How To Start A Farm & Grow Your Own Food, Craziest Mushroom Formulations, Be Productive & Spiritual

Most farms today are degenerating. The water quality is bad, the soil is dirt. To your point, it's dead. It just basically holds seeds. There's no life in it. The.

Birds, the indigenous animals, they're gone. Even the microbes are fried. That's degeneration. Regeneration involves caring for the soil, plants, animals and people so that each year, month and day, you can measure the ecological improvements.

Well, folks, my guest on today's show has been on the show before, but not to discuss the kind of stuff that we're going to get into today. If you're interested in this whole trend towards growing your own food or growing food for others, or maybe throwing a few farm to fork dinners or whatever you want to call it, and you're interested in a more regenerative approach, more organic approach, my guest on today's show has really cracked the code on that. He's known as a guy who is a real pioneer in the health and wellness industry. He's the New York Times best selling author of a book called the Maker's Diet, but just because he's an underachiever, also has 29 additional books, including one called the Probiotic Diet, which I think is his latest book. And he and I had a chance to sit at dinner a couple of months ago in Nashville and we didn't get a chance to talk too much. But he dropped a few hints about a lot of cool new things he's doing when it comes to regenerative organic farming, something that I'm pretty interested in myself because of a new home build that I'm doing in Idaho. So I figured I'd get him on the show and we talk a lot about the really forward thinking approach that he has to regenerative farming. Now, his name, if you haven't guessed yet, is Jordan Rubin. And Jordan is the founder of Garden of Life and Ancient Nutrition, two big whole food nutrition supplement brands, along with Beyond Organic, which is an organic food and beverage and dietary supplement manufacturer. He's responsible for formulating literally like hundreds of dietary supplements. People in the supplement industry go to Jordan all the time for advice and information about functional foods, about beverages, and increasingly about farming and healing the planet. And as a matter of fact, Jordan's farm is actually called Heal the Planet Farm. It's a regenerative organic certified farm. And he also has the center for Regenerative Agriculture, which we're going to learn a little bit more about today. And his farms are located in Missouri and Tennessee. And if that's not enough, Jordan is not only the father of six children, but he's also a man after my own heart in that he. He doesn't just focus on, say, like, his body or his business or his brain, but is, in fact, also a real spiritual warrior and has a lot of amazing habits for maintaining his spiritual growth and his connection to God, which I really respect. And so. So he's doing a lot, but he's also taking care of himself and his spirit while helping a lot of other people. So, Jordan, welcome to the show, man.

It's great to be here. You know, Ben, I was thinking this morning as I was exercising and eating, or in this case, not eating, I'm like, I wonder if Ben's going to ask me what I did this morning because you dropped the hint about the message I shared at a church in California not long ago about heavenly habits for faithful families. So, anyway, anyway, I think it's important when you're gonna go on a health podcast that you make sure to do things that day that are aligned with your message because someone may call you out. So it's a good reminder.

So please don't tell me that you just got done with the coffee enema or something.

No, I definitely am not into those, but if you are, that's okay.

Okay, I'm dissipated.

I got in trouble one time in my maker's diet book. I rewrote the jingle. For those of you who are old enough to remember, I said the best part of waking up is Folgers in your. If you're a child of the 80s. So. And you're into coffee enemas. But no, I'm definitely not on that end of the speculum, if you know what I mean.

Okay, all right, well, fair enough. Fair enough. We'll get you to come around at some point. But you know that by the way, you talked about those heavenly habits. And actually, that podcast, that talk that you gave to the church about everything that you do to care for your spirit when you wake up was actually really fantastic. And I, you know, I was actually originally going to ask you first to jump into what you're doing right now with regenerative organic farming. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to link to that talk that you gave in the show notes for this podcast, so you can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com HowToFarm if you want to hear, like, a good hour of what Jordan calls his heavenly habits that he starts his day with. But, Jordan, do you think you would be able to give us just, like, A quick, like five minute overview of what that looks like. Like how you care for your spirit in the morning, knowing that I'll direct people to a more detailed talk that you gave to that church.

Yeah, well, I am the ultimate multitasker and I know that it is really good and really challenging sometimes if you're not one. But I just want to maximize every minute of every day. And I wake up in the morning with a purpose in mind. And so a few things that I do that are critical. I use technology for my benefit. I listen to the Bible every morning. The app I like is Bible is, but there's youversion, there's Bible Gateway, there's many. But I'm an audible learner. So as soon as I get up, I put my earphones in and I'm listening to the Bible. And then I start getting all my supplements and smoothies ready for my family. I have six children and I kind of prepare all of their breakfasts and supplements and smoothies. It's a important thing that I do. And when I'm doing that, I try to pray for each of my children because this can be mundane. But I've often said the miracles are found in the mundane and habits are absolutely amazing. So I do that. I also pretty quickly will quote what I call a daily declaration. So I've written this over the last 10 years, and it is a series of promises from the Bible for my life. So I'm speaking this, praying this over my life, my wife, my family. And it's great because the Bible is a very agricultural book, if you don't realize it. And since I'm in agriculture, a lot of God's promises apply to me. So I figure since you have life and death and the power of your tongue, and we typically talk about what we're afraid of. So many people are talking about their disease they've been diagnosed with, or their financial situation or marriage if it's bad. But why not talk about what we want in life and declare God's promises? So that's a big part of what I do. I will also read a scripture right now. This is a habit of mine. I read a scripture that corresponds to the day of the year. So today I'm reading the scripture. This is being recorded on April 3rd. So I type in Bible 4, colon 3. And whatever scripture comes up, I will meditate on it. I will journal. So journaling to me is in my.

What do you mean? Bible 4, colon 3. How's that work?

So if it's April 3rd, so it's whatever date it is. So it's 4 colon 3 and whatever the most popular verse.

