Transcribe your podcast
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You are listening to the Darina lead show. I'm Daryn. I've spent the last 15 years exploring the planet, looking for healthy foods, superfoods, environmental solutions, and I've had my mind blown along the way by the people, the far off places I have been and the life altering events that have changed my life forever. My goal is to help you dive deep into some of the issues of our modern day life, society's fatal conveniences, the things that we do that we're indoctrinated into thinking we have to, even though those things are negatively affecting us and in some cases slowly destroying us and even killing us every week.

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I have honest conversations with people that inspire me. My hope is, through their knowledge and unique perspectives, they'll inspire you two together. We'll explore how you can make small tweaks in your life that amount to big changes for you, the people around you and the planet. So let's do this. This is my show, the Darian Lehnsherr.

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Hey, everybody, how's it going? Welcome to the show. Thanks in so stoked for all of the people, tune in to the Darren Wilson Show. This is an exciting episode because this is my good friend Stephen Brooks, who we had on the Down to Earth show, the Costa Rica episode. So we didn't get into remotely all of what Stephen is involved in and what he's dedicated nearly 25 years of his life to, and that is regenerative agriculture.

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Before it was even this term, right before people were making it in vogue. Steven has been working in Costa Rica for all these years. He's been gathering botanicals, fruits, nuts, trees, herbs from all over the world and growing them and teaching permaculture classes, which which I think while this is out, we'll just be starting his permaculture course of about six months, which, by the way, I'm jumping on to because I've had bits and pieces of permaculture for the last 15 years.

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But I really want to jump into it fully with Steven and his great team. But Steven is this incredible person, so I'm really excited for you guys to get to know Steven a little more. He's a great teacher. He's a great orator, and he's extremely passionate about what he does. So please enjoy my friend. Please enjoy this conversation. And I hope you learn just a little bit more about our intricacies of plants, the earth, how we receive them, how we eat them, how we can celebrate them.

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And largely in that pursuit, the planet's healthier and your healthier. Enjoy the show. Stephen Progs, what's up, brother? So, all right, so everyone's tuning in. This is my boy, Stephen Brooks in the episode with us on Down to Earth and then a friend for a long time. And he got to grace us with his presence on that film and be a powerhouse. So, Stephen, like people are loving, obviously, your contribution and what you've been up to.

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But, you know, I always say from the show. It's well, well, well, well beyond the show, because it's a mission and you've always lived in that way. You're on a mission. I'm on a mission. It's great to have a show come in and pour some gasoline on what we're both committed to. And I want the world to kind of I want to unpack a little bit what you're up to. And people got a sense of it, but there's really so much more.

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And the what you bring is not just, you know, this hippy poo demon or this other you've got a wealth of knowledge within growing growing structures, regenerative agriculture, food, forests, all of that stuff, which is so important now more than ever. I want people to understand, like you've been committed to this for well over twenty five years, right. Half of your life has been more than studying. And and what I've always appreciated with you is actually doing it right.

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You're actually putting plants on the ground. You're educating, you're doing that which contributes to the world. And I'm grateful that more people are able to be exposed to you. So I just want to hear from the Wisconsin background, you know, going to college in Wisconsin and and maybe all the way from your childhood. Like what got you so interested. I know your story, which is great. It got on the episode, which is, you know, seeing that horrible toxifying pesticide, which really just sparked you.

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But just why don't you unpack your story a little bit? I really want people to hear that. Totally.

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Thanks so much. So I like I grew up in Miami, Florida, and I my father was a dentist of an island in the Bahamas. So I had an incredible opportunity to connect deep with nature from a very young age. So, like, my kind of first aperture into nature was to the ocean. I was an avid I had six hundred gallons of fish tanks in my house. You might not have ever guessed, but I'm like when I get into something, I really get into it.

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And so I had six hundred gallons of fish tanks in my parents house and every single thing in them. I actually caught myself and and probably if I really investigate it, there might have been species that had never even been named. I mean, I was so into it and I was going so far out and looking just in the craziest quarters and I just had fish tanks with octopus and seahorse and just lobsters, different weird kinds of shrimps, I mean, just everything.

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And so I really studied that kind of piece of nature and really got to explore that. And so I guess that was really that kind of my my window into nature to fast forward a little bit. I can't ever not give the credit that is so due to my dear friends, the Grateful Dead. In nineteen ninety eight, I went to my first Grateful Dead concert and it radically shifted my my view of everything. It was I was for almost 15, I was 14 1/2 years old.

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I end up at a Grateful Dead show, which I was I was really into classic rock. So I went to a lot of classic rock concerts. But next thing I know, my friends like, oh, yeah, let's go early to the show supposably. There's like a whole thing that happens in the parking lot. And so we got there like we went straight from school. School got out at like two thirty. We went straight to the Grateful Dead concert October 14th, nineteen eighty eight.

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And the minute we parked our car and I saw what was going on in the parking lot and I just I had never felt so at home in my life. Everyone there I could relate to, everyone there felt like they would do anything to support me. It was my first taste of what community feels like. And and I think ever since that moment, I only wanted to be surrounded by like minded people, for the most part, people that had the same values.

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It's not like I don't want to be in a diverse place, but for me, values are so crucial and I want to be surrounded by people with similar values and people with those same values that want to spread that earth loving kindness. It was just like just deep and deep rooted values. And to fast forward a little bit, I lived in Spain in nineteen ninety four and I lived in an apartment complex and it was like ten buildings in a row and all the buildings had commercial things downstairs.

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So there was a. Busy roads on either side of the 10 ten buildings, but the downstairs there was restaurants and bars and nail places and video game places and food stores and cheese shops and meat shops and everything you possibly needed. You got you never had to go to the streets, you walked right through one building to the next, and there's like little parks between the buildings and you walked around and it freakin felt like Sesame Street. Every store you went to, you had credit at because you knew everybody.

