Host Michael Olson with guest Nicholas Sullivan, Senior Researcher, Tufts University, Author of The Blue Revolution Fishermen used to rely on good luck to haul in the big catch.  But when they began relying on information, instead of luck, they almost caught all the fish in the sea.  That leads us to ask: Can we catch fish so there will be fish left to be caught? Topics include how the world’s most productive fisheries were fished out; what some nations are doing to create sustainable fisheries; and how the farming of fish is replacing the fishing of fish.

Michael Olson with Peter Savio, Savio Realty LTD, Honolulu, HI In the 1970s, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz told America’s farmers to “Get big or get out.”  Since Butz made his proclomation, farms have been getting bigger, and farmers have been getting fewer.  This leads us contrarians to ask: Can unprofitable big farms be converted into profitable small farms? Topics include how real estate developer Peter Savio converted Hawaii’s defunct plantations into income-generating condominium farms; how condominium farmers generate a huge cash income from their 1 or 2 acre-sized farms; and how the condominium farm community is organized around a plantation camp. Radio Station:  www.santacruzvoice.com Show Host Contact:  www.metrofarm.com  

Technology has given us the ability to look deep into the human body, and to see how the body reacts to various environmental stimuli.  That being the case, we simply must ask:  Does alcohol do a body good? The Food Chain Radio Show & Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Timothy B. Sullivan, Doctor of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine, for a conversation about alcohol’s effects on the body and mind. Topics include the 9,000 year history of the human use and abuse of alcohol; how many of the studies that tout the health benefits of alcohol are tainted with biases; and whether alcohol really does do a body and mind good. Broadcast Home:  www.santacruzvoice.com Host contact:  www.metrofarm.com  

Claire Kelloway, Manager, Food Systems Program, Open Markets Institute     As is true with the fish swimming in the sea, big companies grow bigger by eating smaller companies.  That being the case, we simply must ask:  Should Kroger be allowed to eat Albertsons? The Food Chain Radio Show & Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Claire Kelloway, Manager, Food Systems Program, Open Markets, for a conversation about the consolidation of the nation’s grocery stores. Topics include why Kroger and Albertsons believe they must merge to survive; why some believe that a merger of the supermarket chain giants is unfair; and whether the competition between businesses for the consumers’ dollars can be managed fairly by the government. Host Radio: www.SantaCruzVoice.com Producer / Host Contact:  www.metrofarm.com  

Michael Olson hosts Scott Moses, Partner, Solomon Partners Head of Grocery, Pharmacy and Restaurnts, for a conversation about the consolidation of the nation’s grocery stores. Should Kroger and Albertsons be allowed to merge? For the moment, you and I live in the small town of Anywhere, USA.  There are two grocers in town, Deluxe Food on North Main and Star Market on South Main.   Deluxe and Star have been competing for our grocery dollars by offering their best prices on food.  Sometimes Deluxe has the best prices and wins our dollars, other times Star wins.  All goes well, in our small town world, until one day a big box store pops up in the neighboring small town of Somewhere with really cheap prices! Deluxe and Star are now unable to compete for our grocery dollars with their prices.  To survive, Deluxe and Star must do something.  But what can they do? We see this small town dilemma being played out on a national scale with the proposed $20 billion merger of two of the nation’s largest supermarket chains, Kroger and Albertsons. With about 5,000 stores between them, Kroger and Albertsons would seem to be big enough to compete for the nation’s grocery dollars.   And they were big enough, until others with different business models appeared on the scene and grew to be much larger.  You know the names:  Walmart, Costco, Amazon.  Kroger and Albertsons, though with many stores between them, now find themselves becoming the little fish in the sea, and their business is gradually being eaten up by bigger fish. What can Kroger and Albertsons do to survive? Contact:  www.metrofarm.com Radio Host:  www.santacruzvoice.com  

Michael Olson hosts Robert Wolcott & Kaihan Krippendorff, Co-Authors, Proximity: How Coming Breakthroughs in Just-In-Time Transform Business, Society and Daily Life.   It is said that food now travels an average of 1200 miles from where it was grown to where it is eaten. If one were to look forward a hundred years into the future, from a hundred years in the past – when people lived on farms and ate food they grew those farms – one would think that 1200-mile food chain of the future to be an impossibility.  And yet, here we are, eating food that traveled 1200 miles to get to our dinner plate. This 1200-mile food is very convenient for us city people:  Just open the plastic container and eat.  No spending hours out in the fields and gardens with shovels, rakes and hoes.  Just open and eat, and move on to the more important things we conjure up to do with our time. But wait!  According to Michael Olson’s Second Law of the Food Chain, “The farther we go from the source of our food, the less control we have over what’s in our food.” It is a fact: those of us who eat 1200-mile food have very little control over what is, or is not, in that food.  We can only trust the businesses that grow, process, package, ship, store and sell that food to deliver us real nutrition.  However, we also know that the businesses that sell the least amount of essential nutritients for the highest price are the businesses that tend to stay in business.  And so we wonder: Can the technology and innovation that delivers 1200-mile food, deliver 1-mile food? Contact:  www.metrofarm.com Radio Host:  www.santacruzvoice.om    

