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Andrea Bemis started her blog, Dishing Up the Dirt, as a way to document her life as a farmer and home cook. When she and her husband, Taylor, wanted to settle down, they moved to his family farm in Massachusetts.
Eventually, they wanted to start something for themselves, so Andrea and Taylor bought six acres in Parkdale, Oregon, which became Tumbleweed Farm. Through farming, Andrea found a love of food. She began by sharing recipes with her CSA, which grew into a book, Dishing Up the Dirt.
Now, Andrea is a mother with a passion for instilling an appreciation for food in her children. Her newest book, Let Them Eat Dirt, features simple, nutrient-dense foods perfect for the pickiest eaters.
Andrea is on the show today to chat about:
- How she met her husband and got into farming
- Andrea’s approach to learning how to cook
- Andrea’s thoughts on feeding children
- Goldfish Culture
- Surprising foods her kids like
- Important nutrients during childhood
- Eating according to your values
Rather watch this episode on YouTube? Check it out here: Episode 266: Andrea Bemis
Resources:
Let Them Eat Dirt by Andrea Bemis
Dishing Up the Dirt by Andrea Bemis
Connect with Andrea:
Website: Let Them Eat Dirt Kids | Dishing Up the Dirt | Tumbleweed Farm
Instagram: @andreabemis
Episode Credits:
Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connolly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Global Food Justice Alliance members, and listeners.
If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join.
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Transcript:
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connolly who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal-source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at globalfoodjustice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now, onto our show.
Diana Rodgers, RD (Native Path ad)
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Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the podcast, everyone. I’m really excited to have Andrea Bemis here with me today. I have never met her in person, but I’ve been following her work. And she actually has family, right in the same town, farming in the same town where I live. So we’re hoping to meet up over the holidays when she’s in town. But she’s got a new book out. She has other books. She is similar to me in that she has sort of dedicated her life to healthy food production, and is a mom and just got over pneumonia. Welcome, Andrea.
Andrea Bemis
Diana, thank you so much for having me. I’m glad we finally are making this work. And I feel like our paths have been so close to crossing multiple times. And so this is this is lovely. Thank you.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, yeah. And this podcast is gonna sound a little different because I don’t have my normal microphone setup because technology was not on our side today. But why don’t we start with just I love just kind of, you know, how did you… where did you grow up? How did you get into farming? How did you meet your partner? Everything.
Andrea Bemis
All of the all of the above. Yeah, wow. Um, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, just right outside of Portland, Oregon. And my husband, my now husband, he is from your neck of the woods. He’s from Concord, Massachusetts. And we met working on a dude ranch in Montana 20 years ago. So we had summer jobs at this at this ranch. And he grew up on an organic vegetable farm in Concord, and I knew nothing about farming. I had no interest in farming. When I first met him, he had no interest in going and working back on his family farm. And yeah, my background is not in food. It’s not an agriculture. But you know, we kind of bounced around in our 20s. And eventually, I started to be kind of drawn towards more of a grounded lifestyle. We moved around a bunch and it was time to kind of settle down and I really wanted to be working outside and more with my hands. And Taylor was like, you know, I know where we could get jobs. I know my family would hire us if you know if we wanted to come back and work on the family farm. And so we did and that was… we’ve been working… we’ve been farming for I guess now like 14 years. And we worked three years back in Concord on Hutchins Farm, which is his family’s farm. And then we were there for three years, loved it, fell in love with farming, fell in love with agriculture. But my heart is… I’m a Pacific Northwest girl, I really missed being out here. And we kind of wanted a smaller operation. So we ended up out in Parkdale, Oregon, which is just like an hour and a half east of Portland. And that is where we are today.
