The final Grow 30 episode follows a family through farm work, root cellar tours, and improvised cooking with beef scraps and preserved foods. They've noticed nausea from pork and are shifting toward ruminant meat, while treating cooking as creative play rather than strict recipes. A fitness circuit ends the series with Troy using a bow to assign workout reps.
Chapters
Happy day 29 of Grow 30. This will be our final day. Tomorrow's our rest day. It is Saturday. It will be the 30th day. But if I can conclude anything, I'm going to conclude we ain't gonna stop. This 30 days was just a boost. We'll use the grocery store for very much supplemental. We'll use the local co-op grocery store. There he is. You know what, I was wondering if y'all were gonna be 10 minutes early or right on time. You won. He ruled out— Good morning, Troy. Troy likes to be good morning, right on time. You like to be early? Yep. Did you have a squabble this morning?
No, we had a granddaughter that, uh, waylaid us a little bit.
Oh, okay, okay.
That's all right.
It's okay to be late.
I had to read A Day in the Jungle before we left.
Okay, that's important. Tara and Troy came on an interesting day.
Why?
This was some of our gnarliest pastures and paddocks. We're all learning tricks this morning. What? He's going to get some more.
There should be about—
Troy has gotten his— he's getting some big rocks so they'll slow down their eating. Look how she had to push that away. It might make her more irritable though.
I think once they get used to it, they just— they recognize it's part of the game. And, uh, but she seemed to know in the beginning she was a little—
let's go get her calf before the— she's calling her. Go ahead, Troy. We're getting a little calf over both of them. Just see, watch this, watch this, watch. She knows. See, she don't even look back there. She moved that leg. Normally she gets a kick. Oh, right here we go. Maybe we'll get another show. Oh, that's because she can't find her mom. Here you go. There you go. Shall we go get the sheep up here? That's always fun. We're playing the accent game, okay? Okay.
The lady in the Amish Mennonite store who has such a thick accent. We go in there and she says, "My Canadian friends here." And I said, "How do you know that?" And she said, "You have such a strong accent." Meanwhile, she's like heavy Amish. She can find that accent.
Okay, we'll find it right here. Say— I'm gonna spell it for you— R-O-O-T. Roots. Oh wow, that surprised me.
Minnesota, they say rut.
Oh, come on. Well, that's a straight up rut.
It's so funny.
So say R-O-O-F. Roof. Roof. Okay, that's how we say it. Roof. But in the Northeast, they say rut.
No, someone fell off the roof and that was it.
What'd they fall off?
What would you call a female sheep?
A ewe.
They call her a ewe.
Oh wow.
A ewe.
Yeah, no. H-E-R-B. Herb. Okay. Herb. Herb. Herb. You say it herb?
No, we all say herb.
Herb.
But you guys say herb.
We say herb. We don't say it. I don't know.
No, the H is silent.
I don't know. A-B-O-U-T. About. Oh, yes.
About.
Oh, he really got it. Say it. About. About.
You're going about.
Yeah, about. About.
Okay, say it. How do you say it?
Say it again. About.
About. So that's how Jonah was saying it. This.
And we were like, but we don't say—
you guys say a boot and no one says a boot.
We're gonna have her look at our root cellar. So come in here though. But is it warm? It's too warm.
Good for storage, but yeah, it's too warm for— yeah, I don't know that you can rectify that given that it's part of the house.
With your boys' skills, I think you guys would have a riot building a root cellar underground, because the thing that we have in ours too is, uh, just the passive ventilation. And so we have like, uh, that's probably like knee height. We have 4 pipes, uh, 2 on the south side, 2 on the east side. Then we have 2 chimneys actually, so you have the ventilation. And I was reading through a bunch of like old-school root cellar books. Another thing that we really found that was really cool was in terms of the shelving itself, we have a gap from our shelves about that much between the edge of the shelving and the wall, just so you have complete circulation.
Oh, okay.
Um, so yeah, you can feel it.
Okay, so this is our—
this is our root cellar. So this is—
so you dug this out?
Oh yeah, see, that's just exposed. That's a wall.