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So any time you want to store your friend was the owner. And it reminds me of my dear friend here in Kusturica. May he rest in peace. The name was Ralph and he started the organic market here in Costa Rica. And every time he'd go to his house for dinner or lunch, he would stand up at the beginning and he would look around the table and he knew the first last the first and last name of the producer of every single ingredient on his table, from the salt to the black pepper to the tortillas to everything, you know.

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And he's like, I don't want to eat food that I don't know, the first and last name of who produced it. And it was just like, wow, I know it was deep. And that's what I thought that in Spain. And I felt that with Ralph and I felt this connection to what we consume and I felt the connection to who do we give our energy to, whether it's our money, whether it's like who are we purchasing things from and how does it support the whole and how is it directly supporting my community where I live?

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And it just was like it was just kind of like the syntax that happen of like the connection of all things, kind of like what happened, like what I meant to the show about the banana plantations. It was like, wait a minute, here is these beautiful indigenous people being sprayed by neurotoxic chemicals and what seems so far off in the jungles of Costa Rica. Meanwhile, I'm paying for it and I'm voting for it every single freakin time. I cut those bananas and put them in my cereal.

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I'm voting for this kind of world. I'm voting for this kind of treatment of the earth. I'm voting for this kind of treatment of these beautiful indigenous people, you know?

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So it's like, I don't want to be a part of that. Right.

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And that's what people need to understand. And when you say voting, that means that if you're not aware of that, you're taking your hard earned money and you're spending it on this company that is doing these kind of things. So that's where voting with our dollars and kind of unpacking what these companies are actually doing is so important for us to change the trajectory of of where the power goes to so that we can support those companies that are transparent, that are doing the right thing.

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So I just want to emphasize that because we are now in this modern day world where it's so important for us to start to to demand transparency of companies so that we can still have our needs met. Right. And not the inconvenience because God, God forbid, people are inconvenienced, you know, but at least have the power to vote with our money and to keep certain companies in profit that are better for the planet and better for for people and our health.

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And it's not black and white and it's not like, OK, I'm never going to order from Amazon Prime again or I'm never going to go and buy some. You know, it's like we need just we just need to get in tune with our connection with all the things that we're doing and what they're doing and what they're doing and what they're doing and how it's affecting the whole. And just try our very best to be more connected and to be more conscious of how powerful we are, because it's so easy to feel like what we do doesn't matter.

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Does it really matter if I bring a cloth bag to the food store? Is it really going to help the polar bears or is it really going to stop global warming? Like, does it really matter? And it does. And it really does. Every freakin little thing matters. And it it only matters. There's like if we you know, it's so easy to blame them. It's so easy to blame Monsanto. It's so easy to blame that guy whose name I would dump.

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It's so easy to blame. I don't like to say his name. It's so easy to blame, you know, Cargill or so easy to blame the genetically modified food or the government or it's so easy to blame yet. What are we actually doing every day in our own lives to start changing things? And so we need to feel that power. We need to actually know that all the things we do make a radical difference in the way in the way our world unfolds.

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Know, so I so I think that kind of series of events, the Spain and the Grateful Dead and the and the indigenous scene, what was going on with the indigenous people and just that unfairness. And I think maybe the fast forward, you know, I was I moved to Costa Rica and I wanted to start showing a different way, but not because I knew it, not because I knew what to do. But I knew I wanted to start fighting.

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And I moved to DiBona after and I wish it made it into the show was I met my neighbor Patty. My neighbor Patty was born there in nineteen twenty eight. He died in twenty thirteen in my arms and he was an Afro Caribbean quintessential old man by the sea who literally like he grew everything that he ate. Basically he was, he dried fish and he grew plantains and yucca and he grew a lot. A tumeric he used to call the yellow ginge.

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Go get me the yellow ginger boy ad and starting to live with him and just starting to see the world through his lens to things that he said that that that were the one thing that he said that hit me the deepest is, boy, if you plan things right, all you do is reap. If you plan it was right, all you do is reap. And in permaculture, which I teach, you know, it's like it's the essence of everything.

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It's like plan now. So it's like Bilboa Sinitta, who coined the term permaculture, is to say how can we design our realities to maximize hammock time? And does it mean just laying the hammock hammock time means you're playing with your kids or you're hanging out with your family or you're playing guitar or you're painting or you're doing whatever it is you love. You're not doing all the things you have to do because that's what you think you have to do.

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So, yeah, all of that.

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Yeah. Well, I mean, clearly you've put yourself in situations and surrounded yourself with, you know, mastery of people that are living from the land, with the land and and the synergy and the gift of that land. And and clearly, I think the thing that I love about you is you grab the knowledge, you apply the knowledge, you are keep and you keep learning. And that, to me, is such a valuable aspect of living.

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And on top of it, you never you never hold the knowledge. You're always giving it back away because it was given to you. And you you just exemplify that in every way. Stephen, I mean, you're sitting in your house that you that you built by what was around you. You're sitting with Cachao and everyone. You can't see this. You just picked Cachao and he's got food around him. That is that he's reaping the benefits of your twenty five years of giving this.

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And also you're also reaping the benefit of people that have learned from you and are learning from you. You know, you just unapologetically do it. And then when other people see that you're that seed goes out to other people. So I just want to emphasize that because we do get overwhelmed, we do get annihilated and hit with all of this crazy media stuff and all these big companies getting getting caught up in all of this bureaucratic profit centered reality when in fact, we have shows like this that come out of people, resonate truly with it and deeply care that there are people like Stephen out there and and and that are doing things good.

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And and so anyway, small things do add up. And they also add up to that moment of actually making that choice and doing something truthful.

