The Food Chain

Food Chain Radio Podcast with Michael Olson Infertility on the Menu They say men today have 60% less sperm than their grandfathers, and if the decline is not reversed, the sperm count in American males will drop to zero by 2045.  That thought leads us to ask: Can eating the wrong food cause our population to collapse? The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Samantha LeJune, Re...

Food now travels a long way from where it was grown to where it is eaten.  Sometimes bad things happen to good food along the way.  This leads us to ask: What happens when bad food gets eaten by good people? The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Wiggs Civitillo, Founder & CEO | Starfish-Network, for a conversation about the tracking food as it travels the food miles from...

Hippocrates is said to have said, “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.” What Hippocrates said so long ago leads us to ask:  Which food makes the best medicine? The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Carin Fortin & Delmar McComb, Owners and Farmers, Blossom’s Biodynamic Farm, for a conversation about the biodynamic growing of food that that is medicine....

Kaysea Clark, Owner & Farmer, Flowers by the Sea They say “The eyes are first to feast!”  If such is indeed the case, we wonder,  Which flower is best to feast on? The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Kaysea Clark, Owner & Farmer, Flowers by the Sea, for a conversation about growing and selling flowers to enjoy with food. Topics include Clark’s transition from garde...

Fred Provenza, Professor Emeritus of Behavioral Ecology in the Department of Wildland Resources at Utah State University.  Author, Nourtishment:  What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom Yellowstone Park in winter is a cruel place for the wildlife that can no longer endure its cold, snow and hunger.  And yet what is cruel for some can be a blessing for the corvids of Ye...

David Blume,  Farmer at Whisky Hill Farm in Freedom, California, Author of Alcohol Can Be A Gas, proprietor of Blume Distillation, & Candidate to be Robert Kennedy Jr’s Food & Energy Coordinator     They are moving on Washington, DC with the battle cry, “Make America healthy again!” Their battle cry leads us to ask:  How can America be made healthy again? The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcas...

They are moving on Washington, DC with the battle cry, “Make America healthy again!” Their battle cry leads us to ask: How can America be made healthy again? The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts US HHS Food and Energy coordinator candidate David Blume for a conversation about how he would help Robert Kennedy Jr make America healthy again. Topics include why Kennedy believes...

Michael Olson with Catherine Barr, Executive Director, Monterey Bay Area Certified Farmers Markets In the 1826 edition of The Physiology of Taste, Jean Brillat-Savarin wrote, “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.”  Then in the 1863 edition of Spiritualism and Materialism, German philosopher Ludwig Feurerbach wrote, “A man is what he eats.” Today, in the 1377th edition of the Food...

Michael Olson with Tereza Corragio, Author, How to Dismantle an Empire America’s big money oligarchs are buying up the world’s farmland and its fake-food companies.  Guessing at what their intentions might be leads us to ask:  Can we escape the tyranny of oligarch food? Topics include how communities lose their food and financial sovereignty to the empire of debt; how the empire of debt might be d...

A FOOD CHAIN RELEASE FROM MICHAEL OLSON  The hungry baby is crying for food.  The harried parent is short on time.   The solution:  Give baby a baby food pouch.   But that solution leads us to ask: Do convenience pouch foods do a baby’s body good?    The Food Chain Radio Show & Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Dr. Elizabeth Dunford, Research Fellow, George Institute, Assistant Professor of Nut...

Michael Olson hosts Nicolette Hahn Niman, Author, Defending Beef: The Ecological and Nutritional Case for Beef We have been told that cows cause the climate to change by emitting greenhouse gas.  Now we are told to replace the beef we eat with patented, manufactured meat-like substances.  And so we ask: Should beef be banned? Topics include a look at why some believe the cattle industry should be...

Host Michael Olson with guest Nicholas Sullivan, Senior Researcher, Tufts University, Author of The Blue Revolution Fishermen used to rely on good luck to haul in the big catch.  But when they began relying on information, instead of luck, they almost caught all the fish in the sea.  That leads us to ask: Can we catch fish so there will be fish left to be caught? Topics include how the world’s mos...

Michael Olson with Peter Savio, Savio Realty LTD, Honolulu, HI In the 1970s, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz told America’s farmers to “Get big or get out.”  Since Butz made his proclomation, farms have been getting bigger, and farmers have been getting fewer.  This leads us contrarians to ask: Can unprofitable big farms be converted into profitable small farms? Topics include how real estate d...

