's how he started the Rodale Institute.

And a lot of the organic movement started with just people experimenting in their own backyards. J.I. Rodale, he started a publication called Organic Gardening Magazine, which a lot of people probably know today. He started a publication called Prevention Magazine, who was really more of a writer than a great farmer. But he got all these people to start thinking about, yeah, how do I keep chemicals out of my diet? And ultimately, it just grew over the decades with farmers here and there who felt like, yeah, I want to farm with nature. And I want to rely on biology and healthy soil and not just chemistry. And, you know, over time that different states started putting some parameters around what it meant to be organic.

But it was it was disconnected around the country. Different states had different laws about what it meant to say if your your crops were organic. So ultimately in 1990, Congress passed something called the Organic Food Production Act that made the national organic program we have today. So now when you see that little green USDA certified organic label in the grocery stores, there is just, it has so much meaning behind that label. It means that, you know, that those those crops were grown without toxic chemicals, without fertilizers, without GMOs. And, you know, it's there every year. Those farmers have to go through an independent audit and inspection and fill out paperwork. There's a three year transition period. They have to pay money to be part of this. It's just like really well regulated. And that's the organic symbol that people know today. But there's been a little bit of really like a lot of momentum recently around the term regenerative. And people are asking us like, what's the difference between

organic and regenerative? And we've actually been talking about regenerative, ironically, at Rodale Institute since the 70s and 80s. So our founder, J.I. Rodale, his son Bob started talking about regenerative agriculture. Back when the, really when the term sustainable became really popular and part of the lexicon, he felt like sustainable isn't good enough. We just, we can't just keep doing what we're doing now. It's not enough to not just degrade our land and resources. We actually have to improve them. And he felt like the term regenerative, it meant we can, we can farm the land and we can actually in that process improve it and make it better for future generations and for him like regenerative agriculture was so much more than just how we treated the land he felt true regenerative agriculture can improve even communities improve our health improve the

economy um it was kind of like the original triple bottom line people planet profit yeah and um you know even though we've been talking about that for a while that movement's just coming up um really into the focus more recently and uh one thing i would say is you know regenerative there isn't this strict framework around it right now so um it's not a label that has any kind of like certification behind it or anyone. There could be greenwashing behind the word, the term regenerative, because it's not governed as closely as like organic is. Which means that some companies may claim that they're doing regenerative, but they're not actually fully following the correct procedures or practices. Yeah, that's one of the concerns around regenerative. But the basic idea of regenerative

is that we can improve our resources. And a lot of people who are excited about regenerative, really, they're looking for solutions to combat the climate crisis. So a lot of people talking about regenerative, they're talking about ways we can build soil health because a healthy soil can help sequester carbon, which basically means we can take this greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere and store it back in our soils as a solution to start reversing and mitigating climate change.

So a lot of times when people talk about regenerative agriculture, they might not be talking strictly about, you know, not using chemicals and not using inputs like we talked about in organic. They're talking more about how can we do good farming practices like a crop rotation or cover crop, reduce our tillage, get animals back outside on pasture grazing, all these things that start to build soil health that help us sequester carbon and combat climate change. So that's sort of the idea behind the regenerative movement. There's a spectrum.

There's farmers who are farming, you know, conventional chemical agriculture. Then there's farmers who are moving towards these regenerative practices. Maybe they're just starting to cover crop or crop rotation. They can move towards organic. And, you know, maybe that in once they get organic, they eliminate all of the chemical inputs. And then actually the newest initiative we're working on, which is sort of the new gold standard, is regenerative organic. And that is a label that is on the marketplace that is totally vetted, certified, has a lot of criteria and framework behind it. So I would encourage people to look for the regenerative organic. Okay. Who's vetting that? Like who's actually governing that labeling?

So we are part of that initiative. There's a new, it's called a regenerative organic alliance. And it's a group of farmers, nonprofits, brands who have come together and said, the whole, the regenerative organic certification, it's based on certified organic. So it meets all the criteria of organic, but then it has additional criteria. And the additional criteria under three focus areas, soil health, animal welfare, and farmworker fairness. And the farmworker fairness piece is a really important part of the regenerative organic certification because it's a piece that's been totally left out of the organic movement. So you can buy something organic and it could be made with child labor in another country or by farmers who aren't paid a living wage. And we kind of go back to what we talked about, what the true goal of regenerative is not just to improve the land, but every living thing that's part of that system from the soil to the, yeah, to the animal, to even the farmer. So some of the people involved in that, Patagonia has been

a big supporter of our regenerative organic certification, Dr. Bronner's, which is an amazing company. And there's other companies who have ROC products on the shelves now, like Nature's Path. So there's brands coming to the table who have found that as regenerative becomes this new buzzword, they don't want it to become greenwashed and they want to make sure it's based in something that has really, really strong vetting and criteria. things. I'm like, where do I, where do I go first? But I think, you know, so I recently watched this documentary kiss the ground, which I'm assuming that you're well, well versed in, um, aware of, but what was really mind blowing to me because I'm pretty new to this, um, regenerative system was that they showed side by side what it looked like when we're conventionally farming the land versus regenerative farming the land. And the differences between them were absolutely terrifying. I mean, you look at the conventional farming method and the soil that's left behind.