No, no, yes, but the root cellar, you'll see, you go down. So we— this was dug down And this is what you walk into. So this is the first door. Now you see I'm going down. Uh-huh. And then this is a big heavy refrigerated door that we got out of an old Hershey factory. So now we're down again. So this is poured concrete. The ceiling's poured concrete. And then this— so the way we have it is this wall is like all the root vegetables. And then one side is all canned stuff. And then the other side's all freeze-dried stuff. So, but it's in— when it's—
so you can see how deep Gideon's got an idea. I thought we'd have to maybe walk them. We're gonna put them up behind the cows because it's a really gnarly bushy area and we could use them over there. Gideon's idea, he thinks they'll follow the side-by-side. I will. Come sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep! All right, all right, here we go. Uh-oh, they didn't get the memo. You in, Troy? Yep. Hey, it's working nice. This is some of our gnarliest pastures. We can't get our mowers up here. It's too steep, so the sheep will help us with this bramble. I just had to bring the sheep in here because cows will only eat so much of it. And it's already set up because the cows were here yesterday. I got my meat here. You do cut it up?
Yeah, just— I just do a rough chop.
Okay, let's do a rough, rough chop. I'm about to put this in cubes and freeze it and then put it in bags. Yeah, but you put it in a— you just put it straight up in a jar, a glass jar, and just freeze it that way. So this is 1 cup. How much, how much of one of these would you put in a pound of ground beef?
A pound of ground beef? So you've cooked it? Let's say I'm gonna make burgers or something, or, uh, I don't put that in the ground beef.
Oh, you don't?
No, she'll make soup with that.
No, I make soup or stew, or when we—
when we—
I put gelatin— I, I'll pour gelatin and fresh herbs over it and make a little like head cheese.
You eat this straight up too?
Oh yeah, you can eat that straight up, mix it into rice or vegetables or whatever.
Yeah.
Could I take that and just like slightly heat it so it's not cold? Just like kick off the heat?
Yes, you may.
Yes, Rebecca won't eat cold meat.
To eat it.
Tara's trying to get her to get cold meat. Yeah, just get that gelatin in, Beck, whatever it takes. I know, she'll eat it in the soup and never know.
You just add it. You know what I would do? Well, if I just take that— okay, if this is— if this had the— like, it was like a head cheese kind of deal, just take the whole thing or half of it, put in some bone broth to just like thin it out a little bit, and you have a soup.
Yeah, I was gonna say, and just put like some rice.
Yeah, that in it. Yeah, like have like this.
That's a quick food. Oh, there's your forgotten set something out, just make some—
we'll make that.
And this is why having preserves is so important, because if you had that same meal and then you take a scoop of a chutney or something and you pour it onto the rice with the bone broth and these, it literally takes 10 minutes and it, and it, and it elevates it so much and it changes everything. Cuz you use a different chutney, you have a different meal.
I wanted to know, how much do I put in this per meat. And I'm about— I was about to ask you that for soup, but there's no need because we'll just do it to taste or whatever. Yeah, but that can be— you don't have to have the recipe with the exact thing. It can be more of the concept.
That's what I'm always trying to express to people, is I think that we've lost the joy in the kitchen because we've lost creativity, and we think we have to follow these like really rigid directions. But I think that what Rebecca produces, or like in the kitchen, is infinitely more delicious and interesting and unique than me. We can have the exact same ingredients, but the way we tweak them— and that's the joy of like food, right?
And eating.
And I think that brings back the fun in it too. I think you like to lose all these—
you write a cookbook but break the rules and just See, I think being in the kitchen is a dance.
This is why I say all the time it's a dance, and I'm taking like food from like breakfast and doing something different with it and tweaking it from lunch, and then you've got your leftovers and you're adding that, and then you get a can of preserves and you put that on, and people are like, whoa, like she's been doing this for 2 hours, and it's like, I do this in 5 minutes. I had the foundational stuff.
I'm of the mind We're trying to maybe think about— I feel I need to eat more ruminants. Yeah, less pork, because I see how much grain is going into it. And some pork makes me nauseous. Yeah, and which is new. What is—
so he just started getting nauseous.