Diana Rodgers, RD
That’s really interesting only because I almost have the flip side of that story. I met my ex-husband, Andrew, almost 30 years ago and about 10 years older than you at UMass Amherst. He was not a farmer. But after, I had worked on farms as my summer job on Long Island, through high school and college. And then we moved to Portland, Oregon together after college to get like jobs, right? Like we didn’t know what we wanted to do. We didn’t know where we wanted to live. And so we just kind of like settled on Portland, Oregon. Give it a try. We drove out there in a truck. And we both had corporate jobs, but that’s where he really decided he wanted to be a farmer was actually in Portland. We kept going out to Sauvie Island, on the weekends where there’s a nice CSA out there. And he read some Wendell Berry books and was like, I’m going to be a farmer. And then we were thinking about starting a family. His family’s back here, and we were closer to his parents. And so we moved back here to start farming and raise a family out this way. So we’re just like flip-flop.
Andrea Bemis
Yes. This is what, uh, yeah. We really are just kind of ships passing. That’s great. Yeah. So then how about… how long were you in the Portland area?
Diana Rodgers, RD
So we were there? I mean, I think you were probably 10 years old. It was my early 20s.
Andrea Bemis
Okay, great.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah and we loved it so much but it’s just when you grow up in a landscape, I think, and you’re really connected to nature, I think there are certain… I mean, loved the Pacific Northwest but we also just kind of felt like New England was really where our roots were and that urge to start a family was really strong in me, and, you know, not knowing… not having any family in the Pacific Northwest was hard for both of us, you know, there’s lots of lovely place to live but we really wanted that connection to family. And his family is all rooted out here and so they got to be really close to our kids as they were growing up, which is really nice.
Andrea Bemis
That’s wonderful. And then did you raise them in Carlisle?
Diana Rodgers, RD
So I, we started in Hamilton, Massachusetts, at the farm of… and actually this is funny because a bunch of my listeners probably don’t know the story. We were in Hamilton, Massachusetts, at the farm of General George Patton, like from World War Two. It was called Green Meadows Farm. When the general retired, he… Oh, he had a son that was also General George Patton. They didn’t do like juniors or seconds or anything. So his son, George Patton was in the Vietnam War. And when he retired, he decided to turn their family estate into a working farm. He always wanted to be a farmer. So he didn’t have any farming background. He just wanted to be a farmer. And the farm when we got there, the general was really old, died a couple years after we got there. But we really turned it from something that was struggling to a really vibrant CSA farm with 500 members, and we started an animal program there and everything and it was really great. So we were in Hamilton for 10 years. And then the opportunity in Carlisle, Massachusetts, opened up at Clarke Farm, which is like, I could walk to Hutchins Farm from Clark Farm, which is really funny. And that farm was brokered through an organization called Land for Good, which matches landowners with farmers. And so they had like, a day where everyone could come check it out. It was a gorgeous place. And then they invited us to apply. There were 40 farming families that applied and our family got the job. So I we divorced, eight years into that job. So… and my son is going into agriculture now. So I have a 19 year old son that is in college right now. But he plans on being a farmer, maybe not. He’s not exactly sure where. Maybe Southern New Hampshire. He’s a big surfer. So it might be Southern New Hampshire, but it you know, very likely could be Clark Farm where he ends up.
Andrea Bemis
Great. Oh, that’s so cool that he’s gonna follow in the footsteps. Like that’s the dream, you can’t really… you can’t really control that. So that’s pretty sweet.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and, you know, we didn’t pressure him. He’s just always been, like he even knew like, instinctively when it was time to harvest the corn, like you just had… It was really neat to watch a kid like, you know, both of us didn’t grow up on the farm. And I’m sure it’s similar for you were like, you’re watching your kids have a completely different relationship to the land than you did when you were growing up having not grown up as a farm, kid.
Andrea Bemis
Totally. And it’s so I mean, it is so hard to… I mean, I’m like you girls are living the dream. You don’t even know it, but it feels so… it feels so sweet to watch them, you know, grow or you know, they kind of get to relive childhood through watching them out in the dirt. And yeah, it’s great. And who knows what they’ll end up doing. But it’s yeah, it’s a wonderful way to raise a family.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, yeah, my daughter appreciated it, got more into the food end of things, works at a farm-to-table restaurant that the farm supplies the produce to, and is thinking about studying other stuff in college. She’s currently the idea is neuroscience but who knows what she’ll end up doing. I’m sure there’ll be the food component always in her life, and nature.
