The Dr. Hyman Show - How Innovators Are Disrupting Our Broken Food System

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens and Paleovalley.   Our current food system is not working. Food waste is at an all-time high, food deserts exist in many neighborhoods, and our produce is falling short in flavor and nutrients. The good news is that innovators in various fields are implementing ideas that promote better access to fresh, nutritious, and tastier food for everyone.   In today’s episode, I talk with Kavita Shukla, Tobias Peggs, and Dan Barber about a creative way to reduce food waste, growing the number of farmers in urban areas, and ideas to improve the flavor and nutrition profile of produce.   Kavita Shukla is the founder and CEO of The FRESHGLOW Co. and the inventor of FreshPaper, a simple innovation taking on the massive global challenge of food waste by keeping food fresher longer. FreshPaper is used by farmers and families across the globe, and The FRESHGLOW Co. has partnered with some of the largest retailers in the world, from Whole Foods to Walmart, so that people everywhere can take advantage of this incredible product and the goodness of real food.   Tobias Peggs is the cofounder and CEO of Square Roots, the Brooklyn-based urban farming company known for changing the way people think about growing local food and training the country’s future generations of farmers. Previously, he led Aviary, a mobile photo-editing company, as its CEO until its acquisition by Adobe and was also CEO at OneRiot, a social media analytics company, since acquired by Walmart. Tobias grew up in England and has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Cardiff University.    Dan Barber is breaking the conventional ways we eat, cook, and think about food. He is the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns and the author of The Third Plate. He also cofounded Row 7 Seed Company, a seed company bringing together chefs and plant breeders in the development of new varieties of vegetables and grains. Dan has received multiple James Beard awards including Best Chef: New York City (2006) and the country's Outstanding Chef (2009). In this episode, it’s clear how mutually passionate Dan and I are about changing the current food system and doing so in a way that promotes health and supports the environment.   This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens and Paleovalley. AG1 contains 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole-food sourced superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to support your entire body. Right now when you purchase AG1 from Athletic Greens, you will receive 10 FREE travel packs with your first purchase by visiting athleticgreens.com/hyman. Paleovalley is offering my listeners 15% off their entire first order. Just go to paleovalley.com/hyman to check out all their clean Paleo products and take advantage of this deal. Full-length episodes of these interviews can be found here: Kavita Shukla Tobias Peggs Dan Barber

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recommend stocking up on the grass-fed beef sticks to keep in your house, in your car, and in your office. It's one of my favorite tricks to staying healthy while on the go. All right, now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hi, this is Lauren Feehan, one of the producers of The Doctor's Pharmacy podcast. There are numerous challenges to overcome when it comes to our troubled food system. Fortunately, there are also many bright minds acting as disruptors of the status quo and reminding us that even the most basic of ideas can lead to enormous change. In today's episode, we feature three conversations from the Doctors Pharmacy about innovative ideas to save money and change the future of our food supply. Dr. Hyman speaks with Kavita Shukla about how to keep produce fresh longer

and avoid food waste, with Tobias Peggs on supporting the younger generation to begin farming and growing indoors, and with Dan Barber on selecting seeds for breeding to enhance flavor and nutrition. Let's dive in. I went to the grocery store with my mom and she asked me to buy strawberries. And I noticed that all of the boxes of berries seem to have like fuzz growing. Yeah. What is that? Yeah. And so that was the first time I'd like seen mold as a kid. And I thought, OK, well, maybe I can dip strawberries in my mixture. So I went home and I started dipping strawberries and then some other fruits and veggies in this like mixture I'd been creating and I went back in the garage a couple days later and I was just astounded they stayed fresh for you know several days and I remember I was so excited. And you had a control

group of strawberries? Yeah so I had strawberries that I had left like in one corner of the garage and then in the other corner I had dipped a whole bunch of strawberries and like some apples and pears and I still remember I just couldn't believe it. I was so excited. And I went out and I got many different fruits and vegetables and I kept doing it. And then to make like a long story short, I spent most of high school as this like weird girl rotting fruits and vegetables in my garage. So you basically started your business in your garage, just like Apple, right? Yeah, kind of, but much more simple, very low tech. And then that eventually led me to this idea of creating a packaging that could be put

in any container that was infused with these organic spices that are naturally antifungal and anti-bacterial. How did you figure that out? Because, you know, to get from the spices in the jar with the strawberry to infused paper with protective properties against spoilage. How did you get that idea? Yeah. So I feel really fortunate that I was just a kid, I think, when I was working on this, because I had very limited resources. And I was thinking about it in a very simplistic way, which now I think is what is fresh paper's greatest advantage, is that it's such a simple,

low-tech way to keep your food fresh for longer. And so I remember when I was creating this mixture with the spices, I realized that it was messy. I think my mom would complain that I was always making a mess. And so I thought, well, no one can use that. And I was really thinking about my grandmother. I was thinking about people who lived in places like India without access to refrigeration. And so I wanted to figure out a way to make this a way for them to keep their food fresh. And then, you know, I went to the craft store and like the only materials I could access as a kid were like paper or paper based products. So I started with paper and it was really effective. And then I realized that, well, you know, paper is something that is quite easy to source. It's pretty low cost and it's

something that could be used by anyone in any part of the world without any fancy infrastructure. So there's any preservatives or anything. Yeah. Yeah, so that was kind of how it all got started. But I'm so grateful that I was a little girl at the time. And it's this little thing here. Yeah, that's it. It's a tiny little sheet that's infused with the tan. And it smells so good. Yeah, so that's from the active spices that are infused into it.

Yeah, it smells like maple syrup. A lot of people say it's like maple syrup. Which is fenugreek, right? And then in about a month, that scent fades. And then you just compost or recycle. So it's active for a month and then it's something that you just compost. Yeah, so it's fascinating because you take this paper and you just stick it

with the food in the fridge, in a container, in a bag, in a box and it doesn't even have to be touching all of them. Exactly. So how does that work? Yeah, well you know spices are aromatics and I think people are always surprised. So the aroma goes in the air. Exactly. It's does that work? Yeah. Well, you know, spices are aromatics and I think people are always surprised. So the aroma goes in the air. Exactly. It's off gassing basically. Yeah. And so if you think about it, you know, spices have been used for a very long time to keep food

fresh, especially in climates like in India. That's where my grandmother learned about all these properties of spices. So the innovation with fresh paper is infusing these spices that have antifungal properties into a method where it can actually be used from farm to fork. So you're right. In your home, you would just put a sheet in your refrigerator drawer and your fruit bowl. And one little sheet is actually enough for about a one foot radius. So one sheet's enough for an entire fruit bowl or an entire fridge drawer. And it'll keep all your produce fresh.