Did Troy tell you about us? No, that started happening to us. No, 4 years ago.
I want to know.
Within the same year, him and I both started getting not— and this was our pork, like no soy, no corn, organic. And we started getting nauseous after eating it.
Um, it was about 4 years ago, 3, 4 years ago.
Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting because— so we— that's when we started eating steak.
I can't—
that's when I was doing carnivore. Yeah, I couldn't just eat a pork chop.
Yeah, no, I know, it was crazy because I'm like, what?
I know, I cannot.
Okay, we were like, the only way I can eat that pork chop now with apples or onions, right? Fried apples and onions.
Okay, Troy could put away 2 pounds of bacon in a sitting. Now he smells it, he can't do bacon.
Bacon still doesn't do it for me. I can still do it.
Yeah, he can eat bacon still because we were worried.
But anyway, okay, so what was the question?
What was the question? Oh, um, where are the breakfast ideas then?
Oh my, without pork, just meat, literally meat. Like, like you can do once you start eating. Like, okay, I just told her, did you hear what I said about soup?
Yeah, because you would do a meatloaf and you would put in a little bit of bone broth or meat stock or whatever in it, crumble it up.
Yeah.
And then you would simmer it and then you stir an egg for an egg drop. So it's like noodles, it's like long noodles the egg makes. And then put in a big blob of kimchi and Yeah, like a glass of milk with that. And I mean, that's a—
yeah, I think that this is it too. And like she was saying, yogurt. Like, we make our own yogurt.
We could totally— I know, every day we need to be eating—
we have yogurt every morning.
So that's a staple. Oh, it's a staple. So for us, eggs is a staple, but for you, yogurt is.
Yeah. And then so those blueberries in the winter, because that's the other thing, is eating seasonally, because our bodies are expecting different things, right? Like, so in the Winter, there might be hash browns on the side, or maybe some winter leftover winter squash that I'll stir into the soup. And then like, there'll be the yogurt, but instead it'll be like preserved blueberries. Yeah, yeah.
No, that's what I do for breakfast though. Could I eat soup for breakfast? What we're talking about here, I think stews are okay. So I feel like I'm, you know, it's steps. Like, I'm doing this, eating this thing, and I think what I— so like, I was I'm super overwhelmed with like eating breakfast within 1 hour of waking, like very overwhelming to me. Yeah, so I started doing that, just that. That was like the one thing I was gonna do. Okay, that is like— and once I like hit that goal and it feels not overwhelming and it feels like a habit, okay, right, then I can add in another like, you know what I'm saying?
At first you literally had to scroll your phone.
Yeah, I would like to scroll eat because I couldn't. I could not, because you weren't hungry. It wasn't that. It was like, it would make you do all the protein. It was too much protein. It would, and that's what would make me gag. Like, I would be eating it and I would say, you worry about that, you worry about counting protein, playing Sudoku, reading a book, scrolling my phone, just something to take my mind off of what I was doing so that I could get it in. And then now I can eat it no problem. Like, it, it got to the point Like, it was—
I would go, "Ugh!" And Justin's like, "I don't think you should do this." And I'm like, "Ugh!" She counts her protein. Is that a good idea? Make sure you get enough?
Oh, well, if you don't know where you're at, I think it's a good tool to begin with.
When I started. I don't have to do it now. I can look at my plate and be like, "That's enough." But it's important to get some carbohydrates too, right?
Because that's what dampens down that stress response that you're trying to do first thing in the morning.
So what's a good carbohydrate?
Most yogurt. Yogurt, some fruit.
Um, in the winter, potatoes, where we don't normally— like in the summer I'm not doing potatoes.
You could do a smoothie because you have all those strawberries and the milk.
And well, you don't want to do that because it's cold and you're not supposed to.
There's that too.
Yeah, in the winter I only do smoothies in the summer when it's hot.
Like I try to not do iced, but we'll do like some canned peaches or like Troy likes sourdough bread. I make sourdough white bread, so he'll do some of that.
All right, I'm gonna leave the ladies to have a good time. So refreshing to have some fellow health nuts here. He's got you outside. Troy's workout involves a bow and arrow.
