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BONUS EPISODE: Hilary Boynton: The Inspiring Story of A Mom Who “Did Something” · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everybody, welcome to another podcast of Beyond Labels.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a real special program for you today because we have a guest.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: We don't always do guests, as you know, but uh when we find somebody um deserving of um a bigger voice and platform, we try to bring them on so that you can hear them as well.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And today's guest is Hilary Boynton.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: She's the founder of the School of Lunch program, and she is a mom who decided to do something.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um we need moms who decide.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um I had the privilege of having her at the she she showed up at the farm a couple of weeks ago and um and got to meet her with uh Hilda Lambertor Gore from um Weston A.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Price Foundation, and um like all the people that Hilda Lambert or Gore uh brings to the farm.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Hilary was a uh a fascinating uh power broker, mover and shaker, and a mom who, as I said, a mom who decided to do something.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just so glad to have you.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so psyched to be here.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: It really is a privilege.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so Hilary, why don't we just start off with you telling a little bit of your story, how you started, and then we'll get into where it is and and kind of where it's going as we move through the podcast.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, sounds good.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was actually talking to Cena last week about my story and how I'm kind of sick of telling my story because it feels like just that kind of a story.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I'm really happy to move beyond my my health journey and um and be free of you know the things that were kind of holding me back.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's so important to give, um, to tell stories because, you know, people are potentially out there who are just like me when I was looking to heal and find hope in that those healing stories.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I will go back a little bit.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I think also my story seems to resonate with a lot of people because there are a lot of people that struggle with the same, uh, the same issues that I struggled with as a as an individual and as a family as well, as a mom.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my my journey started back in high school when I decided to go fat-free.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: That propaganda was very pervasive and um convincing.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, my mom fell for it, my sister fell for it, I fell for it.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: We were just like all in, you know, fat is bad and gonna make us fat.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I was really committed to that for about a decade of my life.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I was an athlete, uh, a soccer player that played division one soccer.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um, my my senior year in high school, actually, I was told that I had stress fractures in both my femur bones and both my tibias, and nobody talked to me about diet and um had any, you know, advice concerning, you know, or nobody was really concerned with what I was eating at all.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just kind of plugged along, took a break and went back at it, and then um continued to kind of burn my body to the brink and not replenish with anything that was nutrient-dense or very nourishing at all.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if it said zero fat, I was like all in, whether it was a box of frosted mini weets or pasta, whatever it was, it was just as long as there was no fat.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I was completely brainwashed and um continued on, and it wasn't until I got married at 25 and then 26 I found myself pregnant right away and um joyfully.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then shortly thereafter, I miscarried and then went on to have three more miscarriages over the next or four miscarriages over the next three years.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that was really um the most painful time of my life.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of your audience can probably relate.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's quite common these days, but I didn't know what a miscarriage was.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: I just it was came out of the blue for me and it was devastating.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then to have it go on and on from the age 26 to 29 was really telling.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and again, nobody talked to me about diet.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: It was more just like, don't stress out.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously, stress plays a factor, but um, I think I was so deficient on so many levels, and just my body was saying, you know, no, you're not in any position to to um to nourish a baby, like let alone your yourself and and also a baby.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and so I ended up doing fertility treatments and had triplets.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so three years of infertility, three babies.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, woo-hoo, we're done.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: This is awesome.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Two boys and a girl.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then um, and then I basically thought about having another baby when they were three.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, maybe it'd be nice to have just one.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I was still um, you know, hadn't woken up to real food.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: I was sort of on the organic bandwagon, like I wanted to feed my babies well and make their own food.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And if it said organic, then I was like, okay, then it's good, but it could be pirate booty or you know, cereal, whatever it was that was organic, um, which was better, but still a lot of processed packaged foods.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then I thought about having another baby, and boom, I thought about it, and I got pregnant right away and had a fourth baby.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then when he was six months old, I had found myself pregnant again and had all of a sudden five babies under the age of four.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: So then I was just like overwhelmed, stressed out, mama of five little babies.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: And my fourth baby was really my wake up call.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that at two months old, he was covered head to toe in eczema and scratching all the time.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: I had to pin him to my body in the middle of the night for like two hours just to like keep him from scratching.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I was exhausted.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: I was like waking up in the middle of the night with like my right eye wouldn't open for 10 seconds.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I had shingles, like I had tingling all over my upper body, but no doctor really knew what was wrong with me.