Andrea Bemis
Yeah, that’s great.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So, talk a little bit more about the farm and what you guys produce. Is it a CSA? What do you do there?
Andrea Bemis
Yeah, so we have six acres of land and we’re cultivating just under three and we have it’s mainly it’s mixed veggies. And we do a CSA. We have 150 members, 150 families that do the CSA, and we supply to a local grocery store and then we do the farmers market. And that’s… we way back in the early years, we were all over the place we were trying to sell multiple farmers markets, multiple restaurants, you know, CSA and we over the years have learned just to simplify because that it’s just a lot more sustainable. So the CSA we continue to grow every year, we grow the membership. And yeah, and the farmers markets have actually the farmers market that we do has just been awesome. And every year it’s getting busier, our little town is just you know, full of rock stars that are coming in and buying local produce, which is amazing, because otherwise we won’t be able to do this.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I spent many years doing farmers markets in the Boston area, and my memory is heat exhaustion, dehydration, and but it’s fun to set it all up. It’s really fun. You get those regular customers that come every single week to chat with and everything so and you get to know the other farmers at the market and I think farmers markets are starting to do a better job to of controlling how many farms like if you have too many farmers then the prices get… it can get a little funky with you know people undercutting with price and everything like that. So I think farmers markets are starting to do a little bit better job of like managing how many vendors are there and making it fair for everybody.
Andrea Bemis
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And we’ve been at this farmers market now for this is our 11th season at this one. And like you said the friendships with the other vendors is priceless. They feel like family especially like after the long winter in that first farmers market of the season. Just seeing everyone again and watching kiddos grow up. It’s just it’s great. It’s been wonderful. So yeah, we’re in a good… we’re in a very wonderful community which we’ve realized is just we’re lucky because I know it’s not you know, there’s a lot of places out there that I don’t think would support farmers the way that our community does.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, definitely. So let’s talk about your food career, your food writing career and everything. Because at the at the Concord bookshop here in town, your books are often in the window. Ironically, they don’t even carry Sacred Cow. And I’ve had discussions with them about that. It’s I think Nick Offerman mentioned, I think it was him that said, Oh, that sounds like the bookshop of acceptable thoughts or something like that like, but they proudly feature you. So congratulations, you made the cut.
Andrea Bemis
So funny and ironic.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I know.
Andrea Bemis
Glad I’m in the window.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. So your latest book that I wanted to have you on about is and I’m gonna hold it up for the people who are watching here on video is Let Them Eat Dirt. And it came even with this adorable little onesie. I’ll have to find somebody who just had a baby to give this to because most of my friends are I think in between that. where most of my friends are parents of college-aged kids, but I’m sure I know somebody who’s going to have a baby soon. And you know, I am somebody who was one of those weirdos that made all my baby food. Not all but most of my baby food. There were… just weren’t good options. And there’s better options today. Like Serenity Kids, I think is fantastic option for you know, prepared baby food. But I was such an advocate of making sure that my kids had a really developed palate for bitter tastes, for vegetables, and just got that nutrient density. So much of baby food today is only fruit purees full of sugar. So walk us through this book and also, you know, kind of how did you get into like, the social media and the blogging and the other books that you made too?