You can swap it out. But what I love is people will cut them down sometimes into like a fourth of a sheet and put it into a berry container yeah because it's made only with edible ingredients you can feel comfortable having it in your food so you can put it in a lettuce container you can put it in like a huge tub of salad closed within the packaging in other words does it have to have a cover on the strawberries or can just be open in the fridge with this airflow is great so you actually always want airflow when you're storing your produce. So you can stick it in your vegetable drawer without having everything. Exactly. Because you know, all those nasty rotten vegetables. It's discouraging. And as you were saying, it's horrible for the environment. I think, you know, cutting down on food waste is

one of the most impactful things we can do for our planet. The average American family actually loses over $1,500 worth of food that's just wasted. So when you first think about just the fact that people are saying it's difficult for them to be able to afford a fresh, healthy diet, food waste is one of the key pillars of that. Because if you can reduce waste, you're suddenly able to stretch your dollars. And if you're living paycheck to paycheck,

you may feel like it's a good economic decision to buy something in a box or to go buy fast food just for calories per dollar. But if you think about being able to extend the shelf life of fresh produce, it suddenly becomes more affordable. But then when you think about the planet, when you think about the amount of land, water, energy, and labor that goes into creating a single apple and getting that to your grocery store.

So it's not just harvesting that apple, but then putting it on a truck, putting it through a cold chain storage system, and then getting it to your grocery store shelf. The amount of energy we use, too. Yeah. It's incredible. And they say that food waste is one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions. But what I have found really exciting and encouraging when you look at this discouraging problem is that even really simple and small interventions, like cutting your own personal food waste, just like we started to do recycling and composting can have a big impact just because there are so many inputs into creating produce that eventually is just thrown away to the landfill.

Because, you know, I was shocked to learn that we actually grow enough food to feed every single person on the planet, but over 800 million people go hungry every single day. And we lose, in some parts of the world, over 50, 60% of our world's food simply because of inefficiencies and how we're storing it, producing it, and getting it from farm to fork. So even though it can be really discouraging, I remember when I first learned the magnitude of the problem, I thought, oh, that's really depressing. I mean, how can somebody like me, how can a team like ours even think about addressing this challenge?

But what I found really inspiring was that this is one of those global challenges that every single person can actually do something about. And even doing something simple has a big impact. Because you do have to think about all the land, water, energy, and human labor that went into every single fresh food item in your fridge. And when you start to think about it that way, I think it's inspiring to see that people make small changes in their behavior. And research has even shown that just being aware of food waste, that's why advocacy is such a big part of our work. Just being aware of the fact that food waste is a challenge can make people start to reduce their own food waste in their homes. So that's encouraging. Yeah, it's great. So the product in a way is both a solution and an inspiration to talk about the issue that no one's talking about.

Yeah, that's what it's turned into. And that was because of this grassroots movement that really started at that farmer's market. And that's what keeps us going every day is seeing how people are being inspired. And then they're writing to us and telling us how it's happening. And it was fascinating to me as you didn't start out saying, I'm going to solve the problem of food waste. You're like, I'm going to take my grandmother's recipe and see if I can help a few people. And you really didn't even understand the context of what you were doing at the time. And now it's like, oh, wow, you know, I created a solution for a problem that I didn't really know existed in a scale that it exists.

And now you actually are inspiring people to think about food waste in a different way. Yeah, that farmer's market changed my life. And I tell all entrepreneurs and inventors now that the simple act of putting your idea into the hands of somebody who could benefit from it can change everything. And so it was that early feedback that made me realize, okay, maybe I'm not thinking big enough.

Maybe this could go beyond just my little idea for a farmer's market to something that could affect the food system. So that was certainly very inspiring. And your story is important because it inspires people to think what they can do. Because it feels very disempowering when you think of these big global problems like climate change, like, you know, food waste, like hunger, obesity, you know, agricultural problems.

And here you are, just one person having this global impact in over 100 countries just from an idea that you had that you didn't know couldn't be done. Yeah. And it was inspiring for me, too. There were so many moments, though, where I was ready to give up. I mean, there were so many moments where I just felt like there's no way that I could take another step forward.

But there were always people that stepped up. There was the first person who ever took a chance on me. His name was Tony Russo. And he's the head of Russo's, which is a third generation family farm stand in Watertown, Massachusetts. So he was one of my first retail customers. And he taught me how to build a business from the ground up. He had this experience. Before Whole Foods? Yeah. So right before Whole Foods, that was the first like retailer. And they were like a firm stand. So it felt comfortable to me. Right. i would go stand in russo's every weekend and tell people about the product and tony would just mentor us so it was people like that you know my high school science teacher was probably the first person who

told me you should think about taking this a little bit further when you're living on rice and beans and ramen and like how did you get yeah well that's that's one of the funny things is that when i did eventually realize this was going to go somewhere and I left my job and I was working out of my studio apartment, I was one living a very unhealthy lifestyle and eating tons of processed food. So it even took me a while. It was quite a journey for me to understand what these people who were coming and telling me about how this product was changing their lives. They educated me on the power of a plant based diet. They taught me about how they were transforming their lives with a simple tool and how it was enabling them to eat more fruits and veggies. And then I started to learn about the food system. And it made me much healthier. But I think it gave me a real appreciation for

what individuals can do when we come together and just, you know, believe in the sense that the food system can be different. You know, I get so discouraged sometimes. We were talking about this earlier when I look at what's happening in the food system, but then you see these innovators, you see these people who are supporting the innovators, and you see that, okay, the tide is turning. You're one of those people. We can start to make a change

as long as we can communicate with others. And it can be simple ideas. A friend of mine started a company called Watermelon Water. I love that, yeah, Jodi. Jodi, 800 million pounds of watermelon that was ugly, misshapen or bleached by the sun and was white. So then it wasn't a perfect watermelon. And then they turned those 800 million pounds of watermelon into a product called watermelon water, which is like an electrolyte replacement drink.