That corresponds to that date comes up. It's just a system I'm doing right now. You can so many ways to do it. And then I will meditate on that verse and I will write a prayer or sort of what God is speaking to me about that particular verse today. It had a lot to do with how I need to be focused on the needs of others and not so much myself. In fact, I think it was Proverbs 4, 3 and then we. This is probably the thing that I enjoy the most because we tend to imagine what we don't want to happen in our lives. We're very fear based. So my favorite Bible verse right now is Ephesians 3:20 and I combine translations, but it says, and God will give you exceedingly, abundantly more than you could ever ask, think or imagine according to his power that is within you. And so I figured if God will give me more than I can ask, think or imagine, I better start imagining some really great things happening in life. And so I will write down three what I call imaginations that I want to see happen. Prayer requests for a friend who's dealing with a health issue to be healed, or someone who's got financial issues or a big decision in our family. And I'll write that down. And what I'm excited about is that I want to watch over the years as God answers those prayers and allows those imaginations of faith to come to fruition. I think it'll be a great testament that will outlive me. So it's really not just a spiritual tune up. It's creating a legacy with my journaling and the scripture and the imaginations that my children and future generations can see and hopefully derive and strengthen faith from.

Yeah, yeah. And by the way, I noticed in that talk that you gave on heavenly habits that you keep a lot of this, like this declaration that you write and you're journaling about what you read in the scripture that day. And even this, this daily prayer that you pray that you build upon each week, you keep that all in the cloud. So it's almost like you're going to be able to pass all this via technology on the future generations, which is really cool.

Doesn't it make sense if your heavenly habits are in the clouds? You know, I mean, it's kind of technological message.

Exactly. Your heavenly habits are actually in heaven. You know, it's interesting because I think that a lot of people might feel that technology somehow Sucks the sacredness out of something like a spiritual practice. And they want to go off to some pristine mountaintop, you know, and pray. Well, completely disconnected or, you know, read Bible from an old tattered, you know, book of scripture. But I share your sentiments that if we can use technology to our advantage to grow spiritually in intelligent way without distractions, I think it makes a lot of sense. And I have a similar habit to you, Jordan. I wake up in the morning and I don't know about you, but like I want to go crush the day. Like, it's really hard for me to make sure that.

I'm keeping myself from taking the business right away instead tending to my spirit. And so for me, I keep the phone in airplane mode. But you use the Bible is. I use one called the Bible in one year. And it's kind of a cool app because every time you finish listening to basically what amounts to a few prayers, a reading of the Old Testament, a reading of the New Testament and some commentary on that, it automatically, when you do take your phone out of airplane mode, downloads the next day's session, which is typically a 10 to 20 minute long session. I think I remember you saying that you've trained yourself to listen to the Bible at like two or two and a half times speeds. You can literally get through the whole Bible in what, like a half year or something like that. Listening each morning?

Actually, yeah, it's more like four months, but since I'm up for multiple hours, I've done it in 10 days. So it just depends when I'm traveling. I try to listen to it more, but. And you made a point to say people don't have to go to a sacred place using an old tattered Bible. My prayer closet is my sauna. And so as I said, I'm always multitasking. And so I'm trying to get the most out of my day. But it's a great private place for me. And I will say this, people who are successful in any aspect of life, it's due to repetition and daily habits and you have to find a way to be excited about them. So when I made my kids smoothies this morning and when I set out everybody's supplements, I have to take a second to appreciate the fact that God's given me this wisdom through a lot of hard earned health challenges. But also I'm able to procure, afford and provide these amazing foods and beverages and supplements to my family. And so I just, I want to value the journey more than I do the destination. And that is so hard when you're driven to results. But I'm trying every day.

Yeah, your hard earned health journey. By the way, for those of you who want to take a deep dive into Jordan's really inspirational backstory, go listen to his previous episode that I did with him, which again is going to be@BenGreenfieldLife.com how to farm and Jordan, a couple of last things before we get into your journey into regenerative organic farming here. You know, I just wanted to share with folks that, you know, Jordan and I both really love to feed ourselves spiritually each morning. And in addition to that, that Bible in One Year app that I use is my rule is that before I listen to any podcasts that have to do with business or productivity or health or fitness or nutrition or anything else, after I finish that 10 to 20 minutes Bible in one year, like Jordan, I'm multitasking. I'm going on to do my foam rolling and preparing the coffee or the tea for that morning, or preparing breakfast or, you know, going on a walk or what have you. But always after I listen to that Bible in one ear, I either am shifting directly into at least 45 minutes of an audiobook that's purely focused on spiritual growth. Like right now, I'm going through Dennis Prager's entire commentary on the Torah, which is fantastic. It's he currently has Exodus, Deuteronomy and Numbers finished, and it's one of the deepest dives into the Old Testament that I've ever experienced. And in addition to that, I also have several sermon podcasts that I subscribe to. So it always starts off with my Bible in One year and then the sermon or the audiobook. And then at 7:30am I gather the entire family for our morning meditation, our morning prayer, and our morning devotions. So, you know, that that means that by the time 9am has rolled around, there's been a good 90 minutes of spiritual growth that's occurred. But it's not as though I'm simply sitting on a meditation cushion by my bed doing that. You know, I'm getting a lot of other things done, which I think for a busy working professional, you know, it's, it's a little more doable. Right, Jordan?

Absolutely. And I think building these family habits is incredible because our kids, by and large are being raised by the world, AKA technology. And that's the negative side of technology. But I have tried to really make it a habit over the last few years when my family is all together, which is not as often as it once was due to kids going in every direction that we have these habits that I believe they will in most part carry on as they continue into adulthood and parenthood. So I didn't have that when I was a child. I think it's so, so important. And you talk about Torah. I have a Jewish background, although I'm what you'd call a Jewish Christian or a born again Jew. I always have to go against the grain no matter what. I'm where my situation or origin starts. But in the Torah you see so many things that God mandated or at minimum strongly commanded for the Israelites or Hebrews to be separate set apart. And it was all based on these habits and what some would call rituals. So I think we look at that as a negative connotation. But to me, the more you can build into daily habits with your family that transform your body, mind and spirit, the better you're going to be. And I think if you peel back the onion, you're either intentionally habitual or unintentionally so. People that are not successful have their own habits as well. They're just not positive ones.