Andrea Bemis
Well, yeah, I guess backing up when we first got into farming. You know, I didn’t grow up eating… you know, we grew up with kind of the standard American diet. My parents were, you know, they weren’t horrible cooks but they, you know, I mean, we had spaghetti and meatballs and pizza. You know what, I just wasn’t a big foodie. But when we moved out to Hutchins Farm and started farming. We were growing all these vegetables that I had no idea what they were. I had not eaten kohlrabi or beets or rutabagas and we were killing ourselves growing all this stuff. And so I, you know, told Taylor my now-husband, we’d need to learn how to cook, because I’ll be damned if we’re working our butts off all day, killing ourselves. And then, you know, just eating I don’t know, pizza every night, or going to Chiang in Concord and just eating Chinese food every night. Like, we just… I really was committed to learning how to cook. And for me, it was just like, it was so basic at first I was just, you know, doing sheet pan vegetables just like roasted, I just was like, I’m just gonna roast everything. But slowly and with the crew members, we’d be out you get so intimate with the crew, you’re working in like horrendous conditions or that it’s, you know, hot and muggy or pouring down rain and, or freezing cold. And so you really bond with the crew. And so we would be, you know, out in the field. I don’t know maybe thinning beets, and they would be I don’t know, next to the dill and we just start talking about food. And, you know, I’m in a row some beets and make like a dill pesto. And I don’t know. So the crew at Hutchins and me and my husband, we just started all talking about food and fun creations. And so that’s sort of where the culinary curiosity like really kind of came in. And then, you know, just quickly learning that when food grows at the same time, seasonally, it goes together, it just, you know, when you’re harvesting stuff at the same time, it’s just gonna go together. So yes, I started to play around in the kitchen back east and we had a tiny kitchen, I, you know, everything was studio size, and you don’t need you don’t need much to eat well. And that was a great lesson. But yes, so I then started a little, just a little food blog, that like my mom and dad, were reading just you know, about working on the farm, and, you know, the creations that I was whipping up in the kitchen. And, you know, it was like, some tongue and cheek about just the hot days, and you know, kind of complaining about like heavy crates, and I don’t know, just the monotony of the days, but the food blog was a fun outlet. And that just inspired me to keep, you know, writing and cooking and sharing these recipes that I would kind of come up with, and that has that evolved over the years, you know. Eventually, it wasn’t just my mom and dad reading it. And the community, you know, I kind of created a little community of readers and that led to, eventually to a cookbook, that my first cookbook that and then we eventually moved. We worked at Hutchins Farm for three years and ended up packing our bags and finding ourselves out, you know, kind of near where I grew up. And, but I documented all of this, even the meals we were eating on our like road trip, you know, out west, so people, you know, kind of followed along and but the, for me the main reason that I really love… started to love sharing the recipes was I was hoping that I could inspire people to cook the vegetables that we were growing because we were selling them and we needed to make money and like well, if people come and they don’t know what to do with rutabaga, they’re not going to buy it. This is a gnarly-looking vegetable. And a lot of people don’t really know what to do with it. And so that really has inspired me to keep on keepin’ on. Like a lot of our CSA members now, I you know, have been vocal about being really appreciative that we share recipe ideas with their weekly boxes, because yeah, I can get, you know, turnips again, kale again, you know, it can be you know, monotonous and so I have fun creating all these different recipes. And, and it started with you know, I still joke, I’m not a chef, I am just, you know, I’m like everyone else. I just have gotten really creative because you know, almost out of desperation because we grow all this. So I’m like, well, we’re eating this and I want to stay excited in the kitchen. So…
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, yeah, I remember coming up with recipes, like way back in the beginning, in my 20s, when we were, you know, just starting with farming, and I thought that cookbook authors and people who made recipes somehow had some kind of magic that was unattainable to me. And so I would search out for other recipes and put them in our CSA newsletter. And it took me a while before I realized oh, I can also just invent things on my own. And for me it was actually having celiac, learning that I had celiac disease and that really like exploded my experimentation in the kitchen because I kind of had to work around some constraints anyway with dietary stuff. And so that’s really where all of that bloomed for me. So your first book: Dishing Up the Dirt, right, is the name of your first book?
Andrea Bemis
Yep, yes.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And so talk about how having kids changed, or if it did, but, you know, change your life, but then also maybe change your approach to recipes. How did you come up with the recipes for the kids version of your culinary arm?
