The Invisible Things

What lies beneath the soil is generally invisible unless we stick our hands into it. It doesn’t take much sifting of American soil before you run into one invisible thing: Race.

Unsurprisingly, I learned about race from a very distant, middle-class, white perspective. Growing up in the upwardly-mobile suburbs of St. Louis, the son of a pharmacist and a lawyer, I had many privileges only now I can fully appreciate. There was always food in the fridge. Always a parent at home when I was home. And so, so many more.

None of the buildings in my hometown were even old enough to have witnessed the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. There are no visible reminders of acrimonious race relations. But, as I've come to see, the reminders of the past are all around us.

It’s easy to get lost in the interwebs looking for good food.

You have enough to worry about between your job, bills to pay, going Beast Mode during CrossFit, soccer practice for the kids, and date nights with your spouse. Finding a directory of quality food so you can nourish your family AND support the local economy shouldn’t be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

What else are you going to do? Ask a farmer who their competitors are so you can browse their products? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

Regenerative Agriculture is farming with nature rather than against it. Farmers who work regeneratively treat nature like a dance partner rather than a sparring partner.

It’s mimicking on a small, human-directed scale what nature does on a large, wild scale. Regenerative farmers focus on building healthy ecosystems by replenishing the humus which has been lost by centuries of extractive and shortsighted farming methods. They focus on:

Organic matter, hydrology, mineral cycling, ground cover, and plant spacing

NOT

Yield, weeds, disease, pests, artificial inputs, and chemicals

These are seven regenerative farmers who you should know about (or even buy food from).

The true story of how I met my wife, Kelli Williams, on top of a mountain in Colorado. Narrated by Austin and Kelli Williams, Calvin Blaylock, Bradford Barnett, and Ashton Anderson. For your listening pleasure.

Now, imagine that actually happened. Because it did. We've by and large lost the expectation to be able to see the night sky. It has become the exception rather than the rule. The night sky has been disappearing rapidly from the public consciousness, and it loss is extremely detrimental to more species than just ours.

Birds need it to navigate and baby sea turtles need it to help them get from the beach to the ocean, as just a couple examples.

Join me as I argue for responsible stewardship of one of our most valuable resources.

Rashid Nuri started with a degree in political science from Harvard and ended up as an urban farmer in Atlanta. He's traveled across the post-colonial world to 36 different countries as he sought to aid in nation-building. He wanted a practical skill to help these fledgling nations get off their feet, and he could think of none better than farming. He's on a God-directed mission to bring natural food to communities so they can thrive. Listen to his story.

During the 2018 Christmas season, the average American family spent over $1000 on holiday-related expenses. Ironically, the average family surveyed a few month's prior believed they'd only spend around $700. That's a $300 gap between expectations and reality.

One solution is a zero-based budget, and one way to budget is with an app called Every Dollar. I've been using this app for more than two years, and it's definitely the best budgeting app I've ever used.

After all, pasture-raised food is expensive. Our farm's ground beef is twice as expensive as Walmarts, but for good reason! Listen more to find out.

As a farmer, I've come to see just how complicated the world of farming is. Debt, severe weather events, and decades of convention have all helped turn the colloquial relationship with the farmer down the street to the world of globalized, commodity-based farming. Stay with me as I try to parse it out for you.

Diets can be overwhelming and confusing.

It seems like a new one pops up every minute, and ones we thought were new are just rebranded ones from ten years ago. What do we believe?

Especially what do we believe when we have people preaching extremes, and they both seem healthy?

Can we be both fully vegan and fully carnivore? (Don't think too hard about it)

In this episode I explore a possible middle ground for diet. The easiest answer to the question of whether or not I should eat meat is that... we're omnivores. Some meats and some veggies is probably good for everyone. But God created us so magnificently that we're able to survive on the extremes. For this episode I interviewed Mariah Boatright, who was told she probably wouldn't be able to have children due to ovarian cysts. After trying birth control, she switched to a whole foods/pasture-raised meat diet and she now has two beautiful boys!

Listen to the rest of it!