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And even the fact that the show is such a hit that says so much like when I saw the trailer and, you know, that part where it like flashes all the words and the fact that one of the words is permaculture, the fact that one of the number one shows on Netflix globally says the word permaculture. We were like this micro, you know, and I'm so grateful to you for just making this happen. Like, what a freakin miracle the word permaculture just flashed on the screen in like hundreds of millions of people's homes.

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I mean, I can't even believe it. You know, permaculture is like, you know, often I do interviews and people I talk about and I rarely even see the word permaculture because I don't want to say something that someone might get. What, what, what, what, you know. So I just can't I mean, for me, permaculture has been such an important just everything from just kind of catalyzing and stringing together all of the all of these movements that are happening.

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Permaculture is kind of like the blanket that just covers us all. Yeah.

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And it's a way of life. Totally. Yeah. And it's and it's let's unpack that, because we have a lot of listeners now that are not in our wheelhouse. They haven't traveled around the world like me. They haven't brust this growing and learning for twenty five years with you and dedicated your life to it. So they're coming into this going, I don't know, permaculture means. But it sounds cool. It sounds good. So, you know, someone coming in from zero knowing nothing.

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And I know it's always a complicated, multilayered it's more of a way of being than an actual way of growing. You know something? It's really a system approach. So so break it down in the simplest of terms that we can unpack it. More permaculture. And let people understand what that actually means. So I always tell my students, like one of the last days, I was like, get ready, you're going to leave here in Costa Rica after spending these weeks and and you're going to be in the elevator.

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And somebody said, oh, what were you doing in Costa Rica? Oh, I was taking a permaculture course. Oh, permaculture. What's that? Bang, you're the elevator. You're not in that big of a building. What are you going to answer? So the way I answer it is I say permaculture is a design philosophy. First and foremost, it's nothing to do with farming and it's all about energy. How can we meet our goals and use less energy?

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And it's so simple. And there's this epic word. It's called Aroy Energy Return on Energy Invested. And it might seem like the selfish thing. You know, it's like, oh, what am I getting? What am I giving? But that's the constant thing in life. What are you getting at giving in your relationship? What are you giving, giving and getting from your jobs? What are you giving you're getting from your education? You know, it's like it's a constant subconscious thing that's happening all the time.

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And so when I say that, how can we meet our goals and use less energy, like I often ask, do we all have the same goals? And when I'm giving big talks, I look around the room and you see all these people like nodding their head, no, no, no. But that is like think again, like think on a macro. We actually mostly do have the same goals. And what are they. We want to live good.

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We want to eat good. We want to feel safe. We don't want there to be war and turmoil outside our house. We want to feel loved. We want to be surrounded by friends and cool people and family, you know? And then when I say and most people, if you look around the room, would say, oh, yeah, that's my goal. And then we want to play more than we work or maybe even blur the difference.

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And then when I say use less energy, people like. Oh, like solar. No, like energy. What kind of energy do you have? You have physical energy. Like if I'm going to run down to the gate here and run back, I'm going to be tired out of physical energy or mental energy. Like if I have to do my taxes, which I don't even know where I would start, but if I needed to, like, answer 50 emails at the end of it, I'm going to be tired.

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That's mental energy. And then we have our financial energy and everything we're doing, whether we're thinking about it or not, we're kind of subconsciously going through that. Can I can I do this, too? I mentally understand this kind of physically do it. Can I afford it? And that's kind of the subconscious thing, running through our brain constantly and. And so. How can we and then what permaculture bring to the mix is how can I do this act and use less of the planet's resources and how can I do it more efficiently?

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And that's kind of like it's kind of like a computer antivirus. Remember when we used to have PCs and that used to have that McAfee, whatever antivirus and all your processes would go through that permaculture is kind of like that lens that all of a sudden, no matter what you do, no matter what you buy, no matter where you go. You're going to see if you could accomplish that and be more efficient and be kinder and help more people rather than hurt people.

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It's like that's what permaculture is. It's a philosophy where we want to do good. And the ethics, it's got a whole set of ethics and principle and ethics are our earth care.

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People care fair share, which is just fairness and future care. So these are just constantly running through our minds. No matter what we're doing. This is who we are. These are our ethics. So so that's really what permaculture is. And then it brings a whole kind of empowerment and consciousness that, wow, we actually have a say in the way things are. We actually have a good say in the way our towns are happening and the way our villages are being set up and the way where our water comes from.

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And we actually have a say in all that, you know, things are the way they are. But they don't need to be that way anymore. That we could start right now at the end of this podcast, feel so inspired and radically shift the way we're doing things starting right now, the before and after Darod podcast. Let me think about somebody like Zach. You know, it's like I, I have some deep I remember sitting in the tree house at Fukumoto at one 30 in the morning after the Cachao night, and we went do that.

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I was like, tell me back. Tell me what? What is it? And he's like, I don't know. I don't know if it was I don't know what it is that Darren said in that podcast. What podcast was it again that he listened to? It was Ritual's podcast.

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Yeah, right. So he's like, I don't know. What if it was something in particular that he said or it was just his frequency cracked me. It cracked me open to realize, like, holy, I need to do something about all this man. It was something that you said in the cracked him. And I hope that happens right now. Today, when people are listening like we are in full control, we could say like I'm right now sitting in a ecovillage called Likova that we started 12 years ago.

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And there's forty five families living here now from twenty two countries. And it's like it was just an idea. And then it was a business plan and then it was a bank account and money raising and land buying and fruit tree planting and marketing and logos and selling and you know, and now we're doing the same thing next door. One hundred and twenty more lots and thank you. This freakin show is some serious good marketing. It's unbelievable. Like, you know, I don't think the funny thing is, is people people you know, it's like I watch the Instagram and you think like, wow, I never really watched the show.