Yeah, yeah. How you live your day is how you live your life, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you and I could probably have a good couple of hours discussion about our morning habits alone, but I really wanted to, to talk about farming. And again, part of this is selfish because I know that you're a deep well of wisdom when it comes to how to take the land around you and transform it into a property that could feed your family, feed the community, feed other people, and also help to care for our planet. You know, and especially you and I both being Christians, I think that sometimes this whole dominion mandate, you know, that God gave to Adam and Eve in the first ever garden can sometimes be misconstrued. And rather than, I think a lot of people viewing it as us being responsible for gardening and caring for this planet and ensuring that we don't have to hop on Elon Musk's spaceship to Mars, you know, 20 years from now because we've just raped and pillaged our entire planet. It's instead, it's instead a commandment to nourish the garden that we've been given to care for the planet Earth and to not only take into consideration when we're, you know, face stuffing ourselves with, with monocrops, you know, wheat and soy and corn, to perhaps think twice, but also to, to, to grow for and care for the soil, you know, ensuring that doesn't turn into dirt and to care for things like, you know, the amount of carbon going to the atmosphere and the type of animals are raising and, you know, there's all sorts of considerations here that I think tie directly into our spiritual growth. But tell me about your own journey into regenerative organic farming and how this began for you.

Absolutely. Well, I'm going to try to make it brief, but during my illness, which we alluded to earlier, I had Crohn's disease, multiple other illnesses. When I was 18 and a half through almost 21, and I was down to 104 pounds in a wheelchair. I'm over six feet tall. My normal weight is 185. So if you kind of can get an understanding, if you want to look on Google Images, you can see, type in Jordan Rubin. You'll see my before and after picture, which is an amazing testimony. But living it was a whole other story, as they say. But during the time of my illness, after I visited 69 medical experts and failed, I followed a diet that I wrote about in the Maker's Diet, based on the Bible, proven through history and confirmed by science. And during that time, I was living in San Diego, California, and I changed the entire way I ate. It would be much more akin to a real food kind of animal based diet today. That's what I followed and still do. But I started that in 1995, 96. During that time, many of the foods I needed to consume, raw grass fed dairy products, raw vegetable juices, grass fed meat, grass fed eggs, they were not legal to be sold at retail or available. And when I was consuming these foods in a very perishable environment, I was living in a motorhome with just a cooler. I learned that every two days, if I would not procure these foods, I might not be healthy. Because I saw myself finally getting well after two years of being trapped in a prison that was my own body, a living hell. And at that point I realized that I'm going to get well and I'm going to have a family. Because at one point I thought neither of those would happen. And in order for me to live this way, I need to raise and grow some of the world's healthiest foods. That was in 96.

Fast forward. God worked a miracle. I was healed, started Garden of Life, wrote about my journey and patient, Heal Thyself and Restoring youg Digestive Health and Maker's Diet and other books. And then in 2008, I had another sort of miraculous moment. I was on a bus promoting a book and a TV program somewhere in the Midwest. And I saw these beautiful green plants from afar, but from close up, they were not beautiful plants. They were my grandchildren's stolen future genetically modified monocrop agriculture. And in 2008, in the spring, I felt like God called me to be a Joseph. We could go in a lot of directions here, but I'll say it this way.

I knew that to mean that Joseph, who in the Bible was responsible for the physical salvation of his family, and frankly, for most of the world at that time, most of the inhabited.

World.

He was somebody who was a foreshadowing of what needed to be positioned in our future. And So I, in 2008, began thinking about how I could start raising and growing the world's healthiest foods. I had visited dozens of farms, I had written about all these great foods and many books promoted this. Organic, grass fed dairy, meat, et cetera, fermentation. But now I had to become a farmer. And I can tell you, Ben, one of the best reasons for you to ask me for advice on how to grow food and farm is because I have made a ton of mistakes. It is very difficult to do, but super important to attempt.

You didn't have any background. Like, in 2008, you didn't have any background in this, right? Like, you hadn't grown up farming, you hadn't had a garden outside your motorhome or anything like this.

I didn't have a green thumb or a green pinky. But just like most things in my life, I now wish I had a mentor, but instead, I had to learn the hard way. So, no, I literally knew what good food was. I knew what nutrients and beneficial compounds were in food, but I didn't know how to grow it or raise it at all. And so I Learned, starting in 2009 through today, that's been my journey in what we now call regenerative farming or regenerative agriculture. And so fast forward, I now have about 4,000 acres of what I believe to be the most important farmland in the world. Achieving regenerative organic certification, which I think is the greatest standard in the world for soil, plants, animals and humans. And today, I'm trying to help spread the word that we can, as we like to say in ancient nutrition, save the world with superfoods. Not just the foods and beverages that heal bodies, but the practice of growing, raising and producing them can heal our planet. And it's not a want to anymore, it's a must do. We are in big trouble in our world. We have digged ourselves a huge hole, as you alluded to earlier. We were given stewardship over the Earth back in the garden, and we have shirked that responsibility. And we're literally on a time clock. That's why people talk about going to Mars, because the Earth, at its current trajectory, let's just say, is not doing well. But I believe as a, as a child of God and as a citizen of this planet, each and every one of us need to play our role in healing the planet, feeding the world, and eradicating disease. That's my personal mission statement. And we're trying to live it each and every day.

Yeah. And I know that just knowing the average podcast listener and my own audience, as soon as you said 4,000 acres, there's probably a few people that tuned out because they're like, well, screw that. I don't have 4,000 acres, so the rest of this podcast is going to be irrelevant to me. I want to share one thing and then clarify with you, Jordan. First of all, I live on 10 acres right now. I got a good deal in Washington state. You know, like, nine years ago, I paid about $90,000 for this land, which is a. Is a good deal, relatively speaking. And I'm moving to a new plot in Idaho next year. I'm vacating this Washington home, moving over to Idaho to be close to the family and a different community and a church that I really love. And that's going to be about 12 acres. Okay, so if you're listening in, these aren't, you know, a bunch of, like, rich, holier than thou folks who are trying to get you to go save up the money to buy thousands and thousands of acres? I'm working with, with 10 to 12 acres right now. And, Jordan, are the principles that you're about to share with us applicable to someone who may have, let's say, not 4,000 acres or who may even have even, like, a backyard?

