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The Ultimate Health Podcast

370: John & Molly Chester - The Biggest Little Farm

The Ultimate Health Podcast

Jesse Chappus

Exercise, Realfood, Vegetarian, Nutrition, Superfoods, Glutenfree, Superherbs, Adaptogens, Springwater, Nongmo, Paleo, Plantbased, Health, Rawfood, Longevity, Nextlevel, Alternative Health, Ultimatehealth, Health & Fitness, Spirituality, Nutritionist, Vegan, Experts, Wellness, Selfhelp, Podcast, Jerf, Marniwasserman, Tea, Interview, Fitness, Meditation, Jessechappus

4.51.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2020

⏱️ 93 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

John Chester is an Emmy-winning director and has been a filmmaker and television director for the last 25 years. His latest project The Biggest Little Farm, is a feature-length film that chronicles the epic 8-year story of Apricot Lane Farms, the regenerative farm he and his wife Molly started in 2011.

Molly Chester is an author, farmer and chef known for her breadth of culinary work with traditional food techniques. She authored the popular traditional foods blog, Organic Spark, which became the inspiration for her traditional foods cookbook, Back to Butter. In 2011, Molly’s culinary journey led her and her husband John to start Apricot Lane Farms, a 214-acre biodynamic farm in Moorpark, California, with the goal of producing the most healthy, flavourful, and nutrient-dense food possible.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • Apricot Lane Farms fall crops
  • How rescuing Todd the dog inspired John & Molly’s new way of living
  • Molly’s passion for food and her PCOS healing journey
  • The world of regenerative agriculture
  • Understanding the differences between industrial farming, regenerative ag, and permaculture organic farming
  • Everything is connected
  • The beginning of Apricot Lane Farms
  • Changes in the consumer market over the years
  • Trusting your instincts as a farmer
  • You learn through failures
  • The benefit of WWOOF volunteers
  • Farming for beauty and diversity
  • Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) labelling
  • Windrow composting vs. worm composting
  • The circle of life
  • Animal input is needed to create healthy soil systems
  • Coming face to face with grief
  • We all have blood on our hands
  • The nutrient density of food
  • We need more innovation to solve problems
  • Finding peace in nature

Show sponsors:

Paleovalley <== 15% off all Paleovalley products by using the code ultimatehealth at checkout

BLUblox <== 15% off the world's most advanced blue light glasses

Organifi <== 20% off all Organifi products

Related links:

Apricot Lane Farms

Follow Apricot Lane Farms on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

The Biggest Little Farm (documentary)

Donna Gates - The Body Ecology Diet (book)

Rutger Bregman - Humankind (book)

Demeter - Biodynamic Certification

Joel Salatin (books)

Listen to Joel Salatin previously on TUHP (episode #069)

Allan Savory (books)

Gabe Brown - Dirt To Soil (book)

Ray Archuleta

WWOOF

Patagonia - Regenerative Organic Certification

Dr. Bronner's

National Science Foundation (NSF)

Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo - Eat Right 4 Your Type (book)

Related episodes:

364: Robb Wolf – Well Raised Meat Is Good For You And The Planet

340: Kimbal Musk – From Tech To Chef, Making Real Food Accessible, Indoor Farming

297: Carly Stein – The Role Of Bees, Sustainable Beekeeping, Bee Pollen Is Natures Multivitamin

281: Vani Hari aka Food Babe – Feeding You Lies • Non-GMO vs. Organic • Life As A New Mom

089: Dr. Josh Axe – Eat Dirt • Leaky Gut Is The Root Cause Of All Disease • Soil-Based Organisms

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

coming up on the ultimate health podcast.

0:02.5

You can't change people and convince people to care about the climate or to care about food or

0:07.6

care about diet by using fear as a tactic. We've tried that for years with the climate debate and you know fear only

0:15.7

creates a polarization in two different groups and it forces people to sort of squint their

0:21.3

eyes and look away.

0:23.4

What we need is to figure out what is the method that you get people to open their eyes

0:28.1

and discover on their own.

0:30.6

And the way that you do that that we've learned is through affinity.

0:34.4

They have to fall in love with something.

0:37.1

They have to see it through a different lens.

0:39.6

And once they love it, they begin to want to protect it because they value the context, the reasons that it exists.

0:47.0

Hello and welcome to the Ultimate Health Podcast episode 370. I'm Jesse Chappas

0:57.4

and I'm here to take your health to the next level. Each week I'll bring you

1:01.0

inspiring and informative conversations about health and wellness,

1:04.0

covering topics of nutrition, lifestyle, fitness, mindset, and so much more.

1:09.4

And this week I have husband and wife duo, John and Molly Chester on the show. John Chester is an

1:14.5

Emmy winning director and has been a filmmaker in television director for the last

1:18.2

25 years. His latest project The Biggest Little Farm is a feature-link film that chronicle is the epic eight-year story of Apricot Lane Farms.

1:26.7

The Regenerative Farm he and his wife Molly started back in 2011.

1:30.8

Molly Chester is an author, farmer and chef known for her culinary work with

1:34.4

traditional food techniques. She authored the popular traditional foods blog

1:38.4

Organic Spark which became the inspiration for her traditional foods cookbook,

...

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