In this episode, we chat with Dan Kurzrock, the CEO of Regrained, a company that is working hard to find sustainable solutions for food waste and packaging waste. If you’ve been frustrated with the non-recyclable and non-compostable food packaging winding up in your garbage, this is the episode for you.

Dan Kurzrock is the co-founder and Chief Grain Officer of ReGrained. Dan founded ReGrained out of his hobby for homebrewing beer, where he first discovered that “spent” grain could be given a delicious second life. He is now obsessed with the impact edible upcycling and closing nutrient loops can have on our food system. As Chief Grain Officer, Dan is “Mr. Outside” for ReGrained, handling all elements of growing the business. Dan holds an Economics degree from UCLA and an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School.

• Why finding a sustainable food packaging solution is so complex
• How compostable food packaging works
• The issues we may not realize with compostable food packaging
• What innovative solutions are being worked on right now
• How consumers can get more involved in the fight for sustainable food packaging

• Regrained
• OSC2 Packaging Collaborative
• Elk Packaging

Join the Packaging For The Planet Movement
Episode 2 - What does it even mean to live sustainably?

I recently had the honor of being interviewed by Audra Mulkern on The Female Farmer Project: The Podcast. Audra works tirelessly on The Female Farmer Project, a multi-platform documentary project that chronicles the rise of women working in agriculture around the world.  From in-depth stories, personal essays, photographic portraits, a podcast, and in-development documentary film, the project gives a powerful voice to the fastest growing demographic in agriculture - The Female Farmer.

In this episode we discuss:

• My background as an artist, filmmaker, photographer, and producer and how these skills have helped me on the farm.
• How we raise happy hens on pasture and use permaculture methods on our farm.
  
• The unseen side of farming (i.e. sitting at a computer desk!) and how important it is to devote this time to market your farm.
• How I learned to farm and some of my personal blindspots when it came to getting started.

​

On April 3rd Aldi sent out a press release stating that by 2025, all packaging will be reusable, compostable, or recyclable. ALDI has never offered single-use plastic shopping bags. The CEO, Jason Hart said, “While we’re pleased that we’ve helped keep billions of plastic grocery bags out of landfills and oceans, we want to continue to do more. The commitments we’re making to reduce plastic packaging waste are an investment in our collective future that we are proud to make.”

As weather patterns become more extreme, those living in government-subsidized housing are suffering (as well as the government’s wallet). Many of these housing complexes are built on flood plains, which are flooding more and more frequently. The residents are not in a financial position to leave, allowing them to move to safer ground. HUD cites that low-income housing is at a shortage, so complexes built in unsafe areas are here to stay.

A team of scientists determined that 16% of the glacial lakes that are melting in the Tibetan Plateau have the ability to flood and destroy communities downstream. This was the most comprehensive study done to date on glacial flood risk, and the team hopes their findings can help governments pinpoint which lakes they need to set up risk management efforts for and protect people’s lives.

There’s a new docuseries out on Netflix and it’s going to make your heart hurt. Our Planet documents the effect of climate change on animals species across the globe. The eight-part series took four years to film in 50 countries. If you are an animal lover, you may want to skip over a few parts!

Food Heroes Podcast Episode 024: Mindful Manufacturing and Following Your Passion with Cindy Poiesz

Green Dreamer Podcast Episode 128: Questioning Overconsumption and our Wasteful Fashion System with Sarah-Jayne Smith

A year ago today marks my last "shopping spree." I spent $74 at Goodwill and came home with a whole new wardrobe - including labels like Ralph Lauren, Patagonia, Abercrombie, and Christie Dawn. I had just done a "Clear Closet Clear Mind" clean out (which is a simple clothes purging system I share in my ebook The Holistic Home) and knew I was ready for a fresh start on my clothes. Since that spree, I've purchased a few musts like socks, bras, and underwear - but the secondhand clothes have lasted and I love them. I encourage you to do a closet clean-out and focus on what you actually love and wear, then buy secondhand if you feel inspired to shop! 

Say you are itching to get started with chickens but are super strapped on time to research or you are utterly overwhelmed on the massive amount of info out there. You simply want the nuts and bolts on how to raise chickens au naturel from a trusted expert so you can get going on your first flock. Proven Techniques For Keeping Healthy Chickens by Carissa Bonham of Creative Green Living is the book for you.

Across the world, major cities and landmarks turned off their lights for one hour in honor of Earth Hour. While the PR is great and it definitely gets attention, one hour each year is simply not enough to inspire massive change in my book. What if we had Earth Hour once a week every week?