Andrea Bemis
I mean, this has been the most humbling experience because cooking for and now with, you know, my toddler is a whole other ballgame because you can be armed with great intentions, and then your kid is gonna, you know, throw broccoli on the floor and you know, or your baby. And so I really became more passionate about nutrition. Once I became a mom, because I started to learn the the statistics of you know, over 40% of kiddos having like at least one chronic disease, that the food companies have just totally hijacked their tastebuds from infancy. Going down the baby food aisle at the grocery store is overwhelming. It’s heartbreaking when you look at what is being marketed. And I just yeah, as a new vulnerable mom to when my oldest who’s now three and a half, when she was just starting solids. You know, our pediatrician, I love him, but it was, you know, start with rice cereal, it you know, just kind of this outdated… of what I feel is very outdated advice. You know, start with rice cereal, but also they can just kind of eat whatever you’re eating. If you’re eating a french fry, they can have a you know… there was just no… you’re just sort of left with, you know, to your own devices. And I you know, I’m lucky that we have a farm and you know, to, you know, I all the sudden was like, Wait, am I going to feed my kiddo? And I did. I fed her rice cereal. That was like one of the first things I did and I did not, I wasn’t listening to my own gut. I’m like, wait a second, what am I doing? And so that kind of… I started to go deep into childhood nutrition and learning way about way more about what their little bodies need, what foods are more easily digestible, for their developing systems. And I really wanted them to be exposed to strong flavors, really early on to hopefully, you know, keep them eager to continue to having just like a more wide range of their palettes, but I just… the health, the nutrition part, really has just struck a chord with me, because we’re exposed to so much these days now, just our bodies are so taxed. And if we can control one thing, it’s the food that we decide to bring in the house. And I know our kids ultimately decide what goes in their mouth. I do know that but I can decide what ingredients come into the house. And it’s been a wild ride. And I’m so so humbled by you know, feeding young kiddos, but it’s possible to get your kids eating really tasty, quote unquote kid-friendly food. It’s not really kid, it’s adult, it’s family recipes, but I you know, we want to make it so that you know, it’s kid-friendly, but that it’s nutrient-dense, and it tastes really good. And I think that where a lot of us go wrong, and where even I went wrong is feeding them bland, boring food. Well, of course, they’re not going to want to eat, you know, eat this, it’s, you know, it’s got to taste good to you if it’s gonna taste good to them. And so, yeah, that’s really inspired this most recent cookbook. Just I’m so fired up about the food industry and what our kids are eating and I just… they didn’t consent to this. They didn’t consent to having poison be added to their food. And I really want you know, it starts at home and I think that the louder we can get about it. I think the better but that’s sort of where I’m at.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and you’re at a such a nice stage to where you can control everything. As you might imagine with me with teenagers. My son thinks it’s really funny to come home with double cheeseburgers from McDonald’s or something. Like he thinks it’s funny. And he’s like, almost like an act of rebellion. And I’m like, Okay, well, I gave you a good background. And, you know, he burns like 6000 calories a day winter surfing so I’m not going to give them grief. But I did give them a good upbringing from the very early days. It does get tricky when you I mean, even now, I’m sure when you go on playdates, and it’s hard to watch the goldfish. I call it “goldfish culture,” but it’s like this constant stream of crackers all the time. And what this does to kids is it actually takes that edge off the hunger just a little bit to allow them to push away food later and it’s… they’re actually creating pickier eaters than without even intending to and you know what those organic versions of goldfish crackers are still… there just like that and you know, not that you have to be 100% perfect all the time, but the endless snacking, this constant snack culture and even today and in food culture what we’re seeing is less meals overall eaten, more snacking overall, less you know just sitting down and eating. And there really is something to sitting down as a family and eating or you know if it’s not the entire family because someone one person is working late but sitting down eating and actually tasting these stronger flavors as young kids. You know, my kids will when we go to Brazilian barbecue they’re like bring out the chicken hearts like they think it’s funny, like the more tentacles the better. They love playing with and experimenting with food and I think that only can happen if they’re really exposed at a very young age to great strong flavors like you said.
