Latest / Everyday Ancestral with James Barry / Modern Food is Failing Us — Dr. Bill Schindler on Ancestral Eating, Industry Deception, and the Healing Power of Fermentation - Part 1

Transcript

Modern Food is Failing Us — Dr. Bill Schindler on Ancestral Eating, Industry Deception, and the Healing Power of Fermentation - Part 1 · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

• 0:00
  Hey friends, welcome back to every day in Cestral. I'm your host, James Berry, and today
• 0:06
  I have an incredible conversation with my good friend, Dr. Bill Schimler. A food archaeologist,
• 0:14
  chef, and educator, he has traveled the world studying how our ancestors truly nourished
• 0:21
  themselves. You might think we'd start by talking about food, but actually we kick things off
• 0:27
  in a different direction. Talking about relationships, connection, and how modern life is missing,
• 0:34
  the deep community bond our ancestors had. Bill shares how he and his wife Christina have built a
• 0:40
  relationship rooted in daily rituals, communication, and shared purpose, and why this foundation is just
• 0:47
  as important for health as food itself. From there we dive into the role of food in community,
• 0:53
  how indigenous traditions prioritize shared experiences over convenience, and why modern life
• 1:00
  has left us more disconnected from food and each other than ever before. This is a special and
• 1:07
  unique episode because it's the first recorded with me as the host. So please excuse some of the
• 1:13
  audio sections that I had not yet acquired the services of my fantastic producer Curtis Goodwolf
• 1:21
  and his married team to make my voice sound as sweet as it does now. Anyway, this conversation is
• 1:29
  going to shift the way you think about eating. So let's dive in. The biggest question I've had
• 1:36
  for you all these years that we've known each other is how do you maintain a amazing loving
• 1:44
  marriage and relationship in these modern times of insanity? You and Christina are fantastic.
• 1:52
  Please share. Christina is the absolute best part of my entire life. We met working together.
• 2:01
  My first shift as a new bartender and her first shift as a new waitress at a restaurant called
• 2:04
  the Alchemist and Barrister in Princeton, New Jersey happened on the same exact moment. I've seen
• 2:09
  her earlier in class that day but we met working together and worked together for years and since we
• 2:14
  both left our jobs several years ago, me at the college at Washington College and Christina as
• 2:20
  the director of Special Editor in nearby county, we've been working together literally non-stop.
• 2:24
  For a lot of people that wouldn't be an ideal situation but it's brought us together even stronger
• 2:29
  and the key to that is we have something called a catch bed. Ten years ago I built it. It's a
• 2:37
  size of a twin mattress. It sits out front. It's like a port swing but we sit on it with pillow
• 2:41
  and we sit on that every single morning and start our day and talk and download and have a conversation
• 2:48
  and that I think has been one of the major keys to our relationship but she's absolutely wonderful
• 2:55
  special. Is it a casual conversation or are there very specific points you cover every morning?
• 3:02
  It depends. It's not always the same. We work together. We're not having like family conversations
• 3:07
  or we're not having you know relationship conversations. We're having work conversations. There's
• 3:11
  always something hitting us at any moment. It's the perfect opportunity for us to sit down and if
• 3:16
  there's many things about either our relationship or ourselves or our family that we need to talk
• 3:22
  about we talk about we talk about work. I mean we we really try to keep that line between work and
• 3:27
  and life for working personal life that the very strict line but the reality is there isn't a line.
• 3:32
  For so many of us it's an artificial I think boundary because if you're doing what you're meant to do
• 3:39
  if you're doing what you love you should be living your life in that same way as well and you know
• 3:45
  the wonderful thing about us is I've been able to for many years bring my hobby into my profession
• 3:51
  as an archaeologist and as an experimental archaeologist and then you know now my only other hobby I
• 3:56
  really had was cooking and now literally we're doing all of it at the same time so there's no
• 4:00
  boundary so we keep trying to keep this boundary it doesn't exist and I don't and I really don't
• 4:04
  think it should and it's actually a blessing that it probably doesn't but we do sit there and take
• 4:09
  care of I would call it our oxygen mask. We do do a quarterly retreat for the work but the first day
• 4:14
  of our quarterly retreat every single time we call it oxygen mask and the first thing we discuss
• 4:20
  is our own personal health and I mean health I mean not only physical health but mental health
• 4:24
  all of it then we talk about our relationship because we realize our family is not going to operate
• 4:28
  if our relationship isn't healthy and our relationship isn't going to operate unless we're
• 4:33
  mentally and physically as healthy and nourish as we can possibly be and then once we've talked
• 4:37
  about our relationship we talk about our family and the entire first day is that and then we're
• 4:42
  able to take and focus on work but we realize that the Monarchs on H Kitchen the food lab none of it
• 4:49
  is going to exist and thrive unless worse healthy as we can be. It's kind of interesting to start a
• 4:55
  conversation around you know ancestral eating and focusing on relationship but I I think it's really
• 5:02
  fitting right I mean we focus so much on food you know particularly in these very social media
• 5:07
  times but do you think there's an aspect of the loss of that community and the connection that maybe
• 5:13
  our ancestors had that we don't have as much despite having all these these abilities to connect
• 5:20
  yet we're not do you think they think there's something there 100 percent I'm so glad you started
• 5:26
  this conversation off the way that you did and it's so timely because if we had this conversation
• 5:31
  even three four years ago I probably wouldn't have been answering as strongly as I am right now
• 5:36
  because I mean proceed has been so much time thinking about interpersonal relationships family
• 5:41
  relationships community relationships because of the place we're in on our own journey now with not
• 5:45
  only ourselves but also our business and our family I realize the importance of it we were just
• 5:49
  having a conversation yesterday believe it or not in another context but about how our family
• 5:57
  has changed due to all the the work we've done with indigenous and traditional groups all over the
• 6:01
  world and that focus the reason we went to different places the reason we went to West Polcott was
• 6:06
  to learn about ash yogurt made in gourds right and the reason we went to Eastern Kenya with the
• 6:11
  somber warriors was to learn about you know drinking blood and milk and bugs in Thailand or potatoes
• 6:17
  and believe it whatever the reason we went to these places to conduct research was solely focused
• 6:23
  on documenting and understanding different ways that people nourish themselves using ancestral
• 6:29