Michael Olson hosts Nicole Virgil, Gardener and Practitioner of Christian Science, for a conversation about winning the right to garden. Topics include how municipal governments prohibit residents from establishing gardens in their yards, why Nicole Virgil refused to accept that prohibition; and how Nicole’s fight for the right to garden resulted in Illinois becoming the second state in the U.S. to guarantee residents the right to garden.   One thing we learned from the Covid years is that our food chain has some very weak links, and that is a cause for concern for all of us who eat food for a living. Consequent to that concern, many of the hungry have turned to growing their own food.  Only a very few can grow all of their own food, but many can grow some of their own food in a garden. Those who do garden enjoy the physical benefits of eating food they have grown, but also the spiritual benefits of growing the food. But wait!  What if City Hall prohibits the growing of food within its City limits?  Sounds perfectly crazy, don’t you think.  Not so, say most cities.  In fact, only six states in the United States have passed legislation guaranteeing citizens the right to garden within the limits of cities. Florida was the first state to grant such a right in 2019.  Illinois became the second state in 2021.  Those that won the right to garden in the city, lead us to ask… How can one fight City Hall and win? Contact:  www.metrofarm.com Radio Host:  www.santacruzvoice.com    

Michael Olson hosts Will Harris, Farmer, Rancher and Author of Giving a Damn: A Bold Return to Giving A Damn for a conversation about giving a damn farming and ranching. Topics include why conventional farming and ranching were industrialized into commodity agriculture; why some farmers and ranchers are returning to conventional agriculture; and what it means to be “give a damn” farmers and ranchers.    I spent many of my early summers growing up on the Grandparents’ farm near Belfry, Montana.   The farm was a 360-acre boy wonderland, as it contained most all of the traditional farm animals, an orchard filled with fruit trees, a huge kitchen-garden, pastures for grazing animals, crop lands for growing plants and the Big Red Barn.   Everywhere this boy looked, there was an adventure in living to be had, and food to eat ­– real, whole food fresh from the soil in which it was raised. Then, somewhere along the way, farmers and ranchers learned to grow crops with money instead of time.  With money borrowed against the equity in their land, they could buy equipment and chemicals that reduced the time required for them to work in the field.  Today the farm that sits where the Grandparents’ farm sat grows government-subsidized sugar beets fence post to fence post.  The big red barn is gone, and so are all the people. As a citified adult, I am always keeping an eye open for that farm of my youth.   I hunger for the farm’s adventures in living, and most especially, for its food.  Those farms and ranches are not easy to find.   Indeed, the great majority of the nation’s farmers and ranchers now grow commodity crops that are processed, wrapped in plastic, and shipped over a thousand miles to where we eat.  In commodity farming and ranching, whoever grows the most for the least wins, and least is what most of us eat in the confined animal feeding operations we call “the city.”    When I do find that farm of my youth – with real farmers growing real food in real soil –I like to call attention to it, in the hope that attention will engender more farms of my youth.  One of the best ways to call attention to something, is to ask questions. And so today I pause ask: Have you ever tasted “Giving a Damn” food?   Contact:  www.metrofarm.com Radio Host:  www.santacruzvoice.com  

Charlie Jenks, Founder, Connecting Vets with Horses (Animals as Emotional and Cognitive Therapists for humans) To heal one’s broken body, frazzled nerves or confused mind, one could take the drugs, as many do…  or one could hop into the saddle and ride the horse.  And so we ask… How can one be healed by horse?  To heal our broken bodies, frazzled nerves and confused minds, we Americans take drugs, and we take lots of them.  But what if… What if we could be healed by horse?   Now, had it not been for the fact that I was once healed by horse, I might have trouble taking the notion seriously… But I was once healed by horse….  Way back then I was an inner-city, rabble-rousing community-organizer, things got out of hand and just quit making sense.  There were a lot of confusion cures available on the streets in those days, as there are today, but none of them appealed, and so I went home to Montana and took a job as a hired-hand on a ranch. That ranch filled my days with hard physical and mental labor.  I ate hungrily of the ranch meals and slept the deep sleep of work done well.  The big reward, however, came at the end of my work day.  After the evening meal, I would saddle up a favorite quarter-horse gelding for a ride out into the lingering twilight of those great big prairie skies. Though the horse and I never talked much, something must have been communicated because things began making sense again.  After the season was over, I returned to my big city life, healed by horse. Equine therapy is now claimed to be an effective therapy for physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual affilictions, including attention-deficit, autism, conduct and dissociative disorders, dementia, post traumatic stress and many other related disorders.  And so we ask: Can one be healed by horse?   Connect:  www.metrofarm.com  