Technology has given us the ability to look deep into the human body, and to see how the body reacts to various environmental stimuli.  That being the case, we simply must ask:  Does alcohol do a body good? The Food Chain Radio Show & Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Timothy B. Sullivan, Doctor of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine, for a conversation about alcohol’s effects on the body and mind...

Claire Kelloway, Manager, Food Systems Program, Open Markets Institute     As is true with the fish swimming in the sea, big companies grow bigger by eating smaller companies.  That being the case, we simply must ask:  Should Kroger be allowed to eat Albertsons? The Food Chain Radio Show & Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Claire Kelloway, Manager, Food Systems Program, Open Markets, for a conv...

Michael Olson hosts Scott Moses, Partner, Solomon Partners Head of Grocery, Pharmacy and Restaurnts, for a conversation about the consolidation of the nation’s grocery stores. Should Kroger and Albertsons be allowed to merge? For the moment, you and I live in the small town of Anywhere, USA.  There are two grocers in town, Deluxe Food on North Main and Star Market on South Main.   Deluxe and Star...

Michael Olson hosts Robert Wolcott & Kaihan Krippendorff, Co-Authors, Proximity: How Coming Breakthroughs in Just-In-Time Transform Business, Society and Daily Life.   It is said that food now travels an average of 1200 miles from where it was grown to where it is eaten. If one were to look forward a hundred years into the future, from a hundred years in the past – when people lived on farms a...

Michael Olson hosts Nicole Virgil, Gardener and Practitioner of Christian Science, for a conversation about winning the right to garden. Topics include how municipal governments prohibit residents from establishing gardens in their yards, why Nicole Virgil refused to accept that prohibition; and how Nicole’s fight for the right to garden resulted in Illinois becoming the second state in the U.S. t...

Michael Olson hosts Will Harris, Farmer, Rancher and Author of Giving a Damn: A Bold Return to Giving A Damn for a conversation about giving a damn farming and ranching. Topics include why conventional farming and ranching were industrialized into commodity agriculture; why some farmers and ranchers are returning to conventional agriculture; and what it means to be “give a damn” farmers and ranche...

Charlie Jenks, Founder, Connecting Vets with Horses (Animals as Emotional and Cognitive Therapists for humans) To heal one’s broken body, frazzled nerves or confused mind, one could take the drugs, as many do…  or one could hop into the saddle and ride the horse.  And so we ask… How can one be healed by horse?  To heal our broken bodies, frazzled nerves and confused minds, we Americans take drugs,...

Susana Monso, Author, Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death Every person thinks about where we all will eventually go, but no person knows for certain where we will go.  This leads some people to think about the animals for which we have taken dominion, and wonder: What do animals think about dying? Up and down the food chain, it is eat and be eaten.  This elemental fact gives rise among pe...

Lacy J Dalton, President, Let Em Run Foundation & Internationally acclaimed Country and Western Music Recording Star (Wild Horse Management, Policies and Procedures) 83,000 horses and burros roam wild and free throughout the empty spaces of the great American West.   Though some very serious voices say they should not be allowed to run free, other serious voices say, “Let em run!”   And so we...

Jennifer Leidolf, CDFA Direct Marketing Program Supervisor &Joshua W. Bingham, Public Information Officer II, Division of Inspection Services (Farmers Market Certification, Governance and Marketing) When it comes to which farms get the most help from the government, the answer is most always the biggest farms.  This leads us to ask: Can there be a government program that helps small farms more...

Cindy Campos, Weston A. Price Foundation, and Andrew Renard and Michelle Carter, Kitchen Table Cultures (Traditional Nourishing Food, Bone broth, Bone broth recipes) All ancient cultures included bones in their diets.  The ancients ate bones because they tasted good and strengthened their own bones.  Then along came modern times and broken bones!  And so we pause to ask: Should we look to ancient...

Carey Gillam, Author, The Monsanto Papers & Research Director, U.S. Right to Know   (GMOs, WTO, Glyphosate, International Food trade)   After standing firm on its plan to ban genetically modified corn from Germany, and the attendant pesticides from China, Mexico capitulated to the demands of  the United States and cancelled its plan to ban.  That leads us to ask: Why did Mexico stand-down from...