  traditional practices but that conversation yesterday we were asked did the kids change you
• 6:36
  know there's something different do they look at the world differently because of these experiences
• 6:40
  not the food they're eating not the fact they're eating bugs and eggs and Thailand did something
• 6:45
  about them change they're looking at the world differently you know ended up making impact
• 6:50
  and absolutely Christina brought up the point that everywhere that we went Billy brought a soccer
• 6:56
  we always no matter where we went we brought a soccer ball we you know we took all the air out
• 6:59
  of it we brought a little tiny pump with us and we showed up and it didn't matter where we were
• 7:03
  in almost every case we placed we were at we didn't speak the language of the people we were
• 7:09
  spending time with we usually had a translator but when you're there engaged in food getting food
• 7:17
  preparing food sharing food that is such a unifying thing that you know it's almost in language
• 7:24
  in itself but so is play especially for kids so you know bringing that soccer ball was not only a great
• 7:29
  sort of way to break the ice but also a way to just bring people together and we always left the
• 7:34
  soccer world because we've been places especially in Africa where balls are universal but a lot of
• 7:39
  people don't have balls right so they would take rocks and wrap them in in rags and rags and rags
• 7:44
  and Thai strands and literally that's what they're playing with but things like playing things like
• 7:48
  sharing food things like dancing I mean my god I can't dance the most ever dance in my entire life
• 7:54
  was our wedding I knew Christina loves dance and I and almost people have a wedding and they spend a
• 7:59
  lot of time at the bar I literally drank half of a beer my own wedding half of a beer that
• 8:05
  drank boy with my father and I had half a beer the entire wedding because I didn't leave the dance
• 8:09
  school because it's so important Christina but I hate dancing I love making her happy I hate dancing
• 8:14
  but everywhere that we've gone we've danced I mean dancing is universal singing is universal
• 8:18
  telling stores universal fires universal so all of these aspects of community and coming together
• 8:25
  again food is part of it too is powerful and I think a lot of that is missing in our modern
• 8:31
  lives for sure so I don't know if that answers your question but it's been a powerful component
• 8:35
  of our research absolutely answers it so I don't know if you watched the bear you know that
• 8:40
  affects show you may have seen if you had time season three or four the latest season when it
• 8:47
  ended the chef in the last episode she says she's closing her a very reputable restaurant and it
• 8:55
  has nothing to do with the main people she's saying she spent her whole lifetime focusing on food
• 9:01
  and being precise with this Michelin star restaurant and she said you know everyone's asking
• 9:08
  why why are you closing and she says well I want to live life and she says you know at the end of
• 9:14
  the day no one talks about the food they talk about the people and the conversations and the experiences
• 9:20
  they had in the restaurant and I'm wondering you're now how many years are you into the modern
• 9:25
  stone age kitchen I don't want to be all come by y'all tree hug you but you actually gave me a
• 9:29
  little bit of chills and you sell a lot as being open as a restaurant only three years okay well
• 9:35
  that's significant for restaurants you know that restaurants closed sometimes within two years so
• 9:39
  the fact that you're in your third year is huge so congratulations on that and I and you know
• 9:43
  you just recently won an award right we've been very fortunate we've won a ton of awards in the
• 9:49
  past two years a lot of local awards like best the best restaurant those sorts of things we won
• 9:54
  business of the year for our county what we're most proud of is we've won a bunch of awards about
• 10:00
  the workplace environment which I'm really really proud of Christina both are we're the first
• 10:06
  12 spoon award for western price in the world so wow literally every one of their criteria
• 10:12
  they have 12 criteria so things like no not a seed oil using awful and that sort of thing
• 10:17
  are different criteria so we hit all 12 now there's such an emphasis on food preparation quality
• 10:23
  of the food but in your three years are you starting to find like oh yeah I know we're focusing
• 10:28
  on the food but it's I'm getting something else from this can you speak to that yes so remember
• 10:34
  we started this conversation Christina I met in a restaurant we worked in a bunch of restaurants
• 10:39
  we got married ended up going back to the Alchemist & Barrister to work for just a little bit while
• 10:44
  we were still teaching we started teaching just because we needed the extra income and when we
• 10:49
  finally left we said we are never ever ever working in a restaurant again so we're for many
• 10:55
  reasons one is the typical restaurant culture the other is just the hours you know the the
• 11:00
  hours that of typical restaurant does it's in its best is the same hours as you want to go out and
• 11:05
  have fun right it's it's Friday night it's a Saturday it's a weekend it's that sort of thing
• 11:08
  so up we're never working in a restaurant again it was such a strong feeling for us that when
• 11:14
  this place started to take on its own life and it started becoming a restaurant we even resisted
• 11:18
  calling it a restaurant and we found all these different words we called it this and we called it a
• 11:22
  foodery then we called it something else and finally we're just like it's a restaurant but then
• 11:26
  we sat back it's it this isn't like the restaurants we've been in before in fact we've had
• 11:30
  and we're very deliberate in making sure that that restaurant culture you don't see in the bear
• 11:35
  read about it different publications or seats of a non TV or whatever it's not what we have in fact
• 11:40
  we have hired several people that have come from that restaurant world and they didn't last more
• 11:46
  than a few weeks I mean they came and they had their white this and they had this and they have
• 11:49
  smoked breaks and they unrolled their knives and they're all whatever they have the typical they
• 11:53
  did last we have regular meetings with our entire team and we have grown from literally a family
• 12:00
  business three years ago where it was just the five of us the family to we have over 25 people
• 12:08
  on our team wow that's huge 25 paid people on our team were really proud of the way that we're
• 12:15
  approaching food and nourishing the community so we've just started an internship program so we
• 12:20
  have several interns all the time we have residency here so right now we have an intern from
• 12:24
  Mojaca mexico it's been less nine months he's leaving in august we've had multiple interns over
• 12:30
  the past several months that are coming for three weeks or two weeks or four weeks we have the
• 12:34
  entire fault that's slated out we just started externship site for escafier culinary school and
• 12:41
  we're talking to a few other ones so people are coming leaving finishing their their coursework
• 12:46
  and then coming to do their externship so people can spend three months with us coming from there