I mean, it's dead. There is literally nothing living left on that land except for this single crop that they are growing there versus when you're looking at a regenerative farm. I mean, there's the livestock, there's butterflies, there's bees, there's worms in the soil, and all of these components play a very vital role in that ecosystem. And another really important thing that you already kind of touched on, but I just thought it was so incredible that, and I can't wrap my brain around why we're not rushing to start farming this way, because the way that it actually not only like halts our impact, but it's actually reversing what we have done to our climate. You know, it's actually pulling the carbon out of the atmosphere, bringing it back into the soil.

And to me, I'm like, it's like it's a no brainer. Why are we not doing this? You know, and that's why what you guys are doing too is so incredibly important because you guys not only are trying to spread the word about this, but you guys have the science and the data to back up that this actually works and we can do it on a larger scale. Yeah, I think a lot of people think about soil as just dirt. You know, you go outside, you see this dirt. People don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. It's not the sexiest topic under the sun. But you know, the soil is alive. There's actually I love this stat. I think it just helps illustrate. There's more living things in a teaspoon of healthy soil than there are people on the planet. There's billions of living

things, just one teaspoon of healthy soil. There's bacteria and fungi. There's this whole microbiome. And, you know, we're really, I think one of the saddest things about this conventional chemical agriculture is we're killing that life in the soil. You know, it's not the intention, but that's the byproduct. When we, you know, grow GMO corn or soybeans and we engineer them to just be sprayed with weed killers and pest killers, the problem is those chemicals, they don't just kill the weeds. They kill all that life in the soil. And that life, you know, when we talk about organic and regenerative, we're really talking about farming with nature because that life in the soil plays a vital role in the system.

You know, yeah, plants in the soil, they have what we say in science, a symbiotic relationship, which basically means they support each other. So, you know, that microbiome in the soil helps protect the plants from disease. It helps, you know, deliver nutrients. It helps store water. So if there's a drought, it's doing all these important things for the plant. And in exchange, the plant helps feed the microbiome in the soil. It takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turns it into little sugars that feed. And then it literally exudes, it literally oozes and feeds those sugars to the microbiome. And that's how we can capture this carbon that's in the atmosphere and store it back in our soils.

So we really just, yeah, it's like, it's a really incredible, beautiful system that's meant to be in balance. And ultimately we're, we're killing off all those things that, that do those functions naturally. And we're trying to do them in a man-made system and replicate something that nature's already doing really beautifully. You know, we, instead of letting the microbiome help fight the disease, we then use chemical inputs and then, you know, the fertility is not there. So then we have to put these nitrogen fertilizers down. And, you know, the reason basically we're sort of in this hamster wheel in industrial agriculture where we're making the problems worse with the inputs that we're using.

And then we need them even more because we took away the, you know, things in the system that already were doing the role. So, yeah, I think that's sort of to help people visualize what's happening in this life in the soil. Ultimately, that's what we're talking about when we talk about regenerative and we talk about organic, what we're really talking about is healthy soil that can support healthy plants without all the use of all these inputs that ultimately is healthier for us as humans. And for our planet. And for our planet. So, you know, this, the healthier, the farming regenerative and organic, we can grow more nutrient dense food without degrading our soils, without poisoning our air and water. And that's better for us as people. And it's that's win, win, win. You know, right now, a lot of farmers are just are victims of this system and they're paying a lot of money for chemicals that they don't necessarily need.

And that's ultimately degrading their soils, which is creating more long term problems. You know, healthy soil, for example, it does so many amazing things. Like it's hard. it's hard to imagine how excited I am talking about soil, but once you start, yeah, it's like once you start learning about it, it does so many amazing things. Like for example, in our research, we found that healthy soils retain water. So there's, there's this big role that healthy soil plays when we have a really, really heavy rainfall event. If you have healthy soil, that water just absorbs. And we can see that in our side-by-side fields. We do research where we have organic fields right next to