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: And again, no one was telling me to look at diet for any of us, really.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I guess we were were we were on the allergy train of like, you know, maybe I'm allergic to something and I'm breastfeeding and he's allergic.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we did the all the allergy testing, we did all the um anything I could think to do that was holistic, I tried.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it wasn't until actually I was trying to change the school lunches.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Ironically, in my town in Massachusetts, I had come across Jamie Oliver and Alice Waters, and my kids weren't even in school yet, but I decided that this was this noble cause and I should try and improve the school lunches before my kids were to go into school.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I got introduced to a woman um who said she would try and help me, and she told me about her son.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I told her about my son with eczema, and she said, Oh, my son was healed from asthma with raw milk.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: You should get him on raw milk.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, What the hell is raw milk?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: I had never heard of it.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up on skim milk.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: I was just like, raw milk.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: And still to this day, like so many people are unfamiliar with raw milk.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: They're just like, what does that mean?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: So um, but it literally changed my life.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I will try anything.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: I put him on raw milk and cod liver oil.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: And in a few short months, he was completely healed.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: And this is after like steroid cream, Zertek twice a day.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like I knew in my heart, my mama heart, I was like, this is such a band-aid.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, as soon as I don't put the steroid cream on, it just flares again.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I knew there was we were not getting to the root cause.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: So the raw dairy completely changed my life.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: I shortly thereafter went to a lecture um with Sally Fallon and sat there with my latte, like my Starbucks latte or something.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know where it was from, but just sitting there listening as this newbie, just like completely eyes wide open, jaw on the ground, just like, oh my gosh, this is like all makes total sense.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I walked out of her um her lecture, and all of a sudden there were the Amish all lined up.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh my gosh, the Amish are here, and these are the people that were supplying me the raw milk.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: And they had all their beautiful raw dairy, raw uh cheeses, and their sprouted nuts and meats and you name it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: It was just so beautiful.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: And they were like, We need we need someone to run a co-op in Massachusetts.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just like, I'm your girl, I'm all in.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: So for six years, I I ran a co-op for them, uh, like a private membership co-op out of my home.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: I just wanted like everybody to to have access to these beautiful foods.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: And in Massachusetts, you know, you can't you can't buy raw dairy on the um on the shelves.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and then I started teaching cooking classes out of my home and wanting to empower moms to to understand the power of food as medicine.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, and then with one of our children has epilepsy, and my daughter has epilepsy, and so I thought, gosh, if we can heal my son's eczema.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: We also had speech delays and head ticks, and um, and my my eczema baby was borderline um dyspraxic, and so there was all these other little things that were going on.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought, you know, maybe we need to do some deeper healing.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: And at this point, I had gone to the Weston Price conference and heard uh Natasha Campbell McBride speak.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was really interested in the GAPS diet, which is the gut and psychology syndrome, so the gut-brain connection.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Natasha is a doctor, a neurologist, and a nutritionist who lives in England.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I was really fascinated with her diet and her healing protocol, but it seemed very daunting.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I had had a medical intuitive tell us that our entire family needed to go on the gaps diet.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, okay, here we go.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: I was just like, just need to hear that.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: We were all in.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: So we ventured in seven of us into the gaps diet.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: So my cooking classes sort of morphed into teaching more gaps.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: And a woman in my cooking class was um also on the gaps diet, and she's a photographer, and she was just like, we need to write a cookbook about this because there was really nothing out there that was, we were like searching the internet.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: This is like 15, no, 2013, so however many years ago that was, or 2012.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so there just wasn't a lot out there.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: And Natasha's book is amazing, but the the visual stimulus wasn't there.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so anyway, so we ended up writing a cookbook um called the Heal Your Gut Cookbook, and um meant to inspire people to really see that they can eat beautiful, nutritious, delicious foods and still heal.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted that roadmap that you could just like, you know, all of us cookbook lovers out there get into bed at night with all of our cookbooks and like read through.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted people to just read through and be able to like curl up and be like, gosh, I can do this.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: If she can do it with five little kids, then I can do it.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so we wrote this cookbook, and um, and as soon as we handed it over to the publishing company, my husband at the time was diagnosed with throat cancer.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: So then our healing journey went like, you know, through the roof.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I at that point knew, you know, the power of a healthy immune system and rebalancing him.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, I'll fast forward here.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: We ended up moving to California from Massachusetts to get out of stress and more get more sunshine, a more alternative way of healing.