• 12:51
  and we just were approved by the state to be do the high school apprenticeship program so
• 12:56
  local high school students can come and spend 450 hours with us and get an apprenticeship certificate
• 13:01
  and what we're really trying to do through this and I'm going to promise I'll answer your question
• 13:05
  but every one of these things has threads or trying to do here is the approach that we're taking
• 13:10
  we feel is so incredibly powerful that we want to be able to you know make these sort of grassroots
• 13:16
  efforts to change the way obviously people are eating and a great way to do that is to change
• 13:20
  entire restaurant culture culture from not only how people treat one another but also how they're
• 13:24
  how they're doing with the food itself and many of these people coming work in restaurants or will
• 13:30
  work in restaurants but many of them are that are coming just want to learn how to feed their family
• 13:33
  so that they're coming for that reason as well all that is to say we we have about 30 people total
• 13:39
  at some level doing all the work that is happening in here and the restaurant model we have is a
• 13:45
  completely different flip model Christina and I have no business experience whatsoever we've never
• 13:49
  even taken a business class and that's a wonderful thing because if we had we would have never
• 13:54
  started this like on paper it doesn't make sense but what has happened is because we're so
• 14:00
  steadfast in making the process you talked about earlier making everything 100% from scratch we
• 14:06
  are making all of our cheese we are butchering all of our animals we're 100% sourdough bread or
• 14:11
  fermenting our vegetables we're fermenting our dairy we're doing all of it only raw ingredients come
• 14:16
  in here and even with buying quality raw ingredients we're saving money on food because all of the
• 14:23
  processing is happening in house like we're not paying anybody else to do that do that value
• 14:27
  head out all the value it's happening in our own walls which leaves money for putting our money
• 14:33
  into people there's so many benefits of this one is we get to work directly with local farmers
• 14:38
  local ranchers so we get to do a lot of that work that saves us money it puts money directly into
• 14:44
  their pockets they're making more money working directly with us and they are through several
• 14:47
  middlemen all that's wonderful and we have money to employ people our payroll is off the charts
• 14:54
  I mean Christina does all the books she's losing her mind all the time looking at payroll but when
• 14:59
  you take that payroll and the food costs together it's the exact opposite percentage as a typical
• 15:04
  restaurant it's typically more food costs and a little bit lower on payroll where the opposite but
• 15:08
  combined it's about the same with that and to directly answer your question now with all that sort
• 15:14
  of background people are coming in here they're not taking this off of off of a Cisco truck and
• 15:20
  sticking in the microwave we're just heating it up on the flat top or in the salamanders sticking
• 15:23
  it out for service day after day after day they're actually making things understand what they're
• 15:27
  making they're seeing the entire process start to finish into a customer's mouth we have a full
• 15:32
  open kitchen you know it's incredibly rewarding to be a part of that entire process and know the
• 15:38
  thing that you're putting out it doesn't just look and taste good it's actually nourishing somebody
• 15:42
  right so the culture in that kitchen is great everything's open everybody comes in they talk about
• 15:47
  the difference in the culture our dishwasher for example has an incredible personality knows everybody
• 15:52
  in pound and I was just sitting downstairs before this I haven't quick bite to eat before the
• 15:57
  interview and I'm watching and he came out three times to come out and greet different people
• 16:02
  that were in the front I mean the dishwasher's coming around the front to talk to people it's
• 16:05
  it's a wonderful place so I love this and I think you're alluding to it but I'd love you to expand
• 16:10
  on this so focus on culture within the restaurant a lot of that's from your experience working in
• 16:16
  restaurants yours and Christina's in wanting to set the standard of what mattered to you in that
• 16:21
  environment you care about how food is prepared you care about where it's sourced and you did already
• 16:27
  speak to this but maybe you can elaborate even more what about the energy that goes into the food
• 16:32
  as you make it you did touch on this that we're nourishing people but is it conscious like are
• 16:37
  you guys actually doing are you in any prayers around you know the kitchen or food are you doing
• 16:42
  any setting intentions at the beginning of the day when you start working food do you do advise
• 16:47
  any of the people this is a two-part question because it's within your kitchen but also
• 16:52
  what kind of energy focused do you find is through your travels and learning about all these
• 16:58
  culture foods is there an intention put actually into the food itself or is it just preparation
• 17:05
  we do have a team meeting every day where and I took this is the fantastic bakery and Dublin
• 17:12
  called bread 41 and I stashed their last year actually there was a pre-shift meeting which is not
• 17:19
  rare for restaurants they have them all the time but the pre-shift meeting started with asking
• 17:25
  everybody how they were feeling where was there and you being focused all these things that
• 17:30
  focused on the actual team and then the focus was on okay daily test and all this so we do do
• 17:35
  that every day I wish now that you say it I wish I could say yes to everything you had just said
• 17:42
  but that isn't the case although now that you've brought it up I think I do need to do a little more
• 17:46
  or thinking about and see if we can implement that but in a non intentional way it is absolutely
• 17:51
  there and it's there because like I mentioned we are in the practice the entire team of nourishing
• 17:58
  people whether they're working in the back doing sourdough pastries whether they're butchering whether
• 18:03
  they are working in the in the front part of the kitchen or whether they're sitting there
• 18:07
  interacting with customers everybody knows what their job is their job is to take care of themselves
• 18:12
  take care of everybody all their teammates here and to take care of every single person that walks
• 18:16
  through that door through not only the food that we are providing but also through the context and
• 18:23
  the atmosphere that we're creating so I will say for sure the travels that we've had have been
• 18:30
  very beneficial because they've taught us so many things they've taught us this is how this type
• 18:36
  of yogurt is made in this part of the world I mean that sort of thing and we use this as a
• 18:39
  blueprint for some of the stuff that we do but it also provides that incredible context if you take
• 18:45
  food out of context you lose so much of the value of that food so the ceremony around it the
• 18:50
  traditions around it the love around it the everything around it we've tried our best to capture
• 18:56