New York is set to ban single-use plastic bags in all retail stores next March. They are the second state to impose a ban behind California. It’s certainly not a catch-all, as the bill has a number of “exempt” situations for things like garment bags, take out bags, and the like - but it’s a start.

Burger King is rolling out its first meatless burger. Sourced from the startup company Impossible Foods, the burger would be available in all 7,200 locations across the US. Impossible’s claim to fame has been how similar their burgers taste to real meat. How do they accomplish this? By using heme. Heme is an iron-rich protein that Impossible Foods thinks brings much of the meaty taste to meat. How do they source their heme? Impossible Foods discovered a way to grow it using the roots of soybean plants and mass-produce it using GMO yeast. Where is that soy sourced from? GMO soybeans. You tell me how much better for the planet this alternative is. The company makes the fatal mistake of likening genetic modification to hybridization - which are two extremely different practices. Hybridization is about breeding similar strains of plants with each other, which farmers have done for thousands of years (think a paste tomato crossed with a cherry tomato - nature does this all on her own) the other is blatant genetic cut and paste (think like squid genetics CRSPRed into a soybean plant - which nature does not do). It’s processed food at the end of day. I’ll continue to enjoy my grass fed burgers, thanks.

Ikea is on track to become “climate positive” by 2030. They are aiming to reduce their climate footprint by 80% through sourcing more earth-friendly material, getting manufacturing plants powered by renewable energy, and tackling deliveries’ carbon footprint. Unfortunately, the numbers show their climate footprint went up by 2.8% since 2016. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good romp through Ikea, but there is something to be said about well made materials that are meant to last. When I think about quality and longevity, I don’t think about Ikea.

In better news, almost half of the EU states have hit their renewable energy goals for 2020. Those who get a gold star are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and Sweden.

The Positively Green Podcast Episode 12: How to easily incorporate herbalism into your lifestyle with Kyle Denton
​
The Green Dreamer Podcast Episode 125: Individual actions adding up to transform the world for the better with Aaron Perry

The Food Heroes Podcast Episode 27: Why Beekeeping is important and how to get started today.

If you want to find local regenerative farmers, one of the best resources is LocalHarvest.org. From pastured eggs to local honey - you can search their database depending on your location and get in contact with amazing farmers growing amazing things. We found our grass fed beef and pastured pork using this resource!

Today on the Positively Green Podcast we interview herbalist Kyle Denton of Tippecanoe Herbs. Kyle is an educator, medicine maker, and owner of Tippecanoe Herbs & Apothecary in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Drawing from his background in Ayurveda and Traditional Western Herbalism, Kyle will expand your understanding of our relationship to the natural world and help you introduce simple and easy ways to incorporate herbalism into your everyday life.

• ​Nourishment by Fred Provenza
• HerbRally Podcast
• The Plant Path Podcast by Sajah & Whitney Popham
• Herbcraft.org by Jim McDonald
• Matthew Wood (author)
• The Modern Herbal Dispensatory: A Medicine-Making Guide
• Eclectic School of Herbal Medicine
• Rosemary Gladstar (author)​

Instagram @tippecanoe_herbs
Website: Tippecanoe Herbs

A new study reported that 75% of the coal industry is more costly than solar or wind when it comes to producing electricity. What’s even more encouraging is that by 2025, the entire industry of coal production will be more expensive than solar and wind, even when you factor in the upfront costs of building wind turbines and installing solar panels.

If I was a honey bee, I’d totally be hanging out with Morgan Freeman right now. The star-studded actor announced that he converted his 124-acre ranch in Mississippi over into a honey bee sanctuary. Freeman picked up beekeeping in 2014 and since then has added clover, magnolia, and lavender to his acreage to support his 26 hives.

While Trump continues to take two steps backward on environmental protection and climate change, Hawaii took one big leap forward. The state legislature introduced a bill that would phase out all forms of single-use plastics in restaurants by 2022. They see that litter hurts not only their oceans, but it costs taxpayers money too. This would be the first statewide ban on single-use plastics ever.

In the dynasties of fossil fuel business, here are a handful of uplifting stories on the power of numbers when it comes to switching the family business over to renewable energy. Chris Riley, whose family has been in coal for decades says, “It’s not ideology, it’s math.”

Sustainable Dish Episode 88: Dirt To Soil with Gabe Brown, One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture.

Sustainable World Radio Episode 140: How Connecting To Nature Can Change Your Life.