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: And um, literally the week we landed in California was the week my cookbook came out.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I went from like this small little colonial town in Concord, Massachusetts, and then moved all of a sudden to Los Angeles, where it's just like a melting pot of people from all over the world.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I was um, you know, out and about talking about my cookbook.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: And anybody I would meet from another country, I would just stop them and ask them about how they ate growing up and if they had any recipes and you know that they could share.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: And more often than not, they were like, Hillary, I would show my cookbook and they'd say, This is the way we ate growing up, and we were never sick.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: And now we're seeing disease with our children and our grandchildren.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And they just had a hard time returning back to those traditional methods of cooking because in America it's just just you know, full steam ahead with the processed packaged foods and convenience.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so, um, so I was as soon as my husband was kind of out of treatment and we stumbled upon this little mountain town in Topanga, we drove up literally his first day out of bed, and this woman in the store introduced us to this small little teeny nature-based school in Topanga, California.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, You should check it out.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like it just started and they're doing great things and connecting people to nature.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so we drove over to this school, and um the chef there had just she's like, Oh, the kids just caught their own fish and we cooked it up for lunch today.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then she told me that she would really wanted to roast a whole goat.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point, I was just like, These are our people, our kids need to go here.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so we ended up going to this um school called the Manzanita School.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then as the school grew, it was in its first year, then as it grew, they outsourced the food.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, what was like my dream school lunch program kind of returned back to a standard American diet.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, this is not, you know, this is not what I signed up for.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: This doesn't align with nature.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: We have to do something about it.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: So the head of school gave me um the job of the consultant to the lunch lady and the snack coordinator.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: So terrified, I was like, okay, you know, I think I can make snacks for 110 kids.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I basically um told the lunch lady all about the Weston Price Foundation and nourishing traditions and my cookbook.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, we could do, we can sneak organ meats into all the bolognese sauce and we can make bone broths.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: And she was like all smiles.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next day, the head of school was just like, please don't talk to her again.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like you terrified her.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was like, What?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like she was on board.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Yeah, like on the outside, but on the inside, she's freaking out.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: So he's like, just stick to your snack program and do your thing.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so I did.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: I just went full in on like going to the local farmers' markets, talking to anybody I can.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Mark McAfee from Organic Pastures with the raw dairy, he jumped on board and helped supply the school with like a you know, five-pound block of raw cheese and raw milk every week and raw butter.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and I just started like serving up really nutrient-dense, delicious snacks and making, you know, I get like a bumper crop of tomatoes, make tomato soup or zucchini and make zoodles and just like really bring the community into this snack program.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: And if soon enough it outshined the lunch program.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: And um by December, the head of school was just like, I remember he was like taking a burger out of the refrigerator and was just like, oh, what is this?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I don't know, like I don't know where that's from.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: And he was like, we were started talking, and and I just said, you know, like you know, my health journey, like these kids need real food now.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like, let's just do this.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: So he said, if I give you the keys to the kitchen, are you ready to do this?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I have to let my friend go of 30 years, like from this position and um a friend of 30 years.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just like, Yes, I'm ready.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: But inside I was kind of freaking out, like, oh God, how am I gonna do this?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: But he gave me the keys to the kitchen.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: I had a week to turn it around.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: I hired a couple of people to come in and help me, and we just sort of like bootstrapped it from the beginning.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: And now we're in our sixth year of serving up um nutrient-dense school lunches to about 175 people a day, a snack and a lunch um every day.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we're now consulting with other schools as well as training individuals and um school chefs, anybody really who wants to learn this way of cooking and and nourishing themselves and their communities.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we train at our training academies that are in person.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and then we run, we still continue to run the operations at the Manzanita school.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm really on a mission to train as many people as I can to sweep across the nation and joyfully, that's my new word, I'm adding to it, joyfully, disrupt the trend of chronic illness in this next generation of kids because you have to love what you do and have fun and and stay in the hopeful side of things in order for it to be um doable and successful.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's the long story of how I got to where I am.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: But I've seen over six years now, I've seen how incredible it is to see um lives changed through the power of food and and light bulbs going off and people making better choices and connecting to their local food systems.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's really just a beautiful, beautiful thing.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's it's something that can be scaled and spread as far and wide as possible.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: What a great story.