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I thought somebody was cool and then look them up on Instagram. Maybe I'm old fashioned or maybe I'm a jungle guy, but like, I can't even believe all the people that are reaching out to me from all over the world just by seeing the show and see my name and then looking me up and biting my email and finding Alegría Village and the village that we've started this idea of merging where we live with what we eat and being intentional with our neighbors.

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So we share values. So we're not so freakin worried that our kid is going to go to the next door neighbor's house and eat and eat weird snacks. Or do you know, it's like I want to be surrounded by people that love this Earth. I want to be I want my neighbors to care about the things that I care about so that together, collectively, collaboratively, we can make this world better. I don't want to be do things on my own anymore.

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I want to work together with people like you, Darren.

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Yeah, here we are. And that's the beautiful thing. I think that people listen to this and and also there's this also group of people that don't know where to begin. Right. And I'm very you know, I'm I'm from a small town in Minnesota. You know, my dad was an egg professor at the University of Minnesota. I didn't know that. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. So I came from I come from farmers. My my grandfather sold tractors in South Dakota and my and my grandmother said Indians in the plains of North Dakota.

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So but the point is that there's people that are in cities and towns, they are trying to rub nickels together. And so how and this is a this is a strong question, but how can they kind of start to learn about this synergy flow with nature when they're sitting in their apartments? And what are some things? No. One awareness? We're getting a lot of awareness. Right. So so we're we've woken something up. People from I had a nine year old reach out and then their parents said that the nine year old's teaching us to eat better and drink better water like like incredible.

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Right. So awareness is great. And pouring the gasoline from this kind of show on this stuff is is the first kind of spark. And now if they're spark, what what would you say to those people? I mean, there's standard support. Your local farmers, there's biodynamics, there's farm, there's farmer's markets, there's everything else.

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Design course, Daryn, I would take a permaculture design if I would. And it's not like I know what it did for me. You know, I know where I felt all of the jumbled pieces, like all the things you're saying, like farmers markets and all these different things that feel so separated. I feel like the permaculture course for me was like the thread, you know, the way that it got me to just understand the connection between all things and also how it got me to, like, really hone in on my passion and hone in on my path.

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And Holden, it's like I've seen time and time again like that before and after the permaculture design. You know, it's like. All of a sudden, I have what permaculture courses do is it gives you the toolkit, it gives you the words, it gives you the vocabulary to even begin to describe the feelings that happen. And I have a feeling that that's what happened with you and that Zach in that podcast, that all of a sudden you were putting words to feelings that and I think that's what the show is doing.

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The show is sparking people's internal. This isn't new. We're all dreaming this. This is in our DNA. This is what we this is who we all are as human beings. We just forgot, you know, just scabbed over these these truths that have been covered up with just competition and hatred and unfairness. And it's been going on for generations and generations of patriarchy that have just like I've just just destroyed us. So it's like as we come into the more gentle and as we become into the more sacred and as we become into the more holy respect for Earth and respect for each other and respect for women and respect for children and respect for elders in ways that we never thought possible.

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Race is certainly racism and all of it all.

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And then we thread we thread a physical design with communities that support all that. So, yeah, I'm just I'm just feeling so clear and excited about all of it. So for years, maybe all, most of my life, people have been asking me what kind of foods you eat, what kind of exercises do do, what kind of water should I drink, all of these things and so much more we put into a 21 day program. So that can take you through a theme every day of knowledge, action, and then eating this delicious meals, working out, getting support, anchoring in these new habits.

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So you can do what? So that you can kick ass. So you have the energy, the vitality to live the kind of life that you really want. That's what it's all about. So all in this app, we have grocery lists, we have education about real hydration and what greater oxygenation and the balance of organization. All of these things we are diving into as you're heading down this hero's journey of implementation into a new life to give you the kind of life that you actually want.

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So join my tribe. All you have to do is go to one to one tribe, NORCOM sign up and you get three free days. Join me on this hero's journey. Join the tribe. Many of you who follow me know I've spent most of my life searching for the healthiest foods on the planet. If you look hard enough, there are a few unknown, extraordinary foods around the world that people still don't know about. And a few years ago, I came across my favorite superfood discovery of all time verrucas nuts.

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When I first tasted them, my eyes lit up. The taste alone just absolutely blew me away. But after sending them to a lab, which I do and getting all the tests, I realized they're the healthiest nuts on the planet like no other nut even compares. They have like an unusually high amount of fiber and they're off the charts in super high antioxidants and have fewer calories than any other nut. Like it's jam packed with micronutrients. But they're not just good for you.

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They're really good for the planet. Most other nuts require millions of gallons of irrigated water, but bharucha trees require no artificial irrigation. Brewskis are truly good for you, good for the planet. And good for the world community. It's a win all the way around, I really think you'll love them. So I'm giving all of my listeners 15 percent off by going to Barracas Dotcom backslash, Daryn. That's B A, are you K.S. Dotcom backslash, Daryn.

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D, A, R I and I know you will enjoy. Going back to the awakening and the spark, what would people expect, even if they want to just dip their toe into permaculture, dip their toe into transparency, dip their toe into nature in a common sense revolution or or movement?

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Right. Because I always say whether you believe in global warming or whatever, just go to any indigenous person around the world. They'll change your mind because things are changing. But but let's say not even getting into that. It's common sense what you're talking about. It's common sense about permaculture. It's common sense to do things like this. So what what would people expect to walk away from in learning more about permaculture?

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Yeah, I like I said, I just think it's the it's the verbiage. It's like the two and the two next steps.

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I mean, I think from that to what's the tools and the tools like the design process.