conventional fields. If we have a really heavy rainfall in the organic fields, you look out and you just see a beautiful field. In the conventional, you see all this flooding that's taking soil with it, that's running off into our, you know, streams, taking pesticides, fertilizers, soil erosion. Putting that in our water system. Putting it in our water system. And then what happens is a month later when we're in a drought, the organic systems look great because the water was able to infiltrate and the soils were able to hold on to it. In the conventional system where we don't have that healthy soil, the water hits the top, runs right off. And then when we're facing a drought, the plants aren't resilient and you see a major difference in yields. And you actually see that in the organic systems, when we have this inclement weather, the organic system can

have up to 40% greater yields than conventional. Wow. I mean, and now when you look at our planet and all the extreme weather that we're facing, I mean, this is more important than ever. When we're really talking about needing to feed the world, essentially, if that's the rhetoric that we're going to have, then of course, then this is going to have more long standing yields. And, you know, recently I just brought this up at the kiss the ground documentary that I watched. I was so, um, I could not believe. So there was this farmer who talks about how for four years straight, he just had this extreme weather happen. It was droughts, flooding, and all this stuff. And for four years, his crop was completely taken out. He lost 100% of his

crops. So think about all the money lost. And then he switched over to regenerative farming, and he has not lost crops for a single year since then. That is incredible. Basically, what we need is more resilient agriculture. Yes. So, you know, I think people sometimes say, you hear this like myth that organic can't feed the world. And we look at that and say, if we can't feed the world, then no one can. Because this is resilient agriculture. This is the, you know, the extreme weather is the new normal. And conventional agriculture works great in perfect farming conditions. agriculture. This is the, you know, the extreme weather is the new normal and conventional agriculture works great and in perfect farming conditions, but we're not seeing those perfect

farming conditions anymore. We're seeing lots of flooding in the Midwest. We're seeing drought in different parts of the country where farmers are dealing with new pests as their climate is changing. We're seeing wildfires on the West Coast. And ironically, I just want to point this out. If we were to start switching over to regenerative farming and bringing more carbon out of the atmosphere, we'd probably be able to reverse a lot of that extreme climate. It's, you know, it all works hand in hand. Yeah, it's all connected. And I think that's what makes me really passionate about agriculture. There's a lot of, you know, people think about agriculture often as a problem. Right now, agriculture contributes about 25%

of our greenhouse gas emissions. But if it's part of the problem, that means it can be part of the solution. And I see food and farming as something we all participate in. Everybody eats. It affects all of us. It's connected to everything around us. It's connected to our health, our economy, our environment, and we can have a positive impact on all of those things just by shifting how we produce our food. Speaking of farming, this is a conversation that doesn't get brought up enough, but one of the reasons I'm such an advocate for supplementation is because all of the spraying that we're doing on our soil and on our land is depleting the soil and then hence the crops

of vital nutrients. And we talk about this a little bit in this episode. And it's, again, why I say it's one of the many reasons why I believe personally in supplementing. There are so many different reasons why people would need vitamins and minerals for their health. There could be stress reasons. So even good stress like exercise can put a strain on the mineral and nutrient reserves. Dietary choices. So improper supplementation and consuming alcohol, pharmaceuticals, et cetera, can strain and disrupt nutrient balance. Or if we're not getting enough of the nutrients from our food, if our diet is a little bit out of balance, synthetic fertilizers, like I just mentioned, they deplete soil of key minerals. So any plants or

animals raised on that soil are missing most vitamins and minerals. This can make the foods you eat incomplete, robbing you of nutritional support. And then toxins. Toxins deplete your body of vital vitamins and minerals required for detoxification and tissue repair. Toxic metals and chemicals can be found in food, water, air, and in everyday products like cosmetics and household cleaners. So I think this is interesting from your profession. You're so involved in health. And basically the message we want to get across is it's not just what you eat, but also how it's produced. Yes. So, you know, of course, eating an apple is better than eating

a bag of chips, but eating an organic or regenerative apple is even better for your health and the planet. And that's kind of even the next step for people to realize just making that shift actually can have a huge impact on the world around you, a positive impact. Absolutely. So let's talk about that a little bit because for someone listening, who's really new to this may not understand why that conventional apple is not going to be as healthy for you as an organic apple. And I know a lot of this comes back to all of the toxic byproducts from everything that we're spraying using the conventional farming system. And then you think about, we touched on this briefly, but everything we spray on those crops ends up in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink.

So let's talk about that a little bit. Yeah, it's really interesting. We actually, we put out a white paper earlier this year. We called it the power of the plate. And it's all about regenerative organic agriculture and its connection to human health. And if anyone listening wants to check that out, you can find that resource for free on our website. We'll leave it in the show notes too. Oh, perfect. Yeah. So check that out if you really want to nerd out on this topic.