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I uh Cena, I know you and I, I mean, we we just couldn't we just couldn't interrupt it.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is a long story, but but you compressed a lot and it just um you you couldn't wait for the next shoe to fall, you know.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: You just rolled it off uh beautifully.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um so so my question, and I'm gonna let Cena go ahead and and and have her questions, but my first one is I love your vision.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about that.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: To to joyfully disrupt the chronic illness trajectory in the next generation of kids.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, if if that isn't a sacred noble goal, I don't know what is.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's wonderful.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: What's the biggest impediment?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, I guess the desire to change that like I think people have to um really sink into their heart space.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're all kind of up in our heads about how we're gonna survive the day and how much everything costs.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I really feel like we're at this moment in humanity where we don't have a choice.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like things have to shift and um end quickly.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so when any adult, um, I guess I challenge any adult to really sink into their heart space and look at how we're nourishing children uh across the country in schools and and even, you know, in our homes and whatnot, I think we all know that we can we can do better and that there's a better way forward.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, number one is that that um that getting out of your head and into your heart is the first step.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think it's really hard for people to do because people are so busy and it's just like another thing to tackle.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think finances.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think finances are one of the number one thing that people just think it's not possible to feed, uh, to feed these beautiful foods without um breaking the bank.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, and you can look at that two ways.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, of course it's going to cost money, but at what cost are we are we um, you know, feeding children is that is at the cost of their health, their future health, and that's gonna end up costing our country a lot of money in healthcare.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: So we're literally bankrupting our country with the the cost of our health care.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: And these children are, you know, I think in 2012 the stat was 54% of our children have a chronic, a chronic illness.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so now I'm sure we're upwards of 60, 65 percent of our children.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: So uh cost can't um can't be eliminated, but it can be uh you know looked at in a different way.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: At what cost are we, you know, doing this?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd say that would be the number one thing that's causing people to be hesitant.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: But we do have a solution for that too.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: What's the solution?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we've just started a um, we never want cost to be the barrier for entry for the people that want to learn because I feel like those are the people like me that are just dying for the information and they just like little sponges and they just can't get enough of it, or they see that they they've been healed themselves and they're just like, we have to do this for the children.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: There's no, you know, we just have to put our heads together and figure it out.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we have started a nonprofit side to School of Lunch so that we can have uh donors and angels per se to to help support schools or even individuals who want to attend our training academies or people or um organizations who are looking to make the change, but think of you know funds as their number one barrier to entry.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: We just we know there's enough abundance in this world and those who really understand it, it's like what a gift to be able to give to humanity when you can um can help somebody take those necessary steps to move forward because it is work, you know, we're so far down the rabbit hole of the wrong direction that we have to kind of take our steps to head to head back.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, but it's so doable.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I know um, you know, I know it's possible.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: So when you mentioned, you know, making zoodles and taking a bunch of tomatoes and making like tomato soup.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Can you give us a couple more examples of foods that you've made for this nature-based school in California, for instance, for the lunch and for the snack?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then can you tell us, after you give us those examples, what was the compliance like amongst the children?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like they did they just instantly love the food and want more of it?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Was there a transitional period?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or what how did how did that experience actually occur?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when I started with the snack, yeah, the transition was kind of really quick because it was so engaging.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd have these little like chalkboard signs and I'd put like where the food, which farm the food was from, or like I'd have like a cacao pod or a branch of little mini bananas and ask questions like, can you guess what this is?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: or little chestnuts and um just anything that I could find at the market that was interesting and intriguing and um you know, something to talk about, whether it was like I would do like almonds in their shell and then almonds out of the shell, and then soaked almonds, and then sprouted and dehydrated almonds, and have let them taste the four, you know, the stages of an almond and visually see that.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: We were doing beak kava shots.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, you name it.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: We've had like chikitanas, which are flying ants from Oaxaca, uh, that are dried.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you just engage the So I had kids like doing like daffies off the stairs, like what's for snack, Miss Hillary?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: And teachers where everybody was hanging around, where a snack used to be just like you grab something and you're off to recess, but it became like a social scene where it was just like, what is she going to serve up today?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: And and people were asking questions and talking.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that was super fun.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then when we morphed into the lunch program, we had um we had streamlined things a little bit.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, and COVID kind of threw a monkey wrench in all of it too.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: So we've gone from like setting up a beautiful snack table to then having to pack snacks individually for every class.