I am constantly trying to learn more about what I’m putting in, on, and near my body. I just love learning about the way things work. That’s why I recently found myself at a Belcampo Farms Meat Camp, learning about where my food comes from, how it’s prepared, and who is preparing it. 

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While I was at Belcamp Farms, I met Diana Rodgers, a “real food” Licensed Registered Dietitian Nutritionist living on a working organic farm west of Boston. She also runs an active nutrition practice where she helps people recover their health through diet and hosts The Sustainable Dish Podcast.

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But I brought Diana on the show because she is working on an awesome film project: Kale vs. Cow: The Case for Better Meat. At a time when many in the health and environmental fields call for a world without meat, Kale vs. Cow makes the case for better meat – and shows how eliminating animals from our food system could cause more harm than good.

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I don’t take a position on other people’s dietary choices – you can go eat a box of rocks for all I care, as long as you’re not hurting anybody else – and this episode isn’t about what’s right or wrong. 

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But I think it’s important to consider and understand the impact of our buying and consumption… because sometimes the things sold to us as “better” alternatives, like kale or soy, can have devastating impacts.

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How many animals die to turn a plot of land into a kale pasture? How many salmon lose their habitat because water is diverted for irrigation? What happens to the bears who depend on those salmon for their diet?

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What is the math of clearing land to grow a single crop VS raising animals with sensible farming practices?

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Just something to chew on.

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Topics Discussed In This Episode:

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• Diana’s farm in Massachusetts
• How industrial farming has killed America
• When everyone in America grew food
• Not being obsessed with food (what a lovely feeling it is!)
• Ancestral health & the paleo diet
• Luke’s love / grossed out relationship with eating animals
• The difference between Diana’s farm & a factory farm
• Why eating something isn’t necessarily good or evil, for any animal
• The uncomfortable reality that everything gets eaten, even people
• The biomimicry process on farms, from beginning to end
• Croppable land VS uncroppable land (like central California)
• How humans invented the modern cow and sheep
• Taking bias & ulterior motives out of our food research
• Why people get emotionally attached to their diets
• The potential health risks involved with a strictly vegan diet
• Why the recommended dietary allowance of protein is actually half of what the average American should consume
• Chewing your food
• Valuing life

‍More about this episode.Watch it on YouTube