  as best as we can we talk about it on podcasts talk about it on presentations but we also talk
• 19:01
  about it in our classes and also with our team so when people are making the food for example
• 19:06
  Zach downstairs now is taking over all of the cheese making and when I taught him how to make
• 19:11
  all the cheese that I was already making all the stories of the cheese making went with it and
• 19:16
  every single step and we learned a lot about pasta if you lock the cheeses on a mountaintop
• 19:20
  in Sicily with an incredible cheese maker this name is a chia sinto and he would make two things
• 19:27
  every day every day that is animals we're providing milk he would make ketchup of all which is my
• 19:32
  favorite cheese in the world and then he'd take the way and turn it into ricotta salata what's your
• 19:36
  favorite cheese what what is that so ketchup of all is it's a stretch curd cheese it's in the
• 19:43
  provolone family people have seen it it looks like a sack you don't kind of like a like a hobo
• 19:49
  kind of stick with a with a sack on the end of it and look like that sack some people probably
• 19:53
  seen it because if you see sometimes in some Italian festivals you have that like bag of cheese
• 19:59
  it's hanging over a fire and then you scrape the bottom onto a piece of bread it's kind of melting
• 20:04
  I don't know if anybody's ever seen that there's been some like tiktok things going around with it
• 20:08
  but it's an amazing cheese it translates into a horse cheese so kachukovalo means horse cheese but
• 20:13
  it's not made out of horse milk it's typically made out of not always but typically made out of
• 20:17
  cow's milk sometimes it's a mix of cow and other but the way the shepherds in the mountains especially
• 20:24
  in Sicily would would make this cheese and they'd make in pairs and then they tie a rope
• 20:30
  or you know topping each one and put it on the back of the horse it would age as you're
• 20:34
  like going around and you know on the horse of the mountains for for weeks it's an amazing cheese
• 20:39
  but it's the same exact process except for the very very end is the same as making other provolones
• 20:45
  and and ragasana and pizza cheese and all these other things so you know we're sitting there as I
• 20:50
  teaching Zach how to make the cheese that we put on so many of the things here I'm telling you
• 20:55
  all these stories about Chisinto and exactly how it was made and what the smells were like and what
• 20:59
  experience was like and I know every time I make that cheese I'm thinking of that and I'm hopeful
• 21:04
  that every time I he's making that cheese he's thinking about these things so there is this sort of
• 21:09
  intention definitely this intention in making the food knowing that the gold is to nourish people
• 21:15
  in every way possible but there were also every time we make something there's a remembrance or
• 21:21
  I don't want to say reverence but a throwback to thoughts to people that we learned from
• 21:27
  but I also say this on a more physical level there's something very special about making food
• 21:33
  traditionally and I use sourdough bread as an example and I'm sure a lot of people listening to this
• 21:37
  are very much in a in a low carb or a carnivore world but I would expect that many people are
• 21:43
  probably in more of a a Western price sort of just nourishing food sort of thing where at least
• 21:49
  sourdough bread is a part of your diet at some level sourdough bread is obviously completely
• 21:54
  and we can dive in deep but a completely different food than other breads for a lot of very very
• 21:59
  important reasons but one of the things that it does in addition to providing all sorts of health
• 22:05
  benefits over a more commercial bread is that it brings in the sense of terroir right the sense of
• 22:11
  place we talk about terroir in the wine industry because you know obviously wines great
• 22:15
  vines that are growing in Argentina and the growing conditions in the soils and the climate are
• 22:20
  different than they are in St. Napa and it produces different even with the same vines it would produce
• 22:24
  wines of different quality that are reminiscent of terroir that sense of place for the most part
• 22:30
  people are only talking about terroir with wine other than that in the modern food system
• 22:35
  we celebrate uniformity we celebrate the fact that you can get a McDonald's hamburger in New
• 22:40
  York City and a McDonald's hamburger in Tokyo and they taste exactly the same where you can get
• 22:43
  bunwizer all over the world that it tastes exactly the same and while difficult to achieve I mean
• 22:49
  it is an act of incredible precision and technology to be able to produce the exact same food in
• 22:55
  different parts of the world it's not something we should celebrate what we should celebrate again
• 23:00
  is the fact that all traditional food provides that sense of terroir that sense of place in so
• 23:06
  many different ways and one of the ways that it does that is because the foundation of almost
• 23:10
  every traditional diet I've ever found around the world is fermentation fermenting dairy fermenting
• 23:16
  vegetables fermenting meat fermenting sugars and alcohol fermenting grains all of these things
• 23:22
  the colonies of wild bacteria needs that exist in different places are different and they produce
• 23:28
  different qualities some of them are very very minute but nuanced but they're there so even if I
• 23:35
  made the same exact loaf of sourdough bread here in Maryland and you made a loaf of sourdough bread
• 23:40
  using the same recipe and even the same flour and San Francisco there will be little differences
• 23:45
  and that's something we should really celebrate I think this is a fantastic story years ago
• 23:50
  and I think it was six seven eight years ago now there was there was a very large study done
• 23:54
  where the researchers went out and collected bread from different sourdough bakeries all over the
• 23:59
  world and they tested the bread and wanted to see if starting with the bread and the wild bacteria
• 24:07
  and yeast populations that were in the bread and obviously dead now because they were cooked but
• 24:12
  if they could look at that and tell identify the bakery that the bread came from
• 24:17
  by the colonies of you know unique colonies of bacteria and yeast and they could
• 24:21
  and it wasn't a big surprise I would have guessed that they could but what they found was
• 24:24
  something even deeper I think really more powerful and speaks a little bit to some of the points
• 24:30
  that you're making they not only could identify the bakery but they could because of the colonies
• 24:35
  of bacteria and yeast present in that bread they could identify it down to the baker it turns out
• 24:40
  that the bacteria and yeast that are literally on the skin of individual baker's hands wow
• 24:46
  impacted the bread enough that they could identify it under a microscope but what was even more
• 24:51
  beautiful is that when they looked deeper they could tell that it was a symbiotic relationship
• 24:57
  that the wild bacteria and yeast that was on the bread was also impacting the microflora on
• 25:02
  the skin of the baker I mean it was a give and take to me that's beautiful that's what real food
• 25:07
  is all about now you just made a comment there that I think people may not know or but you said