Yeah. I would tell you that number one bit of advice from someone who's made lots of mistakes in farming. Start small. So you can absolutely start with a decent sized raised bed. You can start with a tiny greenhouse, a backyard, or if you live in a condo, a potted plant. And I'm not joking. The point is, start where you are. And what we're going to share is applicable to everyone, whether you want to grow and raise your own food or partner with local farms that already do it. Right. Because part of this is understanding what the best quality of food is to create. And therefore, if you're not a farmer, how can you support a local farm and improve the health of your family by purchasing these types of food. So this is absolutely something for everyone. Again, I am not someone who came from a farming background, but I can tell you I compost all my food waste. I try to grow living things even in my home, whether it's a mushroom or a basil plant. And, and then my farms certainly are more involved in that. They are essentially organizations, but everybody can start somewhere. Most people, if you really talk to them, they would love to picture themselves on idyllic farm environment. Especially with what we went through the last few years with food insecurity. There's something special about knowing where your food comes from and even more importantly, controlling where it does.

Yeah, yeah. And then one other follow up question before we get into kind of like a definition of what regenerative organic farming is. Like you're running some, some pretty big businesses. Like with Ancient Nutrition, one of your companies that I actually invested in because I, I saw what you were doing with, with supplements. So, and, and then, you know, you obviously have a few other companies you got to be on organics, et cetera. And can you paint a picture for me of how you're running these businesses? Like, like, are you able to be out in the field on your farm, et cetera? And like some of my stockbroker and VC friends who operate their entire businesses on the golf course via their cell phone. Like, are you like out there farming in nature, Stopping, replying to a few emails, taking care of a little bit of business, getting back to the farm. Like, how does this look for people who are like, oh, I'm, I can't give up my job to do this. Can you actually do this and kind of like creatively work your job as well?

Well, first and foremost, I don't play nearly enough golf to even be decent, so I can dispel that right now. But I absolutely love being on the farm. And if I could, meaning time wise, I would sit there and literally watch the grass grow, watch the papaya grow, and just dig my hands in the soil every single day. I don't get the opportunity to do that because I do prioritize family and my businesses, which are my responsibilities. But I am often on one or both of my farms. I leave whether it's a day or a week. If I go to Missouri where I don't live. And I always wish I had more time. It's an amazing, energizing opportunity. Just to give you an example, we had Whole Foods Market came to our Tennessee farm last week. We've had most major retailers now visit one of our farms and those are our customers, which is an awesome experience. And every one of them leaves wishing they spent more time and wanting to A farm themselves and B, support regenerative organic certified farming, which is so exciting. So I do spend as much time as I can on the farm, but it's never enough. I mean, I guess I'm a scientist at heart and I love observing all of the many things that are happening when you bring the land into alignment. And I get inspired when I'm there. We have very friendly animals, including water buffalo that will lick you and or lay in your lap if you would allow them. And they didn't weigh 1200 pounds. So it's a great experience to be there. We love bringing guests. We have a family that runs the farm that is part of our team. So there's always people there and the door is always open for visitors to come and learn, to come and volunteer. So it's really been a great outreach too.

Yeah. And obviously if you're listening and you have a small plot of land and this is more than your backyard, I don't think there's anything wrong with hiring help. I mean, you know, I was very resistant to that idea myself. I used to run my entire business all the way down to programming my own PHP scripts and writing HTML for all my websites and designing everything, coding my podcast, submitting it the RSS feeds, maintaining the RSS feeds, everything all the way up until I was driving to a triathlon that I was competing in one year and I had a five hour drive out and a five hour drive back and I listened to Tim Ferriss four hour workweed. Work week, work week on like two and a half, three times. Speed got back from that trip and hired my First Virtual Assistant 15 years ago who's still with me today. Her name's Marge. She's fantastic. And you know, since then I've had this view of okay, if there's anything that someone else can do better than me or somewhere I could be spending my time better. I can hire other people to do it, but yet still be involved in the business. So please stay open minded to the idea of you not necessarily having to plant every seed, but you know, looking to employ other people in your local community. You know, you make your family and your kids a part of the process. Like Jordan talked about, he's hired a family to help him out. And so this isn't necessarily something you have to, you have to go at alone. So Jordan, what is regenerative organic farming?

Well, first to be Regenerative, organic. You have to start with organic. But before I get into that, you're going to hear the word regenerative all over the place for the next century. Because 72 major corporations, many Ben, who you and I would call evil, whose products you and I wouldn't use or recommend, 72 of them have made regenerative pledges, aka Nestle, says they're going to source 50% of their ingredients by 2030 from regenerative farms. Walmart said they're going to be regenerative. General Mills said they're going to be regenerative. You're going to love this one, Bear. Monsanto says they are going to be regenerative. Like I've had this conversation with them. So what does regenerative mean? Regenerative, in the sort of widest view is to improve the ecosystem every day, objectively improve it. So you take something that's dead admittedly and bring it to life. Most farms today are degenerating. The water quality is bad, the soil is dirt. To your point, it's dead. It just basically holds seeds. There's no life in it. The.

Birds, the indigenous animals, they're gone. Even the microbes are fried. That's degeneration. Regeneration involves caring for the soil, plants, animals and people so that each year, month and day, you can measure the ecological improvements. So that's kind of what the word regenerative in relation to farming or agriculture is going to mean. Now, as you can imagine, there are going to be lots of watered down definitions because if Walmart, Pepsi, Coke and, you know, Bear are going to be regenerative, they're not going to likely have the highest standards. Me, on the other hand, I want the greatest improvement in the least amount of time. Nature, according to scientists, says it takes 500 years to build one inch of topsoil. I want to do it every year, in one year. Now. I said want to. I didn't say I've done it. We're almost through year one. We're going to measure it. We're doing studies that we'll publish on our process. But we want to regenerate in a way that is meaningful and sets the highest standards. So Regenerative Organic Certified is backed by an organization that was founded by the Rodale Institute, Patagonia Provisions or patagonia organization, and Dr. Bronner's. They started it. Many adopted it early, such as Ancient Nutrition and my farms. So our farms in Tennessee and Missouri are the first regenerative organic certified farms in their respective states and number 47 and 79 in the world. Ben, I believe there's going to be tens of thousands, thousands of regenerative organic certified farms. Start with organic, which is really about what you don't put on the soil, what you don't use on plants, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, you can't use synthetic fertilizers, you can't use antibiotics on animals, blah, blah, blah. But I could show you today that an organic farm can stay the same each and every year. No improvements in soil, no improvements in plant diversity or animal welfare. Regenerative organic certified must show improvements every year to maintain that certification. So if you're someone listening or watching and you want the best of the best, you want to bring life to your family and the planet. When you find regenerative organic certified products, foods, skin and body care, and soon supplements, you can pay it forward by purchasing them because it is the highest standard in the world right now, I believe, for nutrition and for the planet. And that's really, really important. And we can get into all those details.