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I think my favorite day, like I feel like if all that you teach, all we teach in permaculture, the day of the design process, like the step by step, this idea, OK, first we come and we observe and we interact and we don't use so much. It's kind of like nonviolent communication. We don't come in with so much opinion. We don't try to analyze. We just want to observe. You know, I'll never forget many years ago I was I was doing a consultation at this big project, very well funded project here in Costa Rica.

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And they hired all these guys from all over the world, like really high. It was so funny sitting in this room of like Singapore people. And there's people from all over the world in this room. And they brought this one. There was only one woman on the team and she was from Hong Kong. And and I'll never forget, like I was observing her, observing, you know, and we were walking around the property and the guys were just like, oh, yeah, we could put this year and we could put this here.

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They were they were just like, so Yang, you know, and just like, you know, they weren't even observing, you know. And meanwhile, the woman was just like moving so slow and just like like literally a. Like feeling the wind and the breeze is coming from the west, and I know it's just like the way I was, I just remember I was with my pretty tight we're just like, what kept like going. Look at her, look at her.

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And these guys are telling us what you know, and this woman just like, you know, so this idea of pressing pause on ourselves and and holding and what do I like to do? How can I do it more? What don't I like to do? How can I stop doing that? You know, it's just like, you know, I always say it. The first day I was like, there's a three very important three letter word that I want to remind everybody.

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This was a lot of times I'm going to go one, two, three.

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And I want the whole class because it's just like, oh, my goodness, I can't believe I'm sitting in a classroom learning the most obvious freakin things of the whole entire world that everyone knows. But we've just forgotten. We've just lost touch. So I think permaculture walks you through like this beautiful dance of like life science and climates and observation skills and maps and just like map reading and timelines and Gantt charts and just like and and mind maps and all the different ways that we could, like, slurp our vision out of our brains and get it down onto paper and then get it into a timeline and get it to what's in it, ready to execute.

[00:36:31]

What is it that I have to do to execute my dream life? What are what is my dream? You know what? I think just permaculture just helps do that. And I yeah, I'm just like so I'm so in love with the with the philosophy because I see what I see what it's done for me and I see what it's doing for the students. You know, thousands of students that I've worked with and just watching them just get blasted with their opening, they're waking up from deep slumber for their first time.

[00:36:58]

It's like I cannot believe that I live so blindly for so long and just you're just telling me things I already know. And yet that opening my eyes and I keep thinking about that podcast that Zach watch I haven't listened or listened to. I haven't even listened to it. I want to.

[00:37:13]

So you've got the permaculture course. You're starting one up soon. Right. And is going to be is there going to be online first?

[00:37:22]

I was always so against doing online courses like no no permaculture you got to do in person like what other people were doing them. I was kind of like, no, I was judgmental and and what's our choice right now? And we and just like we did with the TV show, we need to get this information out to the masses. So I'm so excited. I'm so I'm teaching with my friend Penny Livingston. I don't know if you've ever heard of her, but she actually was part of the crew that took the first course that Bill Mollison took in the States in the early eighties.

[00:37:50]

And she's this epic elder who's just so magical. She's like this beautiful, beautiful woman. And I'm so excited to be teaching whether she's an herbalist and a permaculture as that she's taught all around the world. So I'm really excited about that.

[00:38:03]

Do it and don't need it. I think I'm going to jump on that. I find. Yeah, yeah.

[00:38:10]

It's for the next six months, twice a week, for six months. And it's all recorded. So you can watch it at any time.

[00:38:15]

Oh, that'll be great. I'm in a bit awesome in what we're doing here with Alegría. You know, it's like it's just blowing my mind. We've been doing these webinars that we've had like 50, 60 people in every webinar. And I look at the little zoom screens and I look in everybody's eyes and I feel the energetic swoop of the frequencies in these Zoome calls and the meditation that we started with and and just taking the miracles that have brought all of us to right now, every single one of you that has chosen to click on Darin's podcast to listen to this conversation right now on this day that we're having these words that we're sharing, this frequency that's being admitted.

[00:39:00]

May we? Together, find a way to radically shift the this ship, the path of this ship is on and it could only happen together and may we choose collaboration against competition that we find ways to get clear on what it is. Where do you want to live? Who do you want to live with? How do you want the next five years to look? You know, what do you want the commute to be like to your best friend's house?

[00:39:29]

And how do you how can you shape that and design that?

[00:39:34]

Well, it's certainly throughout time in almost every area of. As they call them, success in someone's life, it's first what's your who who are you surrounding yourself with? Who is that community? And you're taking it to this this other level. But but people need those steps now, right? So relationships and who are they hanging out with? Who are they zooming with at this particular time? And how are they reaching out? Because because that type of connection is ultimately, you know, listen, the show sparked a different conversation that that maybe Zach's abs brought them in.

[00:40:23]

But but certainly they stuck around. And the people are the people are asking for and they're asking for more. And that, to me, is a win. And and this has never been again. I've said this before. It's never been about a show. It's about a movement. And you've never been about, you know, a piece of land here and a piece of land there and been growing this and growing that. You have always been about a movement.

[00:40:52]

And I love that you've also started to steer and adapted and sharing this knowledge, because maybe, of course, getting your hands dirty and actually being in poo Demona and doing all that sinked totally invaluable. Right. But if it's going to stop you from not delivering a lot of information at this particular time and for you to put this online, I think is is is absolutely necessary. And I'm excited for people to learn about this and to continue to grow, because the more I learn about what you're doing, the more it's clear that it's not that you need to turn into a farmer or trends change your entire life in terms of needing to grow something.

[00:41:43]

It's about. If you look at permaculture as an organism of your own life, that's the lesson that that that you're talking about, right. So that's what that that's like if you're a doctor or a lawyer or whatever and you love your life, great. Well, you can still learn about connectedness. You can still learn about the natural flows of nature, and you can still learn about how to support systems that better support life. And that's I think that's the biggest lesson people because people want to be.