• 25:13
  the probiotic properties of the bread are dead now that it's been cooked in a sense this sourdough
• 25:20
  process is more about making that grain viable to you not necessarily about you getting a culture
• 25:26
  into your diet there's a video circulating right now and I hate to not like it it's somebody
• 25:32
  standing at a podium talking about the fact that there's lactobacillus bacteria in sourdough bread
• 25:37
  and it has all these wonderful benefits and all these things but what he doesn't say is it's dead
• 25:43
  it's dead now there are some studies that are being done right now that's suggest and I don't know
• 25:49
  all the science behind this and I don't understand why but are suggesting even dead probiotics are
• 25:57
  better for you than no probiotics whatsoever and I don't know what sort of benefit they in part
• 26:01
  and I don't know if I fully believe it but I don't know enough to make a statement on
• 26:05
  but this is what I do know the benefits of true sourdough bread are many from sort of that touch
• 26:11
  you feely sense that sense of terroir and that sense of tradition and all that are there for sure
• 26:17
  true sourdough bread and for people who are thinking about trying sourdough bread or are in the
• 26:25
  in the process of consuming sourdough bread or any of these things pay very close attention because
• 26:29
  what I'm about to say is typically myths in a conversation about sourdough bread first off
• 26:34
  what makes sourdough bread different than any other bread is that it is produced through a combination
• 26:41
  of two different fermentations so there's a yeast fermentation and a simultaneous bacterial
• 26:47
  fermentation the oldest bread we know of in the world right now is a little less than 9,000 years old
• 26:53
  and the entirety of the time bread was made from then until the mid 1800s all bread was sourdough
• 27:01
  like it was by default sourdough if you were going to you if you were harnessing the wild yeast
• 27:06
  from the air to leaven the bread to make the bread rise you automatically got the wild bacteria as
• 27:12
  well and by the way it's same thing with beer beer up until the mid 1800s beer was a sour beer so
• 27:20
  we have the you know it's a big thing now people told my sour beers so beer was sour until you
• 27:26
  intentionally in a lab took yeast strains out and just kept those yeast strains alive by themselves
• 27:32
  and stuck them in the beer stuck them in the bread and just so you have both of these
• 27:36
  fermentations happening at the same time this is the traditional way of making bread and the
• 27:39
  traditional way of making beer now the yeast fermentation produces two things carbon dioxide which
• 27:45
  makes the bread rise and alcohol so if you're making beer you want both the alcohol and the carbon
• 27:52
  dioxide right but in the bread you get a little bit alcohol but that burns off and it's very
• 27:57
  minuscule any howks of fermentation is nowhere as near as long as it is for making beer but the
• 28:01
  production of that carbon dioxide is what makes that bread rise the fact that that yeast is wild
• 28:07
  really doesn't make a difference because if you bought flashments yeast off the grocery store
• 28:11
  shelves it's going to produce the same effect it's going to the bread's going to rise some fun
• 28:15
  the important part of the sourdough is the bacterial fermentation now these are wild strains of
• 28:21
  bacteria in dematerial area so they're the ones that are native to where you live they're in the
• 28:27
  air right now I mean you can't see them in front of me but they're between you and me they're on my
• 28:31
  skin they're on the table they're on the flour they're everywhere and when they start fermenting
• 28:38
  they are doing many many things one of the things that they're doing is that they are eating the
• 28:43
  available sugars that are in in the bread the other thing that they're doing is the byproduct
• 28:49
  that is lactic acid and they're chemically and physically transforming grains which are not meant
• 28:56
  for human consumption grains are the babies of the plant whether it's a wheat plant or rye whatever
• 29:01
  and there's a lot of energy being put into making sure that there's these babies can stay dormant
• 29:07
  until they're in the right conditions to sprout and make new life of this is why you know how
• 29:12
  these species propagate fightates lectins all sorts of nasty things are there well the fermentation
• 29:19
  process helps to detoxify and mitigate the issues related to things like fightates and lectins
• 29:24
  so there are detoxifying the grains they're also breaking pre-digesting the grains so the nutrients
• 29:31
  are more easily available to our bot this is all fantastic plus and this is really really important
• 29:37
  remember the bacteria are fermenting they're producing lactic acid that lactic acid as lactic acid rises
• 29:44
  two very important things are happening one is the carbohydrate load is decreasing because that's
• 29:49
  the food for the bacteria and here's a drop in pH it's becoming more acidic and as that happens as
• 29:56
  the pH drops if it gets to so important 4.6 pH so seven is neutral and it gets down to 4.6 it
• 30:04
  activates an enzyme that starts breaking down the gluten even further and this is so very important
• 30:10
  because you have to reach that 4.6 pH to really transform the gluten into something that our
• 30:16
  bodies can tolerate and then you know a number of different things are changing so the final product
• 30:21
  to the final sourdough bread if it's done right is this and oh all the flavors and the aromas come
• 30:27
  from the bacterial fermentation so at the end at the end of this a sourdough loaf compared to a
• 30:32
  yeasted loaf has these qualities smells amazing it looks amazing it tastes amazing the gluten for many
• 30:41
  of us is either more tolerable or fully tolerable depending on different makeups of us I will tell you
• 30:47
  our sourdough bread we have a massive amount of customers that are gluten intolerant that are
• 30:52
  actually fine on our bread and people are not going to believe this this is 100% true as of this
• 30:58
  past month we just identified our seventh medically identified celiac customer who is absolutely
• 31:06
  fine on our bread now we have multiple customers who are celiac that are not fine on our bread and
• 31:11
  celiac is a spectrum right but we have medically identified celiac customers seven we know of
• 31:18
  absolutely fine on our bread and I know we have one that's an eighty fiber of woman Jesus sliced
• 31:23
  for our bread every day and I'm not suggesting you're supposed to eat a slice of bread every day is not
• 31:27
  but what I'm suggesting is or what I'm telling you is a loaf of sourdough bread is a completely
• 31:32
  different food than other breads it also has a lower glycemic index glycemic index zero to a
• 31:40
  hundred hundred is pure glucose our blood sugar response of this any bread modern loaf of bread
• 31:45
  I don't care if it is you know a hundred percent white wonder bread or petridge farm multi berry
• 31:52
  whatever it doesn't matter what it is they all fall in the high range in the glycemic index so
• 31:57
  means we have a huge blood sugar response spike when we consume that bread same exact ingredients
• 32:04