But one of the sort of points that we make in the paper is that industrial agriculture has really gone down a parallel path to our declining health as a nation and around the globe. And, you know, there are several reasons for that. But, you know, one of them is basically the industrial agriculture has been all about efficiency and helping us to produce corn and soybeans as cheaply as possible. And what that has turned into is a massive, and like I was mentioning earlier, a lot of that corn and soybeans, it's turned into processed foods. So one of the reasons that processed foods are so cheap and so readily available and such a major part of the standard

American diet is because of an industrial agriculture. So we've kind of seen, you know, the rise of industrial agriculture parallel the rise in preventable lifestyle-related diseases, both in the U.S. and now globally. Yeah. We're definitely seeing it the most in the U.S., but other countries are following close behind. But yeah, cancers, autoimmune diseases. There's also like antibiotic resistance because we know that a lot of these pesticides are killing off all the good bacteria and literally act like antibiotics.

We're seeing, yeah, obesity, diabetes, a lot of these are tied to our diets. And, you know, some of that has to do with ag policy. We really, we incentivize farmers to grow, you know, corn and soybeans. We subsidize farmers to grow those crops. We give them crop insurance for those crops. We're really not incentivizing our farmers to And a lot of the, you know, the livestock in our country, overwhelmingly, 97% are factory farmed in a way that's just really destructive for the environment, terrible welfare for the animals, and ultimately not creating a healthy product for us to eat. If you've ever been to, you know, we call them CAFOs, Controlled Animal Feeding Operation, which is just basically a fancy way of saying we pile a bunch of, like a hog, we pile a bunch of hogs indoors, we crowd them, they have poor welfare, they're so crowded, we have to give them all routine antibiotics so that they don't get sick because they're so stressed. To the point where over 70% of our antibiotics used globally are used on livestock. I mean, that is a terrifying number.

Yeah. And you mentioned that contributes to antibiotic resistance because humans eat that meat and then your body just becomes exposed to those antibiotics so that they don't work effectively on you when you are sick and you need them. Yeah. And there's actually, we're just seeing, there's a lot of synergies between our rise of industrial agriculture and poor human health. And even the cause, the cause is similar. Basically in farming, like we're using all these chemicals for weeds, for example, and now our weeds are developing resistance. A lot of weeds are resistant now to Roundup and glyphosate and they're these super weeds. So then we have to use even harsher chemicals just like the same way we're now, you know, we're eating all these antibiotics from animals and then we're becoming resistant to the antibiotics. So we're really pushing people to think about this idea of

regenerative health care, that food and farming and our health care and medicine are related. And we need to take a holistic approach to both of them. And we need to take a preventative approach. So, you know, instead of just thinking short term in agriculture and using chemicals to solve our problems, instead of thinking short term in our health care and using pharmaceuticals to solve our problems, how can we think of a preventative model that's actually based in real health, not in disease treatment, not in treating the sick. Band-Aids. Yeah, not in Band-Aids. How can we think about a system that incentivizes healthy food, makes it available to our communities? And yeah, I think there's, I would love to get, hear more on your thoughts on that, too, because there's a lot we have to do to move in that direction.

And ultimately, we're actually paying the least amount for food in our country that we have since like the 1960s and the most in health care. And I think that's one of the ways that we've really outsourced the true cost of food. And people tell us all the time, like, you know, organic food is expensive. How can I afford it? And I don't think they understand all the other ways that they're paying for that cheap conventional processed food. Some of it's in your health and ultimately your health care. Some of it's in the environmental impacts. But you're not seeing the true cost of that cheap conventional food at the grocery store checkout. Well, you know, it's so funny. I was literally just talking about this yesterday on my Instagram because I think people forget that because it's, we're not paying for it immediately.

So like at the grocery store checkout, we're not really making the connection, but I would be willing to bet that if someone was to, you know, get rid of all the fast food and their diet and sodas and really started to prioritize organic food, if they can afford it, I do understand that there is an accessibility and affordability issue here, which is a whole nother thing that we could go down. Um, but I would be willing to bet that they're going to spend, not even, I would literally bet my life savings on this. They're going to spend less money going to the doctor. They're going to spend less money on medications because half the time we're, you know, just throwing a medication over a symptom. And then we're having to throw on a second medication to

counteract the, the side effects of the first medication. And the next thing we know someone's on five different medications. Think about the money that you're spending on that every month. And if we're, if we're focusing more on what's going on in the body and preventing these things from happening in the first place, instead of just treating the symptoms, if we can actually say like, Oh wait, okay. You're having all these symptoms. Let's, let's take a few steps back here. Let's look at what you're eating. How are you, how are you exercising? What's your lifestyle like? And let's get to the root cause so that these are no longer issues instead of just throwing a pill over it and then sort of masking it, but kind of just like, ultimately we're now

going to have other symptoms going on. And I think we're so many of us don't make that connection because we're not taught to make that connection. You know, we've gone down such a different route with our health care. And I've been getting so frustrated lately with all these debates with this election coming up because both sides are talking very heavily about how expensive our health care is and how we're so concerned about climate change. Well, one side is talking about climate change. And I'm literally sitting there screaming at the TV going, we have a solution. And it's the same thing for everything across the board. We can tackle all of these issues by doing, by going down this one route and we could heal our planet. We could heal our bodies.