It's way better than Gatorade. Yeah. And it's helping people consume fresh fruits and veggies without even realizing. Yeah. So I think that's fantastic. And so those kinds of things are really inspiring. And people can solve these problems and they can make choices in their daily life that make a difference. I think that's the thing that people don't connect with is they see the problem.

It's overwhelming. They feel disempowered. They give up. And your story, what you created, both as an entrepreneur and the product you created, give people a way to actually change what they're doing in their life. And it's super exciting. Thank you. Well, you know, it just taught me that you just have to take one small step forward, whatever you're trying to do. It's just that one step. The other part of your product that's so fascinating to me is that, you know, we think of these high-tech solutions. you know, we need digital solutions, we need AI,

we need all this stuff to solve our world's problems. And you're basically doing with a piece of paper and a bunch of grandma's spices, you know? And what's fascinating is that nature is often smarter than we are. And most of our drugs come and are inspired by herbs with various pathways that have effects. And one of the foundational principles that I work from in functional medicine is that food is medicine. And so essentially you've created a pharmacologic paper, pharmacologic with an F, right? And it is more effective than anything anybody's come up with

to reduce spoilage and rotting in food. Yeah. And, you know, one of the fundamental principles I teach is that you should only eat food that rots, right? That's a really good point, actually. Yeah. But you don't want it to rot too fast. Exactly.

Yeah. And so this is a great way to figure that out. So, you know, as someone with this crazy idea, what were the biggest challenges that you faced other than what you sort of shared already about everybody telling you it can't be done? Yeah. You know, what were those things that were those moments where you're like, this isn't going to work, but what happened to help you get through that? Yeah. Well, you know, I think I initially even dismissed Fresh Paper after I started to get some

feedback because it's so simple. It is just this tiny little sheet. And I think when people look at it, you know, they're used to thinking about reducing food waste and reducing food spoilage as something with a very sophisticated like cold chain infrastructure solution. And I was thinking about a technology that could be used in the developing world. And so one thing that I've since learned is that, you know, Fresh Paper is powerful because it is so simple and it can be used by anyone in any part of the world. So the very reason that I felt I was sort of underestimated, even I started to think, well, no one will ever take this seriously because it's this little sheet of paper. Who's going to want to put it into their strawberry container?

Or how will I convince a retailer to put it on their shelves or convince a farmer to put it into their packaging? Like it's so different from what they're to. And what they were used to were these big, if you're looking at maybe a clamshell of strawberries, it was these plastic containers that have been molded in a certain way. And then there's chemicals applied at every step of the process. And I think I thought, well, the solution is just plants. It's so different. And now I realize that really is what changed everything,

is that it is something that can be implemented at every step in the food supply chain from farm to fork. It can easily be used by consumers. And the very same technology that you would use in your home, in your fruit bowl or in your fridge drawer, is used by a farmer in India or by a food bank that's working in a disaster relief area. So I think the biggest lesson for me in all of this was understanding the power of simplicity. And that simplicity is really, the simple ideas are the ones that have the power to change things because they can be spread quickly and they can be adapted by people from all different backgrounds. So I've come a long way too in my understanding. And that, I think what helped me through that was going to the farmer's market and talking to people that were using it.

Yeah. And seeing the stories. So tell us across the food chain, I mean, we understand that we can take this and put it in our fridge and put it in our strawberries and that's easy concept to understand. But, you know, when you're talking about farmers and you're talking about the food processors and the distributors and the retailers, you know, it's harder for me to understand how this gets inserted in that supply chain because all those steps are opportunities for food waste, right? Exactly.

And not just in your fridge or the consumer, but all those steps. The farmers and producers, the processors, the retailers, it's a huge problem. So how does this get inserted in that in a way that actually is meaningful? Because in this little piece of paper, you can put it in a truck with, you know, 4,000 pounds of tomatoes. How do you? Yeah, that's a great question. So that was something I had to think about too. You know, once I started to hear from growers and retailers, I had to think bigger. And the reason the sheets are this size, most people don't know this, is I was cutting them by hand with a paper cutter from Staples. And so I was cutting down like little eight and a half by 11. That was the standard

size. And then people would say, oh, this is the perfect size for my fruit bowl. Or this is the perfect size to cut down and put into like a berry container because they'll cut a fourth of a sheet. But then when I would hear from growers that were thinking about pallets, or like you said, a container full of lettuce, we had to rethink the process. And honestly, going from making sheets by hand to making millions and millions of sheets was almost an entire reinvention. I had to almost recreate the product from scratch. And it was very challenging. And I wanted to use organic ingredients. I wanted to do it in the United States for quality. And so it was really difficult. But what we figured out was that we could create it in large rolls and then customize it for the different solutions. So, you know, we create basically a custom solution for a strawberry grower that might be different

from what we would create for like a mango producer or a lettuce producer. So it's been really interesting. I've learned a lot about the agricultural system, which has been both scary and sometimes encouraging. And I think, you know, I've also seen how many points there are for disruption yeah and how much we can actually do to make it more efficient because I think a lot of things have been done the same way for a long time so let's say Walmart for example they're I don't think people realize this but I think they're the biggest grocery store chain in the world they're America's grocer more people get their groceries at Walmart than anywhere else and they have a lot of organic food and across their supply

chain, they've been able to implement policies that have changed the marketplace. Like they said, we don't want trans fats or we don't want more packaging than this amount. And you have to redo your packaging or you can't sell at Walmart. So they can influence from the farmers to the fork what happens. Have they actually taken this idea and inserted it across their supply chain? Yes, I've gone to Bentonville a few times and it's been fascinating. You know, those early conversations with them

totally changed how I was thinking about the American food system because I learned a lot of what you were just saying. And so we're working with them to figure out solutions that can be implemented by their growers. Obviously that supply chain project is a much longer path. So it's already in retail stores and people can purchase it at Walmart and use it by their growers. Obviously, that supply chain project is a much longer path. So it's already in retail stores. And people can purchase it at Walmart and use it in their homes.

But the goal, obviously, is to insert the product from the moment food is harvested until it shows up on your plate. So you can actually have a much longer extension shelf life and a greater reduction in food waste at every single step. So have you been able to actually implement that? Yeah. So we work with a number of growers and retailers. We actually make shelf liners for retailers, but with the large, large scale growers,

we're just starting to implement the product now because that's such a systemic change. So we, you know, we have self-funded from the very beginning. So we like to start small, scale up, make sure that we understand the ideal solution. And then we were starting to implement it on a large scale. It's huge. Because, you know, all along that chain, there's ways for disrupting.