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Andrea Bemis
Yeah, yeah and even like what you were saying just that the food is really important, but the ritual around it you know sitting down and you know letting… right now my oldest daughter does like to you know, help sprinkle like you know, a little condiment on or a little cheese or you know, just like giving her a little you know, autonomy at the table and we have a little dinner bell, like the whole kind of ritual I think just you know, gets everyone excited. And it is a joy. It’s a pleasure to sit down and not be so rushed. But yeah, I do know with my oldest if she’s snacked, yes, she’s less likely to try new things because she’s not as hungry and less likely to eat a proper meal. And the snacking is tough. And with the playdates and preschool, and all of that it’s been, I used to be a lot more scared. Like I was so scared the first few times that we were going out and seeing the crackers and just trying to like, really control and now I do have this like, okay, when we’re out of the house, and she knows like, I just have to like put my hands up a little bit because it was so exhausting. I wish that that stuff was just outlawed. That’s what’s so sad is that it’s everywhere. And I think for me to not drive myself so crazy, it went back to we eat 90% of our meals and food come from the house. And so when we’re out in the world, here we go. And because I was trying to control so much, and it was driving me crazy. And yeah, and it’s hard when other people aren’t on board, because you do look like the crazy one. And I think people you know, will say, Oh, well, are you depriving your kid? And no, no, I’m not. But that’s just the culture we live in. And so that’s been hard. But yeah, I going back to just the it’s hard to once you know, things and I know, I mean, you, you have done so much research, you can’t unknow the statistics, you can’t unknow the facts. And that’s wonderful. And it’s also so overwhelming at times. But I think that it’s really important to really I mean, I keep looking at these young kids, and it seems so innocent, but they really don’t know. They’re too young to know that this is really bad for your body. This is really bad for your brain. This is really bad for your gut. And I think that it’s a shame that they just have… they haven’t consented to what’s getting put in their body. And so I don’t know. I do, I’m hoping that this cookbook, and that the recipes that I shared just kind of inspire parents. It doesn’t have to be complicated to feed your kids, it can be very simple, but it can be flavorful. And it can be convenient. I mean, not as convenient as, you know, a package. But the recipes are pretty approachable. And for all age groups, including the adults.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, what are some of the… when you talk about some foods that you were, like, shocked that your kids liked right away, or maybe some that, you know, took a little bit longer, and maybe you had some tricks to get them to, like I always tried to emphasize, and this is maybe for older kids, right? Because your kids are still toddlers, but my kids were, you know, really wanting to be strong. And so you know, I would say well, you know, this food gives you this superpower or you know, like I would try to just encourage different stuff or if they you know, ask for something that one of her friends had they maybe had it at a friend’s house and say oh, the grocery store was out of those crackers. You know, because I would go shopping without them. I think it’s hard. You know, when you have to have your kids with you when you go to the grocery store. It’s a lot easier to have that time by yourself to go shopping. But yeah, talk a little bit about some of the foods that your kids were particularly be drawn to.
Andrea Bemis
Well, the biggest surprise of both of my kiddos is sauerkraut is one of the first foods one of the earlier foods – not the first but one of the earlier foods that both of them love. My youngest one is just over a year and my toddler to this day eats sauerkraut out of the jar. And as an adult I didn’t start eating sauerkraut till I was an adult and it took me a while to get you know, I was like this is gnarly. Yeah, my girls will eat a jar of sauerkraut. They love it. And I’ve given my kiddos cod liver oil, a little cod liver oil. They both liked the flavor of that, too. They loved it. Which I again didn’t take cod liver oil until I was an adult and it took a long… was hard to get down for a long time. But I do think that these young palates do get drawn towards, do …you know appreciate the stronger flavors. I am seeing though my oldest daughter has since the get-go has really been adventurous. She’s was… is a pretty adventurous eater and will eat- she loves sardines she loves kraut, loves meat. Meat was a big one. So that was the first foods that I really gave my girls was like pureed liver, beef, some meatballs with like some steamed vegetables kind of in there. But I know the meat is so good for… they’re so easy on their digestive systems and all the amino acids. But that my youngest one definitely is it’s taking her way more exposures to certain foods to start to give them a try. Where my oldest one, you could put anything in front of her and she would