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: To now we're like back to setting up a beautiful communal snack table.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we do a non-GMO popcorn that's in like our trio of fats.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: We say we have beautiful um grass-fed ghee from Pure Indian Foods Ghee, and then this beautiful red palm oil from our friend Juca, whose um family uh runs the business in Gambia.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a beautiful, sustainable company.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so we talk about that, and then coconut oil, um, and then our veteran real salt, not giving we we do give shout-outs, and that's part of the thing I like to do is connect people to like beautiful companies that are doing things right, and then they have that empowerment to make the right choices at home.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so the snacks now, okay.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: So now it's like basically raw cheese.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: We do um sourdough discard crackers.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: We might slice up a nice hay, I mean a salami from Fromani, which is beautiful salami.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: We have um bone broth.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the times throughout the winter, we'll have bone broth and emiso broth.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then we'll do beekava shots, pickle juice shots.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: We'll have like a beautiful um hummus.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: We soak all of our beans, we'll make hummus with some crude.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we'll always put fresh fruit out, local fruit, seasonal fruit.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so that's our snack.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: And for the little kids, we have kindergarten now, K through 12.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: So the little kids will pack up snack for them.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: If we have a beautiful loaf of sourdough, we'll send it off with some butter.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we always give them, like, you know, a good balance of the fruits and then the proteins and the good fats and all that.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then for lunch, we've developed a really um great rotation.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I've learned as um somebody who's never spent a day in a commercial kitchen.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: I've had to learn the hard way of like the freedom is in the systems.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I've developed over these years the systems of like, you know, Monday, Sunday night I'm feeding my sourdough starter.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Monday we're baking bread and making like a simple, a more simple or easy to compose dish of like a pasta bolognese, or we'll put organ meats in the in the beef and whatnot.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, different cohorts of kids.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this this school does a lot.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: So different cohorts of kids go out on the land for the whole day.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: So on Tuesdays, it's the three, four, five.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: On Wednesday, it's the five, no, three, four, five, six, seven, eight is Wednesday, and then high school is Thursday.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: So they, so okay, let me start over.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: At 10 o'clock, there's the snack, and also those kids are going off on the land for the day.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we have to put out a huge sandwich bar with fresh homemade sourdough.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: We have ham, in-house turkey, in-house roast beef.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then we have beautiful raw cheese and lettuce and tomato and beautiful bacon.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so the kids make sandwiches and pack their snacks to go.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have to pack that all up and then by 12 o'clock, serve the rest of the school a sit-down lunch.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, does that make sense?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of crazy, but it's like fast and furious.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a, it's like a reality show in that it's like 12 o'clock, knives down, hands up, you have to serve the children.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like snack, serve the the sandwich bar kids, pack that all up, and then we do a sit-down.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: So Tuesday is usually a chicken and rice where we're roasting all of our chickens, pulling the chicken off the bone, turning the bones into a bone broth that will roll all day Wednesday.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then Wednesday is more like a shepherd's pie, again, something that we can um can can kind of put together, enchilada pie, something like that.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then um Thursday, Wednesday, we're also making focaccia dough, sourdough focaccia dough for that will sit overnight and ferment for Thursday soup salad focaccia so that that uh bone broth is then used for soups uh all on Thursday.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then on Wednesday, we would have salted our slow roast, our meats to be slow roasted, which will roast all day Thursday.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: So a chuck roll or pork shoulder will just slow roast all Thursday.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then Friday, we only have to pull the meat and cook up the veg and put a beautiful salad bar together.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so that if that makes sense, then we'll throw in, you know, we'll switch it up here and there or do like a sourdough pizza day.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: We invite farmers in.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we have parents at lunch once a month where we we invite the parents in.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: So we might invite like a local food purveyor, farmer, somebody to highlight their what they're doing.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and so like we've had chefs, uh, some of our chefs' parents come in who are from um one mama from Iran came in and we did a whole Persian day.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: This year we have a Brazilian chef, so she's gonna bring her actually last week she brought her mom in to see what we're all about, and she's gonna come back and do a Brazilian day.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: So we're just you know, we switch it up as much as we can.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that's kind of the system systematic, if it makes sense.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit crazy because it the nature-based school, they try and squeeze a lot in, but it's but I love that.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's I found that too in my own experience with teaching my kids is that you've created a story for them.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like you've created not only an experience, so they're not just putting this healthy food in front of them and saying, here, eat this because it's healthy, right?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: You're actually creating an experience for them, and you're creating a story by connecting them with the farmers, with the countries of origin, things like that.