Susana Monso, Author, Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death Every person thinks about where we all will eventually go, but no person knows for certain where we will go.  This leads some people to think about the animals for which we have taken dominion, and wonder: What do animals think about dying? Up and down the food chain, it is eat and be eaten.  This elemental fact gives rise among people to thanatology, which is the study of death.  Today we begin our Food Chain discussion with some concluding thoughts about thanatology from Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death, by Susana Monso.  “Scientists have been trying for a long time to find a characteristic that will definitively separate us from the other species.  So far, all candidates have failed.  Neither the use of tools, nor culture, morality, or rationality are exclusive to human beings.  Nor is a concept of death.  We’re not a unique species.  We’re just another animal.  And as such, we’re bodies that work until a certain point, but end up irreparably broken.  Perhaps if we come to terms with the fact that we’re animals we may also reconcile with our own mortality.” But before we can come to terms with the fact that we are just another animal, we must first find a way to step outside of our anthropocentric way of seeing life and death.  And so we ask:  What do animals think about dying?   Connect:  www.metrofarm.com  

Lacy J Dalton, President, Let Em Run Foundation & Internationally acclaimed Country and Western Music Recording Star (Wild Horse Management, Policies and Procedures) 83,000 horses and burros roam wild and free throughout the empty spaces of the great American West.   Though some very serious voices say they should not be allowed to run free, other serious voices say, “Let em run!”   And so we ask:  Should we let wild horses run free? Out here in the great American West, there is still a lot of wide open spaces. But as Aristotle once said, “Nature abhors a vacuum,” and so did the horses and burros that moved right in to those wide open spaces. Horses and burros were brought to the West by Spanish Conquistadors, from which they made their escape into the void, where they became wild and free. Over the course of time, the animals that preyed on wild horses and domestic livestock were, for the most, wiped out, leaving the horses to roam freer than ever before.     Today an estimated 83,000 wild horses and burros roam free in what’s left of wide open spaces of the American West.  But they are not really free.  In 1971 Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, and now the wild and free are wards of the state. The Bureau of Land Management is required by this law to manage wild horse and burro populations so as to maintain a healthy balance with the environment.  It is in the management of these populations of wild horses and burros that we find our story.  And who better to tell that story, then Country Western Music recording star, Lacy J Dalton Connect:  www.metrofarm.com  

Jennifer Leidolf, CDFA Direct Marketing Program Supervisor &Joshua W. Bingham, Public Information Officer II, Division of Inspection Services (Farmers Market Certification, Governance and Marketing) When it comes to which farms get the most help from the government, the answer is most always the biggest farms.  This leads us to ask: Can there be a government program that helps small farms more than big farms? Our federal government hands out a lot of money to farmers.  How much is a lot?  In 2021 it was about $14.5 billion.  Which farms get the government money?  Data from USDA’s Economic Research tells us… About 75% of large farms with gross incomes of over $350,000 get an average of $66,000 per year; about 31% of intermediate farms with gross incomes of less than $350,000 get an average $12,800; and 29% of small farms received an average of $8,300. From this thumbnail sketch is easy to see that the more money a farm makes, the more help it gets from the government.  And conversely, the less money a farm makes, the less help it gets from the government.  This observation led us to seek out a government program that helps small farms more than big farms. We found such a program, in California, and its called the California Certified Farmers market program.   Connect: www.metrofarm.com

Cindy Campos, Weston A. Price Foundation, and Andrew Renard and Michelle Carter, Kitchen Table Cultures (Traditional Nourishing Food, Bone broth, Bone broth recipes) All ancient cultures included bones in their diets.  The ancients ate bones because they tasted good and strengthened their own bones.  Then along came modern times and broken bones!  And so we pause to ask: Should we look to ancient diets to strengthen weak bodies? Like many, I often started my day with a hot cup of strong coffee.  The heat warmed me up and the caffeine jerked me awake.  Good morning world! This morning coffee habit began in high school, and continued without interruption until a few years ago, when I was introduced to bone broth by the folks at the Weston A. Price Foundation. The Foundation caught my attention by boldly standing atop a soapbox in the public square and stating the dietary heresy, “Fat is good!”  This statement directly contradicted the dominant dietary truth of the time, as put forth by the American Heart Association, that “Fat is bad!” The Foundation furthered their dietary heresy by also claiming that modern foods are nutritionally “poor,” while the foods of traditional diets were “rich.”  And furthermore, one of the things that made traditional foods rich was that all traditional diets included that which modern diets exclude – bones. And so today I prefer to start my day with a hot cup of rich bone broth.  The heat warms me up and the nutrition awakens my body.  Then, after the bone broth has set up my day, I go for that cup of coffee. What I have found in bone broth, and the other foods of nourishing traditions, leads me to ask: Should we look to ancient dietary staple of bone broth to strengthen our breaking bones? Connect: www.metrofarm.com    