We could go back to like preventative measures and we would save so much money as a country. It, uh, yeah, we, I mean, we know that these chemicals we're using in agriculture are dangerous. We know that they're causing people to be sick. You know, we look in our farming communities and our farming communities who are exposed to these chemicals through agriculture are getting cancers at much higher rates than the rest of Americans to the point where Hodgkin's lymphoma is known as the farmer's cancer. I've never heard that. That's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. I talk to farmers all across America, and that's one of the reasons that

farmers want to switch to organic. They're like, I want my farm to be safe for my kids. I had to watch my father die of cancer from being exposed to all these chemicals and pesticides and herbicides, you know, that, um, and they're like, I want another future for my kids. I want them to be able to be work, you know, take over this farm someday. So, you know, we know that organic food has, um, you know, less pesticide residues. And, you know, I think a lot of the number one reason people buy organic is for their health. Um, but I would say all the people out there who buying organic, you're also real, you're also doing it for the farmers and the farm workers and their health, um, which disproportionately in this country is also a lot of communities of color and their children who are exposed to pesticides

and farming communities. So I think that's a huge component. Yeah, that's a huge component that a lot of people don't even know or think of maybe when they're buying organic. But, you know, you're supporting that those farm workers and their families don't have to be exposed to these chemicals. You know what really shocked me? And I would encourage everyone listening to also do this. If you just Google conventional farming and I'm trying to think of what you could Google specifically. But essentially, if you just Google like spraying conventional farming and you look at the photos of these farm workers on these conventional farms, they are literally wearing hazmat suits and a little backpack with the pesticides. They're spraying our food while wearing hazmat suits. And then we send that food off to be eaten.

Think about that. That's wild to me. So we know like that we know the chemicals and, you know, one of the emerging emerging areas in health, one of the things we're just learning more about is what about the nutrients in the actual food itself? Yes. And that's a really emerging area of research where we're starting to compare organic and conventional foods and saying, what's the difference in vitamins and proteins and, you know, all these things that are important to our health. And we are starting to find that there's difference, especially in the phytonutrients between organic and conventional food. Because some of those nutrients, they come from complex soil. The soil has a microbiome, just like our gut has a microbiome. So if, you know,

those phytonutrients aren't in the soil, they're not going to be in the plant, they're not going to be, you know, in us and supporting us. So I think that's a really like, the next frontier in our research is making more of those connections between our food and human health. And I think there's going to be a lot of exciting discoveries that keep emerging. Yeah, I'm so, I'm so glad that you touched on that because that's an argument that I hear quite often. And I see headlines and articles online that make me so upset because there's so many people trying to debunk organic and they'll say, actually studies show that organic food's not any more nutritious than

conventional. And that's just simply not true. Like just for the reason that you just said. We know that by nurturing that soil and keeping that healthy microbiome intact, it's actually providing nutrients for those plants. And then those are nutrients that we're eating and those are the ones that we need and that we want in our vegetables. Yeah, we're doing some really cool research trials at Runeal Institute. I'll talk a little bit more about our research for anyone who's interested in it. Yes, please. So we have a really famous research project. It's called the Farming Systems Trial, where we've been comparing organic versus conventional farming side by side for the last 40 years. So it's actually the longest running trial comparing organic and conventional in North

America. There's one that's slightly older. It's in Switzerland. And we have a lot of great data from that trial. And I would say at times when we see these research studies that make headlines that say organic can't feed the world, we go look at the study and the studies are often only done over like a two or three year period. Or they're paid for by big ag. Yeah. And if you take a piece of land that's been conventionally farmed for decades and you've killed all that life in the soil, and then you just take part of it and you start farming it organically for two or three years. You won't see great yields because you've killed all that life in the soil.