  but put through a sourdough process drops it through the middle range down into the low range so
• 32:09
  our body our blood sugar response to that bread just because the sourdough process is completely
• 32:14
  different than it is that it's not sourdough there's two major types of soures and food one is
• 32:21
  produced from lactic acid which is a very pleasant sour so that's the kind of sour you get in things
• 32:26
  like yogurt for example or good sourdough bread it has that very mild pleasant sour but then there's
• 32:32
  also acetic acid which is vinegar and it's a very harsh sour if I don't ferment the bread properly
• 32:38
  and if I let my mother go too long in addition to the regular yeast fermentation and bacterial
• 32:42
  fermentation all that alcohol that's building up starts to get acted upon by another bacteria and
• 32:48
  a c-debater bacteria which eats the alcohol and produces lactic acid and produces a really harsh
• 32:53
  nasty for bread sourness and unfortunately so many people have had sourdough bread made poorly that
• 33:00
  they think it's supposed to taste very sour and it's not and a lot of times when you get that really
• 33:04
  really sourness it's so harsh what is this vinegar is great with fish and chips and french fries it's
• 33:10
  terrible in bread so we don't want that fermentation to go to that extent but at the same time because
• 33:16
  we have this idea of sourdough bread having to be sour the modern industrial food system has
• 33:22
  figured out a shortcut there's no and you need to understand there's no FDA regulation anywhere
• 33:27
  in this country and in fact in most country there are no governmental regulations oversight to
• 33:32
  things you have to meet requirements to call something sourdough you can call anything sourdough
• 33:37
  so what the modern food system has done is if I'm fermenting this bread properly it means I am
• 33:42
  literally babysitting trillions of wild bacteria in yeast dealing with all sorts of different
• 33:48
  variables like temperature and humidity and all these other things and trying to make this work
• 33:52
  over a very long period of time or I can just get commercial yeast and do it and make another
• 33:58
  loaf of bread so obviously that's what most of the food industry is doing but what they're doing
• 34:02
  for the sourdough is they understand that the customer expectation of sourdough is that it's
• 34:08
  going to taste sour so they make a regular in many cases most cases a regular yeasted bread
• 34:13
  with none of the health benefits I just talked about and put in something that's sour
• 34:18
  cedar acid lactic acid or citric acid and it tastes sour they slap a label on it says sourdough
• 34:24
  bread because that's they're allowed to do that and all of a sudden somebody listening to or
• 34:29
  watching something on tiktok or hearing that maybe sourdough bread is better they go into the regular
• 34:33
  grocery store by a loaf of sourdough bread hell it can even be over by the deliary and a brown
• 34:38
  package and away from the other bread and it can cost more and they bring it home and they see no
• 34:42
  differences with it and that's because it isn't any different it's the same exact thing with
• 34:46
  some acid put into it the key is turn over the the package of sourdough bread and if it says
• 34:52
  anything acidic back the gas and citric acid the cedar acid which is also vinegar sometimes
• 34:57
  as vinegar if you still want to get it but it's not sourdough bread the other sort of problem
• 35:04
  that's happening a lot and I even see this unwell respected respected websites is there's recipes
• 35:12
  for all sourdough anything and you can make anything sourdough all of our pasta sourdough or pastries
• 35:15
  are sourdough or personcer sourdough or cookies are sourdough all of everything we do here is fully
• 35:20
  sourdough but a lot of these recipes for these other things you use sourdough discard right
• 35:25
  to leftover mother and what they've done is they've taken a basic recipe so let's say they're
• 35:30
  chocolate chip sourdough cooks it take like a toe house chocolate chip cookie recipe and slap in
• 35:36
  a little bit of sourdough mother mix it all up and put it on a tray put it in the oven and bake it
• 35:42
  the problem is the two cups of flour that you added to those cookies never had time to ferment
• 35:49
  they've never been through that chemical and physical changes produced by that fermentation
• 35:54
  it's never reached the pH of 4.6 or below none of those things have happened all you did is slap in
• 35:59
  a little bit of sourdough mother you've called it sourdough maybe you've added a little bit of nuance
• 36:03
  of some kind of flavor but essentially you've literally just made toe house cookies with a little
• 36:09
  bit of sourdough mother in it and you're still eating two cups of raw flour that hasn't been through
• 36:13
  the process so in order to do any of those things and this is one of the things we spent many many
• 36:19
  years working on is once you've introduced the bacteria yeast through that sourdough mother you have
• 36:26
  to give it time to ferment I don't care if it's a chocolate chip cookie or sourdough pasta it has
• 36:30
  the ferment so that those flowers go through that process and get safer and more nourishing
• 36:36
  you know you bring up an interesting point so when these kind of ancestral foods are made
• 36:41
  correctly they have flavor and sometimes you you could say they're a little strong when compared to
• 36:48
  their conventional brother or sister but when they're done incorrectly they're even more intense
• 36:55
  but we talk about picky eating a lot here in the US I mean people struggle with kids that are
• 36:59
  picky eating and I'm just curious like in your travels and your studies of ancestral foods
• 37:06
  is picky eating like truly unique to this kind of conventional standard American diet
• 37:12
  or do you see it all over I mean I have to imagine if you're growing up eating some of these
• 37:18
  ancestral prepared foods then your palate is used to flavor absolutely and I think there's
• 37:24
  several layers to this I'm reminded of the documentary food ink remember food ink oh yeah
• 37:30
  I love it very big I was great you see the shopping cart going through and they
• 37:35
  mentioned in the beginning of it that there's this appearance of choice in the American grocery store
• 37:40
  but then they you know tear that apart and show that it's there almost everything they're made
• 37:45
  out of the same like five ingredients there's just little things changed with it like corn for
• 37:48
  example but the reality of our modern food system is there is a lot of choice and we expect that
• 37:55
  choice and that isn't present in a lot of the indigenous and traditional communities that we've
• 38:02
  been in you know this is what serve this is what's here we went out years ago there's a fantastic
• 38:08
  woman out in Boulder Colorado she has transformed the school lunch program there I think her nickname
• 38:16
  is angry once lady I forget would it but but she sees amazing we've had her come out and speak
• 38:20
  of Washington College and she's standing up on state and she's saying look and this is years ago I
• 38:24
  make or my team makes everything from scratch for the entire bowl school lunch program for all of
• 38:32