Yeah. It's very exciting, actually, to see now. So maybe you need like a billion sheets a month. Yeah. I think one day, you know, that may be exactly where we're headed. Well, there's 7 billion people and everybody eats three times a day. Yeah. I mean, the numbers, when I went to

the growers that work with Walmart and the growers that work with some of the other retailers that supply American stores, it was mind blowing. I mean, I had never seen that much produce. It's crazy to understand the size of the challenge. But I also said, you know, there's ways that very simple interventions can have massive impacts. And are the farmers open to it? So that was interesting. I think what I've been encouraged by is they're all struggling with food waste and food spoilage. And the interesting thing is reducing food waste is really good for their bottom line. It's good for retailers.

It's good for farmers. Everybody is incentivized to actually reduce waste. I think there's a lot of concern that implementing technologies that are expensive or that require them to retool how they've been doing things is not worth it you know and so I think that's where fresh paper has been really successful because they don't have to build a new factory or change how they already are packaging the food it's something that's been sorted yeah and that wasn't something I realized when I was 12 but today I'm like oh because

it's a little sheet it can actually be customized for anyone. And I think that's why it's taken office. It's not requiring them to change how they've been doing things. Now there's another maybe unintended consequence of what you're doing. Maybe you thought of it, but when we harvest food in California and we ship it to, you know, Minnesota or South Carolina, it loses its nutritional value along that distribution chain from when it's picked to when it's shipped to when it's on the retail shelf to when you cook it. And I wonder, you know, maybe there's data on this or not, but it seems to me that if you're preserving the food with spices, you're actually protecting the nutritional density

and the nutrient content of the food. Is that something you thought of? Yeah. So we've just started to study that because that's a great question and people have asked us that. And we have seen in our early work that it does appear that the food is more, I think because you're keeping it preserved essentially how we describe it to people is in the state that you first inserted the sheet. So that's why we want to get it in at the farm, but you are able to preserve the nutritional kind of makeup of the product.

And I think what is most important to remember is it just tastes better. And, you know, we know that fruit tastes better. It's encouraging to keep eating it. And so I think the nutritional profile, we're still researching that. But the key is that when fresh food actually tastes like it's supposed to taste, it's much easier to keep consuming it. And that will certainly change how you consume food. It's true. And taste and nutritional density are actually parallel. Exactly.

So if you eat a wild strawberry, it's about the size of a peanut, but it tastes unbelievable compared to a regular strawberry because it's so nutrient dense. But the flavor comes from all the phytochemicals and all the special molecules that get dissipated through the food chain distribution channels. Exactly. And that's where we first realized that is everyone would say, oh, well, I feel like my food tastes fresher, tastes different. And I think when you look at food sometimes, the reason it's hard to keep encouraging people to eat fresh fruits and veggies is often some of these fruits and veggies are tasteless. And so that's why I think the taste part of it

shouldn't be dismissed. It's actually really critical to changing your diet is to have fresh food that actually tastes incredible because that's what encourages you to reach for those strawberries when you might want to make a different choice that isn't as healthy. It's true.

And I bet it also affects the stability of organic food because most of this grown industrial waste stays fresher longer. Exactly. Has less nutrients and may look better but doesn't taste better and isn't better for you. Exactly. But organic food tends to waste faster because it's not preserved and you end up with more spoilage. And so I imagine this is a way for us to actually encourage different agricultural practices by growing food in a sustainable way.

I think it's a way for us to actually get more nutrient-dense food in ways that we weren't able to before. So there's probably all these unintended consequences that you couldn't have foreseen when you were 12 years old. That's been the most inspiring part. And I'm hearing that from other people, which I think is really what encourages me to keep going. Because, you know, as we were saying, it hasn't been easy and it can be very challenging at points. But it's just realizing that, you know, it is a connected system. And when we can make a positive change, whether it's in our own lives or in the food system in one small way, it actually does trickle down to every other aspect. And I think that's what keeps me going about the food system too, is that it does seem daunting to try to change the course that we're on right now. But, you know, there's so much that we can actually do

to start to improve the quality of the food that we consume. You're raising up a new generation of farmers that is absolutely essential because in this country, the average age of farmers is 58 to 60. People are aging out of farming. There are really very few supports for young farmers to enter the marketplace. The land acquisition costs are so high. The land has become financialized because corporations have bottled it up because it's actually got more land value than agricultural value so we're really in a situation where young farmers have a real barrier to entry in the market but you've created a whole program it's called next gen farmer training program that allows you to bring in people who want to be part

of the solution and create a career out of it can you talk about yeah why you're doing that because you could just be selling herbs and vegetables and why would you know i mean you're you're doing that, because you could just be selling herbs and vegetables. Yeah, no, I mean, you're right. You know, at the beginning of the pod, you were articulating the issues with the industrial food system, right? Chronic waste, terrible for the planet, you know, all of these things, pollution, diabetes, you know, 70% of our food has got pesticides in it. This is all horrific. And then this extra topic that doesn't get as much airtime as it should is this demographic time bomb that's about to go off. If the average age of a farmer today is 58, who's going to grow the food in five or six years time when they retire? It's frightening. But to your point, very, very hard then for young people to

start a career in farming. And quite frankly, if you're 22, 23, do you want to your point, very, very hard then for young people to start a career in farming. You know, and quite frankly, if you're 22, 23, like, do you want to live in the middle of the country, you know, in a big, you know, farm? Or in Brooklyn, be a Brooklyn farmer. Right, exactly. You know, and be surrounded by technology and, you know, like, you know, have an opportunity to, you know, really change the world, right? And so, again, when we were putting the business together, we realized first and foremost that if we're going to build an urban farming company, we need farmers at the center of the system. Now, that might sound obvious, right? But there are a lot of entrepreneurs in this indoor farming space who are raising a ton of venture capital money to build robots

and automation and you know ai and all these kind of buzzwords there's literally hundreds of millions of dollars flowing to this vertical farming basically to take the labor out of the system right because that's one of the most expensive inputs right and you know there's a lot of amazing technology on that our fundamental thought though belief really was that it's the farmer that's at the center of the system right the person that's willing this plant to come to life that just makes it taste better right it's like when you when you're cooking right you bite him in the mouth right now exactly exactly and you know i have a phd in ai right i've spent my whole life in data science and, you know, I found it very,

very difficult to kind of rationalize that answer initially, but I just know that it's true, right? It's the love that the farmer puts in that makes the food taste great. So we had to figure out how do we provide a pathway for, you know, young people to come in and learn how to be farmers, right? Provide that love in the system. But we also wanted to do that in a way that was creating a positive social impact on the world. How can we empower and educate and inspire and get more young people into this local food movement?