You have to feed it and treat it and build the life back in the soil. That's what we found in our farming systems trial. And it took when we took a piece of conventional land and it took us five years. This was, mind you, we know a lot more because this was back in 1981 and we were just starting this research. It took us five years to rebuild that life in the soil. But after that time, we saw no statistical difference in yields between the organic and conventional systems. And like I mentioned, when we do see a difference, we see a difference in years where

we have drought and flooding and the organic system can have up to 40% higher yields. So, you know, often that research is that people point to it's very short term and our soil is, soil is biological. It takes time for those changes to rebuild that life. And, you know, another interesting thing that you'll see about research is, you know, people will sometimes pick like an organic or conventional apple off a grocery store shelf. Well, there's a lot of variables. Like where do they come from? How long have they been sitting there? So, you know, we've been doing this farming systems trial where we've been comparing organic and conventional grains for 40 years. We recently, just a couple years ago, we started this brand new trial called our vegetable systems trial where we compare organic versus conventional produce.

And in that work, we're focusing a lot on nutrient density. But we have a number, like Rodale Institute, it's an experimental farm. So if you come to our farm, it's really exciting. We have orchards and we have livestock and we have hemp and we have honeybees and grains and produce. We're doing research on all of them. So it's sort of like our farm is like a organic research, like Willy Wonka factory. Oh my God. I want to come visit. Yeah. Come visit us. We're headquartered in Pennsylvania, but we actually started, we have locations now in California, in, in Iowa and Georgia. So we're doing regionalized research in other parts of the country. But our research is, is long-term comparing organic and conventional. And what we found is

not only is that, you know, does the organic systems build soil health, which means, you know, they have that better water holding capacity. They have more resilient in these times of inclement weather. But we found there's other important things to think about. They use less energy. They release fewer carbon emissions into the atmosphere. And here's probably like the big important thing. They're more profitable for farmers. So, you know, I think that's an important part of this. We feel like organic can also help rebuild our rural communities.

A lot of farmers are victims of the, you know, I never want to demonize a farmer because the farmers who are these conventional industrial chemical-based farmers, a lot of them are victims of that system and are sort of trapped in that system. Let's talk about that because I want for people listening that don't understand, let's explain how that's kind of set up and how they become victims in this. People ask us all the time, like, why isn't everyone just transitioning to organic, right? It's more profitable. There's a huge demand for organic food in the United States. The organic industry last year was a $55 billion industry in the U.S.

About 5% of the food we eat in the U.S. is organic. It's much higher in stuff like produce. Over 16% of the produce we eat now is organic. That's sort of like the gateway to organic. So there's definitely consumer demand, and that's actually what's driving the movement. We're lacking more on the supply side. A lot of people don't know only 1% of our farmland in the U.S. is organic. Just 1% still. That's so sad. And, you know, people ask us all the time, organic can be six to nine times more profitable for a farmer. So it's like, why aren't all these farmers transitioning to organic?

And there's definitely barriers for a farmer. So it's like, why aren't all these farmers transitioning to organic? And there's definitely barriers for the farmers. I would say one of the barriers is our farmers are aging. We have an aging farming population in the U.S. to the point that we have six times as many farmers over the age of 65 as under 35. The average age of a farmer in the U.S. is over 60. Because they're probably watching their parents and going, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be stuck in this system. Exactly. Because the way that the conventional system is set up, from what I understand, is they're oftentimes put in debt and then they get sued if they try to come out of using those conventional seeds because those seeds are patented. It's kind of a dirty. Our farmers are in a, are in a tough, a really tough spot across the entire country. So our farmers think about this, maybe we'll just bring it to life for

someone who, you know, there's so many people now who are removed from farming, who live in an urban area. They think, you know, food comes from the grocery store. And there's a disconnect between our eaters now and our farmers. So for a lot of our farmers, there's, you know, farmers around all around this country who often it's a family affair. They've been farming for generations. They might be the third or fourth or fifth generation of, you know, farmer on their piece of land. And think about like, it's not farming isn't just your business, it's your whole way of life. Most people live on their farm, they have their family there. It's, it's so much more than it's not just like a job you go to and come home. So you have this farm that's your home that you care so deeply for. And there's a lot of risk that we put on farmers. So in conventional chemical

agriculture right now, the margins are so thin to the point that conventional farmers wouldn't be making any money if it weren't for government subsidies. Over 50 cents of every dollar a farmer makes comes directly from the government. They would be losing money on every single acre of land that they have if the government wasn't making up the difference. So, you know, farmers are working year round for really, really small margins. They're paying a lot of expense for the inputs, for the chemicals, for the GMO seed, for the fertilizers. And, you know, how it works for the average farmer is they have to go to the

bank in the beginning of the year, take out a big loan so they can buy all those inputs, put their crop in the ground, grow it the whole season, and then hopefully in the fall, harvest something, make some money that they can pay that loan back. And there's a lot of, it's scary. There's a lot of risk, like you have flood or you have a wildfire or you have a drought. And then suddenly, are you going to be the generation who loses the farm for your whole family? Or maybe you have a season where you don't really produce any crops and you don't make any of that money back to pay your loan. Exactly. And, you know, it's scary for them to make a change to think like, yeah, we're going to switch to a whole nother system.