  Boulder Colorado and she said all these things it sounded great there is no way she's doing it and if so
• 38:39
  are these kids really eating this food and how is it all working so we literally went out to visit
• 38:43
  we went and said how to meeting with her and then we went into some of her cafeterias and we
• 38:47
  actually we saw where she's producing the food we and we even brought our youngest daughter Alyssa
• 38:51
  and because she has the most discerning palette of family I'm like if she likes it then and we
• 38:57
  ate and what we saw is a remarkable first of all everything she said she was doing she's doing
• 39:01
  it's unbelievable and at a scale it isn't like this tiny little school district in Beverly Hills it's
• 39:07
  an entire city school district it's fantastic but one of the things that I took away from that
• 39:12
  experience was how do you do this goes what kids are expecting when they go to the cafeteria
• 39:17
  school with seven different options and all of these different that's not how you eat that's not
• 39:21
  how you eat at home you go home and your mother or your father whoever makes one thing and everybody
• 39:26
  sits down and eats that's how it's been forever so she gave two choices she gave I think a vegetarian
• 39:31
  option and a meat option that's it that would be only two choices every day I mean the menu changed
• 39:35
  every day but those were your choices the other thing that I think about a lot when you're talking
• 39:41
  about picky eating and all these things we've allowed ourselves or our children or the communities
• 39:47
  to have this expectation of choice all the time no matter where you are and then to keep up with
• 39:57
  that demand and that choice is almost impossible like even here at the restaurant like we have choices
• 40:02
  but we by no means have a have a diner level menu because we would never be able to create
• 40:08
  that food according to our to our standards all that different food but this is I think it's
• 40:12
  very interesting it's when you're talking about kids and picky eating I think it's very strange what
• 40:17
  we have normalized and joke about and write about in baby parenting magazines is a very very strange
• 40:25
  phenomenon in the in the modern world and it doesn't happen anywhere else in the animal world
• 40:30
  anywhere we take kids you know when we are babies off of their mother's milk we put them in a
• 40:37
  high chair this is the picture that we all laugh about but then I want to paint it in another light
• 40:42
  we take these screaming starving children and put them in a high chair and strap them in and then we
• 40:47
  take this completely dead nasty oxalate filled food and a jar and open it up put it in front of them
• 40:54
  and fight with them for 45 minutes to eat this food and laugh about it make up little games about
• 41:00
  airplanes going into hangars and trainings and race cars and all these things to try to get them
• 41:04
  to eat this food and meanwhile they're spinning it up and throwing it across the room and while
• 41:08
  while we're listening to the parenting magazines and we're trying to be a good parent and get these
• 41:13
  kids to eat this food what we're essentially doing is teaching them to not trust their senses
• 41:20
  we have these senses our smell our taste our feel all of these senses are the product of millions
• 41:29
  of years of evolutionary pressures to allow us to make decisions for ourselves in for a lot of
• 41:37
  different things but one of the primary things that allows us to do is make the systems about what we
• 41:41
  should eat well before books and nutritionists and doctors and podcasts and all the cooking shows
• 41:46
  in order to figure out what we what was good to put in our mouth the first thing we did was see it
• 41:51
  the next thing we did was touch it right the next thing we did was smell it on our way to our mouth
• 41:55
  and we put it into our mouth and we started chewing and then we got all those responses right from
• 42:00
  that experience some of that smell some of that taste and then we either decided to swallow it or
• 42:05
  spit it out and you know what it's worked really well for 300,000 years in fact so well that our
• 42:10
  bodies and our brains grew to modern proportions it's been an amazing thing very very safe
• 42:15
  but we are teaching our kids could not trust their senses you know there's a reason why we put
• 42:20
  down a jar of spinach in front of them and they throw it across the room because they have no
• 42:24
  business eating it like that's not what they should eat so when we go to a lot of these groups
• 42:30
  we we see kids eating the kids are sitting down and eating real incredibly nourishing food and you
• 42:34
  know what they're relishing it they're eating it they're eating it down they're not finding and
• 42:38
  you don't see this kind of thing with other animals either and look I'm coming at this and speaking
• 42:44
  about it from this top down sort of view I realize day to day you know how this all works
• 42:50
  and kids screaming and trying to feed them I realize it's not as simple as what I'm saying
• 42:54
  I also want to make sure everybody understands that we did exactly what I said we put kids in the
• 42:58
  high chair we put beach and up baby food in front of them this is well but we forced it we made
• 43:02
  the train things I'm not trying to judge I'm actually coming from a place of experience
• 43:06
  and wishing I had done it different but I do know people that have done it different I do know
• 43:10
  people that have that have gone directly from breast milk to chopped up for all liver and the
• 43:16
  examples and I know these are anecdotal but the anecdotal examples that I know three years later
• 43:22
  these same kids that you know started solid food on incredible things like liver when presented
• 43:28
  with options including the liver on the table they'll go for the liver so yes we're training
• 43:34
  this this out and unfortunately one of the things that we're training when we're forcing kids
• 43:40
  to eat something that they're every part of their body is telling no we're forcing them to not
• 43:47
  trust their own senses and forcing them to then listen to all other people to have control over
• 43:51
  the diets you've really taken on the role of like okay I'm gonna study ancestral ways of living
• 43:59
  and eating now now maybe you could actually talk about that before I asked this question but
• 44:03
  but I've heard you say that you are a professor of archaeology and then I've also heard you say
• 44:08
  I'm a food archaeologist so which came first the chicken or the egg and what made you then get
• 44:12
  into food I'm because I'm assuming you went into archaeology first and then gravitation towards
• 44:17
  food but maybe I'm wrong I got very interested in primitive technologies first I was I was drawn to
• 44:25
  it my father had me hunting and fishing and trapping since I could walk we're always looking for
• 44:28
  arrowheads and fields like we're always reading I know this isn't ancient but we're I remember in
• 44:35
  in middle school he and I would read all these biographies of all these mountain and like
• 44:39
  Jim Bridger and kick Carson and all these people and and I just I just love things that were
• 44:43
  older I didn't really have a concept of the time the difference between the 1800s fur trade and
• 44:49