They can spend 12 months with us, 24 months with us, and then when they graduate and they leave Square Roots, are they now inspired and do they have the tools and are they ready to set up their own local food companies right because the more of us working on this local food revolution the better right so that was kind of the genesis of okay what you know what what can we do here to bring more young people into the industry so great it's so it's so important because we we do have a crisis in farming and agriculture and we're trying to shift and there's so important because we do have a crisis in farming and agriculture,

and we're trying to shift. And there's so many movements. There's regenerative agriculture that is really defining a whole new way of thinking about growing food that restores the soil, that reduces carbon in the environment, that preserves water, that reduce chemical inputs and fertilizers. These are all really essential activities. And vertical farming is not going to solve our entire food problem, but it does fill a niche that is really important which is how do we how do we bring food into urban environments where more and more people are moving to across the globe where where there's less access in many areas for healthy food well and who's going to do that right and so that that was the reason why we put this next gen farmer training program together right which is there aren't the millions of farmers you know who understand these systems right who can make this happen and so what what the next gen farmer program is it's a it's a 12

month program young people come and they work with us for a year we basically surround them with technology and training and a team so that they go from, you know, perhaps zero experience growing plants to become a really competent farmer within about four weeks. Amazing. The technology platform helps them do that, right? It kind of guides them through their day to day. Okay, buddy, you're in, you know, this farm today. You've got to harvest the basil.

You know, here's how to do it. You're running your farm through your smartphone. Yeah, that's how to do it. You run your farm through your smartphone. Yeah, that's exactly right. They literally open an app on the phone and the system is kind of, you know, giving them instructions of what to do today, right? Yeah. At the end of that harvest day, then that food gets aggregated

and packed and distributed all across New York. And it's done through bicycles, you basically. That's right, yeah. So, you know, the carbon footprint is basically whatever the guy who's driving the bike or the woman who's driving the bike ate, right? Yeah, it's so fun. We have these little electronic tricycles with climate-controlled modules on the front of them, right? So the food literally goes from the farm straight into the climate-controlled bike and then, boom, we cycle all around town and distribute the food that way.

Like a different meaning of the word recycle. Right, right. Okay, so are you riding the bikes as part of your training to get around the city of course yeah i mean well to be fair actually we do do that every new employee that comes into square roots they spend a month in the farm right you got to learn how to do this thing and then for sure they're on the bikes they're in the stores doing demos like you know you've got to be able to kind of walk the walk right as well as talk the talk so let's talk about something that is is also a an important

piece of the food story which uh i think there's debate about how this approach impacts that um and and that's climate change uh it's really clear from emerging research that our food system is the number one source of climate change 30 percent of 30% of greenhouse gases, right? Yeah, 30%. But if you add in food waste, you add in all the transportation, you add in the whole, not just, you know, animal factory farms, but you add the whole value chain,

some estimate that it's between 40% to 60%. Yeah, it's frightening. So it's frightening. It's bigger than the energy sector's contribution. So if we just completely stopped fossil fuel use today, everybody switched to electric cars and had zero emissions, we'd still have catastrophic temperatures within two decades. So the only solution is to reimagine agriculture and farming at scale. And the idea of a carbon farm essentially is that soil is a big sink for carbon. It's basically the plants draw carbon out of the environment and store it in the soil,

the microbes feed on it, and it becomes this wonderful virtuous cycle. And the hypothesis that some have is that if we do this at scale, we can actually draw down carbon and it's the biggest carbon sink on the planet, bigger than the rainforest. Right now, soil on the planet contains three times as much carbon as the entire environment in the atmosphere. So with industrial farming, it's clearly a problem. Regenerative farming is a promising solution. How does vertical farming, hydroponics, aeroponics, how does it all fit into that?

Because there are energy inputs to the system right so you have to have a container and it's sitting in brooklyn somewhere in a warehouse but you have to have lights it's driven by electricity you have to have cooling and temperature control um and there's water use but it's i think far less than traditional agriculture but so there's how do you how do you kind of reconcile that what does the data show i know that cornell are doing some research to look at all these variables i don't know if anybody's really sort of figured it out but i i wonder is it got a positive a benefit or is it a negative benefit to the environment yeah and i think right no one no one has figured it out right and you're going to take

maybe years right to figure out the exact impact of industrial farming, right, and then to do the comparison with indoor farming. With indoor farming, there's so, because it's a technology-driven industry, right, there are so many efficiencies that happen every day, literally, right, that by the time that five-year study, you know, that's commissioned and is finished, like, it's kind of out of date, right, because the industry has moved on. It's evolving then that that's a fantastic thing about indoor farming i often you could run off solar power wind power wind power right so we're opening a farm in michigan right now that is that is that is wind power right which is absolutely incredible and you have to

think intuitively right that if you have an industrial farm where there's chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, the farmers are kind of over-planting to hedge against nature. Think of all the resources that that takes. And then you've got to distribute food maybe across the world. The refrigeration costs along the way, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Intuitively, it's got to make sense to grow, not all. I would never say this is a complete disruption. And you can't grow everything in there. Exactly. But I would say perishable produce, your herbs, your leafy greens, some fruits.

Let's start thinking about how to do this at scale indoor in the same zip code as the end consumer as soon as possible. Now, I'll tell you this, right? In the UK where I grew up, the intensive farming techniques that we're using, we're eroding the topsoil at such a rate that there is only about 50 years worth of harvests left in outdoor soil, right? If we continue the current practices. If we continue the current practices. If we continue the current practices, right? So you can sit here and pontificate, you know, for the next 10 years, right, to figure out, okay, which is, you know, is the carbon footprint of this better than this?