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, that was really critical to get my kids to opt into this lifestyle.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: My question is for you, as you're explaining what you guys are serving to these kids.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I went to public school, so obviously it looked nothing like what you're doing.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And my question is have you tried to implement this in a public school setting?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, have you tried to get in the public schools and change their lunch programs?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Not yet.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, in Massachusetts, not this type, but yes, I was trying to get nutrient-dense foods in.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: The public school system is really a challenge.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: It really is.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: We know a couple of chefs who are doing great things and connecting to local, um, their local food resources, but it's the we're so blessed with what we can do in terms of like the raw dairy and fermented foods and whatnot.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we we haven't gone too much into that because we find it's so it's so challenging to to get all the seed oils out.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I mean, certainly we're right now we're working to see how we can work within a Cisco system to make better choices, Cisco and the likes.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's like there it's pretty massive in the sense that the the food service director, um, a lot of times they're they're not knowledgeable in the way of um, you know, it's more USDA guidelines driven.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we really know, you know, we kind of need to flip that on its head and think things about things in a different way.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so I feel like I tried that for like almost a decade and beat my head against the wall.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: So then I was like, okay, I got my foot in in this little nature-based school, and I'm just gonna show what's possible and um and then hope that it ripples out.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I think certainly with the public school system, it's possible, but with the government subsidies and it's just it's hard to make um yeah, it's hard to make change, unfortunately, because for the a lot of these kids, this is the only food that they're eating throughout the day.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really, and now they're they're pumping out lunchables, which is just like, in my opinion, crimes against humanity.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's really criminal what our kids are being fed.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, I don't know that my energy is best spent trying to convince them that there's another way, you know.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: I I hope that we can, you know, build this other boat and say, like, you know, here's what's going on in here.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: And look at how these kids are healthy and thriving and feeling loved and nourished.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's one of the biggest things we do is um is connecting with the kids.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like, like you asked earlier, do the kids buy in?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, now with these little kindergartners, sometimes they're like, you know, can barely see over the table the first couple of weeks of school, and they're just like their eyes are just like, what is this?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: This isn't chicken nuggets, and I'm not familiar with this, and there can be tears.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: And but I I say to the parents, like, you know, give me two weeks.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: I promise you it will turn around.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where that that um that connection is so important and that nurturing and that tending and that kind of mama bear um, you know, tending is so important.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, so yeah, going back to the public school, I it is you know a dream of mine to see all kids have access to this way of eating, but I just don't know that um actually there are other options too that I've seen work really well well where people have a nonprofit that helps to um to implement change within the school.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: So because I think a lot of the schools, it's so much to take on, and they have you know allocated their budgets to certain things and to to to spend resources on the school lunch program is hard.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: But if a nonprofit is willing to hold some of that container and to bring in programs, I've seen that work really nicely.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where we could partner up with a nonprofit and run programs to bring in that educational side of things.
• 31:47
  unknown: Yeah.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Or at least, you know, some connection to local food systems.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those are great examples.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we're almost out of time.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna let Joel lead us out.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so but I just wanted to say I love that you're leading by example.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, even the solution for the public school is you know, the nonprofits, but also you are saying here's an example of what actually can be done and it's thriving.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it is possible.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and your whole story for me is leading by example, which I love that.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like Jill said, we need more moms, we need more people in general to just jump in and lead, you know, like stop complaining about things, right?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Don't focus on the negative because complaining is focusing on the negative, but just really take the bull by the horns and lead something to show that this is what is possible.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're you hear so many times, I'm one person.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: What difference can I make?
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: And look at the difference that you're making in all of these kids' life, K through 12.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is this is amazing.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I am I feel very blessed to have you on the show.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're a true inspiration for me.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and Joel, I'm gonna let you lead us out.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, uh thank thank you, Hillary.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful story, and uh, and and what a wonderful ministry and a mission.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's as it's as sacred as anything could possibly be.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Really congratulate you on what you've done, and uh we honor you, and um, you know, the fact that your statistic about children now have a chronic disease is almost um it's criminal.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's unspeakable.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so thank you.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you everyone for listening to this Beyond Labels podcast.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being with us.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next week on Beyond Labels.