Edible Economy

4:35- WWOOFING. What it is, how they became involved in it on their honeymoon and how they continue to be involved.

7:40- Different farming practices. Mekayla & Justin talk a bout permaculture and how they try to implement it in their farming as much as possible.

9:35- Urban backyard farming. They talk about how they have transformed their 1/6 acre backyard of their rental home into a farm.

13:28- Using sheep to sustain a garden. They talk about how they hope to some day have sheep on their property to compost the manure & expand the garden.

17:20- Crop rotation. We discuss the current issue with farmers not implementing crop rotation & how it could cause a dust bowl in the future.

20:50- Farmer’s Markets. Mekayla talk about only selling their produce, eggs & microgreens at farmer’s markets and how successful they have been.

26:50- Microgreens. We discuss what they are, how they grow them and what research has been done to show that most hold 6 times more nutrients than their adult counterparts.

31:45- Lessons learned. They talk about some of the issues they have had over the years and what they have learned.

34:35- Water. The group talks about the many watering techniques that can be used when farming and which they prefer.

38:45- The different types of produce they grow and sell. They talk about their experience with growing Kohlrabi and eggplant & share a few recipes that can be made.

44:00- Tomatoes. Justin talks about the different varieties of tomatoes they grow and which do best in the climate. They also talk about how wind can effect farming and gardening.

49:00- How they stand out from the rest. Justin talk about how they only sell what they grown as opposed to some farmers as markets selling other peoples crops. He also talks about his favorite things to grow.

51:00- Some of the amazing tools they use to farm, why they think tilling is bad for the soil and some of the alternatives to tilling.

55:30- Justin & Mekayla’s message to the world.

RELATED ARTICLES & WEBSITES:

Benefits of WWOOFING

Permaculture Principles

Microgreens Benefits & Tips

10 Ways Farmers Are Saving Water

Top Urban Farming Tools

-Ben’s startup philosophy, what Ben does for entrepreneurship & all the things he has dabbled in over the years.

-Tech & Food. Companies out there that are using advancing food technology including the Amazon/Whole Foods relationship & what the 3 of them think of it.

-Tech Fundraising. How it works and how the laws vary state for state.

-Blockchain. What it is, why it could soon change our future and why Ben believes it will be the internets successor.

-How Blockchain could effect the food industry by tracking food from seed to sale and everything in between. As well as many different areas Blockchain could be beneficial in including politics.

-What Ben is doing with Blockchain, what other technologies he is paying attention to including Bitcoin.

-Some of the other areas Ben works in including engraving & virtual reality.

-Ben’s message to the world, it’s a good one!

-Find out more about Ben on the web - Beta Killers - LumEngrave - DenVR

-Syrup season. How it works, what a run is, the process of tapping the maple and what is done after it makes it to the maple house.

-Global warning and syrup production. Tim talks about how he believes global warming is affecting the syrup season and why.

-Syrup economics. We discuss how sap production is helping the local economy.

-Barrel Aged Collaborations. Tim & Brad talk about some of the barrel aged syrup they are producing for distilleries all over the country using bourbon, brandy & whiskey barrels.

-Some of the biggest challenges in the syrup business.

-Expanding. Tim & Brad talk about expanding the business to new states, being in 42 weekly farmer's markets and their plans to be in 100 in the next 2 years. They also talk about even though they are growing, they are still a family run business.

-Connections to Oprah, Lady Gaga, Richard Branson and many top chefs all over the country. Tim & Brad share a few stories of how these connections came to be & how amazing it is to have those opportunities.

-Why they would rather sell to farmer's markets & restaurants as opposed to the big box stores.

-How Burton's Maplewood Farm came about & how Tim got involved in the maple syrup business. (It is actually a really cool story)

-What is a ninja? Brian walks us through what it means and where it originated from.

-Brian success on American Ninja Warrior the TV show, how he trained for his first appearance on the show and how that has progressed to where he is now with making it to the final stage in Vegas 7 times.

-Is American Ninja Warrior real? Brian explains how the show works and why it is so much harder to compete than it looks on tv.

-Brian walks us through some of the crazy things fans do not realize about the show as far as what the ninjas go through.

-Ninja Nation Mobile. Brian talks about pairing up with other ninjas to create a new company where they are opening up ninja gyms all over the country and also bringing the obstacle courses to you for parties, events, and festivals.

-Prepping. Brian shares some of his other passions outside of being a ninja including chess and being a prepper. He talks about why prepping is so important and gives us some tips on what to think about when prepping and how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse.

-The Farm Festival & Bromley Farm. Nate, Kim & Brian talk about all the cool things that are going on at the farm for this year's fall festival including the most exciting element, the Ninja Nation Mobile ninja competition in which people can compete against American Ninja Warrior contestants for a grand prize of $7,500 for women and $7,500 for men.