Now we're 10 years closer to that 50-year kind of apocalyptic cliff, right, where we can't grow food outdoors. So you have to- And it's not just there i mean before obama left he had people working on the soil issue and they estimated in the united states uh by the end of the century we're running out of soil we're done so you've got to do something right so the way that we think about soil no food no humans forget climate change exactly exactly so so you know when we think about resources, we think about space, we think about water, and we think about energy. So from a space perspective, we're growing using vertical

walls. So we kind of take that two-dimensional field and we turn it on its end and kind of rack that field inside these boxes. So now we're growing food in three dimensions instead of two dimensions. And that means you get a lot more food from the same size footprint, right? So, you know, theoretically now we could think about saving, you know, like an apartment building versus a single levels. That's exactly right. Right. And so now let's think about, okay, well, if we're sort of you know saving you know acres and acres and acres of farmland because we're growing indoors using this kind of very smart space system you know can we what else now can we do with that outdoor land to do things like

you know take carbon out of the air right so you can work in in in collaboration right with the outdoor farmer right this isn't just you, the only part of the solution. On the water side, these are hydroponic farms, so there's no soil. What that means is there's no water runoff, right, like you would have in an outdoor farm. So these are very, very efficient in terms of water use, right? Some estimates claim that hydroponic indoor farming uses about 90% less water than the equivalent outdoor farm, right? So that's a good thing.

Which is important because we're running out of water too, not just soil. Completely. And then the third thing is energy, right? So yes, we do have artificial lights inside these farms, right? It's the light that gives the plant the energy, right, that it then turns into biomass to grow, right? About photosynthesis. Exactly, right? You need that.

What we are able to do, though, is through studying photosynthesis, you begin to understand what spectrum of light the plant uses at certain points during its growth period. And then the artificial light, we're only pushing into the farm the exact spectrum that the plant needs, right? So often when you look at pictures of indoor farms, there's pink lights everywhere, right? It's kind of red and blue lights because that's the spectrum. It looks like a disco. Right. It's like the Studio 54 of farming we've been called many times. But the reason for that is one about energy efficiency, right? Which is if we're flooding this farm with white light, you then have all that spectrum either side of the red and blue that would just be wasted light, right? The plant

doesn't use it, wasted light, wasted energy. Let's not do that. Let's hyper focus the spectrum of light to give the plant just what it needs, right? And then finally, as technologists, we're obviously making all of that more and more efficient every single day. If I'm an outdoor farmer, I can't suddenly look at the sun and make it twice as efficient tomorrow to half my costs or double my yield. As an indoor farmer, I can look at those lights and make them twice as efficient over time and bring that positive impact to the whole model through technology over time. It seems like if you can

add in the renewables to it you know like solar wind that you can actually you know make a real argument that it's 100 actually much better because it's because it is is more intensive and the then the question is you know where are we at in the affordability because you know when you start a new industry i mean i remember when I bought my first calculator, which added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided, and that was it. Right. It was $100 for that. And now you can get a smartphone that's a supercomputer for close to that. So what is the price challenges around this?

Because it's more expensive than traditional more expensive than organic getting it and actually the calculator is a good analogy right electric cars would be another good analogy right 10 years ago electric cars it made sense to you know make a hundred thousand dollar sports cars right the tesla roadster right that was where the technology was suited at that point in time right by building the Roadster, right, a company like Tesla is then able to invest and learn and push that technology and start building the Model S, right? Family sedan available to more people. By selling the Model S, right, you're then able to invest and learn and get the technology better and build the three, right? Electric cars for

everyone, right? We're getting closer and closer and closer. We're on that same path here with indoor farming, right? So today, we're able to grow leafy greens, herbs, even some small fruits at a very competitive price to, say, an organic farm, right? I think what's really, so kind of price parity is there, but admittedly, price parity is still at the premium level. Right. The long-term- If you're on food stamps, it's still a lot of- So the long-term roadmap here has got to be not fancy basil for yuppies in New York.

Which is good. It's got to be- Very fancy. Right. It's got to be real food for everyone. And that is what gets us out of bed every day, you know, as technologists, as we think about the business model, as we think about how do we bring more farmers into the system so there's more expertise and more people thinking about it, right? Again, the more of us working on this real food revolution, this local food revolution, the faster we're going to get to that end point, right? But it's a journey.

You kind of are a new venture which is pretty interesting uh called roast seven and uh i was at the milking conference recently where you spoke and you were talking about this experience you had with uh a grower where you said you know i want squash that tastes better and the the breeder was like, wait, no one has ever asked me how to make food that tastes better. Well, how to select for seeds that actually are selected for flavor. I just thought, I was joking.

I was like, why don't you create a butternut squash that actually tastes good? Because I find butternut squash so, you have to add sugar, maple syrup, you have to caramelize, maple syrup, you have to caramelize, whatever you have to get out all the water. And I was like, why don't you make one? I was joking around. I didn't know anything. That was 10 years ago. I knew nothing about breeding. And he looked at me totally serious. And he said, no one's ever asked me to breed for flavor. I'd

love to. I was like, well, who are you talking to? Well, it turns out he's talking to the Walmarts of the world, you know, because they're interested in the yield and the uniformity. They want it to look the same, look perfect, be shippable across the country, stay for a long time. Oh, and taste good. So once you, yeah, it's not like the taste isn't there. It's just way down on the totem pole. And that, the problem with that is that you're selecting for other things. You're selecting against flavor and against nutrition. And that's what I learned through this process. But we started to create, we created over the course of several years, a new kind of butternut squash, which is essentially

a shrunken butternut squash called the honey nut squash now. It's now sold coast to coast. It's Blue Apron just harvested 2.4 million pounds, I heard the other day in November. 2.4 million pounds. You're going to cut it out, I hope. No, no, nothing. No, this was pre the company. This was pre the company. No, but what's interesting about it is that it wouldn't have gone anywhere without me, but other chefs going ape over this thing. I mean, it was just like, you taste it. It was just like, started social media and mentioning on the menu and chefs just went

crazy. And that's what pulled it into the marketplace. And when we first showed it to Walmart or the equivalent, he was like, I don't have a skew for this size squash. Yeah. This is not a butternut squash. I'd have to create a whole new skew. And the thought of that, I mean, it's just, that's what, that's what I was just like, I'll never forget that moment when, when Michael told me his conversation, cause I was like, if that's what we're up against, I cannot believe it. Like it would stopped in the first conversation. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. There's no SKU for this. Cause that's not a butternut squash. And you couldn't think outside

that. Now, of course, six, seven years later, they figured out to create a new SKU number and they have a SKU for it and it's selling and it is going into Walmart. It's a shelf keeping unit. It's basically the measure that they categorize all the things in your grocery store. Right. But he was exactly wrong. And there wouldn't be a market for it. That was his other point. There wouldn't be a market for something that was 30% smaller than a butternut squash.