We're going to go organic. We're not going to use these inputs that we've relied on for so long. So, you know, there's definitely that like fear of that risk and change. And it's a real fear. It's not, you know, it's the fear of like, am I going to lose my farm that's been in my family for so long? So, you know, what we found is if we want to transition more farms to organic, one, you know, farmers need mentors, people like us who like, we've tried this, we've researched it, we've been looking at this for years,

we know it's going to work for you so that they don't have to be trying something that doesn't work. So that's why we really need the research to take that risk away from the farmer to walk them through it. We need these institutions that farmers rely on, like banks, to not see organic as risky. Like, yes, I'll still give you your loan, even if you want to be an organic farmer. We need the federal

programs, like crop insurance, crop subsidies, to be available to organic farmers. So it's not suddenly like you're going to lose this whole safety net if you want to be organic. But I think we also need, so there's definitely, there's a role for the consumer to go out and demand organic. There's a role for policy makers to support organic and regenerative farmers, but we also need brands at the table. So everybody who's listening, contact your favorite brands and see what their supply chain is like. Are you supporting regenerative and organic farmers and helping them get there? Because ultimately what farmers need are like a long-term contract to know if I'm going to take three years to transition to my farm for organic, for those three years, they can't get paid the organic price premium. That's a really tough time for a lot of

farmers to get through. Can you pay the farmers a transitional price while they're in that three years in between? And will you guarantee that you'll buy their organic product in five years from now and 10 years from now? So I think ultimately we can't put all the risk on the farmers. The whole system needs to work together, the consumer, the brand, the policymaker, the farmer to really see this shift. Yeah. Wow. I was just going to ask you what people could do to help. So that was really incredible. So we touched on what brands can do, but let's dive a little bit more into someone listening. That's just like, Oh my God, I want to help. Like what kind of, what's the role that I play in this? What are other things that people can do?

So from a personal standpoint, I mean, one thing you can do is, is buy organic. And even better if you can buy local organic. If you can go to your farmer's market or sign up for a CSA. There's so many more options now. Farmers got really creative during the pandemic and we're doing home delivery boxes and all kinds of stuff. There's a lot of coffee shops in my neighborhood that do CSA box pickups every week. So that's something to look into. That's awesome. Yeah. Support your local organic farmer. Number one. I mean, there's so many great, you can, I always encourage people to grow their own organic food. If you have a windowsill or you have a backyard or a balcony, grow something. I think it helps people understand more of the connection to their food and soil and growing. Um, especially if you can get your kids involved in that. I feel like that's just such a great effort. Um, you know, other people ask us all the time how to

make organic more affordable. If growing your own isn't an option, uh, look for the, like some places now are doing the ugly produce imperfect produce um at discounted prices yeah it's like buy the ugly produce part of the reason we have chemical agriculture is because consumers have demanded perfect perfect perfect food and if we can embrace the imperfect food it would be a lot better for farmers who wouldn't just be giving all this food waste. If something's a weird shape, they compost it or they throw it out. And you can get it for cheaper rates and you can often get it organic. And fun fact, it's often more nutritious, the weird produce, because it's been a little bit more stressed. So it had to put a little more effort into that piece and often has more nutrients.

I didn't even know that. That's cool. Yeah, check that out. I would encourage people. Another great thing you can do at home is compost. If you're not doing that now, you can reduce your own food waste. 30% of what we put in landfills is just food waste. So if you want to compost that, you can use it in your garden to help grow

your own food. If you're at home, don't use chemicals in your lawn, in your home gardening. Actually, American homeowners are using more chemicals than farmers. So don't use all the chemicals on your lawns. They're also running off into our water, you know, and a lot of these are persistent chemicals. They're forever chemicals. They're not breaking down. So they're ending up in our food, our air, our drinking water. Um, so skip the chemicals in your home gardens, um, plant something for pollinators, plant some more native plants. There's all these kinds of great personal things you can do. Um, But I think we also, we need to put some pressure on a systemic level. So like buy organic compost, plant for pollinators,

don't use chemicals at home, but talk to your policymakers. We actually have some great resources on our website. We just put a new out, a new white paper all about regenerative agriculture and climate change. And you can find that at Rodale Institute dot org slash climate 2020. We can put that in the show notes as well. But we yeah, we have a resource in there, just a prewritten letter you can send to your local policymaker asking them to support soil health, asking them to support regenerative and organic farmers. We're going to need to really change this from a policy level. And I think also holding brands accountable for their supply chain and their sourcing practices, we found that that works. And brands are responding. And they're saying consumers want these products, so we better