[00:42:22]

People want to understand how they can be better themselves and that they can better this planet, and clearly we're seeing that totally.

[00:42:31]

And I think the other thing that I would want to share is this in the last six or eight months, I mean, for me, the vision, you know, I had done all these different things, put Demona, which is the education center, and the Agriculture Alegría, which is the ecovillage and the elders and the children and the schooling. And then Invision, the avision festival and the gatherings. You know, there's all these kind of segmented good thunder.

[00:42:54]

When I said that all these different segmented areas and what I've been just feeling so much is like, how can we bring this all together and create a replicable model that we could do around the world. And so I've been calling it one thousand and one. So I started doing a thousand. And then my friends like to do one thousand and one you could do one sideways infinity sized one. And so one thousand one is it's about redesigning the world a thousand and one hectors at a time and a hectors is two point four or so, it's twenty four hundred acres at a time and and that's a chunk of land.

[00:43:27]

That's a huge piece of land that that what it comes down to is what would the design percentage look like. And for me it looks like around 10 or 15 like the criteria's, about 10 or 15 percent is already in native forest. And what do we do there? We radically conserve it. And then the next 30, 40 percent, that's three or four hundred hectares. That's like a thousand or twelve hundred acres. We reforest and we create corridors between all this existing forest.

[00:43:54]

And then on the next 10 or 15 percent, we black wood and bamboo for our children or grandchildren, the kind of houses in the future and dams and thatch in the industry. And then on the next 30, 40 percent, three to four hundred hectares, we do massive food for us. And amongst all that we merge the eco versity. That's what we're doing, all our stuff, the platform, we're doing our stuff. That's kind of how we unlearn all of these awful lessons that we've been ingrained with and start learning this new global redesign and then merge communities of thousands of homes and neighborhoods with maybe even an urban space.

[00:44:32]

And then this is the most exciting piece, is in a bed space, a conference center that can host a thousand people five days a month, kind of like Invision, more educational, less party where we can just keep converting the masses and converting them by experience, like come and experience this way of life, come and experience this magic of community and of organic, this kind of love. And at the end, you're never going to want to go back and then we start hearing Kusturica and then we do it in the Philippines and then we do it in Colombia and we create TV shows in all the places that we're doing it.

[00:45:06]

And it's constantly updating on what's happening in the Philippines, what's going on with all these project. And we create this replicable model, you know, that that can be done all over.

[00:45:15]

I think what you're what you're saying is so powerful and important. And I think they're in the global trotting that I've done. There's so much power in that because you can also go into communities that are having a hard time. Right. And you can move into those lands and help so much of the indigenous people there and at the same time be reforesting and doing all this other work. The other thing that I want to say is the work that I'm doing.

[00:45:49]

I'm an advisor on P. five, and the world hardly knows about this technology, but it's there's a lot of clean energy tech that I would love to talk. We mentioned you mentioned it. Yeah. So er motors, cryo air motors, peeling nitrogen out of the air and creating combustion, creating water walls from liquid nitrogen. And there's a lot of abundant micro power grids that we can create and goes right alongside. Let's do it.

[00:46:22]

We're ready. It's happening literally. Literally it's happening like we just Alegría just got permitted. So like in the next weeks we're starting to put in the power grid, like laminate the power, like the the the permits come in. And I mean, luckily, Costa Rica is one hundred percent renewable energy, but they're mostly from dammed rivers. And I think we can do better. So, yeah, we're totally, totally, totally open. I would love to collaborate with you.

[00:46:47]

I think, you know, it's it's time for the global redesign. And it's going it's not going to be there by any one group. It's going to be it only could happen with true cobbledick collaboration starts unfolding in deeper ways than it ever has. I'm looking at I'm looking at two two cans right now in front of me. Yeah.

[00:47:07]

I mean, certainly to getting the natural medicines back in people's lives from a from a shrub and a tuber and a tree right outside their door, I mean, and keeping their body strong and keeping their environment strong to an environment that's hostile to it from weird viruses and stress and all of that stuff. And that's that's super exciting. And listen, I don't know about you, but I'm around a lot of people that are questioning, wanting to stay here for this craziness.

[00:47:38]

And and so to have freedom outside and to to have an option of of living in different ways is is infinitely important. But, yeah, I mean, and this is how and everyone listening here is like Stephen, I haven't really talked about this, but these are the seeds that we start to plant. And you get Stephens. Adua, I'm a doer. And the next thing you know, you start connecting. It's all through collaboration, all of this stuff.

[00:48:09]

And and this is how things change. It is. It's as easy as getting with your neighbor. And, hey, I'm going to grow this and you're going to grow that. And together we're going to start sharing food together. You have double the land, you know, and you can start doing the neighborhoods all over the country, all over the world. And while you're learning how important it is to be connected to the soil and connected to the plants, it's just, you know, I think I think people get overwhelmed with this stuff, but it's.

[00:48:48]

It's powerful things when you actually start taking action on it and you start learning a little bit, your bright future is bright, my brother. Yeah, so.

[00:48:58]

So you've got Invision, you've got a couple of places in Costa Rica. You've got the one thousand and one. Anything else you got got going on?

[00:49:10]

You know, I'm excited about versity. The eco versity is the platform that that where a lot of these things that you're talking about, we want to start offering classes in this new global redesign, like we want to start training people to start setting up the one thousand ones of the world from the from the electricity and the and the agriculture to the nonviolent communication and the and the and the ways of you know, it's like we've got a really good grasp on the ecosystems, but when can we really start crumbling these ecosystems and how can we really that's what's holding us back.