But it's not filled with 80% water. And butternut squash is bred to take on water because that's where the weight is. So essentially, you're eating water, which as you know better than I do, it's a superfood. It's just offensive. It's like, what is our honey nut squash that is now 30% less water, 40% less water with this incredible, creamy, rich caramel flavor of squash that actually has very good yields. It doesn't have the yields of the big conventional butternut squashes, but incredibly good yields, which is why all these farmers want to grow it, because it's what the market is clamoring for. So that's why we started the company. We're like, wait a minute, why wouldn't we do this with everything? There is a market out there for people who want to eat well.

The issue, though, is that this isn't heirlooms. This isn't looking back at the past and saying, oh, we're going to repatriate a seed that our grandparents loved. Because that doesn't change the food system. The yield on those old seeds is very low. And if it rains too hard, you actually don't even get a crop. So what I used to advocate for for much of my career was about old seeds. And all chefs do because it's where the flavor is. It's also where the nutrition is. It's been passed down for generations for a reason. It's because it tastes so good. But it was so, my thinking wasn't right until I met these, I realized my thinking was so often when I met these breeders. There's modern breeders who will take the genetics from the past, everything we covet in this flavor and nutrition and modernize it, which means you bring it up to date and you make it productive.

You make it agronomically a strong plant that will produce a very good yield for the farmer, that will incentivize the farmer to grow it. And it leaves the purview of a white tablecloth restaurant, which is where I am, and gets out of this idea that the one percenters deserve delicious, nutritious food and democratizes it. And that's why I want to start the company is democratize these flavors. And the idea that there's yield and cheap food here and nutrition and deliciousness over here, and you have to make a choice is a false choice. It's absolutely false. And we're proving it with each of our seats that our yield yet, will it be exactly the yield of the conventional guys? No, no, it won't. But for a little less yield, you get a lot more of everything else.

And it's a hell of a deal. So that's why we got into the business. It really wasn't to make money. It was just to take these ideas, democratize the flavors, and get some funding to do the R&D to do more of it. So that's why we started it. You're not a monk, but you're like the Gregor Mendel of flavor. It's a whole different way of thinking about our food,

which is using technology and the science of breeding, not just to create drought-resistant or yield-producing or insect-resistant plants. It's to create hedonism. To create deliciousness and flavor. And as a side effect, you're regenerating the soil. Biodiversity. You're actually creating increased phytochemical content of the food, which is, from my point of view, food is medicine.

You're actually, the healing powers of the food and the flavanols. And you're doing it in a way that is sort of a, like you said before, sort of like a Dave and Goliath against big seed companies. Now, I want to go into the seed company thing for a minute because most people don't understand that there's a seed monopoly out there, that the centralization of seed creation and production and the selling of seeds is happening at scale globally and is undermining local farmers and food producers all over the world. And most of them around the world are women and small land holders or farm holders. What you just said is a front page New York Times story.

And I don't know why this didn't more, I mean, the seed industry is now consolidated to the point that any new variety of seed that is developed, 68%, 68% is in the hands of three companies. So nearly 70% of the future of our food is in the hands of three companies. Which is Monsanto and- Well, Monsanto has just been bought by Bayer.

Yeah, and there's DuPont and then there's ChemChina. So there's three big players now. I mean, next time we talk, there might be two. But that is a frightening reality because if you do, and I think you should, look at seeds as the blueprint for the whole system, then you're talking about these companies controlling the system. It's not just a seed that doesn't taste good or lacks nutrition or whatever.

It's a blueprint for how you're supposed to farm. And that's what scares me, is that you roll out everything from the amount of acreage that it should go on, where it should be grown. Forget rotations. It's not in that. But that whole baked all the way to the processor is what we're talking about. That's how baked in it is. That's a monopoly you don't want.

What I find most interesting is that the three companies we just mentioned are not seed companies. They're chemical companies. Yeah. They're creating seeds to sell their chemicals, right? Roundup ready seeds they cause. Yeah. And what incentive do you have in that scenario to create a strong seed that doesn't need the chemical intervention? And there's none. And that's where it's the David and Goliath story. It's like, that's crazy. And people don't understand that because there's so much mixed messaging and because people don't think of food as seed driven.

You know, we think too much of it actually as farm and soil driven, even though, God, we should be thinking more about smaller farms and diversified farms and biodiverse farms and soil and regenerative farms. They're all important. But the seed is the blueprint for how that stuff gets into play. And that's where, that's why I went to the seeds, because you can have the best farmer, like this guy Klaus Martens I was mentioning at the beginning, I went to visit, the best rotations, the most regenerative and biologically diverse soil.

If you have a seed that doesn't have the genetics to be expressed, then what are we talking about? So that was my interest. But you're right. It's a frightening future if we don't call it to attention. So how, how do, how do you see this really new venture, row seven, starting to challenge the, the status quo around the centralization of sea production? And how do we, how do we help support that? Well, thank you for the offer, but I don't think they're scared of me.

I don't think Monsanto is quaking in the boots that Row 7 or Dan Barber is coming after them. Because the more I learned about R&D on seeds, it's just so expensive. It's why seed companies don't make money. Chemical companies make money. Seed companies, it's a lost game. But we're going to figure this out. I've got an amazing group of investors who aren't looking at a return on investment. They're looking at what I'm saying. It's like,

disrupt the blueprint. And that's what we're going after. But it's like, I just actually was just on the phone today. I just got my mind thinking about this oat breeder that I'm going to visit North Dakota, who's now retiring. He's been breeding those for 50 years. And my first conversation with him was what I say to all these breeders when I go looking for a new variety or new pursuit. I say, you know, what are you throwing away? Because there's always, this has been my, this is 100% true of my conversations. It's always in the thing that's being thrown away

is the thing that we want, that I want, that you want, and that everyone else wants, but that the industry is saying, no, like the shrunken butternut squash that would never work because of the skew, it's always the passion of the breeder that gets stopped at some point because it won't fit into the paradigm of the industry. So I said, just as I've said a million times, these breeders, what are you throwing away? He said, well, what I keep in my desk drawer is my favorite oat that I bred in the 60s that was very popular in late 60s and 70s.