shoot, where are we getting our farm products? And how are, is it grown? And suddenly we need to know, we need to be accountable and we need to step up our game. So I would say that those are all things that people can do. And I also would encourage people to get more involved with our organization if they're interested in this with Rodale Institute. We are active on all the channels. If you have your phone out in front of you right now on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, whatever

platform you're on, we're at Rodale Institute. You can sign up for our email list on our website. And we do lots of like free webinars and courses, events. You can even come visit our farm it's open to the public if you're in our area and yeah I would just encourage people to get more involved with us if this is something you know a journey that they're on yeah wow it's so incredible it's very inspiring too I mean I covered everything that I wanted to go over today. That was incredible. I'm so excited for people to hear this because it really, I'm hoping that it will start to inspire people to make these little changes, you know, and it doesn't, for anyone listening that's maybe a little bit overwhelmed right now, this is not going to happen overnight, you know, and you're not going to be able to

change everything overnight. It's all about taking those little steps and slowly incorporating these things in your, in your lifestyle. And then you'll be able to look back in two years or something and be like, oh, wow, now I'm completely eating organic or I really was able to make these changes. But this is an issue that affects all of us. And we need a lot of people to fix it. We need a lot of people in different roles tackling every different corner of this to really see some changes happening. I think the most exciting part of our movement, the regenerative organic movement, is it is really hopeful. You know, we hear about so many problems and it can feel so overwhelming. You know, people have eco-anxiety now

and they're just worried about climate change and they're worried about, you know, with the pandemic, they're especially worried about health of themselves and their loved ones. And we have this just like growing divide in our country between urban and rural and it just feels like insurmountable. And I think when we look at regenerative organic, it's like, I feel so positive because we have solutions to all of

those things and we can heal people and the planet by something as simple as how we grow our food and what we eat. And we can turn that around. We can, you know, sequester carbon. We can improve our resources and have clean air and clean water and healthy soil. And that can, you know, be rooted in strong farming communities where farmers are profitable and they're not, you know, committing suicide at high numbers and things that we're seeing now where it's just we're decimating our rural communities. And of course, that's coming out in this divide instead of in a unison. And we can heal ourselves and our bodies and the people around us and we can have a more positive future. And all of that really starts with something as simple

as what we put on our plate. So I feel really inspired by that. And I think this movement is for everyone. It's not, it's not elitist. We have to stop thinking that like organic is for wealthy people, we need to make organic for everyone. And, you know, that's something that everyone on this who's listening, I would urge you. There's a lot of ways that we can make organic affordable and make it the norm. I would love to see us, for example, school lunches be organic. You know, how many kids are on free or reduced lunch and lunch programs? Why aren't we getting those vulnerable communities the healthy food they need? Let's get them organic. Why can't, you know, other

institutions, even our prisons, you know, all the way across the board be eating organic food? That's a way to support organic farmers. You know, that's, I think, that's I think there's just everyone who's using SNAP and federal food assistance dollars. Why why can't we make that go double towards organic and healthy food? So I think we have to think creatively about this is a human right. We should all be able to eat food that's good for us, that's not leaden in chemicals. And that's really the change I want to see. And I just want everyone hearing this to know, like, this movement is for you, no matter who you are and where you are and what you're eating now. And you can be part of this. I love that so much. I mean, you're right. This is a human rights movement. This is part of,

this is the change that we need to see in this country, you know, and it's going to trickle into every area of our lives and every area of the country. And it's really, we've touched on this so many times now during this episode, but like, I think that's such an important component of all this is that when we change this one thing, it's going to change everything. Like all of these huge issues that we're facing right now, and we have the solution. So you're right. I feel incredibly hopeful more than ever after this conversation. And after watching that documentary, I'm just like, yes, we have a solution for all of these huge issues that we're facing right now. Now it's just a matter of putting it to action. Well, I really appreciate you having me on and I would encourage anyone who wants to learn more about organic or regenerative or some of the science behind this or even wants to try something at home. We have a lot of great resources on our website, you know, sheets on how to start composting or anything really basic.

So definitely make that your first step. Visit us at RodaleInstitute.org. And we're really here to be a partner and a resource for anyone who's starting this journey. Oh, man, I'm so excited for people to hear this. And I will put all of that in the show notes so people can find your website and all the links very easily. Thank you so much for coming on. This was incredible.

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks again for listening to this week's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. The show is produced and mixed by Drake Peterson and Christopher McCone of Peterson McCone Productions. Hit them up if you guys have any podcast needs. They are amazing. My theme music is by the singer Georgie. Please subscribe, rate, and comment on either Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any major podcast platform.

If you want to find me on IG, my handle is realfoodology. See you guys next week. Thank you. I know that.