[00:49:45]

You know, it's it's not that we haven't figured out how to do all these things. We just haven't really figured out how to collaborate, you know? So we really like I think with eco versity, that's what we're really trying to we're really trying to create a platform where we're, you know, and we're focusing mostly on young people just because, you know, old people already know everything. So you want to start with people are still, like, really wanting to learn and really open.

[00:50:08]

It's just like languages. You know, you try to learn a language or you're when you're a kid, it's like you pick it up in a few weeks, you know, you try to learn a language when you're old and you just can't do it. It's kind of like trying to unlearn these these broken, you know, ways of design. It's really hard to unlearn and you can't even begin to learn until you unlearn. And that's why it's so much easier to really work with young people.

[00:50:29]

But, yeah, we just launched the first eco versity course on two days ago, and we've already had an incredible, incredible amount of people reaching out. And I'm feeling so excited. And if anybody out there is teaching something that they want to start sharing on an online platform, we're so excited about, about creating that space to to start to start sharing these important topics. That's awesome.

[00:50:52]

And we'll put all that stuff in the show notes and how people can sign up for that and learn more about it.

[00:51:00]

Be our neighbor. Get down here at our neighbor. It's so exciting. That's right.

[00:51:04]

That's right. Well, Stephen, I'm so grateful for you and thank you for being on the show and also trusting me bring you into the show, because I know it's like you never know about these things, you know? You know, so I know that you trusted me and you you gave it a go. And a couple of years later, it's finally out and it's doing some good. So I'm just grateful for you. I'm grateful your commitment to teaching and also to Mother Earth and making a difference.

[00:51:36]

And I'm just stoked for you and I'm stoked for what you're going to do.

[00:51:42]

Thank you so much, Daryn. I'm really honestly, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for you trusting me and just all of it. It feels like it just feels like such a beautiful win win for everything and everyone.

[00:51:55]

Now, we've reached a part of the show where we address society's fatal conveniences and how we can avoid falling into them and being a victim of them. I define fatal conveniences as the things we may be doing because the world we live in makes us believe we have to. And even though they may be saving us time or tricking us into thinking they're good for us, the truth is they're not. In fact, they could be slowly harming us and even killing us.

[00:52:32]

OK, everyone, federal convenience, here we go, big, big, big one. This is mono cropping versus organic farming. Now, there's a lot of rabbit holes to go down. There is talking about the nutrition in each conventional versus organic. And I'm going to largely. Kind of go down that road, but there's also the the exposure to pesticides, herbicides, there's glyphosate, there's a lot of a lot of issues and a host of problems as it relates directly to the exposure of pesticides, herbicides, glyphosate, GMOs, all of that which I'm not going to get into on in this particular fatal convenience.

[00:53:25]

I'm going to I'm going to paint the picture a little bit about the differences of conventionally grown food as it relates to organic farming. Organic farming now could be, you know, literally following the organic standards that has been set up by the USDA, which is restricting pesticides, herbicides. It can it can also be a little bit of mono cropping. But at least you're following natural rhythms. This can also be a big conversation about biodynamic farming, permaculture.

[00:54:04]

That is like looking at the ecosystem, the organic organizing principle of the farm itself, where there's no waste and it's only regenerative from every angle. And that is beautiful. And, you know, Steven Brooks, who you just listen to, started to get in on a little of that, is also putting on his own, along with other experts, his own protocols and education around that. So I'm going to focus in on kind of the problem of conventional farming and the better farming from my point of view of organic agriculture.

[00:54:45]

And as it relates to nutrition and the argument a little bit about whether you should pay a little more for organic food as it relates to conventional, which conventional underscore has pesticides, herbicides, larvacide, and is not going with the cycles of nature. So does that kind of give a little hint? So, you know, great work has been done by I want to give a big shout out to Dr. Zach Bush and the other researchers and groups that farmers footprint so you can go to farmers footprint, dot us and check out that amazing video.

[00:55:28]

And so here's the problem. We've shifted to mono cropping in the early nineteen hundreds. We had the great dust bowl throughout the throughout the United States and they even realized that No. One, the early 1990s realized the nutritional quality in the soil was was horrible and we've lost ninety nine percent of it. So and then we realized the topsoil through tilling is damaging the soil and destroying all the beneficial bacteria mycelia fungal world. And you can pick up a handful of dirt and it has more bacteria, healthy bacteria and healthy soil than all the people on the planet.

[00:56:14]

So it's a very, very vital for health. And then the transmutation and transportation of the minerals going up to the plants in a usable form so that the plants are strong. OK, so I'm going to emphasize that plants are strong when they have healthy soil. They have protective mechanisms, antioxidants that defend themselves. The the colors on the food, the the red pepper has infinitely more vitamin C, for example, than, say, a green one.

[00:56:47]

But they all have polyphenols, flavonoids, antioxidants in them. We do know now that the research that even though there's arguments, a look at and they said, well, the nutritional quality is not that different, but the major and that was in 2011. But the major difference was that the antioxidants were a lot lower on the conventional. So the plants were weaker. So what does that mean? The plants are weak. They need help. So then they decide that they're going to spray everything to try to help with pest control when largely you can do it with multilayer and crops, balancing out the soil, strengthening all the plants and keeping the pests at bay.

[00:57:34]

Now, I'm going to I'm going to push you in this direction. The same thing. The environment of the soil, the environment that surrounds the plant and the plant environment itself creates resistance to harmful bacteria, virus, fungus, varmints, all of this stuff. The same thing happens with your body, you healthy forests. Inside of you, the beneficial bacteria, the the diversification of plants that you eat, the less refined food, less stress, all of that stuff creates an environment so that you are a not a hospitable host for harmful bacteria, virus, fungus and whatnot.