Okay, so let's say that I want to do more regenerative farming. And I'm one of those people that has. Let me, let me just give you a few examples and you tell me a few of the ways that you could shift to ensure that your farming practices regenerative. Let's say I have a couple of raised garden beds, I've got some goats, some chickens, maybe an herb garden, and, you know, a little bit of soil and a plot of land. What type of things would I be doing differently than the average farmer to ensure that I'm engaging in those regenerative practices?

Absolutely. Now, this is not necessarily regenerative organic certified, but let's talk about some basic steps to take. So in your raised beds. Now, I don't know how many you have, but ecological diversity is important. You can achieve that through crop rotation. So it's as simple as increasing the number of crops you would rotate on any area. So I don't care if it's a 8 by 10 raised bed. If you plant tomatoes, then you want to have something different. And then the more rotations, you can, let's say, set a goal of eight rotations. So you want to grow eight different crops in your raised bed before you return to the first one. That will provide healthier soil and more pest resistance, which is great.

Now how does that work during a growing season? Like eight different crops? Let's just use one bed. Are you literally like growing and harvesting tomatoes, then planting a new crop and then once you've harvested that, planting a new crop, so on and so forth, until you've rotated through, let's say, eight varieties.

Correct. And that may not, depending on where you live, that may take a number of years.

Yeah, I was going to say that that couldn't be done in like a year in most cases.

Absolutely. And here's. And so this principle goes hand in hand. No matter what season it is or where you are. If it's a raised bed or if it's a large plot, do not let the ground be uncovered. So you've heard the term probably cash crop and cover crop. A cash crop is what we sell or what we eat. A cover crop is what you do to preserve the soil health because the earth wants to be covered. That's why weeds grow in barren soil and nutrient poor soil in degraded soil. Because when the earth is exposed, the sun, the wind, et cetera, erodes the.

Beneficial substances in said soil. So even if you're in a very cold winter, you still want to plant a cover crop that allows your soil to be protected. Think of it as soil armor for as long as you can. But here's the good news. You mentioned chickens and goats and you mentioned regenerative. So what you can do in your raised bed is you can either harvest the COVID crops, which are normally not nutritious for humans, and you can feed them to your chickens and or your goats. They will be amazing food. Then you don't have to buy monocrop grain. That makes the milk and the meat less healthy anyway. So either have them graze the raised bed and if they would mess it up too much, which, depending on what your system is, they could do that, you can harvest the COVID crops and provide great feed for your small animals. And you are offsetting feed cost. You're healing the soil. And then in a similar respect, if your chickens and goats are raised in a very small area, you can take their manure and compost it, which is just leaving it out, turning it occasionally, and put that in your raised bed. So you've just created a symbiotic relationship between a small plot of farmland or garden and that improvement in that small amount of soil through crop rotation and covering the ground and then feeding not only the COVID crops but any weeds to the chickens and the goats. Using the manure back in your garden, you've just created a regenerative loop and it is not requiring 4,000 acres to do so.

Now, when, when you first get in, let's say you've got a New garden bed full of new dirt or a new small acreage that you've purchased? Are there things you should go in and do beforehand before you even start growing to ensure higher chance of success or a higher harvest, like some kind of something you can plant to feed root systems into the ground or infuse the dirt with more of a mycorrhizal network or something like that?

Yeah, you could do all of the above. But let me back up and say this, that before you even start planting anything, before you start farming, I am a big believer in the relationship of animals and plants. And so let's just say you have.

Acres like you have and you're in a rural area. I think it's critical to spend a certain amount of time allowing animals to do the work for you and prepare the growing area. So, Ben, in your case, it could look like a rotation of ruminant animals, which could be goats, cows, sheep. Goats are pretty easy. They're easy to care for. Birds could be chickens, ducks, turkeys, pheasants, guinea, etc. Those animals will work 24 7, literally 24 7. To prepare the area. All you need to do is fence them in, preferably rotate them and their consumption, and then their excretion will put you far ahead in your base soil health. Because frankly, growing a garden and having to bring in soil for every crop you plant, it's not sustainable. But if you integrate animals, even on a small level, let them do the work and prepare for you. Because another tenant of regeneration is minimal soil disturbance. So you don't want to till the ground consistently, because if you do, you're going to disrupt microbiology. You mentioned mycorrhizae, which is a powerful fungal network. When you are digging up the dirt after a harvest, when you are plowing, you are removing microbial populations, you are disrupting the oxygen, aerobic and anaerobic environment, and you are setting yourselves back, if you will allow animals to have impact. And you have a no till or zero till planting, which is either by hand or using what you'd call a no till drill. You are preserving microbial populations and every harvest successively will be more nutritious with less inputs. Imagine that. Ben, you know, we talked about what is the holy grail of agriculture. It is less work, more food in a smaller area. And that's what's possible when you practice regenerative agriculture.

Okay, so when you talk about, you mentioned that if you were to introduce animals onto your land, even perhaps before you plant or move onto that property, to start to make the soil a little bit more friendly to future growth that you recommended rotating them. Let's say it's like goats. Do you mean like you buy some, some small fencing materials or electric fencing or what have you, and. And have those goats in like a squared off section of the property and then every few weeks or every month or so, put them into a different fenced area?

