It looks like she is having this allergic reaction. And all I could think was, since when? Since when has food become so dangerous? And as we got everything under control, we got back home, and I put all the kids down for a nap, every single analytical gene in my body went off.
And I wanted to dig into that data. And as I turned to the research, I learned that morning, that from until , there had been a doubling of the peanut allergy. I also learned that one out of 17 kids under the age of three now has a food allergy. So I wanted to know, what is a food allergy?
A food allergy is when your body sees food proteins as foreign. And it basically launches this inflammatory response to drive out that foreign invader. So, because these are US-based companies, their ability to lobby and influence legislation here in the United States is tremendous, and very powerful, and much more powerful here than it would be in the UK, or Europe, or Australia, or China.
So, what has happened is they have this enormous influence over how this stuff is legislated here. They get the greenlight, things get fast tracked. The term is generally recognized as safe. GRAS, generally recognized as safe until and guess what? So, what has happened is that we get these as you said, bastardized products here in the United States.
We get the artificial stuff when families and other countries get the real stuff. That double standard to me was intolerable. Well, so you continue to follow the money and you realize it rather than our tax dollars supporting healthcare as they do in other countries, and providing all this incentive for all of us to stay healthy and well.
Our tax dollars actually support the growing of our foods with these genetically engineered ingredients and chemicals. Do I really want my tax dollars supporting these farm subsidies that subsidize this genetically engineered operating system and its portfolio of chemicals required to grow them?
I thought about it. My grandmother passed a couple years ago. She was years old and so insanely smart. That is so scary. You cannot wash that off. It looks the same as what our grandmothers ate, but it is patented at the US Patent and Trademark Office as this genetically engineered product, because of its unique characteristics and traits. That was really where we could catch them, was at the US Patent and Trademark Office, because they tried to claim that these things have existed for thousands of years.
Then, why are they patented from on as they entered into the food supply in the s for their novelty and their uniqueness by these chemical industries and the doctors that work for them. At that point, organic really was very much kind of whole foods whole paycheck lifestyle, the rich and famous. My personal mission is to make clean and safe food affordable and accessible to anyone in all who wants it and every chapter of my career has modeled that.
You can find it in 7-Eleven, you can find it in Costco, you can find it in Walmart, thank goodness. Robyn: Yeah, I would actually caution not to say that because the industry loves to use that against us. I would say that we can pull from the indigenous wisdom of decades past and marry it with technology from the 21st century, that can accelerate this transition to healthy soils.
But yeah, so, what happened in the mids was this just rapid transition to this genetically engineered operating system and it changed everything for the farmer. Because up until that point, the farmer had been allowed to save his seeds. As they grow things and catch the seeds and save them, they can repurpose the seeds into the next harvest, into the next season. It was a patented technology owned by these agrochemical companies. So, all of a sudden, the farmer, instead of just being able to save the seeds, and begin again the next season, he instead had to go to the bank, take out a loan, go to the chemical company, and purchase the seeds.
That became an incredible recurring revenue model as you know. The average farm carries so much that there is no other entrepreneur, no other family would ask to do this. So, just a ton of debt to use this new genetically engineered operating system. Really, I think, in the early years, the promise was that it was going to increase yields. What happens when you chemically treat a farm year after year after year now 20 years into the 6-year experiment is that the microbiome of the soil is destroyed.
For anybody in health and wellness, we talk a lot about the microbiome of the gut. There are certain things when you put them in your gut is actually going to help restore healthy microbiome.
Same goes for the soil. So, what happened was the farmer started to realize that these chemical inputs were harming the soil. They were harming the water quality around their farms. So, it was this sort of awakening and reawakening because the farmers of color will tell you, they never had access to that capital. It was highly discriminatory. So, that lending structure was highly, highly discriminatory. The silver lining is that farmers of color and indigenous farmers never had access to the debt levels, so they maintained this soil stewardship.
They were never able to shortcut with chemical inputs. So, they maintained on-farm practices without chemical input that we now call regenerative farming. Just as we have the microbiome of the gut, we have the microbiome of the soil. So, the first step is do no harm, and that begins by removing the chemical inputs. Then, what are you going to do? There are so many different practices that can be employed. Putting cover crops on soil really helps, restore soil health, it can draw carbon from the atmosphere, it can hold on to water, it can hold on to nutrients.
This was a few years ago. They said I was probably 10 years prior. Yes, I have a garden, but not to the extent that is required the way our farmers serve our country.
The farmers of color that always held it, those are the superheroes. That takes a lot of courage. It does not happen overnight. Most change does not happen overnight. I think probably, one example I have of that is, the very first speaking engagement I was ever asked to give six people came.
I invited my pediatrician. I think what I was most afraid of is if I did nothing. Cynthia: Absolutely. I remind people all the time that neither you nor I overnight made so many changes, both personally and professionally.
Certainly, your advocacy is really critically important. You touched on the soil piece, and I would love for you to speak a little bit more about this. What is the difference between the types of soil composition? This is one of those nerdy questions. I know that my grandmother used to always tell me that if there were a lot of worms in the soil, that was a good sign because she had this massive garden in her backyard at Colorado.
He is with an organization called Understanding Ag, but you can see him in action in a documentary called Kiss the Ground. If you really want to understand what happens when you transition farmland to the soil, Kiss the Ground documentary is beautifully done.
Leveraging her background in business and her responsibility as a mother of Leveraging her background in business and her responsibility as a mother of four, Robyn courageously led ground breaking change in the way we look at food and health.
Her work has driven change and impact in companies around the world. She has worked with CEOs of multinational companies to entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers.
With her unique story, insight, humor and unprecedented control of data, she is a highly sought after speaker. She leverages her command of strategy, communications, data and incentive structure to help drive change and measurable results across a wide range of industries. Her critical thinking has been a key driver in building the new food economy and bringing down prices of life saving devices in the pharmaceutical industry.
With her unique skill set, insight and unprecedented command of information, Robyn is a highly sought after speaker at leadership summits, global healthcare conferences and corporate events. Executives love her passion, intellect and unique ability to synthesize relevant and important trends and data in order to catalyze and inspire change. N ot bad for a Sunday evening in rural Queensland underneath a canopy of brilliant stars!
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