Earth Eats is a weekly podcast, public radio program and blog bringing you the freshest news and recipes inspired by local food and sustainable agriculture.
“We all need to eat to survive and the quality of the food, the access to the food--the type of food that we eat is central to our health and to the health of the planet.“
This week on the show, a conversation with Carey Gillam, the author of The Monsanto Papers--Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice.
And we have a story from Harvest Public Media about how farmers are turning to bio-char for carbon sequestration.
“Imagine, we have dinner like at 7, 8 pm–my baba would take all of the çörek to the bakery and have it baked and he’s back home at 10pm–doesn’t matter! Fresh tea, hot tea, feta cheese, olives–breakfast. That’s like your night breakfast the day before Eid.”
This week on the show, we spend time in the kitchen with Derya Dogan . She walks us through the steps of making her version of Poğaça–a Turkish hand pie filled with cheese and herbs. She shares treasured childhood memories of communal baking in her home town.
“When I try to understand–why on earth would agriculture be practiced that way? The answer is colonization. The answer really is, this wasn’t about managing land for everyone’s mutual benefit. This was a process of extraction.”
In honor of Earth Day earlier this week, we are revisiting an important conversation about regenerative agriculture with Liz Carlisle, author of Healing Grounds:Climate, Justice and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming. And learn about restoring native prairies and bringing buffalo back to the land with Latrice Tatsey of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana.Tatsey is one of the researchers featured in Carlisle’s book.Â
“And she brought two jars of lilacs, like [a] drink made of lilacs. She brought also cups and everybody could try it. It was really something like a miracle for me because I have never thought that it could be drunk in this way.”
This week on the show, a story about a community garden in Tallinn, Estonia. We talk with Jerry Mercury, a political immigrant from Russia whose encounter with the garden was transformative.Â
And later in the show we have a recipe for quick, garden-fresh pickles, plus stories from Harvest public media about composting efforts in Midwestern cities and Federal investments in farm-to-school programs.
“And as the blade rotates and the interior cylinder freezes, it begins to churn the ice cream into a wonderful fluffy content that will be established shortly thereafter.”
This week on the show, let’s kick off the summer season with a story about ice cream.
Toby Foster talks with Jordan Davis and Elijah Lawson of the Chocolate Moose, Bloomington's classic ice cream stand, and so much more. And we go into the kitchen with Chris Manansala and Maria St. Claire of Pinoy Garden Cafe to learn how to make their vegetarian lumpia.
“You know, you’d wake up the day before, in the morning, and there was Grandma, already in the kitchen. You’d just get the smells, the aromas of the garlic and the citrus from the mojo, and you know it was just kind of ingrained in the memory of sitting there with my grandma while she was preparing it and just talking…”
This week on the show, we dive into a family recipe from Cuba with producer Alexis Carvajal.Â
producer Daniella Richardson review the critically acclaimed show all about kitchen culture, The Bear.
Plus, are you wondering what to bring to your eclipse viewing picnic? We’ve got ideas and an original recipe for some special eclipse cookies.
“We’re not shooting for perfection, we’re shooting for richness of experience.”
This week on the show, we revisit a conversation at Groundwork Indy with then Executive Director, Phyllis Boyd. She gives us a tour of their on-site garden tended by teams of young people in their youth development program. Then we take a drive around Northwest Indianapolis to see more inspiring projects, including a community orchard.
Plus, from Harvest Public Media, we have reports on an increase in honey production, drought in the midwest, PFAS in crop fertilizer and a story about the forest floor as agricultural land.
“After the peace, whenever that comes, we will have land that will have to stay out of production for years because it is so heavily mined or full of cluster bomblets.”
This week on the show we talk with geographer Elizabeth Cullen Dunn about the current food landscape in Ukraine. We discuss what the future may hold for farmers and food producers in the region as the war with Russia drags on and as land policy shifts in Ukraine at the start of the new year.Â
We also talk about ice cream! We look at current shipping challenges in Ukraine, and the meaning of an ice cream cone in former Soviet Bloc countries
“We know that there are all sorts of good chemicals that come out of the dirt and working with land–working with plants–that are beneficial to our mood and our health. For refugee populations that have had to be on the run or had to live in refugee camps for decades, having a little piece of land that you can tend to that you can take care of and then see the results and not feel like you’re gonna be bombed out the next day–it brings a kind of peace of mind and a little bit of healing.”Â
This week on the show, Tammy Ho, Professor of Gender and Sexuality studies at University of California-Riverside, shares her research about refugees from Burma and their participation in the United States food system. We’ll learn about a supermarket sushi mogul, Burmese meatpackers as essential workers, and how a group of refugees saved a failing church by starting a community garden.
“I just wanted to provide context for folks because I do think that the conversation around plant-based food for the last eight years or so has been pushed toward a more corporate, vertical, lab meat, impossible burgers, beyond burgers, meat substitutes that act like meat and look like meat and has gotten really far away from whole foods and vegetables and legumes and how nice it is to just eat some beans sometimes.”
This week on the show we talk with food writer Alicia Kennedy about her new book, No Meat Required: the cultural history and culinary future of plant based eating.Â
This week on the show, Toby Foster talks with the creators of Planted, a local plant-based food truck and catering operation in Bloomington, Indiana. We learn about their inventive, plant-based menu and their commitment to sustainable practices.
We have an interview with Julie Guthman about the troubled strawberry industry and we wrap up the show with a recipe for pickled carrots.
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