Oh, it's popular. It's out there. He's like, oh, everybody was growing my oat. It's called Paul Oats after the breeder. And I said, oh, well, what happened? He said, well, the American Heart Association in the 70s determined that because these oats were the highest possible in lipids. They were four times the next grain.

I couldn't remember what he said, but it was four times the lipids. And at that point, a fat was a fat was a fat. And so, and they're bad. So you have to breed again. So he said, I was told I have to breed again. So for the next 30 years, I bred against the lipids. And I was like, this is an unbelievable story.

He's like, yeah, I've been saying it for 30 years, no one's listening to me. Until recently when they discovered these lipids are actually the things, the low-eucalyptus, right, and the amthro, the bladed glucans and all this stuff. It's just amazing health and nutrition where they're just now, as you know, discovering. And so he said, yeah, so I guess maybe these boats,

so he sent them to me. Mark, I dropped on the floor. They were good? Good would like, they were like nothing I've ever tasted. Really? Yeah, I just had some more this morning. I mean, I just boil them in water and I don't even put anything on them.

They taste like a bowl of cream and maple sugar. It is unreal. Can you buy them? And it's what our, no. They're not available on the market because the American Heart Association won't put a stamp on a high lipid odor. They didn't.

Well, they put a stamp of approval on Trix cereal. On Trix, yeah. Well, there you go. So that's what we're up against. Cocoa puffs. That's what we're up against. Are heart approved. Is it really?

Yes. God. They've kind of modified some of that, but it's low in fat. So that's the thing. It's the... I mean, that actually goes to exactly what you started with. This is all connected. You can't separate these things and say like, you know, one nutrient is good for you. And that it's just so disheartening, especially when you taste it. You're like, well, in 1965, oats were the number three grain that we ate in America. Number three, we grew actually 29 million acres, 29 million acres. So I said, you know, what's

today? So I looked it up. We grow 3 million acres today. Of the 3 million acres, 95% goes to animal feed. Animal feed. 95. 95%. Yeah. So we went from a culture that really did eat oats and that farmers, mostly organic farmers, all in the Midwest because they weren't buying the chemicals even in the 60s, were

planting oats because they needed it for the rotations. They broke up disease cycles. They added the kind of, you know, a tilth that they needed for the big crops like wheat and corn. But the market fell apart. And part of the reason the market fell apart, not all, I won't blame it all on the American Heart Association, but part of it is the oats don't taste good.

And that's the big issue. Like you taste these oats, people would just, they die over this thing. I mean, it just died. I mean, it's just the difference is like cardboard. issue like the you taste these oats people would just they die over this thing like i mean it does i mean i mean it's just it's just the difference is like cardboard now i'm jealous i want to come over for breakfast come i'll have you taste this i want to this is what rose evans is working on it's like to reintroduce this but who how does this get pulled into the market because the yield on these is going to be a little bit lower there's no question about that in part because no one's been breeding them in 30 years so we're talking about 1975 or 1974 yields, the last time we worked on it. So we need someone to pull this through the market and show what I've just described.

And that's where we're turning to chefs. It's like, who better to proselytize and to show this off? Who better than... I mean, chefs are evangelists. You know, Rene Redzepi said we'd make the best terrorists in the world because we just, we will follow like pit bulls, the evangelism of flavor and we'll do anything for it. And these oats are a good example. Leading you is to really interesting places, you know, which is soil and seeds and regenerative practices and things that, you things that most people don't think of chefs being really interested in. And they might not be.

But that's why I'm no different than the chef who's not an environmentalist or couldn't care about any of these issues. Because if he or she is dogged about the flavor, they are, by definition, an environmentalist, an ecologist, and a nutritionist. They have to be, if they really are curating great flavor, like true flavor. I'm not talking about Twinkies or Trix or any of that. I'm talking about true

flavor. You cannot have a delicious oat or a delicious carrot that has a bad seed, grown in bad soil, probably wasn't grown locally, probably wasn't picked at the right moment. None of those things can happen and have a delicious jaw-dropping experience. It's impossible. And that's why it's kind of a soothsayer flavor. It's sort of what's beautiful is that when you focus on hedonism, it solves the world's problem.

It gets people healthier. It fixes the soil. That's the ticket to this movement. That's the ticket to this movement. What other movement requires you to be hedonistic and greedy? I mean, the environmental movement asks you to give up everything. Religion asks you to give up.

I mean, if there's any movement, it's always a sacrifice to get to the fulfillment. But in this case, it's hedonism, A to Z. It's very powerful. So in other words, the recipe starts at the breeding of the- I think so. I think if we were to not look at the breeding and the selection, we're missing a huge part of it. For the food system, for the larger food system.

Look, for the one percenters, we can go back to what our great grandparents were doing. And you will be fed well. There's no question about it. From a sustainability point of view, long term for our children, our children's children, it's not a way to change the food system. Okay. So we've got the old model, which is this industrial agriculture with breeding plants that have no flavor and no benefit and destroy the earth and their health.

And we have heirloom varieties, but we lost about 75% of the world's heirloom varieties already, which is like- Big problem. People don't talk about that, but we're talking about animal extinction. We were the plant extinction. Big problem. But this row seven concept really seems radically different. It seems like you're trying to sort of not just hold on to the past,

but reinvent the future of food. Living seed bank. Living seed bank. Not freezing the seeds. We're trying to take the genetics of the past and marry it with the latest technology. I'm not talking about transgenic. I'm not talking about any of the things that the Monsantos of the world do. I'm talking about holistic, appropriate technology that's been invented in the last five years, 10 years. It's why we could make the squash from a tasteless, water-clogged, bitter butternut squash into a caramel squash in the span of five years. I mean, that's using appropriate technology as in the genome is mapped of the squash. So you can predict stuff that our parents or great grandparents would have taken a lifetime to do if they were lucky. That's the beauty of this. This is not a hearkening

back to the past. This is about the pleasures of using technology of the future, but doing it in service to nutrition and food. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. One of the best ways you can support this podcast is by leaving us a rating and review below. Until next time, thanks for tuning in. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing,

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