  2000 years ago but I just knew things I love things that were old I love old ways of approaching
• 44:54
  things I started learning how to flint nap and and I started making all my own artry equipment
• 44:58
  to hunt so like those and arrows and that sort of thing through that love of ancient technologies
• 45:06
  I found archaeology because I had all these questions so this is this is happening before
• 45:11
  before the internet before all these group list serves and all these you know you could connect
• 45:16
  with flint nap at around the world and all the like this was all I thought I was part of a much
• 45:20
  smaller population and I couldn't get answers that I was looking for so I turned to archaeology to
• 45:24
  answer questions I had about the past and I dove to it was great I got my PhD in archaeology but my
• 45:30
  focus was on a part of archaeology called experimental archaeology and this branch of archaeology allowed
• 45:36
  me to to fuse so many of the things I was interested in one is just this love for the past but also
• 45:43
  this sort of hands-on application learning how to replicate these ancient technologies and I was
• 45:48
  very fortunate I trained with some of the best primitive technologists around the world in ancient
• 45:54
  pottery and ancient stone tool making and high tanning and all these things in addition to just
• 45:58
  sort of regular field archaeology like you'd see on on TV with digging in the ground which I've
• 46:03
  done quite a bit of my focus was on experimental archaeology which means you know you can imagine
• 46:10
  you're digging a 6,000 year old site there's only bits and pieces of things left behind and
• 46:15
  you know nobody throws away a perfectly good stone tool on purpose but once it's been used too much
• 46:20
  and re-sharp it in no longer useful or breaks that's when it gets discarded that's when it becomes
• 46:24
  part of the archaeological records those are the things that we find right we find this broken bit
• 46:29
  of a tool and we're like okay we know humans made this we've actually no idea how is made or how is
• 46:34
  used so my job was to go and okay an archaeologist come and say I don't know what this is tell me what
• 46:41
  you think this might have been and how it was made and how efficient it was and what it was used for
• 46:45
  so I would replicate the tools using the same techniques and then put it through a series of
• 46:50
  experiments understand okay this functions best as for processing plants or for butchering or
• 46:56
  for doing whatever and then go back and say you know here's my interpretation of what this is
• 47:00
  with all this going on for for decades I realized partially in a large part through
• 47:06
  Christina's urging for me to focus my passions on things that could help people beyond just sort
• 47:14
  of academic exercise you know actually help our family I realized and this is a powerful moment
• 47:19
  I realized that almost every single prehistoric technology for three and a half million years has
• 47:26
  something to do with food period stop like whoa as soon as I realize this I already realized that
• 47:34
  our diets changed drastically over the past several million years and I also had realized that
• 47:40
  every time something changed drastically in our diets we saw some sort of evolutionary
• 47:45
  response right so when safer and more nutrient dense and more bioavailable food entered our diets
• 47:53
  we saw jump in body size we saw jumps in brain size we saw jumps in community size all of these
• 47:59
  things are changing so I knew the direct link between diet and evolutionary change in what made
• 48:05
  a human but what I realized at that moment was that the direct link between technological innovation
• 48:13
  and dietary change what's different about human and it became the focus of all my work and everything
• 48:19
  that I do with that moment and that's when I became a food archaeologist to answer your question
• 48:23
  because I then focus it on food through technology one of the things that humans do different than
• 48:28
  most other animals is we don't rely solely on our anatomical features to access process
• 48:38
  and digest our food right what happened over the past three and a half million years with the
• 48:43
  introduction of the first stone tool then advancing stone tool technologies then fire then
• 48:48
  fermentation and hunting technology all these different things is that we began to outgrow our
• 48:55
  digestive track we began to process food outside of our body and I say process I mean in a very
• 49:01
  positive way not ultra-processed three dose sort of sense but in a very positive way when we
• 49:07
  started to be able to detoxify foods outside of our body before we even ingested them or make
• 49:13
  them more nutrient dense or make them more bioavailable everything began to change and our bodies were
• 49:20
  now nourished to the point where dietary change didn't push brain size growth and push body
• 49:26
  growth other things were were sparks that got that going but dietary change fueled all of that
• 49:34
  growth right it fueled the body change it fueled the brain growth the link between technological
• 49:40
  innovations and dietary change is a very strong one and the link between dietary change and
• 49:46
  evolutionary change is a strong one so what I'm focused on is how did those technological changes
• 49:53
  over time how we got food and processed food literally make us human and I'm confident that
• 50:00
  that understanding should be the basis for all of our dietary decisions today we are still living
• 50:06
  in 300,000 year old bodies we we appear on earth as modern day homo sapiens 300,000 years ago
• 50:13
  and essentially haven't biologically changed since culturally we've changed tremendously
• 50:18
  because a lot of cultural changes but our basic dietary needs have not changed 300,000 years
• 50:26
  one of the things that I always turn to the first thing I turn to every time I have a question
• 50:30
  about food diet health any of it is what were our diets like when we first landed you know when
• 50:35
  I'm not landed well when we first appeared on earth that should be the foundation I'm not saying
• 50:40
  we should eat the same exact diets now in fact I think those diets can be improved upon
• 50:45
  but that should be the foundation for dietary thought dietary discussion dietary change
• 50:51
  while there was so much to unpack in the first half I love how bill connected food to community
• 50:58
  play and human connection something that is missing in our modern world but trust me we are
• 51:04
  just scratching the surface and part two we get into the nitty gritty of food preparation whole
• 51:12
  animal eating why modern meat consumption is so wasteful and how we can eat in a way that
• 51:19
  respects both our health and the planet so if you thought part one was eye opening wait until
• 51:25
  you hear what's next make sure to tune in for part two thank you and stay curious
• 51:33
  thank you so much for joining me on everyday ancestral if you enjoyed this episode hit subscribe
• 51:40
  so you don't miss the next one you could find the show notes links and resources mentioned
• 51:45
  at eatpluck.com that's e-a-t-p-l-u-c-k dot com and hey if you know someone who'd get something out of
• 51:56
  this share it with them too stay curious live well and keep it ancestral