That would be minimum. Ideally, if you have small, small population of animals, keep them in a very small area and move them as frequently as possible. This is going to bring up a lot of different conversations, but goats are very susceptible to parasites, and parasites have a certain life cycle. So even if you have one acre and a small number of animals, the more rotations you can make, the better. And you can definitely, at any local area, find temporary fence, a small solar powered electric charger and move them. If you want to get even more bare bones than that. You don't need all the bells and whistles. Just make sure you're moving as frequently as possible. Certainly every week, minimally. But ideally, you don't have too many animals for your property. And so, Ben, let me give you an example. You said to me, jordan, I want to start creating food, meat, milk, eggs, produce. What I would say to you, because we're friends and you can make this happen and I can come to our farm, see what we're doing. And with our team together, we will construct a farm systems plan, a regenerative organic systems plan for your farm, and you will leave with that. So that's our goal, is to train farmers, whether it's in a backyard, variety or major producers. If someone is not able to do that, there are incredible videos and all over the Internet, certainly on this podcast and podcasts like this will help. But you need to get started somewhere. And as Ben mentioned earlier, not everyone has 4,000 acres. The biggest mistake I made was going too big. So if you start small with a small amount of animals, you can fail small, but you can prove out a very big vision. And so you want to have a handful of goats. And trust me, when you start buying animals, nobody sells you their best animals. So you want to learn about life and death. You want to learn about birds and the bees. Agriculture will teach you all that. So you start small. And once you build your systems, what you have proven in your backyard can be applied to very large parcels of land. Absolutely. All the same principles apply.

Okay, got it.

You mentioned water buffalo. I think a lot of people, they're pretty familiar with, like the goat, chicken, cow concept. Do you think that's like super old school. And that there are better approaches as far as the type of animals that we should consider raising.

I do think that depending on your environment there are better animals. Absolutely. And unfortunately in America we have gravitated towards animals that produce food quickly in confinement, which has led to very weak genetics. Dairy cows are super fragile. The typical Cornish cross hen chicken, super fragile. They're meant to be able to become a steak or milk or eggs or chicken breast very quickly in a high, I'll say mechanistic environment. So if you were to ask me, I'm going to be in Idaho and I have 10 acres and I want to raise animals for meat and milk and birds for eggs. If you don't care which kind of bird, I would probably recommend animals that are acclimated to your environment but also are very hardy and can live in a system without antibiotics, without growth promotants, stimulants or hormones. They can consume poor quality forage. Because I don't suppose you're moving into a pasture that has 20 years of regenerative improved soil, something like that. You do not want to get the animals that need to be pampered. You want to get animals that can earn a living for themselves, as some people would say. And that is a huge mistake. I can't tell you how many animals that I've lost because I haven't understood genetics or I've bought somebody's lies. When we watched the movie the Biggest Little Farm, my wife finally realized that I'm not the only one who experiences animal loss and plants that don't grow to the expectation. So farming is hard, but it is absolutely simple and effective if you start today. So I don't want to scare people off, but at the same time you need to appreciate the food that you buy at your grocery or health food store or farmer's market because it is darn hard to grow it and raise it yourself. And any sip of milk that comes from your animal or egg that comes from your bird or produce that comes from your garden, you need to thank God for it because man, it is a huge blessing and so few people are able to create produce their own food today.

Got it. Besides the water buffalo that you mentioned, would there just spitballing if you could list a few other examples to at least for someone listening for myself to look into as some creative alternatives that are hardy in the way that you described, whether birds or livestock.

You mentioned yak to me in a communication and I have yak in Missouri, which can be a challenge but yak would be much more suitable for Idaho. Now, yak are also sort of unique in terms of how to handle them. So if you find somebody who knows how to milk cows or knows how to raise cows, it's not identical to yak, but you do live in an environment where yak would produce higher quality meat than any bovine or cattle that you would bring on. The milk would be off the charts. I think you probably know this, Ben, but the original sort of impetus behind Dave Asprey's bulletproof message was yak milk in.

In tea, not ghee and coffee. But that's where in Tibet, where the herdsmen and pretty much anyone else would drink 14 small cups a day of tea with yak butter or yak milk in it. So yak are good. There are certain sheep and goats that would be good for you, Ben, that are more acclimated to colder weather.

I by far believe that ducks produce the most consistent and nutritious meat and eggs. Now, I could argue that you could go even more exotic, but ducks can handle cooler weather if you raise them properly. And their eggs are going to be less allergenic and more nutritious than chickens in every measured nutrient. Just like yak milk will be, water buffalo milk will be. There are certainly cows that you could raise that are more adapted to your temperature. If you've ever seen a Scottish Highland cow, they look like the old Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street. You know, they're real hairy and crazy looking.

Yeah, they're super cool. One of my friends raises those up in Toronto.

But for you, you may be knowledgeable about A2 milk. I'm sure you are, and you probably looked into it. So when you raise cattle, there are only a few breeds that have a high percentage of A2 milk. Whereas goats, sheep, water buffalo, yak, they all have entirely A2 milk without any breeding necessary. Which makes me think they're more suitable for humans, considering mother's milk contains no A1, which, by the way, has been called the dairy.

You mean mother human's milk?

Human mother milk only has the A2 protein, not A1. So A1 protein, which is in most dairy cattle today, is foreign to the human body. So if you were to ask me, so, Jordan, if I want cows, which breeds. Well, Guernsey can handle some cold weather, and it's 96% A2. Wow. If you want more sort of traditional dairy, what you could do, Ben, is you can find a farmer who's selling cows and you can genetically test through hair samples which of the cows are A two, A two or which are not, and you can bring those to your farm and then you never have to worry you're always going to produce A2 milk. The meat has not really been proven to be different. But I would argue that if the original cattle are supposed to produce A2 milk, then their offspring being raised on A2 milk would be healthier than otherwise. And I have lots of experience and data here. But for you, if you're going to do dairy, it's got to be a 2 because it is far healthier than traditional dairy.

Yeah, that makes sense. Little background here. My dad got horribly sick two years ago, Horribly sick, bedridden for weeks. And it was later traced back to an infection that he got from his pond, which is actually right next to the home that I'm building where there's also a much larger pond than his pond. And that infection was traced back to duck poop and duck contamination of the water by ducks. And so I'm always cognizant asking a two part question, but I'm going to go ahead and do it anyways because you're a smart guy. First of all, do you have any concerns about the impact of ducks on a water system that humans might be swimming in or potentially even drinking from or getting exposed to? And then just to think about that as you're answering that question. Have you dealt with bodies of water and if so, what would you do to create those into more like a, a living pool supportive environment that, that fits into this regenerative, organic principle?