[00:58:20]

So that is the true science. And Tom Camp was the greatest microbiologist of our time. And he was clearly saying that, screaming that before they created him, which largely is on germ theory and it goes against nature. So that's the problem. The problem is we started mono cropping and farming, and instead of the plants being strong and vital through the soil and the health of the soil, they became weeks. And now pesticides have increased ever since we started to use them.

[00:58:54]

And that goes along with the explosion of chronic disease. Is there a correlation? Absolutely. There's a correlation. So the profound change created this pathway for chronic disease to express itself in the United States. Independent research has proven that has shown that in private laboratories and universities all around the world have implicated glyphosate as being a major, major active ingredient for most of that stuff. But I'm going to leave glyphosate on that note, because that's a big topic.

[00:59:25]

But I want you to do some your own research. So we shift the chemical side, the chemical pesticides devoid of nature, following nature's rhythm, following then nature's understanding of soil and the complexities of that incredible soil. We started spraying with pesticides, herbicides, larvacide because the plant was having a horrible time and this horrible soil. And then we put on just the very basics. We nitrogen put nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus to the soil. And then we largely just tried to create the same looking plants.

[01:00:03]

And with that, with the pesticides, herbicides, all sides were getting along with that. Some brilliant idea of having heavy metals like arsenic, lead and other residuals of chemicals inside. So it's a horrible idea. You're getting the point that I'm a little biased with this fatal convenience. Clearly, it's a stupid idea. So organic agriculture is seeking a balance to listen to nature. Victor Cha Berger was one of the great, great scientists, researchers of our time viewing nature, understanding nature and allowing us to make advancements within nature.

[01:00:41]

Hell, you could even make the argument that Tesla and all of his brilliance was simply understanding nature so that he could create free energy technology. But that's a whole nother thing. So you need healthy soil and organic agriculture so that the soil can transmute some of these heavy minerals within the soil, meaning that they're not small enough for the plant to use of the body to use the the microbiological system, the enzymatic activity and the breakdown of the soil. So uptake into the plants is extremely important for optimal living.

[01:01:19]

So the idea then is we need to shift. And there's so much to talk about with this because you're sequestering carbon. That's what you're doing. You're pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and fixing it in the soil. If you're losing our topsoil, they say by 2040, I believe we will have lost almost all of the topsoil just blowing away by our crazy idea of tilling and mono cropping. Easy to fix. Regenerative agriculture is using other cover crops, rebuilding the organic matter, the living biodiversity in the soil, creating nutrient density in the food.

[01:02:02]

Year after year. And when you do that, you're also creates a a strength within adapting to that, always changing weather patterns. So pulling atmospheric carbon in because we're releasing way too much in our crazy world. Whether you believe in climate change or not, I don't care to try to convince you there's horrible releasing of carbon in a million different ways of industry and of conventional agriculture that is causing issues in our atmosphere. And so therefore it is causing lack of oxygen or our atmosphere and on and on and on creating issues with the ozone.

[01:02:47]

So it's really just a bad idea. It has proven to be profitable. And this is a great work by farmers footprint when you go back to regenerative agriculture. You can profit within the first year and please check them out because farmers footprint, because they're doing a lot of great stuff. Listen, I come from Minnesota. My dad was an agricultural professor at the University of Minnesota. He taught business to farmers. My my grandfather sold tractors, my aunts, uncles, cousins or cowboys and ranchers and stuff.

[01:03:21]

So this is very important to me. But we need to get back to actual farming, family farming and decentralize some of this crazy strangling that some of these farmers are in, because once they start to spray chemicals, they're a victim to that way of doing things. So we need to go back to composting, intensive planting, companion planting and carbon farming. All right. So like sequestering carbon and focusing on nutrient density. And then obviously that helps pollination.

[01:03:55]

That helps bees, that helps diversity all of these other things. So now let's just get back to, you know, some of these points that about the nutritional density. So clearly we want to focus on the science really shows that the antioxidant capacity is exponentially greater in food. So it gives you strength. It gives you the ability to combat free radicals in your body. You get more diversity of micronutrients from the soil and you're eating your medicines. So no one, by choosing organic food and hopefully locally sourced food, you're not getting the chemicals.

[01:04:38]

At the same time, you're getting more micronutrients and antioxidants. So people right there, are you wanting to use your hard earned money to get a toxic exposure of pesticides, herbicides, larvacide, glyphosate, genetically modified organisms, relying? And in this type of science over nature, the miraculous InnoCentive of nature, you just pay a little extra or just support your local farmers that are doing it correctly. And then there's not transportation costs, which is about sixty five percent of the cost of food is because of transportation.

[01:05:16]

And then you're also not harvesting at the ideal time of those nutrients even being delivered in those foods. OK, so I want you to strongly consider the fatal convenience here as conventional farming. The better choice is support your local farmers, buy locally. Grow your own food. Buy organic, get the nutrient density, support this, and at the same time you're sequestering carbon, at the same time you're helping to balance out and at the same time, you're helping our farmers to shift from this news that they have around their neck of chemical agriculture and by our demands, by us individuals, by you.

[01:06:06]

I'm talking to you, your family, you, your kids, your husband, your wife. I'm talking to you. Choose wisely, choose to support our farmers, choose to support healthy ways of naturally growing food. OK, you hear me? I love you all. Thanks.

[01:06:29]

That was a fantastic episode. What was the one thing that you got out of today's conversation? If today's episode struck a chord with you and you want to dive a little deeper, more episodes are available on Derren only Dotcom as well. Keep diving, my friends. Keep diving. This episode is produced by my team at Must Amplify, an audio marketing company that specializes in giving a voice to a brand and making sure the right people hear it.

[01:07:06]

If you would like or are thinking about doing a podcast or even would like a strategy session to add your voice to your brand in a powerful way.

[01:07:17]

Go to w w w dot must amplify dot com backslash Daryn. That's w w w must amplify dot com backslash Daryn.