just go to town. And my youngest one now… she’s a different eater. And she’s still being exposed to all the same stuff. But she’ll be the you know, she’ll throw, you know, throw a little banana on the ground. Don’t want that. Like, you know, I do a lot of these little savory, kind of egg breakfast muffins. And she’s, you know, and I know a lot of parents want… one morning, she’ll eat it the next morning, it’s you know, but keeps me on my toes. But I just still, I still am like, this is what… these are the choices you can put what you want in your mouth. But this is -these are the choices. And but yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I mean, one thing you learn when you’re becoming a dietitian, is that the parents control the food, the kids control the quantity. Right. So you can put it all out on the table and the kids are in charge of how much they’re going to eat. But you’re in charge of that. And you know, it’s funny that you mentioned that your older one was more adventurous. I, time and time again, have heard that the older one is the more adventurous one. And I don’t know. I mean, in general, I’ve noticed that the second child tends to be more like rebellious, a little less of a people pleaser, a little less interested in making you happy, more autonomous and rebellious. And that was definitely the case with my two kids. I know with a lot of my friends, that was the case too. And my daughter was much pickier than my son. She’s the second. And she also still to this day, doesn’t really care what I think. My son is much more worried about what I think of him. So I don’t know if that’s a second child thing necessarily. But also I have noticed that her palate, she was much more into the berries. So she had much more of a sweet tooth, but like you can control what that sweet is. So I would just plop her down like literally in her diaper in the strawberry patch. And she’d be there, you know, very happy for a very, very long time just eating the strawberries, where my son was more into the sardines and whole lemons like love just sucking on a lemon, that kind of stuff. So it’s and it’s funny how, when you have your first kid you think it’s all just because you’re a great mom that they’re, you know, eating this way and then you have your second kid and you realize that you have very little to do with anything.
Andrea Bemis
Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah, exactly. It’s very humbling. It’s very humbling. They’re a good time. And they really are. They’re the reason I kind of keep at it because I do want them to be… I know these first few years of their little bodies developing I know it’s really kind of the… I don’t want to sound dramatic, but kind of a… it’s a critical time to really set their systems up for success. And that’s why I am pretty diligent. And it’s been fun. It has been fun. I will say it’s been fun. It’s been fun to create these recipes and have like real time experiment.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. Well, we know that I mean, as a dietitian, I can get serious about it for a minute because I take it very seriously. And I think we all need to take it way more seriously than doctors and big food take it. Getting that DHA from the sardines and cod liver oil, getting the iron from liver and meat sources, like they actually need those nutrients. And they’re uniquely only found in animal source foods. And so that’s not to insert my own mission into this, but it fully aligns with everything that I’m doing over at Global Food Justice, because, you know, we’ve got this huge plant-based narrative happening right now. We have Meatless Mondays in schools, which I know is only one day a week, but the messaging that these kids are getting from kindergarten up through high school, is that meat is not only unhealthy, but it’s also wrong for the planet. And you know, as you know, there are better and worse ways to both prepare meat and to raise it. And it’s not as simple as meat, no vegetable, yes. There are nutrients, especially, you know, vitamin B12, which is only found in meat, a deficiency, and that can cause permanent brain damage in children. And if they’re not getting the right levels of iron, it can slow their growth, both physically and mentally, that you would have to eat like seven bowls of spinach to get the iron that you can get in a very small piece of liver or in a small piece of beef. And so to childhood malnutrition can show up as underweight. But it can also show up as obesity. And so we’re seeing these obese yet malnourished children all from the food environment that we have today, which is set up to make food companies money instead of nourishing children’s brains and bodies. And so I’m particularly passionate about kids health and making sure that they are given what they deserve to have, which is the you know, the best start in life. I don’t care if adults want to, you know, mess with their diets later and eat something that’s, you know, aligns with whatever ideals they have. But baby omnivores need those nutrients that omnivores get, there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason why our brains are so big, we evolved to eat omega threes, DHA, B12, and iron. And it’s just not possible to get those in the right amounts from a diet that excludes meat.
