One Bite is Everything

Who gets recognized for the work they do? Who gets invited into the conversation? And who has to fight for a seat at the table? At a dinner hosted by American Farmland Trust and Stone Barns Center at Blue Hill in New York City, Dana DiPrima met organic grain farmer Mary-Howell Martens, a woman who had quietly rearranged the seating chart to make sure she wouldn't be overlooked in conversations abo...

When did cooking dinner and sitting down to eat become luxuries we have to earn? Trinity Mouzon Wofford joins Dana DiPrima to challenge some familiar assumptions about food, time, and money: that farmers markets are too expensive, that cooking is another chore to squeeze in, and that being constantly busy means we’re doing something right. Trinity is the cofounder of wellness brand Golde and autho...

What happens when someone else decides what goes on your plate every day, for years, and you have almost no power to change it? Ear Hustle cohosts and cocreators Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods join Dana DiPrima as guest cohosts for a conversation with Impact Justice’s Aishatu Yusuf and Alex Busansky about food in prison, the messages it sends about human worth, and the consequences that follow peop...

I think this is at the heart of the regenerative movement: a going back. That's what I did to bring you this episode. I went back into some of the conversations I've had here and found three guests who said the same thing in completely different ways. Rick Clark is a fifth-generation farmer in Indiana. Adam Alexander is a seed collector in Wales, known as the Seed Detective. Chef Sean Sherman is a...

What does a farmer mean to a community? Ask the people who nominate them, and you'll hear about far more than food. You'll hear about the neighbor who lends a transplanter, the farmer who rebuilds after losing everything, the one who teaches kids where food comes from, and the one who holds a whole farmers market together. This episode began with a question. After I spoke at a conference in Massac...

The Loneliness Between Us From your plate to the rest of the world, One Bite Is Everything connects the food you eat to the people, policies, and stories behind it. This episode started with a letter exchange between Maria Rodale and Wendell Berry, and one line stuck out: "I think lonely people join movements." Through the For Farmers Movement, we have seen and heard about loneliness and isolation...

What happens when a farmer stops doing things the way they've always been done and starts asking whether there's a better way? Scott Park began farming in California in 1974 with a degree in political theory, almost no agricultural training, and plenty to learn. More than five decades later, he's built a large-scale farming operation by questioning conventional wisdom, experimenting, paying attent...

For years, small livestock farmers and ranchers have been saying the same thing: access to processing is one of the biggest obstacles to getting locally raised meat to customers. In this episode of One Bite is Everything , Dana DiPrima revisits two earlier conversations that show just how long this problem has persisted. In 2022, Carrie Edsall of Black Willow Pond Farm described what happened when...

Jack Algiere arrived at Stone Barns Center in 2003 as its very first employee, hired to build a greenhouse on a former Rockefeller cattle operation thirty miles north of Manhattan. More than two decades later, that greenhouse has never seen a chemical, the farm he built with chef Dan Barber and Blue Hill at Stone Barns has become one of the most influential in the country, and Jack has written his...

Farmer Meg Despres of Biscuitwood Farm in Esperance, New York had a For Farmers Wish List that nobody had ever shopped. Not one item. So she left a comment on our Instagram asking a simple question: what can I do to make this list work for me? Here's what happened next. A few DMs, one small fix, a Tuesday morning letter, and a farm transformed almost overnight. Meg farms 50 acres in Schoharie Coun...

Beef is expensive. Cattle prices are at historic highs. Ranchers are finally getting paid more for their animals. So why is the U.S. cattle herd still the smallest it’s been in 75 years? Why are giant meatpackers losing hundreds of millions of dollars and closing plants? And why are smaller ranchers still struggling to find somewhere to process their cattle? In this solo episode, Dana follows the...

What happens when a farm grows to the point where the farmers can no longer do everything themselves? Maria Zordan and Max Morningstar own MX Morningstar Farm in Claverack, New York, where they grow about 40 acres of certified organic vegetables and operate a year-round farm store. Their business also reaches far beyond the farm through wholesale accounts, restaurants, distributors, other farms an...