Yeah, I think a we do raise lot. We have 3,000 birds on each of our two properties. We have these 53 acre research sites where we're building soil. So we have 3,000 chickens, ducks and turkeys. Probably about half of them are ducks. Now in our normal rotations we do not have pond access for the ducks and they are moving every single day. So if you think about it, any type of manure borne infection, which I think is pretty rare, but you know, we could talk offline and determine sort of what happened there. But we do have a group of ducks that are in a stationary body of water. We don't allow people in there and we don't drink from that water. So I can't answer with experience sort of how to purify it other than, I will say this, in the past we've had water systems when we were producing dairy products, et cetera, called effluent tanks. And they were really big ponds that had all the waste material we would do two things. We would inoculate them with probiotics and two, we would aerate them. So if you oxygenate the pond somehow because it's representative of moving, not stagnant water, and then you use certain probiotics we call soil based organisms that are aerobic, they will keep a pond free from pathogenic organisms largely. But for the most part, a pond that has ducks in it, the best use of that water is to irrigate land and provide fertilizer. Certainly would not recommend drinking it, et cetera. But I'm sure, Ben, you've seen videos and heard about Joel Salatin and others drinking out of their troughs and things of that nature. So, I mean, clearly people do it. But I think a pond where there's ducks in it that is not aerated and or inoculated with beneficial bacteria, probiotics, I'd probably avoid it and any contact with it in your body.

Okay, got it, got it.

I want to respect your time, but I also have a question that's a little bit of a switch up from regenerative organic farming per se, and it's regarding the creation of things like nutritional supplements on what I believe to be a fungal medium. Something that intrigues me in that I might be bastardizing the concept, but you're doing something very interesting with the fungi in terms of how you're creating supplements. Is that correct?

It is. And it actually doesn't dovetail from regenerative organic because.

Ben, wait, should you say dovetail or ducktail?

Yeah, great question. It doesn't ducktail or dovetail much from what we were talking about, because we have recently created the very first regenerative organic certified fungi, so they will be in products soon. In fact, we created the first regenerative organic certified supplements ever that are launching in sprouts exclusively, which we're excited about and will soon be expanded across retail. But I realized years ago, Ben, that the fungi kingdom is a very underutilized phenomenon. We talked about a little bit mycorrhizae, which are in the soil that makes soil healthy. In fact, the healthiest soil is one that has more fungi than bacteria. A fungal dominated soil where you'd see old growth forests. There's more fungi in the soil when undisturbed than bacteria. What we did is, starting 10 years ago, we realized that mushrooms are amazing for health. Reishi, Maitake, shiitake, cordyceps, lion's mane, chaga, you name it. But rather than consider them an end result, what if they could be a means to an end? What if you could take fungi and allow them to extract all the goodness from foods, herbs.

And remove any plant toxins. And that's exactly what we were able to do. And we've been doing research for 10 years on ways to take already good ingredients and make them better with fungi. And there's research primarily out of Korea that shows that if you ferment an herb with fungi, you will actually get the benefits of the fungi reishi, the benefits of the plant turmeric, and all these other compounds that would be considered downstream metabolites. And so we began creating ingredients and products where we're not extracting the nutrients with man's technology, but we're allowing this sort of intelligent extraction technology to take place. And so we have multiple names for it. But this is something that we're really excited about. It's the convergence of two biological kingdoms, and it allows you to take the best out of plants or animals. And these mushrooms essentially make these ingredients more user friendly or bioavailable to humans. So it's a pretty awesome technology.

I don't fully understand it though. Like, are the mushrooms basically being planted on something that contains specific vitamins and minerals that are then going to be present in those mushrooms when they're hard? Maybe Give me an example of a product to illustrate.

Absolutely. So most mushrooms today are grown on a substrate of wood or rice straw, maybe another grain, like oats. So, Ben, I've heard you before, promote various products containing mushrooms. Most of those are grown on oats. Oats, as you and I know, are okay to below average as a food for humans. Right. Are we agreeing on that?

Yeah.

Okay.

Unless they're overnight oats with dark chocolate and peanut butter.

There you go. I had this thought. What if instead of growing mushrooms on oats, which are fine, they contain beta glucans and soluble fiber, et cetera. But what if we, with the limited nutritional space we have, what if we grew mushrooms on turmeric? I said, think of these concentric circles. There's turmeric, which is difficult to digest for humans. We all know that. That's why we extract it, we add black pepper to it, we ferment it. And then there's reishi, which is so amazing in and of itself. But what if the reishi and the turmeric created this middle circle that were ganodermic turmerosaccharides? I wanted to throw that out there. I made that up just now. But it's reishi is ganoderma. And some of the key elements in turmeric are turmerosaccharides what if the reishi took the best out of the turmeric and made it more bioavailable to people?

So are you growing the reishi on a turmeric root?

Yes. Oh, geez.

Holy cow. That's super interesting. So the mushroom is almost like scavenging what you want from whatever you grow it on. Then you harvest the mushroom. You don't harvest the other thing that it grew on. And the mushroom contains what you're looking for, but in a more concentrated and bioavailable fashion.

Very close. You actually harvest the entire thing because you want all the turmeric and all the mushroom. And it is absolutely. When I had this thought in 2013, I reached out to a friend of mine who owned a mushroom farm that I'd been buying from at Garden of Life and over the years and I just said, well, rice and corn and oats and millet, those are fine. And, you know, soaked, sprouted, and in bowls. But if you're going to have 1,000, 2,000 milligrams of a mushroom, I want it to be as potent as possible. Would it not be better to grow it on all of these botanicals? And that's the technology we created. And it actually gets even better than that because there are other factors you can manipulate and you'll like this, Ben, based on your family history, but we actually use certain structured water that's energized to take the substrate, whether it's turmeric or whether it is oats and we sprout it or we help to extract. We use certain light and color frequencies as well as sound frequency, which you're also a fan of music, obviously, and we are infusing that into the mushrooms. But here's the coolest part.