To Find out more about Ninja Nation Mobile visit- https://ninjanation.com/ninja-nation-mobile

To Find out more about the Bromley Farm Festival & how to compete against American Ninja Warriors for $7,500 visit- http://www.historicbromleyfarm.com/festival.php

-What Taylor is doing as a farmer, chef & a restaurant owner through Chatfield Farms, Bromley LocalFoods Campus, LoHi Steak Bar & LoHi Local Coffee Shop.

-Taylor's experience with farming so far, what he has learned and some of the frustrations that come along with farming.

-Veterans to Farmers. What it is, how they are helping veterans and what Taylor's experience was like with VTF.

-Some of the transferable skills from the military to farming and how that ties into Taylor being a classically trained chef.

-Farm to table restaurants and chefs that are planting items specifically for the menus at their restaurants and the new things farmers are doing to their food to stand out from the rest.

-What specifically Taylor is growing at the farms he is running including beets, mixed greens, radishes, tomatoes, beans, peas, corn and much more.

-The planting seasons. We talk about what is planted for fall and when, when is too early or too late to plant and what thrives at certain times of the year. They also talk about how Kohlrabi is becoming a very popular substitute for kale.

-Some of the challenges Taylor has faced early in his farming career and the different things out there right now to help farmers farm organically and make their foods taste better without technically being certified.

-The farm to table dinner they are putting on that is a chef/farmer collaboration with 6 chefs and 6 farms using an ingredient from each farm. Get tickets for the August 25th event.

-Volunteering to help at the farm. Ways you can help volunteer if you are local. - Taylor email address

-Where to find out more about LoHi Steak Bar, when are the best times to go and what the happy hour is.

1:02-Intro Ethan and his company, The Fruit Stand. Ethan talks about how he got into the business and what he was doing prior to owning and operating this company.

8:40- How his business works, why he has stepped back a little from Farmers Markets and where he is selling now.

13:07- Transporting the food. Ethan talks about some of the logistics of getting the food accross the state of Colorado.

19:10- Some crazy stories Ethan has about working with farmers, what he has learned about the industry that he didn't realize prior to running this business & some of the highs and lows he has experienced.

34:15- Some of the other places Ethan travels to after the Colorado fruit and vegetable season is done and how he gets new customers.

36:25- Changes in the food business. Ethan talks about how crazy it is to see how much waste there is in this industry and ways that he thinks could be put in place to fix this problem.

41:15- Ethan talks about his prices and how much it can vary depending on the economy, weather and other environmental factors.

44:50- Biggest challenges. Ethan talks about always racing against the clock because the riper something is the less it is worth and how important that is to every part of his business.

48:07- The Fruit Stand's customers. Ethan talks about how he markets himself and how creates new business for his produce.

52:30- Conventional or Organic. Ethan talks about the pros & cons of both and how he feels our whole food system is backwards as far as the organic companies needing certifications and not the companies using chemicals.

56:13- Grocery store vs farmers markets. Ethan sheds some light on why grocery store produce looks so much better than farmers markets but why farmers market produce tastes so much better.

58:18- Ethan's message for the world.

Learn more:

https://www.greenbiz.com/article/why-food-industry-struggles-reduce-waste

http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/organic-food-vs-conventional-food/

http://localorganicmeals.com/downloads/LOMB-Farms-vs-Stores.pdf

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/From-farm-to-market-Pros-cons-of-buying-direct-2915503.php

We have a fun podcast for you this week, covering everything from Osteopathy & health to chutney. We are joined by Dr. of Osteopathy Neha Valeja & her brother & business partner, Samir Valeja. Neha shares the history of Osteopathy (which may surprise some),what exact she does as a DO & gives us her thoughts on eating healthy. Then Samir, joins us to talk about their company, Mile High Masala, and all the amazing chutneys they are making from fresh healthy ingredients.

1:02- Podcast start and intro Michelle Garcia with Heirloom Catering. Michelle talks about her background and how she got in to catering.

7:23- The Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute. Michelle talks about what it’s all about and why she enjoyed it so much.

9:46- The Sushi Den fundraising events Michelle has been involved with and how awesome it was to see everyone gather together because of food.

14:45- Michelle‘s experience of catering an event needing 800 sticky buns and why it was such an amazing cultural experience. Check out Celestial Bakery

19:10- Local, local, local. Michelle talks about how she focuses on local and exclusivity to combine vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free options to all of the meals she prepares so everyone can eat.

26:25- What it’s like being a small business owner and some of the misconceptions out there regarding catering.