Lately I've been ruminating on how our society rewards those who have careers of consequence versus careers of prevention. Reward meaning their annual salary. How they are compensated for their time and, ultimately, how we as a culture value their time spent doing what they do.

The first example is teachers versus lawyers. A teacher - someone who teaches our children how the world works and how they should behave within it, made on average $55,000 in 2018 in the state of Wisconsin (where we call home). Lawyers - those who deal with the consequences of those who have bad behavior- made on average $115,000. That's double, my friend.

Then there are farmers - those who grow the food that nourish our bodies - who made on average $41,000 in 2018 in Wisconsin. Juxtapose that with doctors - those who deal with the consequences of unhealthy diets (now more than ever as Type 2 diabetes skyrockets) - who made $300,000 on average in 2018.

I can't help but wonder what  our society would look like if we rewarded teachers and farmers with the same salary that we give lawyers and doctors. Would there be less crime? Would there be healthier people? I understand that years of schooling are involved in the areas of medicine and law and make up quite a bit of student loans to pay back, but just chew on this thought for a few days for me.

Any other prevention versus consequence careers you can think of?

If you have been on the path or curious about healing your body holistically, there are five incredibly important things to know as you go on your holistic living journey. These crucial discoveries took me by complete surprise as I healed myself holistically over the last ten years (yes ten!).

​I’ve conquered adult acne, Celiacs, gut dysbiosis, and adrenal fatigue all from a holistic perspective. I wish someone would have gently told me these five things right away when I started so I could have saved myself from mountains of frustration.  

So today I want to share them with you, so you can heal faster and with more grace than I did.

Despite the Trump Administration’s best efforts to quell renewable energy expansion, a new analysis shows that in the US, clean energy jobs rose 3.6% in 2018, outnumbering nonrenewable energy jobs 3 to 1. Take that, climate change deniers!

Bring your s’more supplies, an ongoing fire at a petrochemical storage terminal in Deer Park, Texas has been raging since Sunday. The plume of black smoke closed highways and schools, yet the local area claimed that there was no air pollution hazard. Several storage tanks of gasoline were burned or collapsed in the fire, yet local authorities say that this will have no impact on the availability of gas or gas prices in the area. I’m not sure what logic Deer Park is using to rationalize this catastrophe, but this is definitely a moment where the rest of us can say, “This wouldn’t happen with solar.”

As the weather becomes more intense, entire communities along the Platte and Missouri rivers are underwater. Thanks to the intensity of the Polar Vortex freezing the ground solid, a heavy layer of snow, and then pounding rain - the massive amounts of water had nowhere to go. The destruction is heartbreaking, especially knowing that these unpredictable weather systems are not going away anytime soon,

In better news, a federal judge ruled that an Obama era oil lease failed to adequately take into consideration climate change impact of leasing public land for oil gas drilling in Wyoming. I think Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians says it best, “This is the first court ruling that specifically tears apart the Interior Department’s failure to take into account the climate change of impact on drilling, on a national scale.”

Decades before women gained the vote, there were women getting equal pay, wearing trousers, and working alongside men in areas such as organic chemistry, physics, botany, and horticulture. In 1896, London’s royal botanical gardens at Kew employed women and it caused quite a stir. Get the whole heartwarming story here.

Food Heroes Podcast Episode 26: Sean Lenihan The Honest Bison: Honesty and transparency in the meat industry. 

Green Dreamer Podcast Episode 120: Accepting there is no orthodoxy in environmentalism to activate everyone with Dr. John Fraser and Dr. Rupu Gupta.

With spring officially here, a deep house clean is probably on the horizon. Consider DIYing your cleaning products or finding safer alternatives to keep things toxin-free and earth-friendly. I’m lazy and like to wait for my mom to come into town before I tackle a deep clean on the house. Two OCD cleaners are better than one, right?

​In this episode, Kelsey and Becca answer listeners’ questions on everything from gardening to soap to getting your significant other on board to live a greener lifestyle.

Laundry + Dishes
Buckaroo Organics Soapberry Detergent
Wool Dryer Balls
Redecker Beechwood Pot and Dish Brushes
Better Life Dish Soap
Seventh Generation
Dr. Bronner’s

CBD Facial Oil
https://www.healthyskinglows.com/cbd-oil-stress-acne-21-day-experiment/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4151231/
https://khus-khus.com/products/sen-face-serum

Becca’s Safety Razor Post

Kelsey's ebook The Holistic Home

Stella and Chewy’s Dog Food
Becca’s Natural Dog Product Faves