When you grow reishi on turmeric, the turmeric is not a whole log or a root. It's ground up. Turmeric chips. I did an experiment with turmeric and with grapeseed and with all these different herbs, and I forgot about it. And I returned six months later and someone who saw it said, jordan, I don't know if you're seeing this, but the reishi is actually growing in the shape of the herb that it's growing on.

Whoa.

I've never heard anyone say this before, but I have been now 8 year old reishi that was grown on turmeric that looks like turmeric root, even though it was grown on little tiny chips. I have reishi grown on grapeseed that looks like a grapevine. These Mushrooms have intelligence that we have not fully understood up until now. And it's so cool. Imagine what that could do in your body.

Man, I need to find a month to come out there and not only witness this with my own two eyes, but maybe steal a few of these tricks to try out in Idaho. You know, there's at least one person listening who's already thinking about doing something like growing psilocybin on cannabis leaf or something like that.

Can I say no comment. But just to share with you, we have done significant research on mushrooms grown on cannabis and hemp in California. And here for now eight years, we have IP around it. It is absolutely a game changer and we could talk about that offline as well. But it is definitely any type of plant that has indigestible fiber or parts of the plant that may be less safe for humans. There's always this desire to take the good out and remove the bad. And I believe that God created mushrooms to do just that in our environment. And so if you can take a fungi, because they're not all really mushrooms. Chaga is not a mushroom. Cordyceps isn't a mushroom. But Ben, our first experiment was cordyceps grown on ashwagandha. How amazing. We did cordyceps on cacao, we did reishi on coffee. We've got all this going on and it's really up until now been a small part of what we've brought to the world. But I think you're appreciating it the way that some of your friends, Dr. Dan Pompa and others who have seen it have just been had their minds blown because this is just a gold mine waiting to happen. We can literally take any food and make it more improved for a human or an animal.

Is that going to be an ancient nutrition product or are you going to be a whole new spin off company with these?

Yes, we are incorporating this technology in the future Ancient nutrition regenerative organic certified products. And then I also mentioned this to you. We have a manufacturing company that's in the middle of a 4,000 acre regenerative organic certified farm. And so we are providing ingredients and formulation to select companies, including Dr. Pompa's brand new brand cellular solution that we manufactured for him. So he's kind of debuting it on the practitioner side.

And so I didn't even realize that he sent me a few bottles of that in my pantry. I haven't even opened it yet. I didn't realize it was using that technology.

Yeah. So if you look, Ben, you see My ciliated herbals, like ginger, turmeric. That's the term we use because it's not extracted. It's not really, you know, we don't say mushroom, but mushroom mycelium are preparing herbs and spices for the human body. And by the way, it doesn't just extend to herbs and spices. We've done experiments on animal products, including growing cordyceps on crickets, which is where cordyceps grows in nature on insects. Yeah, we're breaking some new ground for sure.

When we finish this podcast, I'm going to sit down with my calendar and find a date to just hop on a plan. I bet my sons and my wife would love to come and check this out. Also, you know, if. If there's a listener and, you know, maybe they don't have a. An open invite to come out to your farm or whatever, but they want to perhaps take a deeper dive into what you're doing. What's the best way to follow or learn? Do you guys do classes, courses, book, website, or where would you direct people?

So if you want to go to ancientnutrition.com and click on the ranch project. So, ranch stands for regenerative Agriculture, Nutrition, Climate and Health. And to answer your previous comment, we absolutely will host you if you come visit one of our farms. You just need to let us know in advance if you go to Ancient.

You mean not me specifically, but like, someone listening?

Absolutely. And you specifically, too. Although we've tried before to invite you, Ben. Unsuccessfully. I know, but I think I've piqued your interest now, so we'll make it happen. Yeah, but, yeah, so if someone is in the area, we not only train farmers, we've held permaculture courses for a number of years, but we do have tree planting parties. You can stop by for a visit. And we've had multiple interns and individuals just come for a day and either volunteer or they want to do a farm vacation. But we are very hospitable to guests. Our goal is to get this message to all the corners of the world, and we can't do it unless we have you coming and getting involved in what we're doing. You, meaning you, Ben, and your audience. But we're super excited about this model of regenerative organic certified farming. And we believe that everybody listening. Even if you live. Literally, even if you live in Dubai, in a condo or an apartment building, you can do something to make the world a better place. And that is not just cliche. I promise you that you can make changes whether it's composting your food waste or as I said, growing a potted plant. You can contribute to changing the world no matter where or who you are. And if you don't want to do it, it's an excuse. The truth is, we can be selfish and say, well, I think the world has enough years to farm as long as I'm alive. But we owe it to future generations to be the first generation in a long time to make improvements in our environment and our food supply. And so folks like you, Ben, and others are doing a great job in helping people get healthier through what they eat, what they drink, body therapies, as I call them, spiritual health. But we cannot continue to destroy and at best take for granted the planet we've been given stewardship over. And that's a huge mission of mine. It wasn't always this way. My first mission was to see people healed from diseases like I was. But I can't sit here and ignore the fact that the foods and beverages and supplements that I count on to bring health won't be here in the future if we don't start farming and or supporting farmers the way that God intended.

I'm pretty blessed and grateful to be able to spread this message on the podcast.

And if you're listening, go to BenGreenfieldLife.com HowToFarm and I'll put all the information in the show notes, including how you can reach out to Jordan or visit the ranch or visit the farm and Jordan. I'm sure there's going to be probably another conversation in the future. Perhaps this year, if I make it out to the farm, maybe I'll bring a little video camera and we. We can do a little bit more content for folks. But for now, I want to thank you for your time for coming on the show. You're right. You've got me super excited about this. And I got all sorts of ideas now about the little spot in Idaho. So thank you so much, man.

Glad to do it. And we'll have to do a small clip from Ben on the back of a water buffalo. And I know just the water buffalo. Well, depending on sort of how things go between now and then, I may decide which water buffalo, but we got some really friendly ones and it is a incredible experience. Your kids will love it, too.

I'll start training my adductors. All right, man. Well, thanks for coming on. And folks, again, the show notes gonna be@bengreenfieldlife.com how to farm. And I'll also put my other podcast with Jordan and links to all the great things that he gets up to. So, Jordan, thanks again, man.

Thanks so much.