32:11- Cooking and catering. Michelle shares some of her favorite things to cook and why it’s so important to have great ingredients.

40:00- Secrets of catering and everything that goes into it that people don’t think of.

56:16- Michelle‘s last thoughts and some of the triumphs & accolades she has had with her company.

01:01:46- Wrapping up, final thoughts and where to find Heirloom Catering - Web - Facebook

1:02- Podcast start and intro Amy Nelms with Live Well Colorado. Amy talks about Live Well Colorado, gives a little background about what it is and talks what she does to teach health and wellness to kids and society to promote healthy eating.

7:49- Cooking Matters Colorado. Amy talks about the education that is being done to teach people how to eat good food and cook healthy. She also talks about the consumer today and how hard it is to figure out what is actually healthy.

11:34- Cross contamination. They talk about how it is still important to wash your fruits & vegetables before you eat them to reduce contamination. Amy talks about the cross contamination that can happen with food transport and she talks about how some onions can makes her sick.

15:15- Double Up Food Bucks. Amy talks about her role in Double Up Food Bucks program, what exactly it is and why she loves the program

25:31- Community assesements. Amy talks about the part of her that she really loves as far as social work and urban planning.

27:56- School Food Initiative. Amy talks about what exactly it is and what they do to teach school directors how to cook healthy foods for kids in the lunch room and how to budget for doing that.

35:04- The policy team at Live Well Colorado. She talks about the different stuff that is being done with their policy team including transportation, legislation, and the farm bill. They talk about the farm bill & how much it effects people and how many do not know how much it will effect them.

38:07- The milk system. Amy talks about how they are trying to fix the current milk system at schools and how schools can be penalized if kids do not drink as much milk as they order.

43:12- Live Well Colorado's impact on the Local economy. Amy talks about the impact Live Well Colorado has on the local economy. She also talks about the connection between physical activity, food and health in the community.

50:56- Amy shares the one message she would give to people about healthier eating and the community.

52:05- The misconceptions out there that people have about SNAP. She talks about how SNAP is not a life-long assistance program but more of an emergency assistance program.

57:25- Where to find out more about Live Well Colorado to donate or just learn about all the awesome things that they are doing.

58:39- Wrapping up, final thoughts & Subscribe!

1:01- Podcast start and intro Terry Osborne with Chicken Track.Nate also shares some fun facts that he found about chickens.

4:49- Terry talks about all the chicken breeds that are out there including Polish,Buff Orpington,Ameraucana,and Maran, which chickens produce white eggs vs.brown eggs and what male,female andbaby chickens are called.

8:51- Some other fun facts about chickens and roosters from the dances they do to the females being able to reject an egg.

11:52- Some background info on Terry and how he got into chicken farming and eggs. He also talks about how he is a third-generation poultry farmer but he believes that it goes back even further than that.

17:00- Terry talks about when he was younger manning 5,000 chickens, gathering the eggs & how he was able to gather over 4,500 eggs a day.

18:21- Nate and Kim talk about their son’s experience at farm camp and the chickens figuring out places to lay eggs without being disturbed by all the children.

20:17- Future Farmers of America. Terry talks about working with the FFA when he was a teenager and all the cool things he got to do.

23:48- Starting a cage-free business. Terry talks about starting 1 of the first cage-free egg businesses with his family 1991 called Nest Fresh and how difficult it was at first to get into the big box stores because no one wanted to be the first to do it.

30:17- Free Range vs.Caged vs.Organic.Terry talks about all the different kinds of eggs that are sold ingrocery stores including Caged, Cage-Free, the Outdoor Category and Organic and why the industry went from being pasture raised to cagingchickens. Terry also talks about the different certification processes for organic and cage-free and theloopholes that the bigger companies use to make it seem like there are completely cage-free.

44:14- The Egg Process. Terry walks us through the process from the hatchery to getting eggs.

50:48- Cultural believes and eggs. They talk about how some cultures like to eat fertilized eggs and the reasons why. Terry talks about the Balut Egg which is an Asian delicacy where they incubate the eggs and then they stop the incubation.

52:40- Terry talks about some fun stories he has from raising chickens. He also talks about why they hold their heads up when they drink.

59:31- Chicken Track. Terry talks about starting his company Chicken Track and what exactly it is. He talks about how the company started with just sellingeggs and now they are wanting to teach other people how to run chicken farms so they have came up withtrailers a.k.a. chicken RVs that can basically bring the pastured chickens to you.

1:09:44- Where to find out more about about Chicken Track. Phone-303-434-3901 or [email protected]

01:12:58- "So let it be written so let it be done". Terry's message to the listeners.

01:14:20- Wrapping up and final thoughts. Subscribe!