Carey Gillam, Author, The Monsanto Papers & Research Director, U.S. Right to Know   (GMOs, WTO, Glyphosate, International Food trade)   After standing firm on its plan to ban genetically modified corn from Germany, and the attendant pesticides from China, Mexico capitulated to the demands of  the United States and cancelled its plan to ban.  That leads us to ask: Why did Mexico stand-down from its GMO maize stand-off? A while back I participated in a panel discussion at the U.S. Farmer and Rancher Alliance International Biotech conference in Chicago.  The subject was genetically modified crops.  If memory servces, the panel included the presidents of the National Corn Growers Association, National Pork Producers Council, American Soybean Association and others.   The audience consisted of the biotech industry professionals who re-engineer the genetic intelligence of crops to make them more compliant to the needs of farmers and ranchers. In my concluding remarks, I gestured to the biotech professionals in the audience and said, “The technology you have developed to re-engineer crops is truly miraculous.  You have made it possible for one farmer to grow a thousand acres of crops without weeds or insects!  That truly is a miracle! Your technology has made you rich, and made the farmers and ranchers of America happy.  However, one day the people who eat your food are going to wake up and say:  “Hey!  What’s in this technology for us, other than food that is infused with insecticides and drenched in herbicides?  “When that day comes, you are going to need to provide the people who eat your food with an answer.  What will your answer be?” That day appears to have arrived.  But to my knowledge, no answer has been given, other than, “Shut up and eat the cheap food.”  That leads us to the recent capitulation of Mexico on its Maize stand-off with the United States, Germany and China.  And so we ask:      Why did Mexico stand-down from its GMO maize stand-off? Connect:  www.metrofarm.com  

Emily Bonder, Apiarist & Educator, Santa Cruz Bee Company (metropolitan bee keeping, apiarists, honey bees) They say bees are responsible for one-third of every bite of food we eat.  Given how much we love to eat, and how much we love to hear the buzzing of bees, we simply must ask: How does one keep bees in the city? We all know how important honeybees are to the productivity of natural and man-made food chains.  And so, when we look about the garden and see fewer and fewer bees every year, we get to wondering what we will do for food should all the bees disappear. Of course, there would still be some pollinators buzzing or crawling about, but would they be sufficient to feed all us very hungry people?  Having hosted a number of feature stories about bees on the Food Chain Radio Podcast, I have become attentive to their numbers as they buzz about the garden.  And though I have not taken a formal census, I do believe there are fewer and fewer bees in the garden. The wife and I recently decided there is one way to allay fears about bees disappearing, and that is to become metropolitan beekeepers.  Today we take the first step in that direction by asking: How does one keep bees in the city? Connect:  www.metrofarm.com    

Austin Frerick, Author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry (Food industry consolidation, Driscoll's Berries,   Across the landscape of American agriculture, one can see where there were many, there are now few.  What we see leads us to ask: Is it better to have a few big farms or many small farms? The Food Chain Radio Show & Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Austin Frerick, Author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry, for a conversation about the consolidation of the nation’s food chain into the hands of a few. Topics include how the share-cropping of the antebellum South has been adopted by industrial agriculture; how share-cropping has been used to control production and market share; and whether big successful businesses, like the Driscoll’s berry company, are “robber barons.”  Connect:  www.metrofarm.com Radio Host:  www.santacruzvoice.com    

Maisie Ganzler, Chief Strategy and Brand Officer Bon Appetit Management Company & Author, You Can’t Market Manure at Lunchtime   (Food marketing, advertising and public relations) He who has a thing to sell, and goes and whispers in a well, is not so apt to get the dollars, as she who climbs a tree and hollers!    And so we ask: How does one win the minds and dollars of those who eat food? Much of our food now comes from far, far away, where it was grown, processed and packaged with mysterious technologies by complete strangers.  Therefore when it comes to knowing what we should buy to eat, and what we should not buy, we city people are pretty much babes-in-the-woods.  As babes-in-the-woods, we need a mother to tell us what in all those colorful plastic bags that line the grocers’ shelves, we should buy and eat, or not buy and eat.  Trouble is, everyone wants to be our mother, and so we babes-in-the-woods are continually assaulted with messages that say “Buy this!… at this… “No, this is better than that, so buy this!” … With all those voices out there telling us what to eat, who should we babes-in-the-woods trust to be our mother?  And so today we pause to ask:  How does one win the minds and dollars of those who eat food?