Andrea Bemis
Amen. I mean, that’s so well said. And that’s why it is so infuriating that and I don’t want again, it’s vulnerable, being a young mom, but for moms and parents and caregivers to know that your pediatrician can be wonderful, but they are not… they’re not a dietitian. They’re not as educated in the nutrition department. I think that is where… that’s where it starts is we just start taking our pediatricians advice, which is great to a certain extent. But I think when it comes to the food that is not there. I know that there are more pediatricians that are that are progressive, and you know, more holistic, but I think that there’s a lot that it’s not at the forefront and that’s where parents go to learn about you know, when you first start feeding your baby. It can be really overwhelming and you’re nervous about all sorts of things, choking you know, there’s a lot there. But I the nutrition part is just seems like such an afterthought with your primary doctor a lot of the time, and I think that that is just such a shame. And then they go to preschool and daycare and the food that’s provided there, it’s got to change. It’s yeah, you know, it’s got to change. It’s heartbreaking. It’s prison food for the most vulnerable population. Right?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Well, I’m here if you need to reach out to me, you know it was a real struggle for me. When my kids entered kindergarten, birthday parties at 11 o’clock in the morning with cupcakes with icing that was like four or five inches tall on top of the cupcakes for, you know, a child that’s not even 50 pounds before lunch. I was really horrified. And when I went to the school to get on their wellness committee and try to change these foods celebrations to just like, Why can’t the kids bring in a T-shirt and have everyone sign a t-shirt or, you know, have somebody come in and read a special book or something like that. I was shamed by the other parents and that they’re, you know, they were angry with me that their kids were missing out and I was like, I assure you your kindergartener is not expecting gigantic cupcakes at school, like do this at home, but it doesn’t need to happen in the school system. So I’m sure there will be situations that you run into that are going to be like that, you know, and that’s even separate from the anti-meat message thing that is currently happening in the schools. And you know, my kids at Concord, Carlisle High School, from their science teachers were told to eat plant-based burgers to do their part for the environment. And so it’ll happen throughout your time as a parent. And it’s a really tricky thing to navigate in a graceful way. And because it’s so infuriating, and so, you know, I’ve learned to do my best with what I can control in my own food environment, and then hope that my kids are smart enough to navigate all of this on their own when they go out into the world. And for the most part, they’re pretty good.
Andrea Bemis
Yeah, it’s, again, I think it does go to where your values at home are. And to just keep modeling what you want your kids to, hopefully be exposed to. And in, you know, as a farmer and food producer, like, it’s not you also go back to like the farmer who grew this the, you know, how are they treated? How is the land treated? How is the animal treated, and at the back of the kid’s cookbook, there’s like my favorite poem called before we eat by Pat Bryson. But it’s this little, it’s a kids picture book. But it’s all about thanking the farmers and the producers and the drivers that you know, basically every step to get the food to your table. And I think that’s also a great message starting at such a young age for your kids, that there’s a face behind your food, and you want to have a connection with that. And that doesn’t just come from a package.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Well, thank you so much for your time. This book. What’s the release date? Is it already out?
Andrea Bemis
Yeah, it just came out. It came out July 18. That came out last month. So it is out. It’s available nationwide, wherever books are sold, including the Concord bookstore.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Ask for a copy of Sacred Cow when you go in too
Andrea Bemis
Yes, yes. Actually, our crew members are going to watch your documentary. We have a couple of young farmers that are out here that one gal is a newly back to eating meat. Yeah, she’s gonna watch your documentary.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Awesome. Very good. Well, so remind people where they can find you.
Andrea Bemis
Okay, so I’m Andrea Bemis. And my hashtag is @andreabemis on Instagram. And then I have a website with recipes for kids at let them eat dirt kids.com. And then a bunch of recipes for CSA and farm-to-table recipes and dishing up the dirt.com.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Great, Andrea, it was so great to finally chat with you. I look forward to meeting you in person. I hope your crew enjoys my documentary. I know my son met a bunch of them on a craft earlier in the summer. Yeah, I’m really proud of you. I’m really happy that this exists for young moms. There’s not a book like this out there. I know Lily Nichols, a friend of mine is an awesome dietitian and does a lot with pregnancy nutrition. But I’m not aware of another like real food cookbook like this that isn’t only plant-based. So I’m really happy that this is out there in the world. And I know you’re going to have more in the future but also your hands are going to be tied to with the busyness of being a mom. So good luck with all of that. And I look forward to seeing you in December.
Andrea Bemis
Yeah, Diana, thank you so much for having me on. This is great.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thanks so much for listening today and for following my work. If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. Visit sustainabledish.com/join and become a sustaining member today. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join. And thank you.
