Today’s podcast is the first half of a double-header with Amie Hamlin, founder and executive director of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food.
Amie was a concerned parent who got involved at her own kids’ school after seeing the crap they were being served in the cafeteria. What she discovered when she hit hurdle after hurdle led her to full-time, full-court activism on behalf of children’s health.
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Ben Chesler was finding – and fixing – broken food systems before he even got to college. As a freshman, Ben cofounded the Food Recovery Network, a non-profit that feeds the hungry with excess food from college dining halls. Now with chapters in over 100 colleges nationwide, it’s donated over 700,000 pounds of perfectly good food that would otherwise have gone to waste.
Now Ben’s at it again. The Brown University senior has cofounded Imperfect, a company dedicated to fixing another broken part of our food system.
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Heather Jo Flores came of age in an “addicted, abusive, and estranged family” in the slums of Los Angeles in the 1980s.
An unlikely leader of the modern environmental movement (a label that is far too small for Heather, as you’ll see), she moved from radical activism to community building to connection making to her current project, replacing most of the world’s suburban lawns with thriving gardens and food forests.
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Ann Bradney’s life spun out of control from the age of 13, when she first discovered drugs and drinking. For the next 18 years, she lived in constant misery, self-medicating and functioning barely above life support.
At 31, she had a fleeting yet powerful realization: she wanted to live.
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Robert Cheeke was a scrawny, scrappy teenager who embraced veganism – and raised hell in the process.
Born to a family deeply steeped in animal agriculture, he took a different path. And all his life, Robert has kept that rebellious spirit alive in the service of health, fitness, and compassion.
His new book, Shred It!, is an encyclopedic reference for people who want to become fit and ripped – low body fat, fully developed muscles.
Yeah, it’s got workout routines, photos of exercises, eating plans, and recipes – but the book starts with an impassioned plea to the reader: Don’t Be Average.
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Mike Crockett, aka Big Bald Mike, has an amazing and inspiring story.
A young, gentle giant whose soul hungered for music and peace.
A childhood in Marlin, Texas, being fattened up like a calf for slaughter so he could dominate high school football games.
A carnivorous hunger that had him eating 2600 pounds of meat in a single year – and had him topping out at 571 pounds.
A long spiral into addiction, crime, violence, and self-loathing. A world in which numbing out the pain – physical and emotional – became a full-time job.
A dark night of the soul that culminated in a attempted-suicide overdose that would have killed five ordinary men.
And a path to redemption that includes professional wrestling, a caring lady, kale, and bunnies.
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Alan Muskat has shown some pretty famous people how to feed themselves off the ground.
As founder of the No Taste Like Home foraged food and event company, Alan has shared his “off the eaten track” (his pun, not mine) self-catering skills with such food luminaries as Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods, Andrew Weil, and The James Beard Celebrity Chef Tour. He’s also been featured by The History Channel, PBS, Southern Living, and Travel and Leisure.
He’s also author of the book Wild Mushrooms: A Taste of Enchantment.
Alan’s got a unique outlook on food: we should abandon mass agriculture and return to the food we were meant to eat: the stuff that grows all around, totally without our help.
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When John Bruna was 10 years old, he was already stealing from liquor stores. Born into an environment of poverty, violence, and substance abuse, John began to turn his life around at the age of 22.
Along the way to his current leadership of the Mindful Life Program and Way of Compassion Foundation, John served as a dishwasher, auto mechanic, school teacher, substance abuse counselor, corporate manager, graduate student, and spiritual practitioner.
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Patrick Sherwin was decommissioning a solar hot water system on someone’s roof when he had a crazy idea.
Picking up one of the vaccuum tubes used to insulate and heat the water, he thought, “I wonder if I could cook a bunch of hot dogs in this thing?”
Ten years later, Patrick’s startup, GoSunStove, is cranking out the world’s most efficient solar cooker. Not only does the SunStove make tailgating cool as anything, it’s also a potential lifesaver around the globe, where accidental smoke inhalation from indoor cooking with dirty fuels is the second leading cause of death worldwide.
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When you think of the school you went to, or the school your child goes to, do these words pop into mind?
fun
fascinating
exciting
nurturing
empowering
joyful
community
teamwork
For most people, not so much. Even those of us who “won” at school, who got good grades and participated in the resume-stuffing clubs and activities, mostly preferred the time we spent outside of the classroom, doing things and exploring ideas we found interesting.