Fred Provenza, Emeritus Professor of Behavioral Ecology,  Utah State University & Author of Nourishment: What animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom (Food Nutrition and Labeling) The supply chain that feeds our food chain now extends across the country and around the world.  Given what we see happening across our country, and around the world, we simply must ask:   Can we go back home again with food? I just returned from attending Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, which bills itself as the having the largest collection of natural, organic and conscious food products available anywhere. It took me 6 hours to hike the 7 or 8 football field-sized exhibition rooms filled with various foods and supplements.  Most all of the foods were available for tasting, and the 60,000 foodies in attendance were eating away at them. But I was on a mission and so did not stop to taste many of those samples – only a few.  The first was some granola infused with Earl Gray Tea.  I guess the idea was to wake myself up and get fed in one bite! My mission at the Natural Foods Expo, was to find natural foods that had a good story to tell.  Though I did find a few good stories, I did not find many natural foods.  What I did find were what seemed to be thousands of ultra-processed foods in brightly colored packages.     Michael Olson’s “natural” foods are the plants one forages or the animals one hunts in nature.  Next in line are the real foods, grown from real soil, by real farmers.  Last in line are ultra-processed foods grown with the industrial technologies of energy-intensive agriculture – and they are the foods that come with in brightly-colored packages with lots of promises.  Given that the supply chain that now feeds our food chain extends across the country and around the world, and given what we see in the news of our country and the world, we simply must pause to ask: Can we go back home again with food? Connect:  www.metrofarm.com    

John Marzluff, Emeritus Professor of Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Author of In Company of Meadowlarks (Environmental Degradation and the Vanishing of Song birds)   Meadowlarks are the canaries of the prairie.  Where one hears their song, its safe to go out onto the prairie.  But where the meadlark’s song is no longer heard, there is danger on the prairie.  And so we ask:   Can people get enough to eat if canaries sing? Having grown up on that narrow slice of geography that lies between the peaks of the Rocky Mountains and the grasslands of the high prairie, I learned at a very early age to take joy at the song of the meadowlark.    The yellow-breasted robin-sized bird’s song could be heard from a great distance, when conditions allowed, and whenever I heard that song it would bring a moment of great joy to whatever I happened to be doing at the time.  I would often try to whistle the song right back, though it did take a wet whistle to even come close. However, the song of the meadowlark is becoming increasingly rare for the same reason buffalo no longer eat the prairie grasses in any significant number.  People and their agriculture have moved onto the prairie, and meadowlarks ­– and many of their feathered kindred – have been forced to move out, thus portending that “silent spring” Rachel Carson promised. And so the canary of the prairie leads us to ask: Can people grow enough food for themselves and allow birds to sing?   Contact:  www.metrofarm.com  

John Marzluff, Emeritus Professor of Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Author of In the Company of Crows and Ravens (Animal Nutrition and Environment) Yellowstone Park in winter is a cruel place for the wildlife that can no longer endure its cold, snow and hunger.  And yet what is cruel for some can be a blessing for the corvids of Yellowstone’s winter   And so we ask:   Can anyone love the black birds of Yellowstone’s white winter? There was a stretch of years when wife Marlene and I would sneak off to Cooke City, Montana, for some cross country skiing.  In winter, Cooke is a snowbound little town at the very end of the only open road through Yellowstone Park.  Though Cooke City is well known among snowmobilers for its access to the stunningly beautiful high country, snowmobilers and cross-country skiers are not of a kind.  Our aim, as skiers, was Yellowstone’s Lamar River Valley, which is, thankfully, off limits to the noisy, smelly snowmobiles. The Lamar Valley is the wintering grounds for many of Yellowstone’s animal populations.  And our cross country skis allowed us to fly over the surface of snow packs the animals had to plow their way through.  We were not the only ones flying about the Lamar with such abandon.  So, too, were the corvids – Yellowstone’s black birds on white snow. Yellowstone’s winter is a cruel time for the animals that can no longer survive the cold, snow and lack of food.  But from what we saw, while flying over the snowpacked landscape, was that winter was treating crows and ravens with lots of opportunity to feast, and their feasting often sounded as raucous as an out-of-bounds wedding celebration.  From watching their feasting, and from watching them watch us as we flew across the landscape, we came to see corvids as being winners of Yellowstone’s season of losing.  And we wondered: Can anyone love the black birds of Yellowstone’s white winter?