When Troy was in the army, they called him the Machine, so I'd be worried. Uh-oh. But he's an old man now, so there should be no problem.
He's an old worn-out machine.
Yeah, so if it's 5 arrows to get 5 bullseyes, then it's Like, uh, do 5 thrusters, 5 press, 10 squats, and so on.
Wow. Are we warming up or does this count?
No, no.
So y'all as a team determine all your punishments? Does it count if it bounces? Well, you have to— you have to count for that. It's too easy, Troy. No, no. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Where we are. There we go. No, it's close. Now all of a sudden it's too hard. Nope. All right, look, he's gonna determine it. Oh, come on boys, where are you at? I don't know. Yeah, okay, I think we found our distance.
So we're looking for 5.
Okay, so he gets 5 throws.
Nope, it's, uh, however many throws it is to get 5 bullseyes.
What happens when I miss?
It just— that's another rep that we're doing.
Oh boy. Okay, 1. Oh, 2. 2 for 3. 3 for 4. Come on, get it right here, get it right here. 5 for 8.
That's good, that's a good number.
So what does that mean?
8 presses, 16 squats. 8 burpees, 16 push-ups, 8 pull-ups, and 8 runs. And so, so on push-ups too, it's all scalable, right? So if you get to a certain point with very strict, you can't do it, then the scalable one is to kind of have your knees down but keep on going for the full number.
Are you trying?
Oh, now back up a little bit.
Look at this southpaw.
Back up, Henry.
Back up a little bit.
He doesn't need to back up, he's not hit one yet. Terry, you enjoy watching these men play?
Oh yeah, it's fun.
Josiah's doing a really good squat. Jeez, 8 pull-ups. Wow, good job. How far are you gonna run? You're quicker there, Josiah. You gotta do better than 8, bro. I'm gonna try. Oh, 0 for 1. Oh, 0 for 2. That's the point of the shooting of the bow and arrow at this point, or throwing walnuts, is you gotta, you gotta keep your cool. You gotta perform even though you're tired or stressed. Troy, they're killing you, bud.
For purposes of the workout, we'll cap it at 10, okay?
That's usually what we do. Guys, if you want to look like Troy one day, you got to keep doing this. Austin, I can't help but think about this, man. Where you at? I think you would really like this. Sorry, Justin, you caught me not working for somebody else. I'm still editing for you though. Okay, Troy, I bet you're breathing hard. You're gonna nail it in 5 shots, aren't you? We'll see. Oh, it bounced out! 5 for 10. And they're done. So, so how was it, boys? Pretty brutal, huh? That'll get you in soccer shape.
Oh, you guys impressed me, especially running up the hill barefoot. That's awesome.
Here we go. Oh yeah, he's about— he's bombed us. I'm feeling inspired. A light little lunch. Big, big family fun meal tonight. Uh, I'm feeling inspired. I'm gonna take some frozen soup we have that was left over, and then we're gonna try beef bits and just put together a little soup. We got some peppers, we got some leftover rice. We could do those carrots. Um, gonna fry up some onions. We can cut up some of the squash before it goes bad. I fried some onions. Now I've got some broth in there. I guess Good thing about always having some beef broth going is we have something for our soups. We can put this beef soup in here, maybe one beef bit to start with. They were even frozen. Rebecca, fancy for tonight? I made beef scrap soup, dar.
I know, it looks great.
There's a little bit of roast in it, but I just hodgepodge it together real quick like. Okay, you want a plate? A bowl. All right, you guys, has anybody eaten the soup yet? You need to feel again. It is good. It's tofu and tempeh. How do you like the soup?
Do you want more rice?
I think the trick is for the kids to do it is to have rice alongside it. You want a little soup with that rice? How'd you like the soup? It's okay, you'll be honest. Josiah went for it. You eating it? Yeah. This is normally something we would have just thrown out to the animals. We made something special out of it. This is the really good stuff, good for your joints. A round of ice cream. I'm perfecting it. It's been icy for us, but I figured it out. More cream, a little bit more sugar. More salt, and it's excellent. So it's a win, and it'll be a hit. Farm-friendly, once-a-week Friday night meal special. All right, happy day.
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