We're told the food supply is safe. And often, it is. But safe is a bigger word than it sounds, and it rests on things most of us never see. This episode looks at three outbreaks unfolding right now: Cyclospora in the lettuce, a parasite so hard to detect that the case was built on interviews, not lab tests New World screwworm , a flesh-eating pest eradicated 60 years ago, now back in Texas H5N1 b...

What if the future of food depends less on winning arguments and more on rebuilding trust? Maria Rodale has spent a lifetime at the heart of the organic movement, carrying forward the work of one of agriculture's most influential families. But in this conversation, she looks beyond labels and certifications to something deeper: the relationships, compassion, and storytelling that create lasting ch...

What do elite athletes, gardeners, and small farmers have in common? According to UFC Hall of Famer Pat Miletich, more than you might think. Known to many as the first-ever UFC Welterweight Champion and the coach behind 12 MMA world champions, Pat has spent the last four decades researching a different kind of performance: the connection between soil health, nutrient density, and human health. In...

On June 25th, President Trump signed an executive order advancing regenerative agriculture. The same afternoon, the USDA quietly finalized a Regenerative Feedstock Rule that lets industrial corn claim the regenerative label to sell more ethanol. Sixty-eight percent of corn farmers already qualify, which means almost nothing has to change in the field. The word is doing the work. In this solo episo...

David Wise grew up on the Fond du Lac Reservation in Minnesota, where food followed the seasons and knowledge of the land was woven into daily life. Today, as the founder of Native Wise, he raises bison, harvests manoomin, or wild rice, and produces maple sugar, maple syrup, and honey. But his path to this work was anything but straightforward. In this episode, David joins host Dana DiPrima to tal...

What if the best bakery in town isn’t really in the bread business? Jonathan Bethony, founder of Seylou Bakery in Washington, D.C., has built one of the country’s most respected bakeries around a simple but profound idea: every loaf begins long before flour reaches the mixing bowl. It begins with healthy soil, thoughtful farmers, heritage grains, and relationships built on trust. In this episode,...

We often think of a farm as a place that grows food. But a small farm does so much more than that. It holds up a local economy, circulating dollars in a way no chain store can. It creates belonging, the feeling of being known by the person who grows your food. It carries the identity of a family and a town. And it quietly supports the mental health and the very future of the place it calls home. I...

What does the USDA actually do? Who does it serve? And why does it seem like some farmers receive support automatically while others struggle to access even basic resources? In this episode of One Bite Is Everything , Dana DiPrima takes listeners through a practical USDA 101. From its origins as Abraham Lincoln's "people's department" to its modern role overseeing everything from SNAP and school l...

What happens when people step out of the grocery store and onto a working farm? In this episode of One Bite is Everything, Dana sits down with chef and educator Gary Podesto of Climate Farm School, an organization that brings people directly to farms to learn about food systems, soil health, climate resilience, and regenerative agriculture. Through immersive, week-long experiences on farms around...

What happens when food assistance programs lose funding? For millions of children and families, the effects can be immediate. Fewer meals. More strain on household budgets. More difficult choices between food, housing, healthcare, and transportation. In this episode of One Bite is Everything , Dana welcomes back Rachel Sabella, Director of No Kid Hungry New York, to discuss how recent and proposed...

What does it actually take to create a truly great restaurant experience — not just once, but every single night? In this episode of One Bite is Everything , Dana sits down with Chef Chris Stam of Alchemy on Martha's Vineyard to talk about the invisible systems, relationships, and standards behind great food. Chris’s path took him from culinary school outside Boston to some of the most intense kit...

What do small farmers actually need? After reviewing nearly 900 farmer grant applications through the For Farmers Movement — along with 45 new project submissions from the Friend of a Farmer Choice Awards — a very different picture of American farming begins to emerge. One you might not expect. In this solo episode of One Bite is Everything , Dana pulls back the curtain on the hidden infrastructur...

Show Notes What does it actually take to become a farmer today if you didn’t grow up on a farm, inherit land, or have a roadmap? In this episode of One Bite is Everything , Dana sits down with first-generation goat farmer Emma Smalley to talk about the reality of building a farm from scratch in modern America. Emma’s path into farming started with a Craigslist ad and an aging goat farmer named Rog...