Fred Provenza, Emeritus Professor of Behavioral Ecology at Utah State University, Author of Nourtishment:  What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom (Animal and Human Natural Nutrition) One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Carnivore, herbivore or omnivore? Back in the day…  Way back in the day… We were all hunters and gatherers.  That is to say, we hunted down and gathered up whatever nature had to offer, when nature wanted to offer it. Then we got smart, and figured out how to manage the growth and development of plants.  That cleverness allowed us to corral plants and animals, and live in cities. Today we hunt and gather foods grown and packaged thousands of miles away.  And we don’t even need mother nature nor her unpredictable offerings.  Today we can just swing by a convenience store, grab a plastic bag of something that tastes good, and walk out the door. Given all this extra time we now have, we have the opportunity to decide how we should go about this business of eating, and often our discussion become very heated.  Those heated discussions lead us to ask… Carnivore, herbivore or omnivore?

Fred Provenza, Author, Nourishment:  What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom (Animal & Human Environmental Nutrition) Animals learn what to eat, and what not to eat, from their mothers – before they are born.  It is a taste they pick up in utero, as the mother eats her way across the landscape.  If such is the case, we wonder:  What tastes are American mothers teaching their children to desire? Researchers believe that humans have been using plants as medicine for over 1,650,000 years.  Birds, fish, insects, and other mammals are also known to self-medicate with plants when experiencing illness.  In the last hundred years or so, we humans began industrializing our food chain, and now we no longer rely on plants to be our principal source of medicine.  And why should we?  After all, the grocers’ shelves are filled with potions and notions that claim to be able to cure just about every malady.  And so today we are free to roam the range all day, without having to eat a single plant.   But then, we wonder:  Are we missing something by turning our backs on plants?  Is there some kind of magic that occurs when earth, sky and water come together to present us with a plant?  And we wonder:  What tastes are American mothers teaching their children to desire?  

Zen Honeycutt, Founder & Executive Director of Moms Across America / Author of Unstoppable: Transforming Sickness and Struggle Into Triumph, Empowerment and a Celebration of Community   Over 80 million Americans, including over one-third of the nation’s children and adolescents, eat fast food every day. And some eat it multiple times a day! This leads us to ask: Can America’s moms chase the dangerous chemicals out of fast food Over 80 million Americans, including over one-third of the nation’s children and adolescents, eat fast food every day. And some eat it multiple times a day! This leads us to ask: Can America’s moms chase the dangerous chemicals out of fast food? Welcome to the 1354th edition of the Food Chain Radio Show... Or hey... Perhaps you’re among our friends down there in Valparaiso, who are tuned in to the Food Chain podcast at metrofarm.com or on Spotify... . Well, whoever you are, and wherever you are, welcome aboard, I am Michael Olson, your host for this hour of What’s-Eating-What... FOLKS... Those who hike the backcountry of the Montana Rockies know to never corner a mama grizzly with her cubs in tow. It’s best to give her a half hour notice that you’re coming – bang on a pan, ring a bell or sing a John Denver song with as much enthusiasm as you can muster. The same could be said for most moms. If they perceive you to be a threat to their children, you might find your head becoming a landing pad for her cast iron skillet. One very modern way to threaten the safety of children is to load up their fast food with harmful chemicals with names moms can’t pronounce. Of course, not all moms would consider those chemical additives to be a threat. In fact, many moms eat the fast foods themselves, and are willing to put up with the additives for the sake of convenience – or maybe they just don’t know the chemicals are in the fast food! One mom knows, and she is as angry as the mother grizzly you never want to corner. Why is she so angry? Because she has discovered what is in the food served to children in 8 out of 10 of the nation’s most popular fast chains. And she leads us to ask: Can America’s moms chase the dangerous chemicals out of fast food? Contact:  www.metrofarm.com  

Dr. Michael Greger, Author, How Not To Age   (Diet, Nutrition, Aging) We have been searching for that proverbial fountain of youth for as long as we have been capable of searching.  Though we have searched in many places, and spent many fortunes doing so, we still grow old.  This leads us to ask:  Can we maintain what we have, so we can retain what we want? As we grow old, we begin resisting the fact that we are growing old.  And so we begin our resistance by searching for a fountain of youth in a package.    According to one industry group, 60 percent of those above the age of 65 buy products that promise to maintain one’s youth, so one can retain one’s youthfulness.   Solve the problem, sell the product. However, few if any, anti-aging products do what they promise to do.  As described in Dr. Michael Greger book How Not To Age, many of these products exploit scientific breakthroughs to package fraudulent anti-aging products.  For example, nineteenth-century advances in magnetism led to ads asserting, “[t]here need not be a sick person in America . . . if our Magneto-Conservative Underwear would become a part of the wardrobe of every lady and gentleman,” Less comically, more tragically, public interest in Marie Curie’s work led to a range of radioactive products said to “revitalize” and “energize.” As one Wall Street Journal headline read, “The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off.”16 Today, we can see these so-called “scienceploitation” cures being sold on almost every street corner, but as the headline in Scientific American reads, there is “No Truth to the Fountain of Youth. And so today we pause to ask: Can we eat to maintain and retain the youthfulness what we want? Contact:  www.metrofarm.com      

