“When you think of literacy and you think of what does that mean and what are all the parts of it– think about reading a recipe. Think about measuring the ingredients. Think about learning how to cook.  Think about planning a meal, or budgeting for that meal.There are so many things  that are learning-through-play, learning-through-doing-it, in a teaching kitchen. That’s the reason  why we call it a teaching kitchen. It really is about learning literacy as well as some skills that are very specific to cooking.” This week on the show, conversations with an architect, a library di ..read more

“We’ve been presented with problems today that we’ve never dealt with before as an agriculture industry–like climate change.  And I don’t think that the approach we’ve taken, historically, is going to work here…As long as I’ve heard the words ‘climate change,’ I have heard that Indigenous practice is the solution.” This week on the show, a conversation with Michelle Hughes of the National Young Farmers Coalition. In 2019, the organization made a decision to put racial equity at the center of their strategic planning work. Michelle Hughes shares the story of their transformation. This stor ..read more

Have you ever had a hunch about something, tested it out and been shocked by the results? That’s what happened to public health scholar Funmi Ayeni. She took a traditional Nigerian home remedy and applied the rigors of scientific research to test its efficacy. The results were nothing short of jaw dropping. This week on Earth Eats, food research that could end up saving lives ..read more

“As I started to think more about theories around  food, and it’s a thing that we do every day without fail, and it really shapes the way that we interact with one another, it shapes the way we interact with our environments, the ways that we create networks of relationships–being able to name it has given it a power to be able to use it to tap into ways to think about social relationships in the present and propose alternatives.” This week we’re devoting the full show to my conversation with Dr. Kaitlyn Alcantara an anthropological bioarcheologist, at Indiana University-Bloomington, who ..read more

“We use wood so that we give the various microorganisms sort of a place to colonize and live from batch to batch. And over time those colonies and those species that have taken hold will change, they’ll drift and so, you’ll develop a unique character to each tank that’s really interesting.” This week on the show we dive head first into a giant oak barrel full of aging beer.  Okay, well, not literally.  Producer Toby Foster pays a visit to The Woodshop, that’s Upland Brewing Company’s sour beer facility. Now’s your chance to learn what’s special about this type of beer and why they ne ..read more

“The dominant vocabulary for talking about restaurants is ‘what food do they serve, what are the good dishes?’ People think that’s the only thing that’s important about restaurants.”  Today on the show we talk with Historian Rebecca Spang, about the origins of restaurants, and what they mean to us today.  “The experience just of knowing that there are other people and knowing that they have their own lives, they’re talking about their own things, but that you’re not completely alone.” Exploring the experience of dining out-- in this episode of Earth Eats ..read more

“When you begin to zoom out, you realize that in fact palm oil is all around us, and the world, in a strange way, is made of palm oil; and we’re all, in a certain way, made of palm oil–in the sense that we use it to reproduce our bodies and to clean our skin and to live the lives that we live in a globalized world.” This week on the show, a conversation with Max Haiven, author of the book Palm Oil:The Grease of Empire. He traces the history of palm oil production globally, examining its damaging effect on the environment, the labor abuses in the industry and the ill-effects of this cheap fat o ..read more

“It’s a great thing to be outside, to have birds chirping, to be around green grass, and animals. But the problem has become, that you can’t really be a business unless you are a financially viable business.”  This week on the show we explore the economics of small scale farming, and debunk some of the myths of the agrarian lifestyle. We talk with Beth Hoffman, author of Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Farming in America, and we hear from farmers across Indiana about how they’re “making it pay.”  This week on the show we debunk some of the myths of the agrarian lifestyle. We t ..read more

“There are a lot of people, they like the faux meats and they want to eat a Carne Asada that reminds of the actual, like, Beef Carne Asada. There are a lot of people who try to steer clear from the faux meats, so we wanted to have plenty of veggie items on the menu for them as well. We really wanted to represent different ingredients and different flavors that anybody can come and enjoy.” This week on the show, producer, Toby Foster visits with one of the owners of Tacotarian in Las Vegas, Nevada. Plus, East Coast style bagels come to Indiana, and a story from Harvest Public Media about too ma ..read more

“There’s a restaurant on almost every street in our various cities–they are woven into the fabrics of our communities, and they are deeply embedded in our lives.  Restaurants are the places we go to celebrate marriages, to mourn divorces, the places we go to gossip with friends to celebrate after church and they become these places to hear the stories of their community. They’re talking to the farmers everyday, they’re talking to the fisherpeople everyday, they’re talking to the other producers, they’re also getting a sense of what’s challenging about their lives or what’s opportunities w ..read more