Allen Moy, Executive Director, Pacific Coast Farmers Market Association   (California's Certified Farmers Markets)   They say, in the United States food travels an average of 1,500 miles from where it is grown to where it is eaten. That leads us to ask:  Can city dwellers close the distance to their food? We begin with Michael Olson’s Second Law of the Food Chain:  The farther we go from the source of our food, the less control we have over what’s in our food. If, as is said, the average food in the United States travels 1,500 miles from where it is grown to where it is eaten, then we city people simply do not have much control over what is in our food. Let’s consider, by way of example, shopping for some garlic, which can easily be found for sale in most every city grocery store.   Approximately one-third of all garlic now being sold in the United States was grown by farmers over 5,000 miles away.  The reason so much of the garlic we eat comes from so far away is that it costs less to grow it there, and ship it here. When we shop for garlic, and see that the garlic that came from far away costs much less than the garlic that was grown here, we have to wonder – being ever the food skeptics – what is in the garlic that makes it so cheap? We do have the intentions of those distant farmers who are growing our garlic.  We also have all kinds of certifiers and inspectors with their rules and regulations that stand between those farmers and us.  How much can those garlic farmers care about the people who will be eating their garlic 5,000 miles away?  What if those farmers decide that it would cost less to dry the garlic over a coal burning fire, even though the smoke from that fire would contaminate the garlic with mercury?  If the coal-burning fire could save time and money, and make the garlic less expensive, and more competitive, would it not be a tempting production shortcut? How much can all those food safety guardians with all their rules and regulations really protect against all the money that can be made with distance? Those of us who live in the city have two choices when shopping for food.  We can buy the cheap food that comes from far away, or we can find ways to close the distance to our food.  And so we ask: Where can city people find food with its farmer’s face on it?

Mike Keller, Michael A. Keller Associates Turning ice into hydrogen fuel They say, if we can get to the South Pole of the Moon, we can convert some of the frozen water we find there into rocket fuel that will take us on to the next best place.  That leads us to ask:  Can hydrogen be farmed to fuel our future? Topics include the prospects of turning water into rocket fuel; the difference between blue and green hydrogen; and how hydrogen might be used to clean the environment and fuel the economy.   contact:  www.metrofarm.com    

TOM BROZ, FARMER OF THE YEAR, LIFE EARTH FARM   Community Supported Agriculture Community is where everybody works together today to ensure that everybody can eat tomorrow.  This thought leads us to ask: How does one farm community? A while ago, I had a consulting contract on the island nation of Cyprus.  The task was to find a crop with an economy sufficient to repopulate an agricultural plateau near the village of Akourdahleia, that had been depopulated by the jobs available in coastal casinos. As I strolled the plateau with my hosts we came upon a village of Greeks happily harvesting their grapes across the way.  Though they were too far away to hear what was being said, we could easily hear their laughter and sense their joy at being engaged at the task at hand.  It was a living picture straight out of the Bible!  “This,” my host said, “is what we want to bring back to Cyprus.” I recently heard that same laughter and sensed that same joy while strolling the grounds of Live Earth Farm in Watsonville, California, and have been endeavoring to capture its essence with a three-part Food Chain series on what I call “Contrary Farming.”  By contrary, I simply mean in opposition to the convention of the day. The first show in the series, “Farming Children,” featured Jessica Ridgeway and the Farm Discovery Program, which brings children – many children – to the farm so they can reach down to the earth and harvest a living food. The second show, “Farming Nature,” featured Jo Ann Baumgartner from Wild Farm Alliance and Sam Earnshaw from Hedgerows Unlimited, who, like modern day Johnny Appleseeds, travel around the countryside to bring nature, and her wildlife, back to the farm. As you can see, both of these shows feature a contrariness to the industrial model of farming that makes one smile.  And both also find a home in today’s show, “Farming Community,” in which we will ask: How does one farm community? contact: www.metrofarm.com    

JO ANN BAUMGARTNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WILD FARM ALLIANCE  & SAM EARNSHAW, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HEDGEROWS UNLIMITED    When an outbreak of Ecoli killed three people and sickened 200 others a couple of decades ago, those in charge of food safety began discouraging the existence of wildlife on farms. This leads us to ask: Should wild life be allowed back on farms? Back in 2006, a multistate outbreak of E. Coli O157:H7 killed three and sickened an additional 202. The source of that E. Coli was found to be spinach from California, and the cause was believed to be contamination from the spinach farm. Consumers stopped buying the spinach, as well as other leafy green produce, and so growers had to leave their precious greens to go to seed in the fields. Though the contaminated spinach came from one grower, the entire leafy greens industry suffered its consequences.  As a result of their suffering, and threats from the government, growers got together and formed the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, which in effect, laid down the law on how member growers could tend to their leafy greens. Consequent to the implementation of the Agreement, growers began fencing off their fields from all the wild things in nature that might harbor E Coli.  Today, many of those farms are as barren of extraneous life as can be made possible.  No deer… no skunks… no birds… no anything! But wait… Not everyone thinks that farms need to be without life.  In fact, some point in the other direction and claim that farms should foster the growth of as much life as possible.  And these contrarians lead us to ask: Should wild life be allowed back on farms?

JESSICA RIDGEWAY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FARM DISCOVERY AT LIVE EARTH When people moved off the farm into the city, they took their children with them.  What children find on the streets of the city does not appear to bode well for their future nor the future of country.  And so we ask… How can we lead children back to the farm? I had the good fortune to having lived on the grandparents’ Montana farm when very young.  I still remember, to this day, driving my first working tractor at the age of six.  It wasn’t anything special.  Grandfather Karl hoisted me up into the seat, put the tractor in gear, and said, “I’ll meet you at the end of the field.” Every living thing on the grandparents’ farm had a job to do, and nobody– nor anything– got by without doing the work.  It was not a policy laid down by the grandparents, who owned the farm.  It was just life.  If one did not work, one did not eat.  It was true for the people, the animals and the plants in the fields. We all participated in the business of life. Yesterday I had the privilege of accompanying a couple of Montana boys– Braxton, nine, and Cohan, six–to their first major league baseball game in the big city.  Their enthusiasm for the game was infectious, and all who were seated around them in the stadium took joy in their excitement, especially when the six-year-old won the scramble for a foul ball. As I enjoyed the boy’s enthusiasm, I wondered how that enthusiasm would be met by life in the city.  On the farm enthusiasm and love of living were always well nurtured by the business of life.  But what in the city can manage and give guidance to the enthusiasm of young boys and girls?     Not finding a ready answer, I ask… How can we lead children back to the farm? contact: www.metrofarm.com    

DR. JOHN FAGAN, HEALTH RESEARCH INSTITUTE LABS  There are many ways in which industrialization has served to make food cheap.  One way is to subvert the growth of natural competitors, like weeds, with herbicides, like glyphosate.  This leads us to ask… What happens to the chemicals after they have been used to made food cheap? In the 1930s, people began the migration from the farm into the city.   Those farmers who were left on the farm began growing food with money, which they used to buy equipment and chemicals to do the work that people once did. Thus it became cheaper to grow food with money, than with people. This industrialization of the food chain has proceeded without pause ever since, and now the world is literally drenched in the agricultural chemicals used to grow food.  Broadly speaking, two kinds of chemicals are used to grow food:  fertilizers and pesticides.   Fertilizers provide the nutrient elements plants require to grow and develop, and include the macronutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.    Pesticides provide farmers with the ability to fight off natural competitors for the growth and development of their crops, and include herbicides that kill weeds, fungicides that fight off diseases, insecticides that kill insects, and desiccants that manage growth. The herbicide glyphosate, which travels under the trade name Roundup, is one of the most used chemicals in agriculture.   Since 1974, 18.9 billion pounds of glyphosate has been sprayed upon the World. Use of glyphosate has increased 15-fold since the introduction of crops genetically modified to withstand glyphosate. That our world is literally drenched in a chemical that the World Health Organization claims is a “probable cause of cancer,” leads us to ask: What happens to the chemicals after they have made food cheap?

Ken Kimes & Sandra Ward, New Natives, Microgreens It is really simple:  Sow some uncontaminated seeds in organic soil.  Add clean water, fresh air and sunshine.  Then enjoy eating the maximum nutrition of microgreens.  This leads us to ask:  If it really is this simple, why doesn’t everybody eat microgreens? It seems as though we are running out of food.  That is not to say that we are running out of things to eat.  No! On the contrary, there are many things to eat, and they are cheap, too! And yet, so many of those things we are being offered in brightly colored packages for so little money have very little food in them.  In fact, one of the ways they make food cheap is to take the food out of it and put it in a fancy package. And so we eat the cheap food because its cheap and easy.  And yet when we do our bodies cry out for more nutrition.  So we eat more cheap food and yet our bodies still cry out for more, nutrition.  So we eat more cheap food, and our bodies rebel by storing up fat, and breaking down. Then one day we wake up to the fact that cheap food isn’t!  What to do? One thing to do is to turn to the essential simplicity of the maximum nutrition we can get from microgreens.  How simple?  Sow some uncontaminated seeds in organic soil.  Add clean water, fresh air and sunshine.  Then harvest the sprouted seeds and enjoy eating the maximum nutrition of microgreens.